Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 16:1-9
October 19, 2003
You tell me. How ironic is this? On Friday night I stayed home for a change, the better to research this text about a manager-in-residence who takes a few accounting liberties, commonly known as “cooking the books.” Then I awakened at 4:00 in the morning with all of this swirling in my head, leading Kris (who was also awake, given my tossing and turning) to say: “Why don’t you go downstairs and outline your sermon? Maybe then you can go back to sleep.” So I went downstairs, prepared my outline, and fell back asleep at 5:30. Two hours later I awakened once more, made the coffee and opened up Saturday’s newspaper to read the headline about a pair of high-placed Kmart executives who (themselves) conspired to do a little creative “book cooking.” Which, when I read further, involved receivables from vendors, which is exactly the issue in this strange little story in Luke.
It is a story no one preaches, because it is a story no one understands. Let me share a sampling of commentators’ opinions concerning it.
“Nothing whatsoever edifying about it.”
“Many people wonder if Jesus really told it.”
“This parable has caused no end of confusion, controversy and embarrassment in the church.”
“This is a difficult parable to interpret, in that it features as choice a set of rascals as one could meet anywhere.”
So let’s have at it. Note that the setting is chapter 16….important only in the sense that it follows chapter 15. All of us love chapter 15. Because in chapter 15, Luke gives us three of the loveliest stories found in the Gospel. All three stories involve the “lost and found department.” There is the story of the lost sheep, followed by the story of the lost coin, leading to the story of the lost boy. The only apparent similarity between the “unjust steward” story of Luke 16 and the aforementioned trio from chapter 15 is that all involve an unlikely figure at the story’s center.
The parable of the lost sheep features a shepherd. And there were few rungs lower on the social ladder of the Holy Land than the rung occupied by shepherds. Tax collectors may have been the bottom feeders. But shepherds were pretty low. In the parable of the lost coin, the central figure is a woman. And while women ranked above shepherds, it wasn’t by much. And in the parable of the lost boy (the prodigal son), the central figure is a defector from the family circle….who, given the homage and honor paid to patriarchy and ancestry, sounds like a son who walked in one day and blew his father off. A good Jew, hearing Jesus tell the stories in chapter 15, could easily have said: “Can you believe he told a story about someone like that?”
Now we come to chapter 16, featuring an even less attractive figure….namely, an unjust steward. This is an absentee landlord story. There are several of them in scripture. You know the format. The owner goes away. Somebody is left in charge. The implied message being: “Take care of things while I’m gone.” The absentee landlord stories are really addressed to the church. It is the church that is being told: “Take care of things while I’m gone.” But the implication is always: “Sooner or later, I’ll check in on things to see how they’re going.”
In this story, the absentee landlord is rich (meaning that there is a lot to look after). Somehow, he receives word that they are not being looked after. In short, his assets are being dissipated. How? The Bible doesn’t say. Several commentators use the word “embezzlement.” Which I can understand, having been a victim of embezzlement. Not me, personally. But me, professionally. The church I was serving in the early nineties was a victim of embezzlement. The amount taken was $151,000. The “chief steward” in that case was the church treasurer, a 57-year-old grandmother. I felt terrible because it happened on my watch.
We uncovered it swiftly. We communicated it openly. We handled it cleanly. And we survived it magnificently. But I was devastated personally. I was told by law enforcement professionals that, next to rape, embezzlement is the second most under-reported crime. Why? Because in both cases, the victim thinks: “I must have done something to invite this.”
But back to the story. Upon uncovering fraud, the master calls the steward on the carpet. “What’s this I hear about you?” he asks. Followed by the mandate: “Prepare a thorough accounting. Then clean out your desk.”
The steward figures: “I am in trouble. Big trouble. Deep trouble. Whatever will I do? I am too weak to dig. I am too proud to beg. I better come up with a plan.”
Which he does. Come up with a plan, I mean. He calls everybody who owes his master anything. “Let’s make a deal,” he says. You want double irony? I’ll give you double irony. Saturday morning, between reading the Free Press and writing my sermon, I made a quick run to Beaumont Hospital. Flipping the radio dial, I landed on WJR. And who was being interviewed by Warren Pierce? None other than Monty Hall (who once starred in “Let’s Make a Deal”). Go figure.
