There was a rich man. This man was so rich that he didn’t make his own bed. He had a personal maid who did that. He didn’t make his own dinner. He had a personal chef who did that. He didn’t drive his own car. He had a chauffeur who did that. He didn’t balance his own checkbook. He had a personal financial manager who did that. And he didn’t run the day-to-day affairs of his business himself. He had a manager who did that.
The manager was not a rich man. But he didn’t do too badly for himself. He earned a salary commensurate with his responsibilities. And, besides that, he kept two sets of books, and supplemented his salary by skimming a little off the top now and then. He didn’t take a lot—not so much that it would be easily noticed, but enough to support a lifestyle that was just a little bit beyond honest means.
At first he squirreled the ill-gotten gains away. The years went by. His boss seemed clueless, and he started to spend. Before long, the Swiss bank account was dry. Confident that his scam would continue, he spent everything he took home. Some months he spent more than he took home, but he didn’t worry about it. He could always skim a little extra the next month to make up for it.
His confidence was unfounded, however. Eventually, the boss learned of the manager’s dishonesty.
One day the rich man called the manager to his office and confronted him. “What is this I hear about you? You’re a swindler and a cheat. You’re fired!!”
The manager stood there for a few more moments, sweating bullets. Was the set of books that he prepared for the auditor up-to-date? Did he cover all the fraudulent transactions with a false paper trail long enough to hide any trace of his financial misdoings? Could anything be proven?
The rich man moved as if to press the intercom button on his phone. The manager fell back into a chair, his hands over his face. He wondered which security guards are on duty today; he knew there was at least one who would take some pleasure in escorting him off company property. It would probably be a one-way trip to the local lock-up. Just as well, really. Without his paycheck, and without the skimming, it was only a matter of time before the cupboards would be bare, the repo man would be around for his car, and the bank would claim title to his house.
But the rich man didn’t press the intercom button. Instead he picked up a pencil and circled a date on his desk calendar. “Two weeks,” he said. “You have two weeks. Continue your responsibilities.”
The manager looked up. Did he hear correctly? Two weeks? Two weeks more to check for any tell-tale traces. He could bury the evidence. No jail after all. Two weeks to come up with another plan.
The manager said to himself, “What shall I do now? My boss is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig ditches. That sounds like way too much work. I’m ashamed to beg. I’m far too good for that.
“I know! I know what I’ll do! And when I lose my job, I won’t go to jail, I won’t join the unemployment line, and I won’t sit on the street corner with cup and a sign! When I lose my job, people will welcome me into their houses. It’ll be even better than before. I won’t have to skim money; I’ll just let my grateful fans give it to me!”
The manager pulled out the account book he used for show and called in each one of his boss’s debtors, one by one. And, one by one, he took from them their debt notes and replaced them with notes for 50% of the original amount. Or 80%. Or 60%. Whatever seemed good to him at the moment. Whatever he thought would be enough to gain that particular debtor’s undying gratitude.
The rich man found out what the manager was doing.
He commended him, for it really was a quite clever response to a difficult situation.
He still fired him, of course, for he was utterly dishonest. But you have to admit, he was clever too!
When I started studying this passage for this week, I pulled this parable apart. I applied my historical-critical tools. I analyzed the structure and the context. I even read what several different commentators had to say.
And the more I analyzed this parable, the more it didn’t make any sense.
Jesus’ comments at the end—about being trustworthy in little and in much…they make sense. And the basic meaning of the parable is clear enough, since Jesus provides the explanation—be wise in how you use your worldly wealth. But the parable itself—the story about the dishonest manager and his accommodating boss—doesn’t make any sense.
Think about it. In any business that makes any sense, what happens when an employee is determined to be dishonest, when evidence abounds that he has stolen from the company? That employee is immediately fired, of course. Security guards accompany the personnel officer to the employee’s desk. He is given 15 minutes notice. The guards watch him gather up his belongings and then escort him to the door. He is not told to return to his desk and given free rein with the company’s bank accounts and financial ledgers. That just doesn’t make any sense.
So I did what I often do when I’m studying a passage that doesn’t make any sense. I called my brother. “Pat,” I said, “this parable just doesn’t make any sense.”
He said, “Your right.” And then he groaned and asked me to call him back. Dudley, the family basset hound, had escaped and was making his way down the street and through the neighborhood. Pat needed to chase him down and bring him home.
I called back a while later. “Pat,” I said, “this parable just doesn’t make any sense.”
He said, “Your right. Have you ever noticed that many of Jesus’ parables don’t make any sense?
“Consider the parable of the sower, for instance (Luke 8:5ff). ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path…some fell on rock…some fell among thorns…and some fell on good soil.’”
Picture it: A farmer works really hard to prepare his fields—plowing and aerating and fertilizing. He removes all the wild plants and weeds that have taken root since last season. He keeps his fence in good repair so that the neighbor’s goats can’t wander in. And then when it comes time to plant, he slings his seed bag over his shoulder and starts with his driveway. He scatters seed over the gravel, and then out into the highway at the edge of his property. He walks along the edge of the woods at the north end of his property and throws seed into the bushes. Only then does he turn and scatter seed in the field he has so carefully prepared.
