Through my years in ministry I have noticed that there are a couple of parables people really love. One of them is the parable of the good Samaritan and the other is the parable of the prodigal son. This parable of the dishonest manager is not one that is ever mentioned as anyone’s favorite.
As a category, the parable is an artful literary form. There is always some friction in a parable, and that is by design. We could even say that the parable is shrewd that way. You see, the point of the parable is to make you react, and then think about why you are reacting.
So, in the parable of the prodigal son, there are some elements that cause friction. For example, many people are disturbed by the way the prodigal gets a free pass, so to speak, from the father. There are some of us who would perhaps agree with the older son – the “good” son – and say that the prodigal deserves to be punished, banished even, but not celebrated when he returns home with his tail between his legs. I know there are some “good” sons and daughters who feel that way.
But it still remains that the church loves that parable, because in the character of the father we see the immeasurable grace of God. Yes, we see the father as God, and perhaps we see something of ourselves in the son who is feeling the pain of his mistakes. In this parable we see love and grace.
You might be wondering now why I am talking about the parable of the prodigal. Is it just to avoid talking about this miserable parable we have before us today, the parable of the dishonest manager? A parable about which there is universal agreement: it is the worst. But I am actually talking about the prodigal son because there are some remarkable similarities between it and this parable of the dishonest manager.
The similarities are not immediately apparent. The subject matters are very different. One is a family setting; the other is in the context of business. In one, the father, or lord of the household, is a benevolent, loving, grace-filled figure. In the other, the lord, or the master, is a businessman, simply trying to make good, prudent business decisions.
But in both parables, there is one character who squanders wealth. This is the word we hear in both parables: the prodigal son traveled to a distant region and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living, the wealth his father had bestowed on him. And likewise, the manager, it has been said, is squandering the rich man’s property. Whether by carelessness, ineptness, or downright thievery, we don’t know.
And in both parables, the squanderer comes to a moment of reflection when he realizes he is in a jam. In both cases, the squanderer comes up with a plan that will, he hopes, offer him a way out.
And in both cases, it works.
We see the similarities. Why, then, are these parables so different? Why do we tend to love one and hate the other? That really isn’t hard to see.
Take the character of the father of the prodigal son. He acts in a way that seems perfectly God-like. And while we, ourselves, might not be as forgiving and generous and loving as he is, most of the time we are glad that God is so forgiving, generous, loving. The son did not deserve to be welcomed home, but that is what grace is all about. By grace we have been saved, too, so on balance it’s a pretty good story. A comforting story.
Now take a look at the rich man in today’s parable.
So, what do we have to say about the rich man in this parable? Does he seem God-like? Not particularly, I might say. But Luke would say, no way! You see, Luke does not have a high opinion of rich men. Again and again, we see the rich man skewered in Luke’s gospel. Not because wealth is inherently bad, but because in Luke’s telling, being rich is equivalent to loving money more than he loves God. You might argue that Luke’s rich man is actually a straw man, but Luke is making a point about choosing the values of this world over the values of God’s kingdom.
And yet, it is our instinctive response to hearing this parable, again and again: We want the most powerful character in this story to be the voice of God, and we want everything he says and does to be trustworthy. Yet, this powerful man got played by his manager. And he commended the manager for his shrewdness.
All of this is not sitting well. It happens to me every time this parable comes up – it makes me uncomfortable and perplexed. So, we need to reassess our assumptions about it – perhaps even take a step back and reassess our assumptions about parables in general. Sometimes a master is not the Master. Sometimes a lord is not the Lord.
And sometimes a shrewd move is, well, impressive.
The manager has been caught in his squandering, and he recognizes he has limited options. And so he hatches a plan to cut a deal with every one of his master’s debtors. “How much do you owe? 100? Adjust your bill and make it 50. Again and again the manager negotiates the debts down, not by a little. We don’t actually know if he is forgoing his own commission, or if he is cutting into the master’s profits. But he is taking care of business in a way that we might assume is benefitting both his master and himself. His master, because he is getting something rather than nothing. Himself because, as he says, “when I am dismissed, people may welcome me into their homes.”
And his master, perhaps grudgingly, agrees.
So that is the story, for better or worse. You know that old saying about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? Let’s not try to do that. The story has some problems. I don’t like any of the characters. I don’t exactly want to be like the manager, and I don’t want God to be like the rich man. This isn’t exactly one of those “go and do likewise” situations. I’ll say it just once: Don’t be a dishonest manager. Full stop.
So what, then, to make of it? Well, at this point in the text Jesus weighs in with his own thoughts. So let’s go there.
The first thing he says at the end of the story is: The children of this age are more shrewd than the children of light. Jesus commends this quality called shrewdness, and he only wishes his own, the children of light, could be as shrewd as these children of the world. Yes, that’s what he said. Jesus wants us to be shrewd.
I am afraid that the word shrewd has taken on negative connotations in our times, but it doesn’t necessarily carry that meaning in the Bible. Shrewdness is not inherently good or bad. It simply means sharp judgment and practical intelligence. It can be used for harmful ends or for beneficial ends, and Jesus just wants his followers to know that he wishes they would use more of that shrewdness for God’s purposes. Be shrewd for the Lord! Amen?
Because if we did that –
We would recognize that the things of this world are finite, they are ending. The riches you pile up on earth will be worth nothing in the world to come, so be shrewd, my friends!
In other words, know that you have a choice:
You can be like the man who builds bigger barns to house his enormous and ever-growing stash of goods,
You can be like the servant who buries his talent in the ground because he is afraid to take any chances,
You can be like the rich man who never saw poor, hungry Lazarus as he stepped over him and went merrily on his way,
You can be like the man who has a neighbor thrown into debtor’s prison because he is unable to repay his debt to you –
And I think we all need to be very honest with ourselves about when and how we have, indeed, been like these characters –
You can be like them.
Or, you can be a shrewd child of the light and begin to understand the extraordinary beauty of squandering.
Admittedly, that word has nothing but negative meanings. It’s wasting, misusing, losing, throwing away. And we are pretty good at judging one another for squandering when we see it. But what if the stakes are higher that we realized?
What if it’s not about losses and gains in our stock portfolios or bank accounts, but rather about the building up of God’s kingdom by populating the world with acts of compassion and healing, justice. What if it’s about being repairers of the breach.
That is a phrase we find in the book of Isaiah, chapter 58. This is what he says:
If you loose the bonds of injustice and let the oppressed go free; if you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil; if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness. Your light shall break forth like the dawn. You shall be called the repairers of the breach.
We need repairers of the breach in this world. We need children of light who can shrewdly see the difference between the values of this world and the values of God’s kingdom, where what might have seemed like wasteful squandering begins to look like grace…justice…generosity.
Where squandering becomes grace. Like the father who squandered his love on the prodigal son – no one could tell him it wasn’t a worthy pursuit.
Let us be shrewd in using the resources of this world in ways that prepare the way for the new world. Let us be faithful in the small things and the big things, knowing that as this world passes away we will have already been at work seeding the kingdom to come. Let us know the choice and choose the way that is built on the teachings of Jesus, the love of God.
Let us dare to be squanderers for the right reasons.
And may all of our squandering be done in service to the one who created the world and everything in it, who squanders beauty and love in breathtaking ways, the one who is our very life and being.
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