Sisters and brothers in Christ,
Today we begin in earnest our fall stewardship campaign. Knowing that I
was a stewardship specialist for the national church you may have
suspected that we would get here sooner or later. This is my first
September with you. Traditionally the three year lectionary of the church is
set so that this is the time of the year that we get all teachings of Jesus
regarding wealth. So it is the time of the year that most churches do their
stewardship campaigns.
Believe me when I say that on such a beautiful day as
this, and in a community of friends, I would rather not
broach a subject that so many of us find difficult to talk
about. I would just as soon be out flying a kite, or go on a picnic with you ,
or go to a baseball game and watch the A’s clinch the American League
West Division Title. But I am the pastor and part of my job is to speak as
honestly and forthrightly as I can about the text. So that is what I do on
Sunday mornings.
And if you are one who after a troubling sermon dealing with wealth or
social justice likes to say to the pastor “nice sermon, but I wish you would
stick to the gospels” let me just say, I am. Jesus spoke more often about
wealth than he did about any other subject, except the kingdom of God.
And as you will hopefully come to see, economics and distributive justice,
are what the kingdom of God is all about. They are what makes the Gospel
Good News for the poor, and relevant for us today!
To help us get there, let’s take a look at Luke Chapter 16. (pull out insert)
(*)In Luke 16, the entire chapter is structured in a
way that tries to get at the problem of rich and poor.
(*)It starts out with the story of a rich mean,
(*) then it goes into a teaching about God and
Mammon,, then it goes into an attack on “lovers of money” ,
(*)and it ends with another story of a rich man.
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Take notice how those two stories begin with exactly the same phrase: 16:1
“There was a rich man who…..”
and 16:19 “There was a rich man who
….. “ The first story is about the dishonest steward …. The second story is
the famous story of the Rich man Lazarus and Dives.
These two stories of rich households are Jesus’ attempt to use object
lessons from the real economic terrain of his day, to try and show his people
how profoundly things have gotten out of whack. And these two object
lessons serve as bookends for his famous teaching about God and
Mammon. We will return to God and mammon lesson later, for now, let’s
turn to the “parable of the dishonest steward.”
This is one of those texts on which there is little agreement from one
interpreter to the next. Some see the parable as being linked to the parable
of the prodigal son and thus see the “rich land owner” in the same light asf
the image of the “Father” of the former parable. In that case, the rich land
owner is a God figure, who like the father in the parable of the prodigal son,
is willing to forgive the dishonest steward and welcome him back into his
job. Others see in the rich land owner, a symbol of the wealthy, absentee
landowners who populate many of the pages of the gospels.
The Landowner:
If that is the case, then the land owner (often a
priest or ranking member of the Sanhedrin) is
assumed to have gotten his wealth by acquiring the
land of villagers by giving out loans at usury rates,
and confiscating the land when the small farmers
could not repay the loans. But this is tricky business, because the Torah,
both the written code and the oral tradition of interpretation both prohibit
charging interest. Thus interest on the loans given were hidden in the
contracts by adding the interest charged to the loan amount and writing the
contract for the full sum. Thus the interest remained hidden, the
landowner’s reputation and piety remained in place.
In order to deny any knowledge of such hidden interest in the contracts, the
landowner needed a steward, who was charged with running the estate.
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The land owner regarded the steward with caution….knowing that his own
well-being was tied to the stewards ability to make loans and increase his
profits and holdings. He counted on the stewards “dishonesty” regarding
Torah prohibitions and he needed that dishonesty to cover his own.
The land-owner would tolerate the steward’s enriching himself at the
expense of the villagers as long as he kept getting what he considered he
was entitled to. And as long as the villagers were kept pacified.
Thus the
land-owner was both the patron of the steward, having chosen him and
trained him well in the craft of extracting wealth, but he was also was
suspicious of the stewards actions, because he had the ability to take more
than was his due. The steward was free to cheat the farmers but not the
landowner. It was a careful dance.
The Steward:
The steward acted with the full authority of the
landowner, and could enter into contracts on behalf
of the landowner. The steward, earned his way by
accepting under the table bribes and payments
from the village farmers. The was undeclared
“interest” which was the stewards cut of the deal. This was normal and
expected. The farmers would pay such hidden fees in order to ensure
access to needed funds and loans. All the while the landowner could deny
any knowledge of such usury.
The steward lived in the carful balance between ensuring the tenants
continued acceptance of the “cost of doing business” and keeping them
happy enough that they would not rebel or undermine him with the
landowner. His job was to get the farmers to accept and pay the hidden
interest embedded in their contracts, all of which went to the land-owner,
plus pay the under-the-table costs not written in the contracts, that went to
the him. As long as the usury was not so prohibitive that the tenants
rebelled, everything went well.
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The village Farmers:
The village farmers regarded both the wealthy landowner and the steward as crooks. Both exploited the
farmers to their own advantage. Both held the
power of economic stability or ruin in their hands.
The only “power” the farmers possessed lie in exploiting the natural
suspicion of land-owner against the steward. If they could plant enough
doubt in the land-owners mind, about the “integrity” of the steward, the
steward could be removed. This too was a careful dance.
