The dishonest manager

Luke 16.1-13 (NRSV)

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager

¹Then Jesus^* said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ²So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” ³Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” ⁶He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” ⁷Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth^* so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.^*

¹⁰ ‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth,^* who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? ¹³No 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 God and wealth.’^*

This is one of the difficult parables of our Lord. Barclay writes: “It is a story about as choice a set of rascals as one could meet anywhere.”

The Manager was a rascal: he was a slave, but one who had been placed in charge of running the master’s estate. This was common, as In Palestine there were many absentee Landlords. This Manager had made a career out of embezzling his master out of much wealth.

The debtors were also rascals. They probably owed rent. Rent was often paid in kind and not in money. It would be agreed that a portion of what the tenant produced would be given to the estate. The Manager knew that he was about to lose his job and so came up with an idea that he probably thought was brilliant. He falsified the entry in the books so that the debtors appeared to owe far less than they actually did owe in reality. This would result in two effects: (i) the debtors would be grateful to him and (ii) because they were part to this dishonesty, the Steward would be able to blackmail them to keep quite or else face further difficulty.

The Master also seems to have been a rascal, for, instead of being shocked and disgusted by what had happened, he praised the shrewd workings of the Manager.

Barclay suggests that there are FOUR possible lessons attached to this parable.

Firstly, Verse 8 seems to suggest that ‘... the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.’ This implies that if only the Christian was as eager and ingenious in his attempt to attain goodness as the people of this world are eager to attain money and comfort, we would be better people. If only we were to give as much attention to the things of our souls as we do the things which concern our business or careers, we would become much better people.  Barclay writes:

“Over and over again a man will expend 20 times the amount of time and money and effort on his pleasure, his hobby, his garden, his sport as he does on his church. Our Christianity will begin to be real and effective only when we spend as much time and effort on it as we do on our worldly activities.”

Secondly, verse 9 suggests another lesson: ‘⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.’ Barclay suggests that this is saying that material possessions should be used to cement the friendships ‘... wherein the real and permanent value of life lies ...’ The Rabbis had a saying: “The rich help the poor in this world, but the poor help the rich in the world to come ...”

But this verse could also refer to a different lesson. A person can use their wealth selfishly or to make life easier for others. There are many scholars who are grateful to rich people who have enabled them to study through the generosity of benefactors who made funds available to support them through their studies. We also all know of those who helped us through times of need in the most practical of ways. Barclay concludes: “Possessions are not in themselves a sin, but they are a great responsibility, and the man who uses them to help his friends has gone far to discharge that responsibility.”

Yet another reminder that our Lord wants us to struggle to find meaning and so Luke does not harmonise and interpret this difficult passage but invites us to work through it. Fundamentalism / literalism in passages like this would lead to disaster!

G B Caird agrees that this parable ‘... bristles with difficulties ...’ and suggests that there are (in his mind) two possible interpretations:

Firstly, If we say that the transactions described in the parable were dishonest, we can hardly believe that they were praised by the landlord, who would have – in effect – have been a victim of fraud. The Master must be a reference to Jesus who commends the manager, not for his dishonesty, but for his realism and determination in dealing with a sudden emergency. If this is true, then this parable is one of crisis, ‘... a warning from Jesus to his contemporaries to take resolute and immediate action in the face of impending disaster ...’ When the crisis of the crucifixion had passed and the story came to be used in the early church, it was taken as a lesson on the right and wrong use of money. Caird continues: “Stripped of its accretions, it is the story of an engaging rascal who, faced with dismissal for incompetence, and being too soft for manual labour and too proud to live on charity, made provisions for the future by a systematic falsification of his accounts, which put each of his masters’ debtors under lasting obligation to himself.” If this is the case, the debtors were probably NOT tenants who had agreed to pay their rent in kind, but merchants who had bought produce on the strength of a promissory note. The point being made is that people of the world  cope with an emergency with a far-sighted realism and resourcefulness that religious people could do well to emulate in their spiritual lives.

Secondly, it is possible that the manager is called dishonest because of his mismanagement of the estate. This could imply that there was nothing wrong with what he did – as described in the parable - and so the master can praise him for his ingenuity which he used to get himself out of his predicament. This could be feasible if one places it into the context of the Jewish law of usury. The Law of Moses forbade taking interest from Jews on loans. The Pharisees were often very wealthy people and had found ways of evading the Law. They argued that the purpose of the Law was to protect the destitute from exploitation, not to prevent the lending of money for the mutual profit of both the lender and the borrower. The loan could be regarded as a business partnership and interest as a fair sharing of the profits.