But back to the deal offered by the unjust steward. What kind was it? It was a “pay up by paying less” deal. Said the steward to the first debtor: “You owe 100 measures of olive oil (875 gallons). Erase the 100 and write in 50.” To a second debtor he said: “You owe 100 measures of wheat (1000 bushels). Erase the 100 and write in 80.” Why did these people owe these debts? Who knows? Maybe they were tenants accustomed to paying rents in commodities. Maybe they were customers who, while billed, had not yet paid. And for anybody wondering how one landlord could deal in both oil and grain, hey, this is a story. Don’t force it into a straitjacket.
What did the steward hope to gain by settling some accounts 50 cents on the dollar and other accounts 80 cents on the dollar? Friends….that’s what he hoped to gain. He reasoned as follows: “When I am forced to go, I’ll have a place to go. I will have done these debtors a favor. They’ll owe me. I’ll just go from house to house and cash in my chits.”
He may have also figured that if what he was doing (in settling cheap) was unethical, then what they were doing (in settling cheap) was also unethical. One can picture him saying: “They are in this with me. If I go down, they’ll go down, too. I’ll have ample opportunity for blackmail.”
Now the master re-enters. The rich guy reappears. Surely he will set things straight. He will play hard ball, because in every other absentee landlord story, the returning rich guy plays hard ball. He will call the unjust steward’s bluff. The shyster will be forced to stand up, fess up and ante up. But not in this case. The landlord doesn’t ream out the crook. He praises the crook. The unjust steward is commended (“cool move….wise move….good move”). Or, as William Barclay translates the beginning of verse 8: “And the master praised the wicked steward because he had acted shrewdly.” End of story.
* * * * *
Which leads to much head scratching and a collective chorus of “Whassup with that?” I mean, Jesus told it. But what does Jesus really think about it? The latter part of verse 8 and the entirety of verse 9 would tend to suggest an answer. First, Jesus says: “The sons of this world are shrewder in their generation than are the sons of light.” Which is one way of saying to the disciples:
Yes, the chief steward was a rascal.
But he was a very clever rascal.
If only you guys could emulate his cleverness (albeit for better ends).
Or, in George Buttrick’s words: “The rogue acted with prompt foresight. If only Jesus’ followers could do as much from nobler motives.” Liberally translated, I take this to mean:
The crook took care of business.
The church needs to take care of business.
Both should be clever.
Both should be business-like.
Even though the church’s means should be nobler and the church’s aims should be higher.
Which brings Bernard to mind. A lot of us who work here know Bernard. A lot of the people who work in churches up and down Maple know Bernard. Bernard is something of a con artist. He doesn’t sell stuff, so much as he sells himself. Bernard is smooth….glib….polished. He can tug on your heart, even as he eats at your conscience. He’s always got a problem. And he’s always just one step and a few dollars from solving that problem. He can quote scripture better than most preachers. And he can cry (even pray) at the drop of a hat. Bernard’s aim is to get dollars out of my pocket and into his pocket. “Help me just one more time, Reverend, and you’ll never see me again. I know I’ve been a pest before, but I need to ask this small favor one last time.”
When Bernard leaves, we all turn to each other and say: “He’s so slick.…so smooth….so persistent….if only he could put his shrewdness to work in some legitimate enterprise. There’s no telling what he might accomplish.”
But the issue in verse 8b is not just about the clever becoming Christian. The issue is also about the Christian becoming clever. If there’s a point that seems to leap from the lips of Jesus, it appears to be: “Why can’t my guys be that shrewd? Why can’t my church be that shrewd?”
Let me ask you this. Is the church a business? Sure, the church is a business. It’s a different kind of business. But that doesn’t make it any less a business. The church is all about serving, but it’s also all about staffing. And while the church is about prayers and programs, the church is also about pledges and payrolls. And most will agree that the church’s business ought to be well conceived, well planned, well administered and well executed….along with ethical and successful (those, too). “Holy” is no excuse for sloppy. Neither is “pure” a legitimate excuse for poor.
