This sets
the scene. What we expect at this point
is that Jesus is going to condemn the steward for his dishonesty and condemn
the customers for their complicity in the conspiracy. However, what do we have Jesus telling
us? To our shock we have Jesus commending
the dishonest steward. Jesus holds him
up as an example of how the children of light – his followers - should
behave. You almost expect him to start
to walk away after this set up and shout ‘April Fools – just kidding’. But he doesn’t. He leaves this lesson intact. He leaves it for us ‘Children of Light’ to
ponder and wonder, ‘What was he thinking!’- definitely followed by an
exclamation point or two or three.
It would be as
if Jesus returned on a cloud of glory and landed in the middle of Wall Street and
proclaimed that those bankers and financiers responsible for the economic
collapse five years ago which caused untold hardship throughout the western world
should be our role models.
It is as if
Gordon Gekko the financier in the movie Wall Street who proclaimed as his creed
‘greed is good’ has been elevated to one of Jesus’ apostles.
It is
tempting to look for a way to avoid the difficult passages in the bible such as
this one or when God orders the Israelites to commit genocide on the people on the
way to the Promised Land. There are
many other examples of such difficult passages that don’t fit with our view of
God and Jesus as his Son who is usually upholding Love as the guiding principle
of the universe. There is a tradition in
Jewish interpretation of scripture that holds it is not the truth of the interpretation
that sanctifies the work – it is the struggle to understand it. If that is the case this passage certainly
does lend itself to sanctification. It
requires a great deal of struggle to understand what Jesus is telling us.
With that
said let continue to struggle with this most perplexing passage. When looking at parables, the lesson – the punch
line - is always important to consider.
What is Jesus trying to teach us with this story? In my reading the message seems to center
around the comparison Jesus makes between the Children of Light and the
children of this age. He tells us that the
steward acted with prudence and that the children of this age are more prudent than
the children of light. Certainly there
was a difference between the people in Jesus culture and the followers of
Jesus. Jesus certainly did criticize the
approach that the leaders of his age took to how the people should live. The Sabbath was no longer for people. They were teaching that people were made for
the Sabbath. The leaders criticized him
for healing on the Sabbath rather than praising God for the miracle of
healing. In effect they were making a
god of the rules rather rules being a way to bring people closer to God.
That has not
changed to any great respect today. Our
world seems be moving in the direction of secularism to a greater and greater
extent. So is there anything that we as
Children of Light can learn from the children of this age? Perhaps Jesus is telling us that we should
take a lead from how dedicated and committed people can be in the secular world. A young woman I know and her husband are both
lawyers who have worked on Bay Street.
She is currently at home with their daughter but when she was working at
a law firm I was amazed at the number of ‘billable hours’ they were expected to
work. They received significant remuneration for very long hours of work. Another example comes from the small town I
live in where I was the parish priest before I retired. The secular God of that culture is
hockey. Most of the kids are focused on competitive
hockey. They put in an amazing amount of
time dedicated to the game – many of which seem to occur Sunday mornings. The family spends many weekends travelling to
tournaments. They are expected to give hockey the priority
in their lives. When they sign up for
the season they are expected to make what could be called a covenant that they
will be at every practice and every game.
If they miss too many they are off the team. I
often wondered what it would be like if we put those kind of expectations for
attending Sunday School. Of course that
would mean putting the same kind of resources into Christian Education as
people put into hockey. A final example
is from an article I read recently about amateur bike racers. These were not world class racers who were in
training for top class competition. These
were week-end warriors who competed against others like them. They spent thousands of dollars on their bikes
and the accessories. They train in
serious way. Winning was so important to
them that there was even a culture of doping.
To quote from
the article: “Something rational is lost when one joins the religious order of
serious amateur cyclists. Self-worth is
measured against how thoroughly one thrashes others in the same cloistered sect. The outside world shrinks, dims and disappears. In this context, regardless of how meager the
stakes seem to those on the outside, cheating becomes about the survival of the
self”. Notice the religious language
that is used ‘religious order’, ‘cloistered sect’.
Perhaps that
is something that we Children of Light can learn from the children of this
age. Not that we should use dope to
succeed or work such long hours that home life is next to impossible. What is described is life’s purpose gone
badly off course. Rather, the sense of
giving our all – being fully committed to something in our lives is what we can
strive for. We should give all we can in
leading the lives that God desires for us to lead. Lives that are balanced and focused on our
families as well as our careers; lives that give to others as well as to
ourselves; lives that will let the world as the ancient hymn say ‘know we are Christians
by our love’.
The bottom
line is what god do we serve? Is it the
god of success in our culture? Is it the
god of hockey or and other activity or the god of mammon or the god of winning at
any price? Or is it the one true God who
is our creator and redeemer? Thou shalt
have no other god before me. That
commandment hold true today as much as it did when it was delivered to Moses
and when Jesus walked among us.
Amen.
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