The two debtors in the parable had received large loans from the manager. What the manager did was return the promissory notes to the debtors and require them to make new ones in which no interest was to be charged on the loan. This would mean that (probably) for the first time in his career, he was truly being obedient to the Law. There were no witnesses and so the master was in no position to repudiate the manager’s action and was able to acquire ‘... an entirely undeserved reputation for his pious observance of the Law against usury.’ Here the master is not a reference to Jesus and the master is just as guilty of amassing wealth in a questionable way. Caird concludes that the master was ‘... ready to make spiritual capital by a munificent gesture, especially as no other course was open to him ...’

This second interpretation is an attack on the nit picking methods of interpreting Scripture by which the Pharisees managed to keep their religious principles from interfering with their business dealings. This parable rather challenges them to cake a much more sincere and honest commitment to the service of God. Just as the manager and the master can see how important it is to keep in good standing with others in a time of crisis, religious people ought to be equally carefully to keep in good standing with God.

The collected sayings that follow are variations on the theme of the parable:

If dishonest men can use the money of others in order to make friends so that will receive him and look after him when he is out of a job, how much more should honest people use their money to bless others so that God will receive them into the heavenly mansions.

Our experiences in this world are tests of character: by one’s behaviour in small matters will show if one can be trusted with larger responsibilities.

Worldly wealth is given to us on trust – it does not belong to us. By our use of worldly wealth we can reveal whether or not we can be entrusted with real wealth, the wealth of the kingdom of God.

There  is also the warning that where there is money, there is also menace but money can be redeemed from its sinister character but only if it is used in order to promote friendship. Caird continues to explain: “... to invest money in benefaction is to exchange it for the currency of heaven.”

Money is the great rival of God – because it is easier to worship money than God. Caird continues: “All men must choose between the road to self-assertion that leads to the temple of mammon and the road to self-sacrifice that leads to the temple of God.”

Bishop Tom also offers some interesting thoughts on this difficult passage. He makes the obvious point that we are dealing with a parable. Parables are not only moral teachings but always symbolise something more significant as well.

If we are faced with a first century Jewish story we had never seen before about a Master and a steward (manager)  a Jew would automatically know that the Master referred to God and the manager referred to Israel. Israel was supposed to be God’s property manager, the light of God’s world to others and responsible to God. But Israel had failed at her task and is under threat of imminent dismissal. What then ought Israel to do. The Pharisees’ answer was to make the requirements of the law even stricter and try to make Israel even more holy in their eyes. This had the wrong effect, because it meant excluding the very people Jesus was trying to include. Jesus, in this parable, is pointing out that Israel is facing a real crisis and so what is required is to throw caution to the wind, forget legal observance and to make friends with as many as they can. This is what the children ‘of this world would do’ and so the ‘children of light’ – in the first instance the people of Israel – ought to do as well – as Wright continues: “... learning from the cunning people of the world how to cope in the crisis that was coming upon their generation ...”

So, instead of hoarding money and land, Jesus’ advice is to use it, as far as one can, to make friends. A crisis was on its way in which alternative homes, homes that should last for all eternity, would be needed.

This is what his first hearers needed to take hold of.

What is the possible message for today?

It has nothing to do with commending shady business practices or personal financial advice. Rather, it challenges us to ‘... sit light to the extra regulations which we impose on one another, not least in the church, which are over and above the gospel itself...’

The church is passing through difficult times and needs (once more) to reassess what really matters and what is of little or no significance. Wright challenges us as follows: “Perhaps we need to learn to live unconventionally, be prepared to make new friends across traditional barriers, to throw caution to the winds and discover again, in the true fellowship of the gospel, a home that will last.”

With reference to the last part of this reading – from verse 10 onwards ...

Wright rightly states that wealth is a killer. The media is full of stories about money and people in the west are obsessed with it. There are also an ever increasing number of scandals associated with it with a range of people – from politicians to others in the public being caught out when they are dishonest. Sadly, the eleventh commandment seems to be the one most feared, which is “Don’t get caught ...!” The lines between legitimate business and illegitimate business are blurred: When does a gift become a bribe? When it is right to use other people’s money to make money for yourself?

From a parable about money, Luke moves on to actual teaching about money. Here we find Jesus using the strongest language about the dangers of money.

Wright suggests that the key to understanding what Jesus is trying to get across is the need to be faithful. Money is not a ours to own and possess, it is given to us on trust. God gives us wealth – or the talents and gifts to earn wealth and he expects us to use it to his glory and the welfare of others, not for our own private enjoyment alone. If we do not rediscover this perspective, we will find ourselves torn between two masters – God or money.

This was a real issue in Jesus’ day. There were small numbers of very rich people and masses of the very poor. The rich included the chief priests, and many of the Pharisees who believed and taught that being wealthy was a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus taught in chapter 14 this was simply not true, because the standards of God are the opposite to the standards of the world.

I was interested to see that this was the Gospel reading used by the Pope Benedict XVI at the Beatification of John Henry Newman when he was in Birmingham some years ago. I wonder what the average uninformed listener would have made of it?