People who know about such things will tell you that more church scandals emanate from the treasurer’s office than from the pastor’s office. Though the pastor is far from blameless, even though pastors justify themselves as being “above such things” rather than responsible for such things. A fact-finding team of consultants recently laid much of the blame for the decline of a once-great congregation on ten years of poor pastoral management….not poor pastoral prayers….not poor pastoral sermons….not poor pastoral visitations….but poor pastoral management. Returning us to Jesus’ question: “Why can’t my guys be as smart as their guys?” For which the common answer is: “Because nobody taught us.” But the real answer is: “Nobody taught us it was important.”
A few years ago, Neil Wester invited me to lunch at the Birmingham Athletic Club, at the end of which he said the following: “I didn’t have any special reason for getting together. But I did want to take this occasion to thank you for your willingness to manage this ship….administer this ministry….in short, to be our CEO.” Which does not come naturally. Neither has it always been easy. But which is far more necessary than most people in my business think.
But there is at least one additional response that Jesus makes to this strange story. You can find it in verse 9. Let me quote it from Joseph Fitzmyer’s translation in the Anchor Bible:
I tell you, use the mammon of dishonesty to make friends, so that, when it gives out (which it will), you will be welcomed into dwellings that are everlasting.
So what in the world is that about? Is this a veiled invitation to bribe your way into heaven? Not exactly. Rather, Jesus is reflecting a common understanding that the rich help the poor in this world, but the poor must help the rich in the next (recalling Jesus’ word about it being harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle). More to the point, there was a very clear belief in Jesus’ day that, in terms of fitness for the Kingdom, serving the needs of the least counted for more than anything else.
More than theology.
More than doctrine.
More, even, than passionate professions of faith.
If you don’t believe that, go back and reread the 25th chapter of Matthew, focusing especially on the parable of the sheep and the goats. Upon rereading it, ask yourself: “For whom do the gates swing swiftly open?” For those who attend to “the least of these,” says the story, even when they are ignorant as to when they did it (or how). In some church circles, that will start a fight. But that’s exactly what verse 9 of this strange little story is all about.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. The common thread running through this entire story is about how people find a home. In verse 4, the unjust servant says: “I’m gonna need a home.” And in verse 9, Jesus seems to suggest: “You’re all gonna need a home.”
* * * * *
Bringing me to this….which has little to do with the unjust servant, but much to do with going home. We had a memorial service in the sanctuary yesterday. It was for Fritz Pinis (whose wife Connie is worshiping with us this morning). Fritz and Connie were regulars for years, but moved to Florida some time back. Fritz was an educator par excellence. First, a teacher and a coach, then a principal at Adams School, and eventually an administrator for elementary education in the suburb of Warren. During those years, one of Fritz’s best friends was Dan Nesbitt (Audrey’s late husband) who served as Superintendent of Schools here in Birmingham.
Fritz’s approach to the faith was what you might expect of an educator….rational rather than mystical….practical rather than spiritual. Fritz wanted to “see it” on the way to “believing it.” Or he wanted to have you convince him by means of logic and argumentation.
At any rate, Fritz suffered from cancer. Which, on the way to taking his life, extracted its toll. Sleeping came hard in his latter days. But dreams came more frequent. One morning Fritz awoke and told Connie: “I had the strangest dream last night.” She asked him to describe it. Leading him to say:
Well, I was taking a walk when suddenly I came to a door. It looked familiar. But I wasn’t sure what it was or where it led. Suddenly Dan Nesbitt opened the door and, spotting me, said: “You’ll like this place, Fritz.”
Whereupon Dan went inside. And Fritz died.
Note: Before reading the text, I said the following to the congregation: “Most of you read the Bible selectively. But there’s nothing wrong with that, given that most of us preach the Bible selectively. Which is why those of you who are veterans have heard at least 83 sermons preached on the prodigal son, but have yet to hear a sermon preached on the unjust steward….even though one follows the other in the Gospel of Luke.”
In preparation for this sermon, I read more scholarly commentary than usual. I didn’t run into anybody who claimed to have the definitive word. Some even questioned whether Jesus told the story in the first place. A second debate centered on how many of the following verses were to be taken as Jesus’ commentary on the story, once told. Some argue that Jesus’ remarks continue through verse 13. Others question whether Jesus offered any commentary at all (suggesting that Luke may have gathered several unrelated sayings about material possessions and placed them in the context of this story). For reasons too complex to go into here, I have taken an intermediate position. I believe Jesus’ commentary includes verses 8b and 9, but have questions about verses 10-13.