They could not complain that the steward was too demanding and extracting
too much profit. The Land-owner would only think all the more highly of his
steward. But what they could do was to anonymously suggest that the
steward was squandering the land-owners wealth. That would not be
tolerated. It is that threat of removal which is the only leverage the farmers
have over the steward.
So as this parable unfolds, the farmers spread rumors about the steward
which reach the land-owner’s ears. The land-owner believes the rumors,
dismisses the steward calls for an accounting. The steward, caught in a
bind, about to lose his livelihood, quickly calls in each debtor, and
renegotiates the original contract, removing from each, the amount of the
hidden interest due to the land-owner. So that the contract of public record
shows only the real amount borrowed.
Now, here is where it gets tricky. The farmers, knowing what the steward is
doing, accept the unexpected wind-fall which comes at the masters
expense. They in turn publicly celebrate their good fortune …. Praising the
generosity of the land-owner.
Now the land-owner is in a bind. He may reject the new contracts and fire
the steward. At which point he would have to deal with rebellious farmers.
Plus he would also come under scrutiny for the hidden usury written into
the original contracts, and thus become a public outcast for violating the
Torah restrictions against such practice.
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Or he could accept the new contracts, along with the gratitude of the
framers, enhance his reputation as a generous land-owner, keep his facade
of piety and Torah obedience and rehire the steward. After all, the villagers
who freely accepted the re-negotiated contracts understand that nothing
comes freely, and there would be consequences to be paid down the road.
Now we come to verse 9:
“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.”
Verse 9 has been read as a rhetorical question: “shall I tell you, make
friends for yourselves…..?” which assumes a clearly negative answer. Or it
has been identified as a Semiticism that should properly read, “Make friends
for yourselves without the mammon of unrighteousness….”
Also some say, the point of the parable can be summed up as follows: if a
bad man will take pains to make friends to cushion his fall, then good people
should also take the time to make friends to further the reign of God.
Almsgiving then becomes the theme of the parable when viewed in this
light.
Finally it has been seen as an example of grim sarcasm, whose biting
message formed a fitting conclusion to the parable.
I like the last take because I think what Jesus is describing is a system that
is dishonest from top to bottom. It all stinks. From
the land-owner, to the steward and merchants, all the
way down to the farmer. There is no morality lesson
here ….it is simply a frightenly honest picture of the
corruption of the whole economic system. The way of
the world is corrupt! They/We all love oney/mammon.
Now we can turn to Jesus remarks about mammon and his remarks make
sense.
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Luke 16:10–13
Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in
much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is
dishonest also in much. If then you have not been
faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to
you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to
another, who will give you what is your own? 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 (mammon)."
Mammon:
Jesus uses this term Mammon.
It’s a very strange term. In rabbinic writings of the era,
mammon was used as an epithet for “dishonest gain,”
or even bribes. Sometime it is translated as filthy lucre,
that’s not a bad translation of that strange term
mammon. The term comes from an Aramaic term which means “That in
which we trust.” So look at Jesus’ teaching in Luke 6:12 as a play on
words.
“if then you have not been trustworthy (Gk plstol) in the unjust
thing in which you place your trust” (Gk mammona) who will
entrust you (Gk pistousol) with true abundance?”
What Jesus is trying to say to us here, is that we live in an economy that for
the most part just doesn’t work.
Mammon is profoundly contradicted. It’s riddled with dishonesty and bribes,
with people having too much, and people having too little. It is the mammon
system we’re stuck with. Therefore we have to figure out a way for us to be
in the midst of that economy of mammon, and practice the principles of
Sabbath economics.
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Even as we struggle in an economy of mammon to
work, Jesus is very clear that no household, he says,
can be bound in service, enslaved, to two masters.
Either she will hate the one and love the other, or be
devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot
serve God and mammon.
This is one of these texts of terror in the New Testament, isn’t it. We do
everything in our power to silence, or to marginalize, or to trivialize, or
spiritualize it. Yet here it is. Jesus is saying it very clearly. You cannot
serve God and mammon.
We are involved friends, in our historic moment, as Jesus was in his, in a
life of struggle between an economy of his world and the economy of the
reign of God. That is between an economy of memory, which I call
Sabbath Economics, where everybody has as much as they need, no one
has too much or too little, and an economy of this world, which Jesus
identifies as an economy of mammon, where the rich get richer and the poor
get poorer. And Jesus is trying to tell us that our loyalties need to be very
very clear. You cannot serve God and mammon.
To quote that great Southern Baptist preacher Clarence Jordan: “He didn’t
say you shouldn’t serve God and mammon, he says “you can’t!”
That is Jesus perhaps at his toughest, and it is a tradition that we have to
reckon with.
Amen
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A) 16:1-8 “There was a rich man who ….” Story of the Defective
Steward)
B) 16:9-13 Teaching on God and Mammon
B’) 16:14-18 Attack on leaders as “lovers of money”
A’) 16: 19-31 “There was a rich man who …. (16:19) Story of Lazarus
and wealthy Dives. - Reversal
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