Creative Dishonesty Resurrecting

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager

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I am not entirely sure what to do with this parable. I know that’s not what you want to hear your pastor say but this parable has me stumped. It is not that this parable has never been written on or studied, in fact it is the opposite. There are more scholarly interpretations on this complex story than there are on some of Paul’s letters. In one of my books, there were 15 suggested interpretations alone. I guess I could have just picked one of those fifteen and preached from that perspective but none seemed to fit our specific context and I believe our messages should, in the very best way possible, be tailor made to our context.

I preface with that honesty to simply say, I think I landed on something late last night that fits our context. I could be wrong and it might get me kicked out of the academic circles but I think it holds true to the text and to our context.

In the parable of the dishonest manager we have a manager who is about to be fired for mismanaging his bosses funds. We are not told how he mismanaged the funds or where the funds disappeared too. He might have taken on the job claiming to have great skills as an accountant but really didn’t know a thing. Whatever the reason, the rich man either fires him or is about to fire him, thus the manager decides to go into business for himself. Since he is apparently too lazy to bale hay and he’s too proud to beg, he summons his master’s debtors one by one and makes a deal with them. He settles their accounts for less than what they owe. Some suggest all he is doing is taking off the interest of the loan, still he positions himself to secure favors from his new friends when the boss returns with his pink slip.

By reducing their debts, he not only secures himself a favor or a job, he also places his boss in a bit of a bind. The boss commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness but what else can he really do? He cannot go to his debtors and demand the money that was erased from the debt, for if he did, he would be seen as a liar and a fool. However, the manager also helps his boss by giving the people the impression that he is a man piety and a man of charity. It is as if Bob Cratchit went through the books on Christmas Eve and forgave the interest on the loans owed to Ebenezer Scrooge. As much as Scrooge dislikes Christmas and loves his money, he would not be able to fire Cratchit for Cratchit had shown mercy in Scrooge’s name. To demand the interest would shame Scrooge and cost him business in the long run.

Verses 9-10 trip us preachers up. We’re not sure what to do with his words of wisdom to his disciples to make friends by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. The statement is heavy and suggests Jesus is giving us permission to make friends by dishonest means or perhaps make our wealth by dishonest means but I seriously doubt Jesus would approve of the wealth many have made in the form of their Ponzi schemes or raises they gave themselves with the bailouts a few years ago. No, I think Jesus would not approve that; however he might have approved the use of that dishonest wealth if financial managers and CEOs didn’t give themselves bonuses but their workers bonuses. If they used that money to pay off the debts of their workers or used it wisely instead of using it to fly to the Bahamas for a corporate retreat.

Exactly what does that have to do with us? Well, I think it has something to do with the resurrection. On Easter Sunday we all get ourselves prettified. We find our best suit, our best tie, our best dress, our best hat, our best shoes, and we dress ourselves all up and look like we’re all kinds of dignified folk. We come to church and we sing about how up from the grave he arose and how one day Jesus is going to come and take us up to heaven. It’s all very nice and we look very nice and most of us smell very pretty but that’s not what the resurrection is all about. As Clarence Jordan says, “God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead to prove he could raise a few cankerous saints.” God raised Jesus from the dead for a different purpose.

You see, we crucified Jesus. I am not speaking in some spiritual or figurative sense about how our sin placed Jesus up on the cross. I am speaking literally. We, the good church folk, crucified Jesus. When Jesus came we didn’t like having God around. It was a bad place for God to be. It was like having the preacher hang out at the local tavern. We felt uncomfortable having him around. I think we (the church) were (are) the boss in this story and Jesus was our dishonest manager who spent his time off eating with the sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes so we crucified him. We nailed him to the cross saying, “You go back home, God! Don’t you mess around down here. We have to watch our language too much with you around. We have to watch our bank accounts too much when you’re looking over our shoulder. And we have to be too careful on a Saturday night when we’re hitting the bottle too heavy. Now you, you go back home, back to where you belong and be a good God, and we’ll see you at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” (Jordan, Clarence. “The Humanity of God”, The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Path Sermons. Pg. 25-26).

We crucified God because God mismanaged our church funds.

