Proper 20C: Amos 8:4-7; Luke 16:1-13 St. Paul’s,
Smithfield, NC 9/22/2019
Jim Melnyk: “A Rude Awakening”
The prophet Amos isn’t the guy you want to find camped out on
your front door when you wake up in the morning, or camped out in front of your
office when you show up to work – he’s the ancient equivalent of having 60 Minutes
show up – only worse, because he speaks a word from God.
“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to
ruin the poor of the land, saying, "When will the new moon be over so that
we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel
great, 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."[1]
And
don’t get me started on Jesus and his parable in today’s lesson from Luke. Why
in the world would the boss commend the guy he just fired for cutting in half
his accounts receivable?[2] How
in the world does “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth”[3]
fit the gospel as we know it? As my homiletics professor from Sewanee writes,
“This is the weirdest story in the New Testament. Really. If you meet someone
who says they know exactly what it means, run away quickly and hold on to your
purse of wallet, because most scholars think even Luke wasn’t sure what to make
of it.”[4]
So,
what do we do with Amos chastising greedy merchants and Jesus seemingly
applauding the actions of a shoddy manager? Honestly, do either of these lessons
make any of us feel good upon first reading? Where in the midst of a
finger-pointing prophet’s tirade and Jesus’ enigmatic parable are we supposed
to find good news?
Well,
at first glance there isn’t a whole lot of good news – if any. Both stories seem
to be about rude awakenings more than anything else. At least some of the
merchants in pre-exilic Israel have been using business practices that are
unethical at best, and bordering on the criminal. The sabbath observance for
these particular people seems to be more about business planning than about finding
communion with God. They cannot wait for the sabbath to end so they can get
back making money off the easy marks who are also their neighbors. They skimp
on the measurements and overcharge on the price – nailing their clients at both
ends of the exchange. They even sell the sweepings of the wheat – the stuff
that’s fallen to the floor – the stuff they would never dream of using
themselves. And Amos tells us – God will never forget what they’re doing!
And
lest we take too much comfort in distancing ourselves from their actions, or
think Christians aren’t like that, I dare say there’s a universality about them
that should make modern-day folks take a good look in the mirror. The good news
is that they can heed the prophet’s warning and transform their lives.
I guess we can also find some good news on the surface of today’s
parable. Even a seemingly worthless manager – a business agent who is charged
with “squandering [the boss’] property – can find redemption. And while there
doesn’t seem to be anything dishonest about him – he has certainly been
wasteful and careless. Jesus describes him with the same words he uses for the
prodigal son just a few pages back in Luke’s gospel. On the surface nothing in
the story really seems to make sense – it’s not logical. But then again, it’s a
story meant to illustrate a truth about the kingdom rather than a realistic
example out of an accounting journal.
The story isn’t really about the specific amounts of olive oil or
wheat – just that the debt owed is substantial. The percentage of the price
breaks offered by the manager who has been jerked awake by his being fired
isn’t important – other than letting the reader know it’s a discount substantial
enough to get the debtors to pay up.
We don’t know if the manager is discounting a questionably high
interest rate on the invoice, or possibly foregoing his own commission in the
sale. That doesn’t seem to matter to Jesus as he tells the story. It seems to
be more about this shoddy manager having a rather rude awakening and finding a
way to make his boss and this boss’ debtors both happy – thereby regaining some
form of good standing among them all. Everyone might not get everything they
want out of the deal, but everyone gets enough to be happy. And the manager is
commended for his quick thinking.
Methodist Pastor Robb McCoy tells us that the kingdom "has
little to do with keeping proper ledgers and making sure that everyone gets
their due.”[5] In the end the kingdom of God is all about relationships and the
priorities we set for our lives. The kingdom is about reconciliation. McCoy
reminds us the kingdom “is about forgiving our debts, as we forgive our
debtors” – which is perhaps the most straight-forward translation of the words
in the Lord’s Prayer. McCoy, like my homiletics professor, sees this parable as
both strange and challenging. “It is a challenge…to look at what cancelling
debt really looks like. It is a challenge to take a close look at how [and when
we] serve wealth over God. It is a challenge,” says McCoy, “a challenge to look
at how I spend money, how I save money, and how I treat others. It’s a strange
one, all right. Maybe that’s how [Jesus] intended it.”[6] And that hard look can be a rude awakening for us.
The good news is that with God’s help we can cultivate
relationships over stuff. We can cultivate reconciliation and forgiveness of
debt in a nation where debt has become a major industry – with nearly
$14-trillion dollars of debt in our nation by the third quarter of last year! That’s
consumer debt, not national debt.[7] We can choose to place God and our relationships with one
another first.
The late Billy Graham once said, “A checkbook is a theological
document; it will tell you who and what you worship.” Lord, that’s a
challenging statement if I ever heard one. What’s more, our charge card bills
make just as theological a statement as our checkbook registers. Perhaps we
might all consider taking the Checkbook/Charge Card Challenge – the challenge
to pull out our checkbook registers or our charge card statements for the past
year and take a spending inventory. Chances are the biggest ticket items are
for necessary things like mortgages or rent, groceries, and medical expenses.
That said, what percentage of our spending goes toward the ministry of God in
the world around us? How do our checkbooks and charge card statements reflect
our desire to see God’s world around us made whole? What do our checkbooks tell
us about who and what we worship? What and where are the treasures we store up
for ourselves? As Jesus asks us, do we store up treasures on earth where moth
and rust consume, or do we store up treasures that consist of relationships
with one another and relationships with God?
You see, if accumulating wealth, or accumulating lots of stuff,
or surrounding ourselves with over-the-top luxury, gets in the way of our
relationships with each other and with God, then perhaps we are trying to serve
two masters at best, or only comfort and wealth at the worst. Then Jesus telling
us to give it all away makes sense. For as Jesus reminds us, where our treasure
is there our heart will be also.[8]
[1]
Amos 8:4-6
[2]
Luke 16:8
[3]
Luke 16:9a
[4]
Bill Brosend, Conversations with Scripture: The Parables, 80.
[5]
Robb McCoy, Synthesis CE 9/22/2019
[6]
ibid
[7]
New York Federal Reserve, https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/
[8]
Matthew 6:21
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