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TITLE:  The Parable of the Dishonest Manager   SCRIPTURE:  Luke 16:1-13
 
 
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager is one of the most unusual parables of Jesus.
Did Jesus really condone the actions of a thief?
And are we supposed to go and do likewise?
In his book, Speaking Parables, David Buttrick writes,
 
"The parable has embarrassed Christians for centuries.
Clearly, the parable embarrassed Luke, for he keeps adding verses -- 8b, 9, 10-12 -- trying to find an acceptable moral for the story.
How could Jesus tell the story of a crook and, what's more, seem to approve of the crook's behavior?"
(p.
210)
 
A couple of years ago I preached a sermon based on this parable entitled, "As Resourceful as a Thief."
The gist of it was, if we were as diligent in using our creative abilities to serve Christ as thieves are to get something for nothing, there's no telling what we could accomplish.
I used the story of Billy Sol Estes to illustrate the point.
You may remember.
Billy Sol Estes built an empire of grain elevators and fertilizer tanks out in West Texas.
Then he added banks and holding companies and just about everything else money could buy.
He was as crooked as a snake.
Some say he could sell the same crop of wheat a half dozen times or more!
But he was charismatic and charming and bigger than life.
Even people he defrauded brought their business back to him time and again, never believing ole Billy meant them any harm.
Well, his corruption finally got the best of him, and he ended up serving a number of years in a federal penitentiary.
But I think it's only fair to say if he'd used his imagination and charm to helping people instead of robbing them, he could've left a lasting legacy for generations to come.
And this is how I've interpreted the Parable of the Dishonest Manager up to now: Dare to be as bold and decisive about sharing the Good News of God's love as a crook who's about to lose his job.
Then I read the comments of another Bible scholar and theologian who helped me see the parable in a new way.
His name is Roger Garrett.
Roger brought out some aspects of this particular parable that other commentators overlook.
For example, the parable begins,
     
      "There was rich man who had a manager,
      and charges were brought to him
      that this man was squandering his property."
(v.
1)
 
If you look closely, you'll realize something's missing: We're not told who brought the charges against the manager.
The implication is that they were made anonymously.
Luke simply says, "charges were brought against him."
This sounds like hearsay.
Perhaps some disgruntled worker slipped a note under the rich man's door.
And from every indication, the charges were never substantiated.
The manager never got to have his day in court.
The allegation itself was enough to prompt the rich man to fire him.
And, if this is true, then it was the manager who was the victim of injustice, not the landowner.
What's more, it's not clear just what the manager had done that was all that dishonest to begin with.
The text says he was squandering the rich man's property.
That could mean he was wasting it.
The same verb is used in The Parable of the Prodigal Son when it says the younger son "squandered his property in dissolute living."
But it could also mean that he was simply spreading it thin, investing widely.
The question is, was it dishonest?
And so, without a proper hearing and some sort of proof of misconduct, we're left with the impression that the manager could have been more of a victim of injustice than a crook caught with his hand in the till.
And, if this is true, then it's easy to see how Jesus may have used this incident as the basis of a parable; in which case, the kingdom of God is a like a manager who was falsely accused and put out of work, but instead of getting angry and feeling dejected, he got busy and used his position and what little time he had left to land on his feet.
Seen in this way, the parable's not so far-fetched after all.
Sometimes you have the rug pulled out from under you through no fault of your own.
You lose your job because the company you work for decides to downsize its work force … a love one dies … a drunk driver runs a stop sign or drifts into your lane of traffic … a storm takes the roof off your house.
The question is -- whether it's your fault or not -- what are you supposed to do when the wheels come off the wagon?
The parable teaches us to get into high gear.
And this is exactly what the manager did.
He said,
 
      "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." (v.
3)
 
It's at this point the parable really gets interesting.
For it says the manager summoned his master's debtors, one by one.
He summoned them.
Sounds like a court of law, doesn't it?
In the same way the rich man had summoned the manager to stand before him and then acted as judge and jury in deciding his fate, now the manager uses his authority to summon those who were indebted to the rich man and act as judge and jury over them.
Only, this time, the intent was not to treat them unjustly as he had been treated, but to grant forgiveness and mercy and reduce their debt to a manageable sum.
"He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?'
He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of oil.'
He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and write fifty.'
Then 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.'"
(16:5-7)
 
Now, some commentators say that the manager had overcharged them to begin with and was simply doing what was right, discounting the bill to what it should have been in the first place.
Some say he was taking off his own manager's fee that he was entitled to receive, exorbitant as it was.
Whatever the explanation, the effect was to reduce the debt of money owed to his master and, in so doing, create a debt of friendship owed to him that he would be able to cash in on in the future.
And it was hardly underhanded because, at every step along the way, he dutifully recorded his actions for the rich man to audit.
Luke makes this plain.
He says that when the rich man examined the books and saw what the manager had done, he commended him because he had acted so shrewdly.
In my mind's eye, I can see the rich man poring over the books, then smiling to himself and saying, "That's good.
By golly, that's really good.
You could have chosen to become bitter and angry; you could've gotten discouraged and felt dejected; but, no, you took the high road.
You took a bad situation and made something good come out of it.
Yes, your friends will make a place for you.
And some day you'll look back on me and laugh at my foolishness."
Well, that's at least one way to understand The Parable of the Dishonest Manager.
The question is, what does it mean for us today?
First, it reminds us that injustice is a part of life.
Oh, there are times when we're our own worst enemies.
We do and say things that cause us grief.
At the same time, I dare say we've all experienced a taste of injustice.
We've been cheated, slandered, lied to, betrayed and double-crossed.
If you haven't, just wait.
What's ultimately important is not what happens to you, but how you respond, whether you let you the circumstances of life get the best of you or rise above them.
Personally, it helps me to remember the story of Joseph.
Joseph's brothers sold him to a band of Midianites, who took him to Egypt and then sold him into slavery.
His master's wife tried to seduce him and when he wouldn't go along, she cried rape.
He spent the next years of his life in a dungeon.
Well, you know the story: He interpreted the Pharaoh's dream and was made Prime Minister over all Egypt.
A drought struck the region and, in time, his brothers came down to Egypt to buy grain.
Well, guess who they had to deal with -- Joseph!
You could say it was an awkward moment.
They stammered and stumbled and finally managed to say something like, "You know, Joseph, when we sold you to the Midianites we really didn't mean you any harm."
And in words I'll always cherish, Joseph looked at them straight in the eye and said, "Oh, yes you did.
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