Moving for Meaning

 

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ²So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' ³Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' ⁵So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' ⁶He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' ⁷Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
¹⁰Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? ¹³No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Luke 16:1-13

Our Gospel lessons during September and October are parables. The word itself – parable – comes from two Greek roots. One of them, bole, b-o-l-e, means to throw or 'a throwing.' The other Greek root, para, p-a-r-a, means 'alongside.' The person telling the parable is 'throwing,' but throwing it far enough away from you that if you are to catch it, you have to move. So it is with the parables of Jesus – especially the one we just heard. The story of the dishonest manager has clearly been thrown alongside of us – not directly at us. If we are ever going to catch its meaning, we have to move.

Today's parable presents as the model for our faith someone whose life is the complete opposite of everything we've been taught. Jesus weaves a story in which the main character is a shyster – a conniving manager of someone else's treasure. He seems out for personal gain, to save his own skin. We lean forward to the end because we want to see this scoundrel get what is coming to him, and when the master finally speaks, we are shocked, to say the least. No. Leaning forward isn't going to help us at all. We have to move. So move with me.

                        Let's move first to the ancient near east and the economic situation that provides the context for this parable. The manager in this parable depicts not merely a head-servant placed in charge of the household staff. No, he is a trained, trusted, and duly empowered agent, or broker for the master, who was most likely an absentee landlord. This manager could act in the name of the master – kind of like his power of attorney -- only in transactions with third parties. It was common practice for agents like this to lend their master's property out to others with an exorbitant interest rate to cover their commission.

                        The manager saw the handwriting on the wall, so to speak. He knew he was going to have to find a way to live once he lost his job. So he decided to use what power and influence he had to make friends of his clients. These friends might then give him a break when he would need help later. So what the manager did was to eliminate his own commission from the original bonds with the exorbitant interest rates. The manager saw it as an investment in his future. That was rather shrewd on his part. And that shrewdness is what the master praised. Dishonest or not, this man understood how to use what was entrusted to him to serve a larger goal.

                        How might we learn from this? How would we be shrewd? Begin by making a list in your head of everything you are concerned about: maybe your health, your children, problems at work (if you are blessed to have work), the economy, your pension, our church. There are likely some things over which you have no real control and there are likely other things that you can do something about. [This is what Cathy Vickers was talking about last week when she encouraged us to rise up and serve as mentors in the Kids Hope program. There is much she is concerned about. Kids Hope offered her an opportunity to actually do something.] Pro-active, prudent, shrewd people work on the things that they can do something about.

The manager saw the handwriting on the wall: he was losing his job. So he was concerned about his future. He could have panicked, or become defensive toward his master, or gone out and frantically tried to get another job. Instead, he stepped back and looked at where he had some definite influence. He worked in that area. We've heard this before in another form: Be who you are, see what you have, do what matters. That is what the master praises. That is why Jesus tells the story.

'So, people of God, you also ought to be shrewd, Jesus says today. Dishonest or not, this man understood how to use what was entrusted to him to serve a larger goal. Believers, take note. How much more then, must the children of God understand the riches entrusted to their care? With the end in mind, the manager redeemed whatever he could about his present situation. He understood that, in order to be where he wanted to be in the future, how he handled today counted.

We have a Bishop right now, Kenneth Olsen, who is a shrewd manager. But, thankfully, he is not dishonest. He sees handwriting on the wall in our synod. He sees eight ELCA congregations within and just over the boundaries of the city of Livonia, serving a declining and aging population of less than 100,000. Six Livonia elementary schools closed and consolidated in 2006 because of declining enrollment and budget constraints. Our shrewd manager-Bishop also sees that there are no ELCA congregations west of I275 in Belleville, Canton, Plymouth, Northville, or Novi, and a fledgling mission start in South Lyon – areas where the population is younger and growing to more than twice the size of Livonia. Or let this image help you understand: Eight churches to four McDonalds in or barely outside of Livonia; Zero churches to 12 McDonald's west of 275. 8 to 4; Zero to 12. You can do the math. It's not 1965 any longer in Metro Detroit. And that reality is something we have no power to change. Our shrewd manager-Bishop has initiated a conversation with Livonia area ELCA congregations to begin to explore how we too might best use what has been entrusted to us to serve a larger goal, in the midst of challenges. One meeting of pastors has already taken place. A meeting of pastors and key lay leaders is scheduled at Emmanuel for a week from Tuesday, September 28. Your entire governance council will be attending. At this point, there is no specific plan.

The Holy Cross council has responded to this challenge through the lens of faith, and sees it as an opportunity. We have issued a call to all members of ELCA congregations in Livonia to begin this process in prayer – not lip service, but earnest prayer. The plan is inspired by God's call to Samuel, which interrupted him in the middle of the night. When his mentor Eli finally told him that this interruption might be the voice of God, Samuel's response, in First Samuel chapter 3 verse 9, was to say, 'Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.' We are following Samuel's lead. You can join us in this call to prayer by setting your alarm clocks to 3:09 pm every day and pray with us all about our future. Our congregational leaders see this as an opportunity for us to more clearly define and refine our reasons for being here in the first place.

It occurs to me that if we are to catch the meaning of this interruption in our ministry, just like catching the meaning of a parable, we will have to move. Whatever God's call to us might be, if we are going to catch it, we will have to move from one paradigm to another when it comes to an understanding of what the church is for. The paradigm of a dying church is, 'This is my church and this church is here to meet my needs.' I wonder, though, how every person in one of these eight Livonia area ELCA congregations might see our shrewd manager-Bishop's challenge if each embraced with his or her whole being down to the bone a different paradigm: that paradigm is Every person a Missionary, Every pastor a Mission Director, Every Congregation, a Mission Center. I saw those words this past week on the invitation to the ordination of our seminarian, LaDonna Webb. They comprise the vision of the Indiana Kentucky synod where she has been called to serve. Given such a paradigm, Every person a Missionary, Every pastor a Mission Director, Every Congregation a Mission Center, what might the prudent or shrewd thing in our situation look like? How can we best be who we are, see what we have, and do what matters?

We begin by remembering who we are and whose we are. We are God's people, and we have a great and awesome God. This great and awesome God claims us as his own. This great and awesome God meets us exactly as we are, where we are, however we might feel at any given time about any challenges we face. We begin by remembering that this great God of ours has freed us from the power of sin and death by meeting us in the midst of human suffering on the cross. So we no longer need to put our trust in the things of this life and this world. When our trust is in those things, we are kept bound by fear. Our great God loves us perfectly. And perfect love casts out fear. We begin by remembering we are called and sent to love and serve the world this God loves, sharing this saving Word of God with people in new contexts in a new time, with prudence and shrewdness. We are so blessed to have such a life-transforming treasure, and the responsibility to invest it for the sake of the future.

We begin by moving. Moving to our knees, literally or figuratively, at 3:09, in prayer. 'Speak, Lord. Your servants are listening.' Please pray with me now: O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [ELW, p. 317]

 

Pastor Dana Runestad

Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Livonia Michigan

19 September, 2010, CL25Pr20

 

 

Sources:

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV [The Anchor Bible], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985, pp. 1097-1098

Helen Montgomery Debevoise, 'Pastoral Perspective,' Proper 20, Luke 16:1-13, Feasting On the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season After Pentecost 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, pp. 92-96.