Whiteboard: Have Mercy

It is the strangest story that Jesus ever shares.

And that is saying something, considering the peculiar nature of parables. Jesus often preaches and teaches with stories that challenge us and leaves us with as many questions as they do answers.

But this week, whew, this week's scripture takes the cake.

Luke 16:1-13 is better known as "The Parable of the Dishonest Manager," and it will challenge you seven ways from Sunday.

It goes like this: Once there was this guy who was really lousy at his job, but his boss never really noticed...until one day he did. The boss called in this really lousy employee and told him, "Hey, I've heard all this grumbling that you're coming up short in your work. Go get the books so that I can see just how terrible a job you've really been doing." So the lousy employee, recognizing that he's going to get fired and that there is no way he's going to get a good letter of recommendation decides to even further shortchange his boss so that he can possibly grease the wheels with anybody else in town who might hire him on one day as a way of saying thanks. It plays out like this -- the lousy employee goes through the books, sees everybody who owes his boss and cuts that debt in half. That way the debtors will feel like they got a bargain and lousy employees angry boss will at least have something in place of the gaping pile of nothing that he currently has.

You with me so far? Because things are about to get even crazier.

The angry boss says to the lousy employee, "Hey, good job man! That was some shrewd business you did there!" Then Jesus goes on to editorialize with a comment about making friends followed by a series of seeming double negatives ("if then you have not been dishonest...") before finally concluding the story with the exhortation "You cannot serve God and wealth."

It is confusing as all get out...but what if that is actually the point.

What if it is supposed to be confusing and nonsensical?

Jesus is talking about mercy here. What if the point of the story is, "Yeah, being merciful doesn't make a whole lot of sense...and God does it anyway!"

What if the point of the story is, "This lousy employee, this dishonest manager was able to illustrate mercy. So how much more so can the God who loves you, the God who sets you free be merciful."

Or for that matter, what if the equation flips just as easily in the opposite direction: "If this lousy employee, this dishonest manager can show mercy in what he does, then why in the world can't you show mercy in what you do?"

Ultimately that sounds like the kind of thing Jesus would challenge us to understand with one of his parables.

-------

Luke 16:1-13 The Dishonest Manager

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. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.”

Then 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.I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” 

So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then 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.” 

And 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. And 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.

‘Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No 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.’