Luke 16:1-13
Luke’s parable of the dishonest manager is my pastoral penance to pay every so often, when it comes up in the lectionary. And I am, apparently, not the only one who has misgivings about it. In one of my study Bibles it has a footnote saying, “there is no satisfactory explanation for this parable.”
It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we were on a journey with the heroes of our faith – the great cloud of witnesses, the saints that have gone before us. And now we face this dishonest manager, a character who hardly seems a viable candidate for the faith hall of fame. Although Jesus might not agree with my assessment.
He certainly didn’t make the preacher’s life easy, though, with this parable. Because, on its surface, it just doesn’t seem right. “Be like this dishonest manager,” Jesus says. And I think, really? Is that really what he wants to say?
Here we are introduced to a man who has been charged with a crime. He has been squandering his boss’s property. How? Was he just careless? Perhaps. Was he embezzling? Quite possible. He wouldn’t have been the first, nor the last, guy to see an opportunity for personal gain and take it.
Eventually, he gets found out though, and that’s that. He’s fired, but in a rather gentle way. The boss simply says, “You can’t be my manager anymore.” To which I say, no kidding. Get the books together, buddy, and hand them over.
Oddly, the boss doesn’t send in security staff to take the manager’s keys and escort him out of the building. Amazingly, the boss leaves him alone. He’s either very naïve or very kind. I don’t know which.
Left alone, what does this dishonest manager do next? Right away he recognizes the jam he’s in. Apparently, he knows his own shortcomings well and he realizes that these will be obstacles to him getting honest work. He decides he’s going to have to use his strengths – which include, apparently, conning other people – in a new way. In fact, he thinks, maybe there’s a way to use my strengths to benefit both me and my boss.
He may not have many stellar qualities, but he’s smart. Very shrewd.
He begins a process of reaching out to his boss’s debtors and making deals with them to clear their accounts. And he goes about it with haste. It’s as if he knows his time is limited and he needs to hustle – in more way than one – to get out of this jam. All of a sudden, he’s Monte Hall saying, “Let’s make a deal!”
Presumably, he isn’t going to get anything out of this for himself, in terms of profit. It seems that he is making a last-ditch effort to do the right thing. Maybe. Or else, he’s getting one last dig at his boss, cheating him out of the full amount owed. Also, maybe. Again, there is no satisfactory explanation for this parable.
But when the boss finds out what he’s doing, he commends the manager for his shrewd dealings. And Jesus commends the manager – for his shrewd dealings.
It’s really hard to understand why this man might be worthy of commendation. In fact, it is impossible to understand – unless we go beyond the borders of this story. As is usually the prudent thing to do, we need to look at the context.
Back in chapter 15, Luke writes this: “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling” because Jesus keeps company with sinners. So Jesus launches into a set of parables about those who are lost, then found. “Which one of you, having 100 sheep and losing one, does not go off in search of that one? Or what woman, having ten silver coins and losing one, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search diligently until she finds it?”
Then the big one: the parable of the lost son. A man has two sons, and he loses one. This young son squanders the father’s property, just uses it all up recklessly. Then he finds himself in need. He returns to his father, the only one who might help him, and his father does a surprising thing: he gathers him up in his arms and says “Son, welcome home.”
After telling these three stories to all those who were gathered around – the sinners and tax collectors, Pharisees and scribes – Jesus turns back to his disciples and begins this story about the dishonest manager. But Jesus is always talking to whoever might be listening.
And he is quite aware that these sinners and tax collectors, Pharisees and scribes, are still listening. And this is what they hear:
For people who have been squanderers of the gifts they were given, there is forgiveness. For those who have made mistakes, there are second chances. For those who have received plenty from the hand of God, use it. Just use it.
Use it, he says. Because money buried in the ground only loses its value – this is a lesson learned from another of his parables. Use it, because there is a lot of need in the world, and when you are spending money you are spreading its value around. Spend money at the dollar store and you are helping the cashier feed her kids; spend money at the diner and you are helping the waitress pay the light bill. Money is just useful when it’s moving around.
Jesus says, “Do some good.” He doesn’t bother to say here that you should repent, to sin no more, I don’t know why. Maybe it just isn’t worth saying here. Maybe he recognizes that he’s talking to people who haven’t been convicted of their sins, so they wouldn’t hear that message anyway. But they might hear this one: you’re good at something. And there’s a really good way you can use it.
It isn’t really that shocking. Oskar Schindler was praised for using his business skills to essentially buy Jews, thereby saving them from the death camps. Mother Teresa accepted donations from everyone, no matter how dirty the source, because she knew she could turn any amount of dirty money into something good. Universities, hospitals, and arts organizations that have Sackler wings or Sackler endowments now face public demands to take the name down, return the dirty money. But they say, wait a minute – what we know now about the Sacklers is deeply disturbing. But look at all the good that dirty money has done.
For those who squander – sinners and tax collectors, and perhaps, yes, Pharisees – there is the hope that they will take a good look at themselves and what they are doing. Is there a way to turn the skills they have been using for selfish gain to a more righteous purpose? Of course there is. Schindler eventually turned his skills to the sole purpose of saving Jews. Opioid manufacturers, like the Sacklers, could take some, or all, of their ill-gotten gains and squander them on addiction treatment.
And if they need any help figuring out just how much of their gains were ill-gotten, I’ll be glad to sit down with them.
For those who squander – and that is probably all of us, at one time or another, in big or little ways – it becomes important to ask ourselves some questions. Are we squandering for the sake of personal enrichment only? Are we squandering in a manner that hurts other people, directly or indirectly? Is it possible to squander in the pursuit of something really good? And is that kind of squandering a good thing? Perhaps.
Like the father who squandered his love on the prodigal son – no one could tell him it wasn’t a worthy pursuit.
No one can serve two masters, Jesus tells the people. There is only one who is worthy of being served. Let all of our squandering be done in service to the one who created the world and everything in it, who squanders beauty and love in breathtaking ways, the one who is our very life and being.
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Photo: Monte Hall, making deals. By ABC TelevisionUploaded by We hope at en.wikipedia – eBay item, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16273312
