The Hardest Parable
Certain things separate life inside the Beltway from life outside the Beltway. Living in such proximity to the nation’s capital, so close to buildings made of marble and granite and full of leather-bound books, just down the street from firms with multiple names, there is a level of respectability and civility we are accustomed to. That is not to say people who live outside the Beltway are not respectable or civil, but come on, there is something different about living where we live; something different about being a church where we are.
After all, you expect your clergy to read theology books, leather-bound books, and the Washington Post. You expect your clergy to connect with what is happening around you to what God is doing in the thick of our mess. Even if you don’t live inside the Beltway, living in DC or Northern Virginia carries a level of status that cuts through social and economic statuses. Our below-the-fold stories, even the stories on page A9, are front and center in newspapers elsewhere.
That is why last week, when Pastor Sara quoted Robert Capon, saying, Jesus “saves losers and losers only,” I was taken aback.
Losers? Doesn’t Capon know who we are? Doesn’t he know the connections and influence we have?
We are in the second week of our Story Teller | Parables sermon series.
The stories we tell, in and out of the church, form us, communicate who we are to others, and reveal to us the beauty and sorrow of the world.
The stories told by Jesus can leave us scratching our heads, bawling our fists in frustration, crying, and full of laughter. Most of the stories told by Jesus are parables. Parables are stories using illustrations familiar to the original audience that reveal a Biblical truth. Jesus began each parable by saying, “The Kingdom of God is like….” Like a lost sheep, coin, or son.
The Kingdom of God is like a fig tree, a Samaritan walking a dangerous road, or an unjust steward or crooked manager in today's lesson.
A rich man made a living off the backs of tenant farmers leasing land on the rich man’s estate. Tenant farmers had to purchase supplies from the company store for their farms and daily living. These purchases were made after paying exorbitant rent. But the harvest was never enough, resulting in debt yearly owed to the rich man. Year after year, the rich man got richer, and the farmers went further and further into debt.
The unjust steward or manager is a step above the farmers. He is the enforcer and collector working on behalf of the rich man.
Times were tough, and somewhere along the way, the manager decided to cut corners or keep some of the estate’s profits for himself. A Bible-time Robin Hood had Robin Hood decide to keep what he stole from the rich for himself.
The rich man is ready to fire the manager of his estate.
‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’[i]
The manager knows what is about to happen, so he sets himself up for a post-employment life by forgiving the farmers' debts and garnering support for himself by forgiving impossible debts.
At this point in Jesus’ parable, most respectable people, people like you and me, can’t believe the manager’s actions.
“Yeah, fire his butt,” we think to ourselves. “He’s not unjust; he’s a thief.”
This parable goes off the rails for respectable people – people who are formed by the ways of the world when the rich man forgives and commends the manager.
The man stole from his employer. He cost his employer money, and he was commended?
But because Jesus is telling the story, such is the Kingdom of God.
Jesus has been preaching about grace for the last six chapters of the Gospel of Luke. That is six chapters of Jesus saying God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. Jesus is in the business of saving losers because, according to Capon, Jesus is a loser himself.
The parable of the unjust steward is a story of Jesus’ life. Jesus was not respectable by our standards. He broke the rules set by the establishment. He spent more time with the “wrong” people than he did with the “right” people .”And ultimately, Jesus died a criminal’s death.
Respectability tells us forgiveness is a top-down affair; only the rich man could forgive the debts of his tenants. But, as Jesus tells us in our lesson, forgiveness in the Kingdom of God is bottom-up.
The soon-to-be fired manager realized he had no life outside the rich man’s estate. Because he was a dead man walking, he was free to view the world as he never could; from the bottom. And in the Kingdom of God, new life comes from the bottom up. New life for the manager, the tenant farmers, and even the rich man.
One of the difficulties with Jesus’ stories is that we misplace ourselves in the story. We like to think that we are the shepherd seeking the lost sheep, but we’re really the sheep. We want to think of ourselves as the Good Samaritan, but really, we are the person in the ditch.
The unjust steward in our lesson is none other than Jesus himself. Jesus is telling a story about the Kingdom of God, his kingdom, where debts are forgiven, contrary to what respectability says.
Capon wrote, “Respectability regards only life, success, winning; it will have no truck with the grace that works by death and losing – which is the only kind of grace there is.”[ii]
Through Grace, Jesus saves those respectability says are beyond saving. This parable is not about finances or management. It is a parable about new life.
New life free from the weight and guilt and consequences of our sin.
New life that comes to us by way of the unjust steward’s death to self.
New life that is a gift from God, given to respectable people but also to the people ignored, exploited, and forgotten by the respectability our world demands.
The unjust manager is inviting us to love God where we love wealth, to love God where we love security by relying and trusting upon the Grace of God given at no cost to us.
Grace, love, and mercy for scoundrels like you and me.