Luke
16:1-13
Jacobellis
vs. Ohio, 1964, was a noteworthy Supreme Court case that garnered lots of
attention. Its notoriety stemmed primarily from the subject matter, which was
deciding whether Louis Malle’s movie The
Lovers was obscene or not. The Court ruled it wasn’t, but they couldn’t
agree on why it wasn’t. Four different opinions were issued, and the most
memorable one was 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 in our
popular culture. Jesus always looks like he just came from the hair salon — he
is assumed to have a full head of hair, of course, and it’s long and flowing.
He is lily white: his mother, his disciples, his enemies are all lily white,
even though they are all Judeans and Galileans. They’re 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 dangerous and dirty and difficult. It’s a world where lepers
have bodies that are horribly disfigured and prostitutes have bodies they have
to sell in order 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, possibly
commits fraud, and is praised for it.
All
of Jesus’ parables are meant to unsettle us, and today’s is no exception. For
one thing, the manager is accused of malfeasance, but 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.
The only thing the master cares about is amassing more wealth, one way or
another.
That
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. The point is not that he applauds bad
behavior: the point is that he cares about all who are desperately in need.
We
are all, unfortunately, 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: children in developing nations working long hours in horrific
conditions for pennies a day; nurses’ aides providing intimate and essential
care for our loved ones in nursing homes at minimum wage; people working two
jobs and not being able to afford health care; families having to choose
between rent, food, and medicine; women getting paid less than men for doing
the exact same job. There is no way to read the Gospels without seeing very
clearly that Jesus is on their side, as he is on the side of unemployed coal
miners and immigrants scrambling to find a better life and all those struggling
just to survive.
There
are many people who are struggling. 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 some money, resources, and power. His words
may offend us, but they are not words of condemnation but rather 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 may be tainted by economic injustice, but at
least we can 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 great to use our wallets and our bank accounts to further the
Kingdom and to help the poor and the powerless. Our Lord will use the tools at hand.
And we should not be too delicate or too blind to see that and work with God,
for the sake of love.
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