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Shrewd Stewardship
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| 9/23/2007 |
Each year, when Forbes magazine publishes their list of America’s 400 wealthiest billionaires, I pick up a copy to check and see if any parishioners have made the list. This year, I was astounded by this detail: “One money manager joins the list [for the first time] after pocketing $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer.”
I don’t know much about the financial markets, but I take it the billion dollars in this money manager’s pocket came out of the pockets of people like you and me and our family and friends who declared bankruptcy, packed up their homes, and moved from that which they hoped would be their piece of the American dream.
Today’s parable may help us grapple with such issues of wealth, and our own stewardship. I hope so!
The parable of the Rich Man and the Dishonest (or Shrewd) manager is one of Jesus’ most beguiling parables. A rich man is being ripped off by the manager of his wealth. The parable gives the impression that the rich man doesn’t do much; he probably didn’t earn his fortune. I suspect Jesus is trying to paint him as a holder of inherited land, somewhat like an English lord, who waits for his tributes and rents to roll in. But getting ripped off—that won’t do, so he demands an accounting.
The manager knows he’s caught, and worries about how he will provide for himself when he’s out of work. Note that he shares the same work ethic and arrogance of his rich master, “I am not strong enough to dig, and too ashamed to beg.” He doesn’t seem ashamed that he lives by defrauding both patron and worker.
His solution is clever. This dishonest manager protects his future by defrauding the rich man even more by forgiving the debts of people who owe the rich man money. The olive oil maker owes 100 jugs as part of his share cropping deal, so the manager makes it 50. The farmer owes 100 bushels of wheat, but after a quick meeting with the manager, he owes 80. When the rich man fires him, he will receive generosity from those whom he has helped, and secure his own future so he can defraud again.
We’re all set for Jesus to deliver the message of how wrong and dishonest the manager is, but then comes the surprising punch line: “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” I almost sense the dishonest manager is getting promoted, not fired. These two are meant for each other. The rich man has everything, but, of course, wants more. Maybe he wants on to the list of 400 richest billionaires. Better to have a shrewd manager on your side, rather than simply an honest one? What’s a little fraud, the parable seems to suggest, if the rich man has a manager so clever so as to make him richer?
Like the subprime anti-investor in Forbes, this dishonest manager seems shrewd enough to pocket in one summer a billion bucks out of human weakness and misery. What’s beguiling is that Jesus appears to endorse this sort of economic fraud and dishonesty by having the rich man praise the dishonest manager.
But, it’s really a parable about good stewardship, not an encouragement of fraud and dishonesty. In this 16th chapter of Luke, Jesus teaches that we cannot serve both wealth and God, but Jesus also makes clear that we are to use our wealth shrewdly for the glory and purposes of God.
For Jesus, the reality of an economic system with winners and losers is the problem, even sinful, but it’s a reality that can’t be denied. In the parable, the rich man represents that economic system, and we, the disciples, are to be the shrewd managers within it. Are we to be dishonest? For Jesus, wealth itself is dishonest, because wealth’s premise is that a human can own something, and Jesus believes (shouldn’t we?) that God owns everything, and what we have is on loan from God. It’s the dishonesty of the wealth that makes the manager dishonest, but shrewdness can turn the wealth towards God’s purposes.
Idealistic, I know, but God is all about changing our ideals. We return to God the loan made to us through a life of integrity, defined by God’s idealism (love your neighbor, love your enemy, feed the hungry, release the captive, etc.). None of us will be able to give back through our lives all that God has blessed us with, which is why we pray to God, “Forgive us our debt, and we will forgive the debt likewise of those who owe us (take note those who grow rich on the debt of others).
Jesus is instructing his disciples, telling them they must be shrewd like the manager. Jesus is clear in so many instances what is summarized by his concluding advice: “You cannot serve God and wealth.” But, Jesus is telling his disciples that they must use wealth as a tool to reach the goals of bringing the kingdom. If you are not faithful with dishonest wealth, Jesus says, “who will entrust to you the true riches?” The manager may be dishonest to the rich man, but honest to the values of God, especially if he is redirecting the rich man’s dishonest wealth (meaning the rich man didn’t earn it, others did) toward the purposes of God. The disciples are to bring the kingdom of God, and to build the church. It will require wealth to do so, even the use of dishonest wealth. Though confusing, Jesus is telling them, get the wealth and use it as shrewdly as the manager handled the rich man’s accounts.
I hope not to be strident here. Any time a liberal preacher uses biblical economics to comment on contemporary society, he is biting the capitalist hand that feeds him, secures his pension, and puts money in the plate. I am sure there are economists who can explain a money manager making a billion dollars on the collapse of the mortgage market is a good thing overall (though I remain skeptical).
But, if I keep the Bible in one hand with its lesson for today, and Forbes in the other, I hear scripture challenging this very type of cashing-in-on-human-misery wealth as dishonest. Is this the shrewd use of wealth for God’s purposes? I think not. I think the clearest lesson is not to serve wealth that destroys, but builds. “You cannot serve God and wealth,” Jesus states simply, as if they are eternally opposed. But a disciples is to shrewdly use wealth in the service of God, if I have right the difficult parable of the rich man and his manager.
How? I know how tricky it is, and we all must be shrewd that the wealth we are stewards of at Christ Church is used for the purposes of God, and not for ourselves.
Look around. The exterior of our church is totally scaffolded, and $1 million of construction work is being completed to preserve and protect our 280 year-old church building. Tomorrow, the construction comes inside, and by next Easter, $1.2 million will be have spent on the interior of this building, including installing fire protection. That’s all good, and we’ve been quite shrewd in attracting financial support from all kinds of sources, but to take Jesus seriously, as I believe we should, the question is, “Is this the best use of $2.2 million for the purposes of God and the bringing of God’s reign of peace and justice?”
Would it be more faithful, for instance, to invest this money into the neighborhoods where 300 of God’s children have been murdered this year in our city rather than into the bricks and mortar of this church?
I believe we are being shrewd in preserving this church, and you are being shrewd in your support of that effort, but we all must be vigilant in asking the question: To what purpose? For the purposes of God?
That Jesus has the rich man commend the dishonest manager for his shrewdness is a great relief to me, and I hope to you. When it comes to money, our lives are filled with difficult choices and ethical contradictions. I only have so many dollars to give away, and only so many to invest in the needs of others. What is the shrewdest for the purposes of God? Today’s parable supports the rationalization that there are rarely perfect choices.
This is all the work of stewardship.
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