Like the dishonest manager, God showcases a bit of dishonesty by raising Jesus from the dead. Death is supposed to be the finale, the end, and God decides to trick us, church folk, by raising Jesus from the dead. By doing so, God is refusing to take our No for an answer. He’s saying, “You can kill my boy if you wish, but I’m going to raise him from the dead, and put him right smack dab down there on earth again!” It’s God saying, “I’m not going to take man’s No for an answer. I’m going to raise him up, plant his feet on the earth, and put him to preaching, teaching, and healing again.” (Jordan, Clarence. “The Humanity of God”, The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Path Sermons. Pg. 25-26).

The resurrection of Jesus was simply God’s unwillingness to fire Jesus as our manager. He raised Jesus, not as invitation to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that He Himself has now established permanent, eternal residence on earth. The resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grace, here and now, in the midst of this life.

At Joyce Turner’s funeral this past Tuesday I shared this story: Last year I went to visit Joyce in the hospital after the doctors gave her little time to live. I stood at her bedside and she kept talking about this man who was coming in and out of the door. The problem was, there wasn’t a door or man where she said there was. I asked her if she recognized the man, if she knew him. She said she did. I asked her what he is wanting from her. She told me, “He wants me to go with him.” I replied, “Do you want to go with him.” She sternly shook her head no and I said we would ask him to wait a while until she was ready.

Death is hard. No matter how democratic it is, no matter at what age it comes, it is hard. It is hard to lose someone you love:  your wife, your father, mother, daughter, or son, or uncle, or aunt, or friend. Death is hard and it is hard reality to face. In that moment though I realized Joyce was not alone. She was surrounded by her family, and she would spend the next year surrounded by the love and care of her family, friends, neighbors, caretakers and Warner (who to my knowledge never left her side, except for a few weeks due to a pacemaker issue); yet even when they would leave or change shifts, or the family had to go back and forth to the hospital while Warner was getting treatment, I knew she was never alone.

I believe, with all my heart, Jesus was in the room with her. Sitting beside her, offering words of comfort and hope. I believe he abided by her and by her family until she finally took her last breathe and awoke in his presence. I truly believe that.”

Jesus is not standing on the shore of eternity beckoning us to join him there. He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life. The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home with him, but that he has risen and comes home with us. But he doesn’t come here alone. He comes to this place bringing all of his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, and imprisoned friends with him.

And, in the past, we have said, “Jesus, we’d be glad to have you, but all these motley friends of yours, you had better send them home. You come in and we’ll have some fried chicken. But you get your sick, naked, cold friends out of here. We don’t want them getting the carpet all dirty.”

The resurrection is simply God’s way of saying to man, “You might reject me if you will, but I’m going to have the last word. I’m going to put my son right down there in the midst of you and he’s going to dwell among you from here on out.” (Jordan, Clarence. “The Humanity of God”, The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Path Sermons. Pg. 25-26).

In that way God becomes like the dishonest manager by securing his place among us through the dishonest means of using his wealth, his power to raise Jesus up, and forever changing the church. And the world needs to know that. There are people in need, wanting to know that Jesus is not off on some distant shore waiting but here in our midst suffering with us, loving us, and strengthening us as we tread through the murky muddy waters of life.  By raising Jesus from the dead, we, like the rich man, are left with no choice but to proclaim such news to those in desperate need; for if we don’t, if we choose not to proclaim such a truth, then we shame God, calling him a liar, and nailing him once again to the cross.

And God is not a liar.

So what does this parable have to do with us?

Well, on the morning of the resurrection, God put life in the present tense, not in the future. He gave us not a promise but a presence. Not a hope for the future but power for the present. Not so much the assurance that we shall live someday but that he is risen today! Jesus’ resurrection is not to convince the skeptical nor to reassure the fearful, but to enkindle the believers. The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled community of faith. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church. (Jordan, Clarence. “The Humanity of God”, The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Path Sermons. Pg. 25-26).

And, if my eyes have observed correctly, we are on the road to becoming a carried-away church. We are no longer a place concerned about protecting what is ours but a place concerned about the entire lives, both the spiritual and physical, of our families. We are church. Let’s continue to be carried-away.