Sermon July 24, 2016 9th Sunday after Trinity

What was he thinking?  That could be, I believe, a common reaction by preachers who are given the dubious gift of preaching on this Gospel passage.  You have to think, “Why in heaven’s name did Jesus teach this parable to his disciples and what was the lesson he was trying to teach them”?  Then you have to wonder why it was included in Luke’s Gospel.  The only thing positive I could think of initially is that it is only in the Gospel of Luke and not the other three.

The next thing that came to my mind after reading it this week was, “Perhaps someone did not get the story right.  After all is was written down at least forty years after Jesus was crucified and raised from the tomb and ascended into heaven.  Perhaps the story got mangled along the way.   

It reminded me of that wonderful scene from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, where someone listening to Jesus deliver the Sermon of the Mount asked the person beside him, ‘what did he say, was it blessed are the cheese makers’.  That doesn’t sound right.  Why should the cheese makers be blessed?  But I guess that’s what he said.” 

This Gospel passages raises more questions than it seems to provide answers.  But let’s try and unpack it and understand what Jesus is telling us.  I will summarize the parable briefly for our consideration.  A rich man calls his steward—in effect his manager of his property—to tell him he is being dismissed for “wasting his goods”.  The steward decides that as he cannot make a go of it by either manual labour or begging he will collude with his master’s customers to discount their bills.  In that way the customers will be in his debt and will owe him and by implication enable him to succeed in life after he has been dismissed.

All well and good; this seems to be the usual moral lesson.  The lesson should be that dishonesty doesn’t pay and that dishonest steward will be cast into the outer darkness with the other children of darkness.  However, now comes the twist; the rich master praises the steward for his prudence.  It is a distorted echo of the Parable of the Talents where the first two servants who make prudent use of their talents are told, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master”. 

If that is not enough of a surprize Jesus then seems to confirm this assessment and tells us, “Make to yourselves friends by means of mammon of unrighteousness; and when it fails you, they will receive you into everlasting habitation”.  So much for blessed are the poor in spirit or otherwise for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

I have done more research into commentaries on this passage than I usually do.  I need all the help I can get to try and understand this puzzling parable. 

I must thank Lorna in finding a commentary on-line which shed some light on this puzzle.  The commentary notes that it is important to put it into the cultural context which I agree is always a good idea.  The author notes that parable as reflecting the Palestinian laws and customs of agency and usury. The steward would have acted as the agent for his master and was legally empowered to act in his name. But custom permitted him to make a profit for himself, which may not have been precisely authorized by the master. By discounting the bills the manager has, therefore, merely foregone his own profits on the transactions and has not cheated the master out of what was owed him.  In this case his subsequent conduct is hardly dishonest, since he is renouncing what in fact was usury.

That may explain the master’s positive response on discovering the steward’s action.  However, in my view, it doesn’t ring true in excusing the steward’s behaviour.  It seems apparent in the way the events unfold, that the steward was gaining from this at the expense of his master; otherwise why would he have done it rather than taking what he was owed him in cash which would have been more beneficial to him in his present circumstances.  Both positions can be argued but I don’t believe it sheds much light on Jesus’ message.

Another perspective the author of the commentary brings is helpful.  He notes that the parable is placed in Luke’s Gospel between the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.  There are two messages here that are relevant.  First the rich man in today’s parable commends the steward for his prudence.  The prodigal son was not prudent with his inheritance and wasted it on wine, women and song.  As noted in the commentary the story of the Dishonest Manager admonishes Christians about the prudent use of riches and the danger of slavish servitude to them. The verse immediately following our Gospel today which is often included in the Parable, notes that, “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” 

The story of Dives and Lazarus as it is often called, shows what happens to the rich man who has no pity on the poor man Lazarus who sits by his gate every day.  He ends up in eternal damnation beyond help.  This reflects Luke’s position on what has been called the preferential option for the poor.  Luke particularly emphasizes Jesus’s association with those on the outside of acceptable society.  

From this perhaps we can conclude in the words of the commentary that, “the dishonest manager can become the model for Christians, who are expected to grasp the dramatic situation of the kingdom and the crisis that it brings into the lives of men. It is a situation which calls for a prudent use of one's material wealth. In this there is a connection between this parable and those of the Prodigal Son, the Talents, and Dives and Lazarus”.

To this I would add that Jesus was not, I believe, talking only of money or mammon.  He was speaking about the use of our talents in the non-monetary sense—the prudent use of what gifts God has given us to follow the will of God and to work for God’s Kingdom.  We cannot serve two masters; we cannot make mammon our master and serve God.  We can use the gifts that God has given us, monetary gifts and non-monetary talents to serve God.  Amen.  

Sermon May 8, 2016

We are created in God’s image.  Of course, we are not God or even gods (small g) but we are God’s i.e. we belong to God and are God’ people.  God gives each of us gifts and God’s intention for us is that we use these gifts as God intends.  Fortunately, humanity was encouraged to leave our paradise in the Garden of Eden to go into the world to use these gifts.    Unfortunately we human beings often do not use our gifts the way God intends.  That is one way of describing sin—we miss the mark and believe that we know better than God about how we should behave in the world.  We put ourselves ahead of others; we do not love our neighbours as ourselves.

