choosing God over money
Proper 20C | Luke 16:1-13
You know, sometimes Jesus tells a story that leaves a person scratching their head. What does that mean? Or, as in this case, does he really mean what I think he means?
The problem for the astute reader is figuring out, not just what to make of it, but in what way we are supposed to read this story. I mean that in quite literal terms. Like, what is the methodology of reading the assigned gospel for today?
I’m focused on this idea at the moment because it is part of a critical essay I’m working on about humor. It was inspired by an essay by David Foster Wallace about why he stopped trying to teach college students about why Franz Kafka is funny. That these stories by this long-dead German writer, which often deal with the twisted and the macabre are also quite funny. But Wallace kept finding his students struggled to see the humor. And, for years, he saw it as his mission to help them see it.
Focus and Confusion
The reason they struggled to see the humor was often what I might call a literal adherence to the narrative. This is my assessment, not his. He uses a different word for it, because he often used a kind of hyper-literalism to help them see it. But what I’m thinking about is how often I read a story like “Metamorphosis” and get hyperfocused on the horror of it. We put ourselves into Gregor Samsa’s place in that bed, waking up to find ourselves transformed in the night. There is nothing funny happening here!
Except, within the first paragraph, we are introduced to Samsa’s inner monologue, which is not filled with “Holy cats! What happened to me?” Nor is he calling for help or trying to figure out the situation. No, he’s worried about being late for work. He’s worried that his not showing up for work will reflect poorly on his work ethic. Come on! That is ridiculous and absurd. Kafka is going at our crazy work culture and how messed up we are about it.
It serves as a great example of what we do, however, when we sit down to read something. We read the author’s words, which include the character’s interior thoughts, and we might take them in a kind of literal, directed way. Like this must be the truth — very straightforward.
Except when it isn’t.
We’re Reading it Wrong
When Jesus tells a story about a man who is trying to save his own skin, what are we thinking about?
Most of the time I suspect we assume Jesus is giving us direct instruction on how to behave in the world. His teachings, parables, are directed to us and invite us to see our world better. And I think this is true. But also, not in the limited, narrowed view we usually take. The sort-of literalism we use to read scripture and define our lives.
In other words, we read this parable like we read the last one. And that is our first mistake.
Who Jesus is really talking to
Remember that Jesus is talking to a diverse crowd and the outcasts and the exploited are leaning in to hear him better. Meanwhile, the Pharisees and scribes, the learned and zealous, are leaning out. They’re grumbling and questioning Jesus. So Jesus tells a collection of stories about inclusion and reconnection, of home and community. Then he tells this one.
This one isn’t as much for those leaning in with the same directness, but for the disaffected and frustrated. It is for those who themselves are chasing wealth and status within empire. The ones who see themselves as safe at the intersection of Roman oppression and religious hierarchy.
And the story he tells is a story of exploitation all the way down.
The Dishonest Manager and his Exploiting Master
The manager can’t get ahead with the master, because there’s no “ahead”. But there is a penalty for not exploiting enough, not stealing enough. So what does he do? He starts cutting deals to get some cash. In part, to get something to get the master off his back. But mostly to help establish a golden parachute when things go wrong.
We’re set up to think the master is going to be a total jerk, right? And this guy is just trying to save his skin. It is totally relatable. In fact, many of us may recognize this kind of situation, even this very calculation!
So when the master shows up, he punishes the manager, right? For not getting the numbers? Or for breaking the rules? Or for being dishonest? No! The opposite. He looks at him and he’s like, You’re the son I never had! Cut from the same cloth!
Jesus closes the parable with the master giving the dishonest manager the life advice to collect a bunch of dishonest money so you can make it rain for those around you. That will secure your place forever.
If this were Jesus’s direct advice to us, it would seem really confusing, wouldn’t it? Given what he has said about stealing, exploiting, wealth itself. Safety! Living! Generosity, sharing, community, showing common cause with the most vulnerable.
This is the problem of a too close reading in which we think the method of teaching is the same every time, that the stories connect in the same way, and that the hearer is supposed to have a direct teaching from Jesus. That would be a no.
A Word About Exploitation
Considering how we might read this text too closely, we need to back out from within the central figure and recognize how Jesus would want us to respond to him. This is the essential difference between that close, internal, literalism and the student trying to learn from the teacher. The more we hear from Jesus, the more we should orient ourselves as people who have heard Jesus before!
And what has Jesus taught before? Don’t exploit people! Wealth is theft! We aren’t supposed to worry about setting up our landing place — that is assured for us by God’s love and grace — but should instead worry about how we are treating the people around us. For these are the children of God.
The words of the master strike as a deep contrast to God’s Way of Love. In fact, they are the opposite. They resemble the cause of Empire, not Heaven. We’re supposed to be trying to recognize this when we see it. In Jesus’s parables and in the world.
This is why Jesus wraps up the parable with guidance that helps us see the problem in the parable is not the money as an abstract concept. But in what money does to community as we build wealth. As we impoverish our neighbors and relegate them to the fringes, to the places where we won’t see them.
Serving a Better Master
The point of parables like these is to help us see the contrast. The contrast between Empire and Jesus’s Way of Love; between the kingdoms of earth and the dream of God.
And one of the problems with focusing so heavily on what we’re not supposed to do, is it makes it hard to feel that sense of what to do.
Let’s be clear, as much as I love talking about this, it always freaks me out to have to quote Jesus about his economic theories because they sound so radical to modern American culture. And we’re always looking for excuses, er, I mean, examples of what this means so that we can feel better about all of our private ownership, wealth-creating systems, and the general dysfunctional character of our work-based society, best exemplified by employer-based healthcare. So we talk about the nice things one person can do for another.
Taking that step back, again, offers generous help. Jesus’s focus on honesty is significant:
“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”
because this becomes who we are. When we steal to protect ourselves, we become thieves. And when we lie, we become liars. And when we show so little faith in God that we would protect our inheritance from [gasp!] strangers! then we are faithless.
This is why we can’t serve God and wealth.
Because Mammon doesn’t share, friends. It engulfs and consumes. To be safe in a Mammon-based world means kicking others down and excluding the needy and destroying faith and trivializing the needs of the oppressed. It is saying we need to have poor people to protect our economy. It is also making the poor prove their poverty, to perform for scraps like trained monkeys.
God, on the other hand, is love, trust, justice, peace, and faith. God is found in Sabbath, when we all ensure we all have Shalom. We all have peace, justice, food to eat, safety in the midst of a challenging climate, hope at a time of despair.
The God that seeks the lost sheep, who trusts the 99 in the wilderness to protect each other while they seek out the lost is showing us what love is. That’s love. And that’s what God is. Seeking and finding and celebrating life and justice. God is creativity and surprise. Joy and hope right now, in this world, with these people.
This is why we gather each week. To remember. To seek and find. And keep learning to love with the very love of God.