Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I trust that today’s gospel disturbs you, even shocks you, at least puzzles you.  An employee who cheats on his employer, a manager who manipulates his master’s money to make friends for his forced retirement.  And a master, with Jesus’ approval, praising the dishonest manager “because he had acted shrewdly.”  What brand of business ethics is this?

Decades ago, my pastor on Bainbridge Island was lucky.  The gospel was read in the middle of summer, and he could plead the heat and vacation, skip the sermon, and send us forth to beach or fairway, without any of us being the wiser for the parable of the Dishonest Manager.  No more.  Summer is over, and the parable is now.  A tough parable, difficult to decipher.

Here is a rich man.  He has a manager.  The manager’s job?  To handle finances.  He keeps accounts, contracts loans, liquidate debts.  But one day the manager is accused of dishonesty.  Of what is he accused?  Squandering his master’s property.  How?  We don’t know.  At any rate, the owner fires him, but before he’s let go, he tells the guy to prepare an inventory of whom owes, how much.

He sits himself down.  “What shall I do?  I’m not strong enough for physical labor.  Panhandling is beneath my dignity.  Aha!  I’ve got it!  Quickly he summons his master’s debtors.  “Your IOU reads a thousand gallons of olive oil.  Take out the interest.  Put down only 500 gallons.  You owe a thousand bushels of wheat.  Forget the interest.  Write a new IOU.  No dishonesty here.  He’s just playing by the rules of the day.

The owner gets wind of the deal.  His reaction?  He shakes his head in admiration: “Clever guy.  I fire him and he ensures his future.”  Notice.  The master does not praise him for squandering his property.  He was fired for that.  He praises him for making a clever deal, doing what he was entitled to do.  And Jesus?  What precisely is heapproving?  And what has this to do with the kingdom of God?  Simply this.  The dishonest manager planned shrewdly for his future.

Application 1: make wise use of material possessions.  Unbelievers put us to shame.  Imitate their shrewdness.  Application 2: focus on day-to-day fidelity.  If you cannot be trusted with something quite small, who will trust you with a matter of importance?  Application 3 is a general attitude toward wealth: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  Not that you cannot have both.  Simply that you cannot make both your master.  Which of the two will you serve?

I’m not saying that money, power, reputation are evil.  I am asking what is the same Christ saying to us through the parable today?  The basic link comes at the close of the parable.  Each of us has been put in a crisis situation.  Each Christian, rich or poor, has to face up to a crisis.  Perhaps once, perhaps often.  How come?  Because the gospel has been preached to you.

Today’s parable is a challenge to every Christian, particularly if we’re gifted with good things.  Let’s look into our own hearts.  Discover what tops our list of goals.  See where God stands on the list, where money, power, fame, whatever.  Take the IOU with God, rip it up, write a new one.  This time not less but more, this time in tune with the command of the Old Testament and New:

“I shall love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, all my strength.”  And while we’re at it, we might as well add: “And I shall love others, all others, as I love myself.”  What’s God asking of you?

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor