Weighed and Measured

Scripture: Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Lectionary 25), A.D. 2013 C

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

The parable of the Dishonest Steward has been called the “problem child” of the Gospel. Having just given us three different stories about the joy experienced upon finding something lost, Jesus in Luke’s account turns now to a tale of ill-gotten gains. The manager of a rich man’s estate receives notice of his imminent termination due to rumors that he has mismanaged his master’s funds. Whether these accusations have any truth behind them remains anyone’s guess. The manager responds, however, but using what little time is left to him in writing off the debts that others owe to his employer. A man who owes 100 jugs of olive oil finds his bill reduced by half; another, who owes 100 containers of wheat, regains 20% with the stroke of a stylus.

The Dishonest Steward of the parable uses his position to gain favor amongst his master’s debtors, with the expectation that they in turn shall provide for him during his looming unemployment. Lo and behold, his master commends him for his shrewdness—as Christ commends us to thus make friends for ourselves by means of wealth not our own. We can see now, can’t we, why this parable appears only in one of the four Gospels! What are we to make of this twisted little tale? What on earth might be the take-home message imparted to us here?

Things seem to become all the more muddled when we find not one but two different moral explanations tacked on to the end of the story. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much,” notes Jesus. “If you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?” That’s explanation one. Then comes the famous, “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 both God and wealth.”

My heavens! Are we to be dishonest? Are we to emulate an unfaithful steward? And for that matter—is Christ condemning wealth? It all makes such an interesting contrast to our first reading this morning, from the prophet Amos. Amos was a shepherd, you see, a rural man of southern Judah whom God called abruptly to prophesy in the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II. This was the Eighth Century before Christ, a time of great material luxury and worldly splendor, when the pastoral origins of the prophet would contrast strongly with the sophisticated decadence of the urban north.

Amos condemns the predatory greed of the northern tribes, who hunger for religious festivals to end so that they might return quickly to the business of fleecing the poor with false weights and measures. “We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,” he says of their motives, “and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” False measures, maximum prophets, human abuses, and no quality control—sound familiar? These are the hallmarks of corruption and unrestrained profiteering the world over. Here indeed we find stewards of dishonest wealth.

Keep in mind that ancient Israel had no government bureau of weights and measures. How do we know today that a pound is a pound, a yard a yard? When we fill up at Cenex and watch the gallons flow to the second decimal, how do we trust that the numbers aren’t off? How do we know that they do not make our ephah small in order to make their shekel great? Well, today there’s a little sticker on each pump vouching for the gas station’s certification. A licensed government agent has investigated and approved the fair dealing of our local merchants. But ancient Israel had no such safeguards.

The only institution that maintained fair and uniform weights and measures was the Temple. The Temple insured that every weight matched the uniform amount, that every coin held the proper precious value, that all goods were honest and legitimate. It was a concern of social justice, and thus a concern of religion. God cared about the poor. He cared about justice and fair dealing. He cared about goodness, truth, and beauty in all human life. And woe be unto those who would violate the trust of the people for whom God cares!

This, mind you, was quite odd in the Middle East: a deity concerned with the powerless and poor. After all, what could they possibly offer to His glory? They could build Him no great temples, offer Him no opulent sacrifice. Other gods, false gods, supported the rich and the strong. But this backwards Israelite God—He championed the weak. Very strange. By the way, do you know what institution took over this function during the Middle Ages—what institution concerned itself with standardized weights and uniform measures? It was the Church. Social justice, again, was the domain of religion. We don’t often think of accurate measurements and verified coinage as something particularly Christian. But I assure you that such everyday concerns for fair dealing were something downright spiritual for the vulnerable and needy in society. And if the poor care, then I very much assure you that God cares.

We find this reflected as well in the First Epistle to Timothy, wherein St. Paul urges “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, Who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Imagine that. We are to pray for everyone, including all people in high and lofty position, so that we might all lead quiet and peaceable lives of godliness and dignity. God does not demand great tribute and bloody battle. God does not counsel rebellion or violence. God seeks the salvation of all through quiet and peaceable lives of justice, godliness, and dignity for all peoples. That is astounding! Salvation is not preached by cosmic warfare or opulent temples but by everyday peace, everyday justice, everyday dignity for all human beings regardless of birth or position or wealth. He cares not for empires or conquest but that we provide true dignity, wholesome food, and fair dealing for all.

My God! What sort of a Deity is this? He does not demand that we pull ourselves up from the rabble to ascend into Heaven, but rather that we meet Him in a manger, as a small child held by a poor yet noble Mother. He does not call us to extraordinary heroism but to holiness in the home, in our work, in our communities. The God of infinite, boundless expanse meets us in the small, the commonplace, the humble. It’s what we do here that matters, how we treat the neighbor, the stranger, the unimportant nobody whom we may never see again!

This is not the God Who encourages a Dishonest Steward. So again we must ask, what are we to make of Jesus’ parable today? What message take we home? Obviously we are not meant to emulate the manager’s motives, lazy and self-serving as he is. Some Church Fathers even believed that the Dishonest Steward represents the Devil getting wind of God’s swift-falling justice. But we are to emulate his shrewdness in understanding just what wealth is for.

Wealth exists to serve our neighbor. Wealth exists to be given, to be used. We are entrusted with wealth—not just money but also property, talents, opportunities—all for the service of the greater good. We are to use it shrewdly, intelligently. Jesus commanded we be wise as serpents yet innocent as doves. This does not mean that we are all called simply to shed all worldly possessions. Christ has called some to that, yes, but He has also called the rich and powerful to other service. Ours is a complex economy with many choices: saving, investing, purchasing, almsgiving, all oiling the wheels of a financial machine that, though often rife with injustice, has nonetheless lifted more human souls out of poverty than any other economic system in history. This is no bad thing! It is a blessing.

Yet beware that the good gifts of God not become tyrants and false gods among us. When money ceases to be a tool and becomes instead an idol—when the almighty dollar is no longer a means to an end but our end in itself—then we worship not God but mammon, the wealth that separates us from God. Beware the demon mammon! Subtly in he creeps, in the desire for useless accumulation, in houses full of things we neither need nor ultimately want. He drowns us in our own possessions, our own suffocating excess. Wealth cannot be a god! Wealth cannot give you life.

Rather, wealth is a gift. Wealth is a tool. It is entrusted to us by God, though it is not truly ours, and we are tasked with stewarding it wisely for the benefit of all: earning it, spending it, giving it, investing it. You are not your bank account; you are not your job. You are nothing less than God’s own wise steward, serving neighbor and community, in godliness and dignity, with the unique riches entrusted unto you in the Name of Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God, Who calls dishonest stewards. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.

Prayers of Intercession:

With the whole people of God in Christ Jesus, let us pray for the Church, for those in need, and for all of God’s Creation.

Holy God, Who gives good things, loosen mouth and tongue

           To praise You for Your gracious ways, here preached and prayed and sung

Pour out Your provision for the winter cold ahead

           Provide for bird and beast alike, for children warm in bed

Let our witness lead the lost to seek Your loving care

           Restless, let us rest in You. In Jesus—hear our prayer.

Fill the leaders of our nations with Your justice true

           Guide them in decision bringing peace the whole world through

Make known Yourself amongst all those who suffer in distress

           Bring healing to the hopeless, ill, and all who are oppressed

Surround us all with comfort; let Your love our lives ensnare

           Restore us in Your wholeness, Lord. In Jesus—hear our prayer.

Inspire us to ethics in our businesses and work

           Move employers to fair wages and employees not to shirk

Let Your justice permeate our economics as we strive

           To grant meaning, purpose, dignity to all our neighbors’ lives

Lead us in our faithfulness, our witness now laid bare

           Unite us, Lord, with all the saints. In Jesus—hear our prayer.

Lord, we pray for those we lift before You, both silently and aloud: for Dave, Mike, Pat, Chuck, and Lon; for the people of Our Saviour’s in Sebeka, and for those who violated their trust; for families in mourning who search for a merciful God; for the unity of the Assyrian and Chaldean churches; for peace in the Middle East; and for all who dare not pray to You.

Into Your hands, O Lord, we commend all for whom we pray

Trusting in Your mercy to light and guard our way.  AMEN.