The scripture passage from Acts gives us a great example of how things can go off the tracks and get completely away from what God intends.  Paul and Silas encounter a slave-girl.  That is the first indication of how badly things can get derailed in life.  People believe that they have the right to own others; enslave them and use them for their own purposes.  We know that slavery was common in biblical times.  Indeed the Greek word for slave, doulos also means servant; slaves served their masters.   In the case of this slave-girl her gift is being used by her owners.  She has the gift of prophecy and that gift is being used by her owners for their profit. 

Paul sees that this gift, this spirit is being misused and casts the spirit out of the slave-girl.  Now this is not a case of the girl being possessed by an evil spirit as is often in the situations that are reported in the Gospels. 

Rather, Paul recognizes that the gift is being misused and the slave-girl needs to be freed from the misuse of it. She needs Paul’s help to free her from this sin.  Now you may think that this is perhaps not fair to the girl to think of this as sin.  However, we have to understand that sin should not be equated with morality or ethics.   It certainly can involve morality and ethical behaviour on our part.  However, more generally we need to think of sin as those things where we are not living as God intends.  The slave-girl was not doing anything of her own volition that caused the sin.  She was being used by others in a sinful way.  Paul frees her from this sin and set her free—if not from her owners, at least from the sin that the owners are using her for.

We are all sinners.  As it says in the baptismal covenant, “Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord”?  It is “whenever” not “if” we fall into sin.  It is part of the human condition that we will fall into sin.  In the understanding of sin as missing the mark and not using our gifts as God intends, it is understandable that this is going to happen to each of us. 

One way of considering how we use our gifts that I have found helpful is the perspective of personality type indicators such as the Enneagram.  There are many that are in use today such as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator which you may be more familiar with.  It uses pairs of categories such as introvert and extrovert, feeling and thinking, sensing and intuition, and judging and perceiving.  Myers Briggs is helpful in understanding yourself and how you and others perceive and behave in the world.  I am an introverted, intuitive feeling, and judging type. 

I find that this context has helped me understand myself and why I am the way I am.  This is how God made me and knowing this I can work with it. 

I am an strongly introverted person—as are many clergy—and it helps me to understand how I can best work with that characteristic and the other characteristics as a priest.  We had an introduction to Myers Briggs in seminary.   The Enneagram provides a similar perspective on what makes you, you and why you are the way you are.  It is particularly helpful because for each of the personality types it provides a perspective of how the characteristics or gifts of that type can be used or misused; how they can be sinful or redeemed.   

Because we perceive the world in different ways we will, as a matter of course, be limited in how we relate to others and the world.  Richard Rohr, a Roman Catholic priest, discusses this:

It is hard work to open up our entire being--heart, mind, and body--to Love. From childhood, we're trained to protect ourselves by closing off one or more of these channels. Perhaps this was a necessary coping mechanism. But to develop a mature, holistic faith, we must learn to embrace and listen to each part in the safety of God's presence. We each depend on certain areas more than others. It will take some "exercise" to develop the neglected muscle of body, heart, or mind. Below are some suggested practices to nurture each area of being. Heart: loving-kindness meditation, deep listening, community, journaling Mind: lectio divina (sacred reading), writing, dialectic argument, study Body: ecstatic dance, yoga, meditative walking, chant, tai chi

As we see, each of us will depend on certain aspects of ourselves more than other aspects and we will not usually engage the world as fully as possible without help; we will not love God and God’s creation with our whole being as it says in the Shema, the Hear o Israel:

Love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

with all your soul,

with all your mind,

and with all your strength.

And love your neighbour as yourself.

There are nine types in the Enneagram; each with its own characteristics.  For example, as Richard Rohr describes, the Three type:

began with the primal knowledge that everything is unstable and passing and that only God endures and gives us the endurance to withstand the passing nature of all things. But, at some point, an experience of wounding convinced THREEs that they are separate from God and Wholeness.

The Enneagram is particularly helpful because, as Rohr notes, the characteristics can be used in sinful ways or in redeemed ways. 

The pressure to succeed leads to the root sin of the THREE, which is deceit. While they don't generally go around telling lies, they do embellish the truth and put the best face on everything… THREEs find the way to their gift of integrity only when they take the painful path of self-knowledge and look their life-lies, big and little, in the face, refusing to gloss over them anymore.

I am only touching on a little of what the Enneagram involves.  However, I hope that this helps you to appreciate that we all, as Christians, have the responsibility to use the gifts that God has given us in the ways that God intends.   It is not easy even with our best intentions.  We will inevitably fail and fall into sin.  However, we have the assurance of God’s forgiveness.  As it asks in the Baptismal Covenant:

Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever

you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

People I will, with God’s help.

We know that we have the assurance of the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ or Lord and saviour.  Thanks be to God.