Sermons
23rd Sept 2007 - Trinity 16
The name Northern Rock has a very secure ring to it, and with all those billions of pounds of people’s money at its disposal one can understand the real surprise and panic that spread when rumours began that the bank might be in trouble. I haven’t the faintest idea how the situation developed but judging from today’s gospel story, one might laconically side with the preacher Ecclesiastes when he said that there is nothing new under the sun.
The parable of the unjust steward has quite an elusive quality about it which has given rise to quite a variety on interpretations. What might be going on in this story where the dishonesty of the manager seems to be recommended and dishonest wealth approved as a suitable instrument of evangelism? And more particularly, what did the unjust steward think he was doing and what did Jesus or Luke think we might gain from being told the story? And this is a story with a moral, rather than an allegory where each detail has symbolic value.
The unjust steward is reported to his master for wasteful use of the master’s goods and he is to be replaced. Before he departs he must present some accounts that can be used by his successor; he is in a very tight corner and must think fast. He is too proud to accept charity and too soft to take on manual work. His solution is to falsify the accounts by righting off a portion of the amount owed by each debtor. But in this case the master will clearly receive less than he was expecting, why then is the unjust steward commended?
The answer may lie in a subject not directly mentioned but implied by the text as Luke has shaped it, the question of charging interest. Rather than seeing the unjust steward as continuing in his dishonest life in his falsification of the accounts, it may be that Luke invites us to see that faced with a crisis, the steward turns to the law and finds there that the root of his dishonourable reputation lies in the charging of interest, a common practice in most societies but one absolutely forbidden by the Jewish law. In removing the accumulated interest charges from the amounts owed the unjust steward pleases both the debtors (whose bills have been drastically cut), and his master, who though receiving less than he expected is compensated by his increased esteem in the eyes of the lawyers and the leading religious people of the day. His righteousness may even be said to exceed that of the Pharisees who managed large financial concerns and who had in fact found ways around the law against usury. And the master, like many since who have accumulated their wealth without too close a scrutiny of their business ethics, is happy to make spiritual capital out of his new and totally undeserved reputation for munificence. But it is not only the ingenuity of the steward that is praised in the story; it is his urgent response to crisis.
It is this second quality that may answer our second question, ‘why are we being told this story?’. For when the unjust steward is commended his swift reaction to crisis is contrasted with the slow reaction of the children of light to the much bigger crisis or judgement which has come upon them in the visitation of God to his people. The Lord, presumably meaning Jesus, commends the children of this world who are able to show such an immediate response to a small financial crisis, in contrast to the children of light, the chosen people of God who seem unaware of the judgement that has come upon them in the proclamation of the kingdom in the person and teaching of Jesus. It is as if the story says to us ‘You are panicking about losing your money and your reaction is swift but haven’t you noticed the much greater crisis that is all around, that people’s investment in God is at a low ebb.’
The thread linking the two themes together is the accumulation of wealth; the moral dangers that surround the accumulation of financial wealth and the moral imperatives that commend the accumulation of spiritual wealth. There is no condemnation of commerce in this story, but there is the stern warning that desire for wealth is morally hazardous. We may use the money we have to draw people into the community of believers, but we must not ourselves become lovers of money. And of course we should endeavour to show this by our truly sacrificial giving of alms as a testimony to discipleship and self denial and a recognition of the ephemeral nature of wealth, we acknowledge that rich and poor come to the same end. The psalmist wisely calms all excessive desire for money in these words
Be not afraid if some grow rich and the glory of their house increases, for they will carry nothing away when they die, nor will their glory follow after them.
Today’s gospel story should teach us to build up treasure in heaven not on earth. There is an old Jewish saying concerning wealth that may point us in the right direction;
‘the rich help the poor in this world,
but the poor help the rich in the world to come’.of the lost is of course also our calling. When Mr Gladstone paced the streets of London searching for the women lost to the slavery of prostitution he did so with great bravery, not with any illusions about his own sinful nature, but with perseverance in his Christian duty. What a tremendous image it is, the political leader of the nation coming from the House of Commons out on to the streets of the capital city to take the Christian message of God’s unreasonable love to those whose lives were lived beyond the pale of society’s limits, lives nearly always cut short through poverty, disease, or violence. What that we had a politician in our own day who could match his example.