In our Lutheran tradition, pastors are well prepared: I have solid professional training and a few hundred sermons under my belt. I think you all come here hoping I have insight into our sacred scriptures and I am going to tell you today that I do not understand what this bible passage means. Every scholar I read this week had different ideas. In the text chain with 10 other pastor friends, 9 of them admitted they were avoiding the story altogether this morning.
I do not like the protagonist in this story and I’m bothered that Jesus created him. I know parables are supposed to be provocative. For example, certain bible characters like The Good Samaritan irked ancient people and are supposed to offend me, but the phrase “Good Samaritan” makes me feel warm and fuzzy, not offended. The main character in today’s parable offends me.
In this short story that Jesus tells, or parable, there is a fabulously wealthy man who employs a steward (let’s call him a CFO) to manage his business. Things sour, rumors are flying and the CFO is accused of mismanaging the money. The boss-owner of the company demands he hands over the business records and the CFO starts strategizing about what he’s going to do. (Any time a character in the gospel starts talking to themselves like this --hmm, should I build a bigger barn for my grain?—it’s fairly safe to start questioning their motives.)
After deliberating, our CFO decides to win over all the people that his now former-boss does business with by renegotiating their contracts and reducing their debts. (A little shady, no?) He goes ahead with his plan and apparently everyone benefits. Oddly, even the old boss is happy with him. Don’t ask me why-- maybe the boss was pleased with his own new reputation as a benevolent businessman who generously reduced debts. Maybe he was entertained by the CFO’s hustle and watching the system reward this cleverness.
Was the CFO shrewd? Was he wise? Dishonest? A Robin Hood sort of figure? Hard to say.
What is not hard to say is that, as Justo Gonzalez puts it, you’re never going to see a stained glass window in any church of “the dishonest steward” looking slyly at the people around him with a quote of Jesus underneath that says “make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth.” No one’s gonna to choose that one as their confirmation verse to read in front of the congregation!
What is going on here?
What bothers me most is that Jesus doesn’t let me flatten this guy into a simple villain and it would really help me out if he did. This protagonist is complicated.
Some folks read this story and say that the CFO is forgiving his cut, his commission of people’s debt in order to make friends. Huh. That’s noble enough. Jewish law would have asked him to forgive charges in the contracts so it’s possible he just had a sort of religious awakening. But Jesus’ use of the word “quickly” still makes it all seem a little underhanded.
Some folks say that the CFO knew he was getting sacked so he decided to make friends—after all “friends and community are more important than money,” right? Yes. This is also true. I tip my hat to this option. When asked the question: “what do we love more: people or money?” we know the right answer. This guy’s economic capital is about to be sapped but his social capital is going to stay in tact. (Although, let’s be honest, would you welcome someone to be your new bestie when you knew they had deliberately cooked the books in order to save their own hide?)
Some say our protagonist was a sort of Robin Hood. Sure, I like this interpretation! That the peasants had a right to the land! That they had been disinherited. Our CFO was then, as the story goes, being faithful to the people and sticking it to the owner!
This is noble and we also, in today’s age, wrestle with problems like this: how do we love our neighbors when we’re all caught in these unfair systems? Reading the story like this makes me wonder what caused the CFO’s change of heart or noble turn.
I don’t know…This guy engages in dishonest business practices and somehow everyone benefits. And then, Jesus salutes him. Should we celebrate his cleverness, laugh at his ingenuity, or feel guilty that we find his cheating entertaining?
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As a child, my family visited Puerto Vallerta on vacation one year. I had fun, we swam on the beach, snorkeled, ate enchiladas, spoke Spanglish with local folks and visited a market where I bought a woven Mexican blanket. Years later in my 20s, I led a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico where I built a small house in a pretty poor barrio with a group of teenagers. Also fun. I had known a several Mexican immigrants here in the US, most of them from rural or border towns. And yet, when I moved to Mexico City as a 30 year old, I was blown away by the gorgeous sky scrapers, the art scene, the foodie culture the brilliant and witty new friends I made and eventually, the state of the art NICU that kept my baby alive the first couple weeks of her life.
Before moving to the capital, I had a single story of Mexico: it was a story of poverty, of border towns and Tex-Mex and sombreros. it was a story where there wasn’t much possibility of Mexicans being the same as me, a story where there was a lot of space for pity but little space to imagine connecting as friends.
Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said that “a single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” For many years, I had a single story of Mexico, and it was real in its way, but it wasn’t the whole story. when I complicated the story by moving to Mexico City 15 years ago, my perspective and imagination opened.
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Just as I once had this single story of Mexico, I want a single story of this dishonest scoundrel in our parable today: I want a story of a crook!
I’m not bad at creating flat, two dimensional stereotypes out of people: do you drive a big truck or ride your bike everywhere? Whole Foods or Walmart? NPR or Joe Rogan? I’m not great—or truthfully just not really interested in complicating the story line.
In the case of our parable, Jesus complicates this guy. He praises him and suddenly I have to admit I don’t understand and I have to pick up my bible, turn it sidewise and go back and think more deeply about him and wrestle with him. The parable refuses to let me have a single story of this guy. And maybe there’s something in that frustrating reality—people are more complicated than the categories I prefer.
Walt Whitman famously said “Do I contradict myself? Very well then. I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” People contain multitudes.
So maybe this short little story—or parable—of Jesus’ is less about coping with this CFO’s tricks and more about remembering two truths: people are complicated, and money is powerful. Jesus says as much at the end: “you cannot serve God and wealth.” He doesn’t say here that money is evil. He says here that it is powerful. So powerful it can serve God… or become a god.
Two things are true here: that money—which is oh so powerful—can be used for human flourishing when it’s placed in God’s hands instead of used for private gain. It’s also true that Complicated people—like us—are loved by God. There’s a lot to wrestle with here. Neither of these truths is simple, but then again, neither is Jesus.
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