“I’m not much of a farmer myself,” my brother said, “but even I manage to keep the grass seed off the sidewalk when I scatter seed in my back yard.”
I bet when Jesus started to tell the parable of the sower, the crowd started to snicker and grin. Sometimes a little bit of humor can get people to lower their defenses just long enough for a deep truth to get in.
What about the parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:15ff). I can certainly understand the host being irritated with the invited guests who backed out at the last minute. I can even imagine him distributing invitations right and left after that in an attempt to fill his house for the party. But compelling people to come in…? To hear Jesus tell the story, the servant wasn’t combing the streets with a bag full of gilded invitations. To hear Jesus tell the story, it’s like the servant was riding around in the backseat of a dark sedan, pulling up beside unsuspecting street people, opening the door, and pulling them inside: ‘You don’t know it yet, but you’re going to a party!’ It’s a funny picture.
Sometimes a little humor can make a story, including the main point, more memorable.
Even the parable of the lost sheep is a little odd when you think about it (Luke 15:3ff). Jesus begins the parable, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” Well, actually, no. Any shepherd worth his staff would not leave the whole flock in dangerous territory, without guard, to go chasing after one sheep. By the time he got back, 10 other sheep could have fallen into gullies and broken their legs or been eaten by wolves or been led away by thieves. Any shepherd worth his staff would provide for the safety and protection of the flock before going on a heroic search for one lost sheep.
Sometimes a little humor can break down the invisible walls built by our ingrained perceptions of the world, the walls that keep us from hearing anything that goes against our expectations or pushes us out of our comfort zone. Then, maybe, just maybe, there might be room for the extravagant love of God to capture our imaginations.
Jesus taught in parables, not only to teach specific lessons about God and the kingdom of God, but also, bit by little bit, to stretch his hearers’ imaginations…to break them out of the mold of their old expectations about how things work…to begin to make space in their imaginations for the idea that God is a lot different than they have come to expect him to be. He doesn’t do things the same way people do. And the kingdom of God works on different principles than we’re used to. Efficiency, practicality, and self-interest are not the core values of the Kingdom. God expects a lot more for us (and from us) then we expect him to.
With the parable of the clever manager, Jesus is trying to get ordinary people to think about ordinary things in an extra-ordinary way…a new way that might knock their blinders just askew enough to allow them to see God in a new way, and to see their own lives in a new way.
The manager is a thief. Don’t worry about that--that’s not the point. (By the way, the fact that the rich man seems to be an executive with pretty poor judgment about personnel matters isn’t the point either.)
The manager is also clever. That’s the point.
When he finds out he’s going to lose his job, the old routine is no longer good enough. Now he needs something big. He needs to think outside of the box and come up with something clever. The stakes are high. Figure out something quick or end up destitute.
It doesn’t take long for him to come up with a strategy. If he can get enough small business owners to feel indebted to him, then he’s on the road to easy street. He still has access and control of his boss’s books, so he does some creative accounting.
He could have given up. He could have looked into his bank account, concluded that there was not enough there to take him very far, and put his name on the waiting list of the local YMCA.
But he did something a little different. When his bank account came up short for his long-term needs, he inventoried his other resources, and he leveraged them for his own benefit.
This is the point. Not the dishonesty or the self-interest, but the cleverness--the creative use of resources.
Jesus taps into what everyone knows: Dishonest people work to examine every angle and take creative advantage of every opportunity--for their own benefit.
That’s the word to followers of Jesus. Don’t worry about what you don’t have. Take stock of what you do have. Be just as clever as the dishonest manager. Examine every angle. Take creative advantage of every opportunity--for the glory of God and to serve him.
In the long run, it will do you good.
This sermon has homework. Each person will get one of these envelopes. Your homework is to take what is in this envelope and use it this week to the glory of God and in the service of his Kingdom. There is $5 in the envelope. Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Be clever. Examine the angles. Get creative. For the glory of God.
There is also a note card in each envelope. Report back (anonymously) next week. Write down on the note card what you did with the $5 and what happened because of it. Don’t include your name. We’ll read some of the cards next week and celebrate what God has done.
Some examples…
Take someone at work out to lunch, someone you wouldn’t normally have lunch with. Tell them your pastor gave you $5 and told you to do something nice with it. Who knows? Maybe it’ll create an opportunity for conversation.
If it’s something you don’t normally do, buy some flowers and visit someone at the hospital.
If you have an idea for how to invest the $5, then do that, and come back next week with $20.
Don’t forget to record what you did on the note card. Bring it with you next week. If you won’t be here next Sunday, bring it with you the following week. Or mail it to me.
It’s up to you. Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Be clever. Examine the angles. Get creative. For the glory of God.
