“It’s Audit Time”

(Luke 16:1-13)

             Then 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.  So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you?  Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’  Then 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.  I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.  So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’  He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’  He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it 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.  ’And 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 the light.  And 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.  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.  If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?  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 God and wealth.”

            Do you know what this text screams to me?  That it is really hard to live our lives with complete integrity and to be consistent in keeping our beliefs and actions aligned. 

I have never liked preaching on this particular parable because of this.  Of course, I have cheated in my preaching and only used the statement at the end, “You cannot serve God and wealth,” and I used that for a stewardship message.  But, honestly, it’s difficult to take apart this parable and find Jesus’ message.  Still, I want to for my own benefit as well as yours.

            Now, at each of our Finance Committee meetings we use the first half hour for the committee members (not Rick and me!) to look over the last 3 months’ financial reports to make sure everything lines up and the numbers agree.  That way, the committee audits continually rather than waits for the end of the year push.  It’s a good system because the numbers are fresh and don’t require remembering everything for a whole year.  Fortunately we are never in the position of the dishonest manager who is being dismissed because he has been found to be cooking the books.

            In the story we are told how that manager sees himself going forward.  He, after he’s been dismissed, is planning things so that he will still be welcomed into people’s homes, in spite of his alleged wrongdoing.  So he approaches those who owe the boss with deals that will reduce their indebtedness to that boss and will allow them to pay the lesser amount. 

            Amazingly, once he finds out about the sweet deals that the manager has made, the master commends him for his shrewdness.  Because the way things are done in the world doesn’t necessarily line up with how we do them in the Jesus House.  The parable is very clear that our possessions, our wealth–they are temporary; they last only for the moment.  That wealth, those possessions, the security that they represent will ultimately give out (much as we try to plan so they won’t).  Then the only thing that will help us is mercy: mercy from God and from those around us.

            Much as I want my ducks to be in a row and everything aligned when I’m preaching, this parable is difficult.  I would like all the parables of Jesus to fit with his overwhelming message of care for the poor, the little ones, the imprisoned, the needy.  Instead, this one has us thinking about the realism of what to do when things are not aligned exactly with our morals and ethics, when we end up cutting corners in the everyday life of making compromises.  I can come up with all kinds of examples of this.

            For example, most of us buy things that, if we knew where and how they were manufactured, would be opposed to supporting that country that most likely has human rights abuses or one that does not pay people for honest work or uses child labor to accomplish these tasks.  Yet, we overlook these facts so that we can have our smart phones and other technology.  We really don’t want to know where our shoes and other items of apparel come from either. 

We see colleges and universities giving up on their commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to keep their donors happy or for fear they will be singled out for not complying with new strictures that have recently been put in place. 

And there are the people who are driving Teslas–even though they might have a problem with Elon Musk’s opinions and behavior—because they just love his cars.

There are preachers who won’t say anything that might offend anyone in their congregation.  I get it.  I have served full time through my career and needed assurance that my job and my income were secure.

There are civil servants–local representatives, state lawmakers, Congresspeople and Senators–who carefully choose their stances on everything.  There are politicians who take what could be considered money with strings attached so that they even have a chance of being elected.

There are folks who are having to be “creative” in their businesses in order to make a living.

There are situations in which folks need to keep their thoughts and opinions to themselves so that people near and dear to them and vulnerable folks around them are not at risk to be hurt.

There are those of us who don’t speak our truths to relatives and friends in order to keep the peace and keep relationships that are precious to us.

There are people whose business is in sales who must be allowed into offices and companies in order to conduct that business, so they find ways to make themselves welcome, just like our guy in the story.

I think of spouses who “agree” with their husbands and wives in order to save the marriage for security’s sake or for the children or simply not to rock the boat. 

When I put these examples and all the others beside our manager who spoke out of both sides of his mouth, I feel a bit more sympathetic toward him.  But the fact that his boss understands the ways of the world and actually commends him for his shrewdness has me working hard to fully understand this parable.

On the other hand, in cancelling the debts of those who owed the owner, is it possible that the manager is doing good toward the poor and indebted? Even though, it seems, that the manager was simply paving his own way to be welcomed in these homes, is it possible that he had done a good thing for those who were deeply indebted to the owner?

These things we do not know.  What we do know is that, all these earthly matters aside, we cannot serve two masters.  We cannot serve both God and wealth.  Our worry about security cannot take our eyes off God.  God must come first.  What will we do when our possessions give out?  What will we do when our security is at risk?  This is all going to happen, whether it be at our death or before.  We will be depending solely upon the mercy of God and of each other.

I am speaking to us, those who believe we have our ducks all in a row, our security managed, our money safe, our health care in place.  Whether or not our wealth, our Social Security, our Medicare, our Medicaid is safe, ultimately, we depend upon the mercy of God and of each other.  Poor people know this.  People who are living on the edge of poverty know this.  We finally depend upon mercy, and if we have been serving God AND wealth, the wealth is gonna give out at some point.  We cannot control it.

As all my examples illustrate, we all have struggled to work within our earthly norms, but, folks, we have to remember that our job is to serve God first and foremost, always and ever.  Amen.