Proper 20C (Luke 16:1-13) 09-19-2010
A few years ago when my family and I moved from the Chicago area to the suburbs of Washington, DC, we quickly realized that the traffic was going to give us an opportunity to practice our patience and we also realized that an early start on the morning commute would be a necessity. Because the traffic was also unpredictable, an early start often meant an early arrival at the seminary, so I became a regular at the Student Lounge. Like many of the commuter students who frequented this convenient gathering place, I became familiar with the bad coffee, the uncomfortable furniture and the dismal gray walls. And because we were quite certain that the traffic was not going to end any time soon, we decided that we should make some changes to the lounge so our time there was more pleasant. A few pillows on the furniture and some good scrubbing on the coffee machines made a big difference, but those dismal gray walls were still very depressing. We thought a cheerful yellow paint would make a great difference on everyone’s attitude. We assumed that painting the lounge would require someone’s permission, so we asked several school officials for the name of the person in charge of the lounge. In every case the answer was the same: I don’t know who is in charge of the lounge. After an unsuccessful search for the person in charge, we finally decided to do the only reasonable thing: we bought some paint and woke up early one morning to quietly paint the lounge before anyone discovered our plan. With paint and brushes in hand, we prepared the room, covered the furniture and were only minutes from starting when the Manager of the book store came in to the lounge and told us that one of the school officials had heard we might be painting and she wanted to see us in her office right away. With only minutes to creatively save our plan, we quickly painted the smallest wall in the lounge. With a bad feeling about our future, we headed up the hill to explain our secret painting project.
The property manager in our Gospel lesson had a bad feeling about his future as well – called to the master’s house to give an accounting of his actions. We are told that he squandered his master’s property, but we are not told what he did with the property. Perhaps he simply made some bad investments (as our current economy might prove, this could be easy to do) or perhaps he sold some of his master’s property and used the income for his own gain. Jesus does not tell his listeners what the property manager did…and we should not guess because that is not really the point of Jesus’ parable story. The focus of the story is what the property manager did once his actions had been discovered – the manager is faced with a great dilemma: he is losing his job and he must act quickly. The focus of the story is that in the midst of great difficulty the manager took bold and decisive action to salvage his way of life and likely his family’s future. The manager called in each one of his master’s debtors and significantly reduced their debts. We might call his actions disgraceful, dishonest, or devious. The master called the property manager shrewd. Shrewd!? A shrewd person is someone who is cleverly aware of what is going on and thoughtfully and skillfully achieves a successful outcome. As we hear this parable story and listen to the master call his manager shrewd, are we surprised, disturbed or confused that the manager’s apparent dishonesty is praised?…we might be, but there is lesson in this parable story.
The property manager found himself in an undesirable spot and he took action. Jesus tells this story because he knows that those who follow him will be in many undesirable spots – and they must take action. Jesus also knows that we will be in undesirable spots: in our work life, in our journey of faith development and in our life as members of the church community. But we must overcome the conflicts in our life by being shrewd; by being cleverly and thoughtfully alert. We will face conflicts that will require a choice from each of us. And these choices will demand our response. In our lives outside of the church, we often find creative solutions to the conflicts we must face: we must maintain a responsible budget, yet still enjoy our family as we go on vacation; or we must work overtime, yet still be sure that those who might be waiting for us are not forgotten. But Jesus asks us today in our Gospel lesson: do we act shrewdly in response to the demands and choices presented to us as members of the community of believers?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th century theologian, wrote in his book Life Together, about the ministry of being together in community. Bonhoeffer wrote, “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks…[but] when we do that we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised [across] our path to show us that, not our way, but God’s way must be done.”[i] And to follow God’s way, Jesus calls us to act shrewdly, to act decisively, to act with concern for our life as children of God.
After a long walk up the hill, we arrived at the Administration building. We briefly presented the Student Lounge improvement plan and after discussing the details, we were told there were two options for the painting of the lounge. The first option was to put the lounge on the list of improvements to be completed by the Maintenance staff…and the list currently had a 6 to 9 month wait. The second option was to have the improvement plan completed by my group of friends, but the paint and labor would be considered a gift to the seminary and the Board of Trustees must approve all gifts. In either case, the painting could not be done within the next few weeks. We thanked her for the explanation and then asked her if she might know where we could find a can of the dismal gray paint so we could paint over the cheerful yellow we had already put up on one of the walls. She paused and said, “You already painted one of the walls? Go ahead and paint the whole lounge…that gray paint really is pretty depressing.”
We all have conflicts and challenges in our schedules and many of us face difficult choices. But Jesus’ lesson to us this morning is this – be shrewd: shrewdly find a way to attend a Sunday morning forum; thoughtfully participate in a new ministry, or be cleverly aware and reach out to someone you do not know. Our lives are connected and we owe our full attention to the interruptions of our normal routine…interruptions that are so often a grace given to us from God. Regardless of all that the world demands of us, we are called by Christ to be clever and make room in our lives for the blessings that only God can provide.
AMEN.
[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, translated by John W. Doberstein, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1954), 99.
Padre Ryder's Journal 