Luke
16:1-13
Jacobellis
vs. Ohio, 1964, was a noteworthy Supreme Court case that garnered lots of
attention. Its notoriety stemmed in part from the subject matter, which was
deciding whether Louis Malle’s movie The Lovers was obscene or not. But
while the Court ruled it wasn’t, they couldn’t agree on why it wasn’t. Four
different opinions were issued, the most memorable one written by Justice
Potter Stewart. In his opinion, he said that the first amendment protects all
obscene speech except for what he called “hard-core pornography.” And about
that he wrote, “I shall not attempt today further to define the kinds of
material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and
perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I
see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Later in
life, he said he somewhat regretted writing that because despite producing what
he thought were many excellent and important opinions, that was the one
everyone would remember and most associate him with.
But many
people have found it useful, and not just in assessing pornography. For
example, I don’t know how to define kitsch, bad religious art, but I
know it when I see it. And I do see it in some editions of the Bible and some
of the stuff that gets passed around on the internet. Jesus always looks like
he just came from the hair salon — he is assumed to have hair, of course, and
it’s long and flowing; he looks like one of the Bee Gees. His clothes are
immaculate and he has this glow about him. And he is lily white: his mother,
his disciples, his enemies are all lily white. And perfectly dressed, like they
just stepped out of a Christmas pageant. And they’re all so clean: even the
beggars are clean. Such art is vaguely sentimental and very unreal, like a
fairy tale.
But it’s
not a fairy tale: that’s why it’s bad art. Jesus came into the real world, a
world that is messy and dirty and difficult. It’s a world where lepers have
bodies that are horribly disfigured and prostitutes have bodies they have to
sell just to survive. It’s a world where poverty and disease are rampant, and
death is never far away. It’s a world where a few wealthy and powerful people
oppress the poor, often with staggering cruelty. And it’s a world in which
everyone is morally compromised, especially when it comes to money. After the
Kingdom of God, Jesus talks more about money than he does about anything else —
far more than he talks about sex or even prayer. And he tells disturbing
stories about it: rich guys building big barns to store their wealth in — and
then dying before they can enjoy it; a vineyard owner who pays people who work
for one hour the same amount he pays people who work all day; a young man who
squanders his father’s wealth and then is welcomed back home like a hero; and
then today’s story about a manager who cooks the books, commits fraud, and is
praised for it.
All of
Jesus’ parables are meant to bother us, and today’s is no exception. It raises
as many questions as it answers. For one thing, the manager is accused of
malfeasance, but there’s no audit done and he’s given no chance to defend
himself. He’s presumed guilty. That, plus the fact that he calls the rich man
his “master,” kurios, indicates he’s probably a slave and has no rights
at all. Slave or not, he has very little power in this situation, and he uses
what little power he does have to decrease the amount that people owe his
master, hoping to win their favor. And the master praises him! Perhaps lowering
the invoices increased the rate of collections: a bird in hand, after all, is
better than two in the bush. Certainly the master is getting something out of
this deal. And, actually, the most odious character in the story may be the
master: at the end of the day, he’s better off. He doesn’t care that his
former manager is desperate, he doesn’t care that he had to debase himself, he
doesn’t care about the man at all: the only thing the master cares about is
amassing more wealth, one way or another.
What is
perhaps most upsetting to our sensibilities, though, is that Jesus clearly
sympathizes with this disgraced manager. But that should not surprise us,
because in so many of his stories about money, Jesus obviously favors the
underdog, the powerless, and the poor. He is apparently not bothered that the
manager committed fraud: he holds him up as an example. Like so many of
the people Jesus encounters and loves, the man did what he had to do to survive
— and God is on his side.
We are
all morally compromised when it comes to money because we are all part of a
system which all too often takes advantage of the poor. We may not be able to
define economic injustice, but we know it when we see it: people working in
horrific conditions for slave wages in developing nations to manufacture goods
we enjoy here; people providing intimate and essential care for our loved ones
in nursing homes for minimum wage; people working two jobs and not being able
to afford health care; people having to choose between rent, food, and
medicine; women getting paid less than men for doing the exact same job; hungry
people going to church food pantries, homeless people sleeping in church
buildings. There is no way to read the Gospels without seeing very clearly that
Jesus is on the side of the losers, that God loves all those who struggle just
to survive.
But the good news in all this is that God can deal with reality. Christ didn’t enter a fairy tale: he entered a messy world, and he loves people in that messy world. And one way Christ loves is through us, through those who have money, resources, and power. His words may offend us, but they are not words of condemnation but exhortation: And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. Our wealth is tainted by economic injustice, but let’s at least use it for good. Every year this church gives away tens of thousands of dollars to help people in need, both in cash and through ministries like our Food Pantry and Grab a Bag. Our common stewardship makes that possible, and we should rejoice in that. But the Gospel also challenges us as individuals and families to see our money as power: how we invest it matters, how we donate it matters, how we spend it matters, how it is spent in our name and on our behalf matters. Jesus shows God to be the ultimate realist: God is not too proud to use our wallets and our bank accounts to further the Kingdom and to help the powerless. And we should not be too delicate or too blind to see that and work with it.
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