15th Sunday after Pentecost
Last April, as we were making our way through the Gospel according to Luke in the Monday morning Bible discussion group, we encountered the parable that is found in today's Gospel lesson. We spent an entire session talking about what it might mean, and ended up as confused, or maybe even more confused, as we were when we started. I pointed out that this parable would be in the Gospel reading for a Sunday around the middle of September, and Pastor Anke immediately piped up that that was Pastor Eric's Sunday. We all laughed, me included. Well, as it turns out, it actually would have been Pastor Anke's Sunday. But the joke's on me because neither one of them is up here right now. Hmmm!
If this Gospel reading leaves you feeling bewildered and unsure of what to make of it, you're definitely not alone. New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd defined a parable this way: “At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” By this definition, Jesus hit a grand slam with this parable! I think every commentary or article I read on this text pointed out how difficult it was. There are numerous approaches to interpreting it. One person suggested that it was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle when a bunch of the pieces are missing; I would suggest that the picture on the box is missing, too. Even the one person who claimed he liked the parable admitted that it was because it made him think. There is even some debate on exactly where the parable ends and Jesus' comments begin. It's seems to be somewhere around verse 8, but it could be before, in the middle of, or after that verse. It's even been suggested that Luke himself didn't quite know what to do with this parable.
Now I could have chosen to preach on one of the other three readings in the lectionary for today; however, since we always read the Gospel lesson, that would have left you scratching your heads about what to make of it. That didn't really seem fair. So this morning I'm going to try to explain one way to make some sense of this puzzle.
I want to start with a word that shows up three times in the reading. It appears in verse 9 and verse 11, where it is translated as “wealth”. Another common English translation is “money”. The Greek word here is mammon, which is the transliteration of a word from Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew that was spoken in Palestine in Jesus' day. Older English versions of the Bible, such as the King James, often used the Aramaic word without translating it into English. Mammon refers to all material possessions, not just money. In the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, Mark Allan Powell says that it “refers to money and the things that money can buy.”
The third time the word occurs is in verse 13: “You cannot serve God and wealth”. Or “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Here Luke has set Mammon up as the personification of something that opposes and competes with God; in other words, it's an idol. In his explanation of the first commandment in the Large Catechism, Martin Luther warned about Mammon, “There are some who think that they have God and everything they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They, too, have a god — mammon by name, that is, money and property — on which set their whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth.”
Our relationship with wealth is very complicated, and it influences our relationship with God. This idol affects everyone whether you're poor and needy or rich and greedy or anywhere in between. If you're concerned about how you're going to pay your bills or keep food on the table and a roof over your head, worry and despair can lead you to doubt God. On the other hand, those who are prosperous and affluent can easily begin to feel that they can take care of themselves without God's help.
Greed can lead to corrupt business practices and oppression of the poor. The prophet Amos condemned merchants who took advantage of their customers. In those days, goods were not bought and sold with currency; instead, they were traded based on weight or volume. If the scales were rigged so they were in the merchant's favor, the profits could be considerable. Similarly, mixing the sweepings, that is, the chaff, with the wheat cheated the buyer since the actual volume of grain was reduced.
The economic system of Jesus' day also put the poor at a disadvantage. Although charging interest was forbidden by the Torah, wealthy landlords would find ways to hide charges of as much as 25-50%. In addition, a steward would usually tack on something for himself, and then the Roman tax would be charged on top of all that. This is the background of Jesus' parable in today's Gospel reading.
Wealth, and the status, power and privilege that come with it, can be fleeting. Just ask the steward in our parable. One day everything was great. He was in charge of managing his master's property and collecting debts for him. In the process, the steward was also picking up something for himself. We don't know exactly what he was doing or even whether it was legal or illegal. But someone told his master that the steward was squandering his property. Whether or not these charges were true, the steward was suddenly in danger of losing his job and his financial advantages. Disaster was looming on the horizon.
This sudden loss of financial security is not an uncommon occurrence. Just think of some of the things that have happened in the past few years. The pandemic had a financial impact on rich and poor alike. People lost their jobs and businesses through no fault of their own. Supply chain problems have made it difficult or nearly impossible for some to get necessities like baby formula. Inflation has cut into the spending power of everyone. A bad day on Wall Street can have a catastrophic effect on retirement savings. And in the past year alone, thousands of people have suddenly lost everything they owned due to fires, floods, storms, and other natural disasters.
This instability and volatility make Mammon an untrustworthy master. In contrast we have the promises and faithfulness of God, whose attention, care, and provision for us are constant, even if we can't always see how things will work out. Which master would you rather serve? You can't serve both of them.
Wealth is both a blessing and a responsibility. Throughout the Bible, we are told that we are blessed to be a blessing. Theologian David Lose says that “we are held accountable less for what resources we have accumulated than how we use them.” This is what the steward in the parable realized. He had been using the resources put at his disposal by his master to gain wealth for himself. When he did this, the steward was acting as a child of this age, a follower of the god Mammon playing by his rules. But at the moment of crisis, he realized he had to change his priorities and began to use the wealth to build relationships that would help him when the time of need came.
Jesus is not condoning greed and dishonesty. The Greek word that is translated as “dishonest” here has a wider meaning that goes beyond the shiftiness or shadiness, or perhaps illegality that we associate with dishonesty. It literally means “not righteous”. Things that are righteous have to do with God. So things that are not righteous aren't godly. They are related to the world, or if we use Luke's imagery, to Mammon.
Jesus is encouraging his followers to make friends by using worldly wealth. He's saying that we need to be shrewd saints. We are stewards of the blessings that God has given us. We should use them to help others, to build relationships, and to extend the Kingdom. We need act like children of the light and play by God's rules, which work quite differently from what society has come to expect. In doing this, we make friends in this world and, in addition, we strengthen the eternal relationship we have with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Being a shrewd saint is difficult because we cannot completely give up all connection to Mammon. At the very least, we have to have food, clothing, shelter, and a means of transportation. We have to support our families and others who depend on us. God provides these things for us by giving us the worldly wealth we need to obtain them. The trick is that we cannot let it separate us from others or replace God in our lives. We must always work to serve God and use Mammon for God's purposes.
I've read that St. Augustine said that God gave us people to love and things to use, and that sin manifests itself in our penchant to confuse these two, loving things and using people. As sinful human beings, our behavior is very much like that of the manager in the parable. There are times when we fail to be a blessing to others. But there are also times when we use the resources God has given us wisely to help others and advance the Kingdom of God. We can be like the dishonest, that is, unrighteous, manager following Mammon and doing what the world expects of us. Or we can be like the shrewd steward following Jesus and doing what God asks of us.
Even if the complexities of making good life choices are not clear, the last verse of our text is: “You cannot serve God and wealth.” As followers of Jesus, being faithful in stewarding God's gifts is our priority. But when we fail, and we will – repeatedly, we should remember that God is always ready to forgive us for the sake of Jesus and to strengthen us to try again.
Amen.