Why??
Why would a business owner, a landowner, praise the employee who cheated them?
Is this guy in Jesus’ story crazy? Corrupt himself? Just…weird?
And then, because this is a Jesus story, a parable, you and I might be wondering whether, and how, we are supposed to imagine God praising a cheater, a thief.
Eww.
And “eew” is, apparently, the reaction that generation after generation of disciples and scripture scholars have had to this story. No one has an explanation that they are satisfied with.
In fact, it’s probable that Luke himself, writing this story down for us, was confused about what point Jesus is trying to make by telling this story. He piles on a bunch of other things he remembers Jesus saying about dishonesty and wealth and trustworthiness, maybe hoping that something in those quotes will make sense of a story that…just doesn’t make sense.
So, when we’re stuck with an uncomfortable story about praising a cheater, it’s probably worth noting that Jesus has been telling us all along that our assumptions about who is closest to God, and who is not, are often wrong.
For early hearers of Jesus’ stories, it might not be that much more shocking to hear a dishonest manager praised than to hear that the tax collectors – graft-ridden collaborators that they are – are going to be among the first in God’s kingdom. And Jesus himself, as we heard last week, tends to eat with and celebrate people who the religious establishment thinks of as uncorrected “sinners”.
In fact, if you look back at the whole history of God’s people, there are a bunch of times when God picks out a shady or weaselly character and turns them into a “hero”.
That might be comforting when we reflect on our own imperfections, and the limited qualifications for heroism that many of us have. Though it’s still itchy and uncomfortable to consider God praising and congratulating a cheater right in front of us, when many of us also know very well exactly how it feels to be cheated.
So it’s helpful to me to remember that one thing I have learned about parables, about these stories Jesus tells, is that however easy it might be to label one character in the story “God”, or “us”, there’s never actually a one-to-one correlation.
It’s not that the “rich man” – the landowner or business owner – in the story is God.
(In fact, more often than not “rich men” are the losers or bad guys in Jesus’ teachings.)
Nor is the manager, nor the people who got their debts reduced, a direct equivalent to God. Or to us.
So maybe our best clue in the story is Jesus’ comment about “dishonest wealth”, and that other comment about how you cannot serve both God and money (or really any other idol).
Maybe all the money in this story is dishonest already. Not just after the manager cheats the owner, or after he makes all those unauthorized discounts and debt reductions. Maybe all the wealth is “dishonest” even before the rich man gets it and starts trying to use money to make more money, creating debts and obligations.
Oof, that’s messy.
Because humans being what we are, we can’t be fully honest and innocent and pure when we’re fully immersed in a dishonest system.
Maybe that’s why the dishonest manager gets praised – because he uses the dishonest resources of the system he’s in to try to build something else: relationships that will matter when he doesn’t have those already messy resources to spend.
I’m speculating there, and I’m not entirely happy with it.
But this story came to us because other people, over the centuries, have trusted that there must be some useful wisdom in it, so we all keep trying to find it.
And I am curious whether Jesus is trying to tell us about what it means to follow Jesus while we live and work in a world of “dishonest wealth”.
Because the all money that you and I handle – however much or however little we have, hold, or distribute – is money that is the currency of an imperfect system that has been corrupted, broken, accommodated to injustice, and exploited for self-interest as long as humans have had currency.
It's not that dollars haven’t also served justice, bought healing, or been used for holy purposes, but any system in which wealth makes one person more powerful than another attracts self-interest and dishonesty.
So maybe Jesus is telling us something about how to live in the world we actually live in.
To “make friends” in the world of dishonest wealth. Build relationships. Spend, or “squander” money and wealth in ways that build for eternity.
I’m pretty sure Jesus is not trying to encourage us to dishonesty and cheating. But I suspect Jesus does want to stir up our discomfort about money. To provoke an awkward consciousness that the money you and I have or manage – cash, or credit, or digital bits in some banking software – is already tied up in all the dishonest and honest acts that brought it to us. The acts of our employers and clients; of our ancestors, our government, our families and friends and a lot of people we don’t actually know. That we live with money in a messy, sticky, system, and we have to reckon with that.
Jesus also might want us to notice that money doesn’t give us – or buy us – peace of heart. Or love, or eternity, or the wonder and glory of the presence of God. Or any of the things our souls long for. So we can – should – look to something other than money to place our trust in.
God, for example.
So that maybe instead of “serving wealth” – letting money steer us – we’ll have opportunities to serve God with “dishonest wealth”. Maybe “squander” money – ours, our employer’s, the government’s, our families’ and friends’ – on things that do help make love, and peace, and eternity, and the presence of God more real in the messy ordinary world.
To spend money we can’t trust to be honest on the things that God would spend love and resources and power on.
I don’t know if that’s what Jesus meant the first time he told this story, two long millennia ago. But I believe it’s one thing Jesus might want us to consider; to try.
And I think the same principle applies, in slightly different ways, to a lot more than money. To success, influence, rank in the office or school or any organization, political power – anything else that gives us power in the messy, often dishonest, world we live in today.
And perhaps to prayer – which gives us power in God’s care for us – and still has to work in the messy world we live in.
Pray for the king, we hear Paul advise Timothy today. Pray for the people in power, the government. (Which, by the way, we often do in the prayers of the Episcopal Church, including in our service today.)
For some of us, some of the time, praying for political officials, or for people with unchecked power, feels just as uncomfortable as watching a cheater get praised by someone we were hoping we could trust.
So – since we have to deal with the powers that be, just as we have to deal with money – we can “squander” our other resources on the things God would love, that God would do.
We can pray, should pray, lavishly for the “king”: for our own government officials, and the politicians we dislike or despise, and for our employers and for media monopolists and far distant corporate officials – all those powers that be.
Pray, so that we so that we are focused on the will of God for those in power – and for all who are subject to, affected by, that power – instead of being caught up in whether the government or boss or whatever is dishonest or honest or evil or righteous.
Pray that by God’s work in and around the powers of this world, more and more of God’s people are brought into the gifts of peace of heart, the wonder and glory of God; into love and eternity and wholeness.
Pray so that our souls and hearts are tuned to the mind and heart of God when we consider the powers of this world, instead of being steered by the will of those worldly powers.
And even as we pray and spend our resources as close to God’s heart as we can, we may still be asking, “Why?”
Why, God, do things go so wrong?
Why do the cheaters seem to have your favor?
And we may never get the answers that make sense, but at least we will have our hearts and actions immersed in the love of God, working in us and through us, always, to heal our selves, and all the world.
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