The parable of the shrewd manager is probably one of the most difficult ones for us to get our heads around. Jesus starts off by telling us that a rich man had a manager who was looking after his property for him. From what I can understand about the context, the man of wealth was probably an absentee landowner who had an overseer look after his property. Jesus tells us that somehow the wealthy man got wind of the fact that the manager was squandering his property. We might wonder if this was just some vicious rumour by disgruntled people who worked the land.
But it seems there is more to it than that. Perhaps the landowner checked the records and found some discrepancies. The wealthy man demands an accounting be made with the threat of firing the manager if this accounting is not to his satisfaction.
The manager checks his options. This is not a job he can afford to lose. Perhaps like us he has debts to pay, a financial obligations to meet, maybe even a family to support. He knows that finding another job won’t be easy. He is not strong enough to do manual labour and too proud to beg.
So he hits on a scheme that he thinks will be a win -win situation. He will forgive each of the master’s debtors a portion of the loan. That way they will be under an obligation to him and surely will not turn him away should he come asking for help. After all to face these people and say he had been fired for dishonesty would likely result in them wanting to have nothing to do for him.
It seems that the scheme pays off far better than the manager even imagined. Instead of firing him, his master commends him for his shrewdness. We don’t fully know the reason for this but possibly those who were forgiven a portion of their debts would think that this had happened with the blessing of the wealthy man who would then look good in their eyes.
We can only speculate on what the financial arrangement was between the rich man and his manager and how the forgiveness of this portion impacted on the landowner. Perhaps the part of the debt forgiven was only the manager’s commission and the owner still got all that was due him.
What initially surprises us is Jesus’ reaction. By holding out the shrewd manager as an example, it almost seems as if He is condoning his behaviour. I can imagine any Pharisees listening to the first part of this story then running off in triumph to tell others that Christ is condoning cheating and they had finally got something to get him on. Like many of us they heard only what they wanted to hear and didn’t listen to the rest.
Still this is a very difficult passage of scripture and while all commentators I looked at do agree that Jesus is not saying it is okay to cheat, many different interpretations of just what he is saying are out there. If we are confused, I wonder how the people in Luke’s time felt.
Some see this as a treatise on forgiveness. The manager forgives the debts and by implication the landowner has forgiven them as well. This is exactly what Jesus asks us to do. In the Presbyterian version of the Lord’s Prayer, they say “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
The shrewd manager was counting on a favourable response from those whose debts he had forgiven and this would reflect positively on his master. This parable is often compared to the prodigal son. In both cases riches have been squandered and in both there is forgiveness. In both stories Jesus is giving us a lesson on forgiveness from a Father who loves us unconditionally.
Squandering the precious resources given us by our heavenly father is a sin we are still guilty of today. Sadly though, human greed that causes wasting of resources to continue. Rainforests are burned or clear-cut just for farmland. Does this farm land go to support the hungry people of that country or to increase the holdings of some huge farming conglomerate? We kill elephants for the precious ivory in their tusks to make some man a profit even if the rest of the elephant is wasted. Baby seals are clubbed to death so that someone can sport a new coat. In many cases the poor of the country profit nothing from this.
This oppression of the poor through greed is the same thing that Amos cries out against when he sees the poor of his day sold into slavery so corrupt businessmen can profit. He cries out against the buying of the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
Jesus uses his parable as an example of what happens when we are guided by greed and the desire for wealth. We forget everything else to get ahead. In verse 12, He asks how can we be trusted to look after what is ours, if we have squandered away what has been entrusted to us by another? He admonishes Christians to avoid situations like the shrewd manager got himself into. “No man can serve two masters,” He warns us, “you cannot serve God and wealth.”
Sadly what Jesus says applies as much in 2013 as it did in his time. When greed or the desire to get ahead takes over, everything else goes out the window.
I don’t know how many of you saw the CBC documentary a week ago on cheating. According to the documentary, cheating has become epidemic in our schools and universities. Students want so badly to get top marks or a place in graduate school that they will do almost anything.
There are Internet services that will write essays for students – for a price. Professors have developed anti plagiarism software. I don’t have any idea how this works but somehow it can detect if a student has produced original work or not.
One student admitted he had developed a system. He could sit near a good student during a multiple-choice examination and tell by the hand movements what letter the good student had selected for an answer and then copy from there.
Of all the people interviewed on this documentary, a rabbi hit the nail right on the head. He saw this as an example of the moral decay of our society. People no longer attend church, the schools have turned their back on moral values education for fear of offending some and this has left a vacuum where a whole generation has risen with no teaching of what is right or wrong.
It is interesting too how sometimes we have different definitions of what cheating or dishonesty is. It is wrong to cheat on your spouse, or perhaps steal from a bank or maybe commit some sort of Internet fraud. But if we can pocket some extra income without telling the government somehow that is okay. “I’m taxed too much anyway,” we say.
What happens if we go into a store and find the clerk has given us too much change? Do we return the overpayment or pocket it? Or if we leave a store and find something in our wagon we didn’t pay for? Do we go in and pay for it? Or do we walk away saying to ourselves “that store charges too much anyway so I deserve this?” If you found a large sum of money lying on the ground would you try to find the owner or say “finders keepers?”
It is obvious what Jesus would do. But He is not saying as much in the parable of the shrewd manager. Instead he is reiterating what he suggests we ask God in The Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.” By putting ourselves in situations where money becomes the most important thing we are estranging ourselves from God and leaving the door open, to paraphrase Shakespeare, to weave tangled webs of deceit.
Instead we need to be above these sorts of doings and focus instead on the riches of the Kingdom of God. God has blessed us with abundant riches and left us as His stewards. We are to share these precious resources with all men not keep them for ourselves as if the gift was meant for us alone. AMEN
