Sermon 9-21-25

Sermon 9-21-25 Luke 16:1-13

I did not go to Kindergarten, can you tell? They didn't have Kindergarten in Alma where I started school. I started in first grade. I was the first kid in class who could read, not because I was super intelligent, it was out of necessity. I had trouble telling one crayon from another by its color.

I was in my third or fourth year of college before any of that made any sense to me. I took a class called “Industrial Psychology”. The class consisted of different methods to find the right people to fill spots in mostly large manufacturing facilities.

We spent an entire semester studying different types of tests that were designed to match people's attributes to certain job requirements. I was the only engineering student in there. All the others were business majors. They all probably became Human Resource Managers when they got out of school.

Some where along the line Dr. Somebody pulled out a pile of poster boards and hung them up along the black board in front of the room. He told us they were used to test for color blindness. They were a series of seemingly random dots. If we could see a certain number in the center of the dots we were color blind in certain colors. Most of the students could not see any numbers, but I could.

That's when it occurred to me I had to read the side of the crayons or get embarrassed in front of the rest of the first graders.

That is kind of what we have in our reading from Luke today, a poster board of dots that doesn't make much sense, especially to 21st century Americans. The parable is commonly called “The Parable of the Dishonest Steward”. I think maybe it should instead be called “The Parable of the Shrewd Steward”.

At this point in Luke's Gospel Jesus is eyebrow deep in the teaching part of His ministry. His healing and miracles are almost over. He is getting ready to start walking to Jerusalem for the last time, in the last portion of chapter 18. He does cleanse the 10 lepers and heals a blind beggar after this, but that is while they are headed down the road.

In this reading today Jesus is talking to His disciples. He is still trying to get them to understand what is lying before them and what they should do about it.

Just like in most of Jesus' parables the characters are not squeaky clean and lily white. All of the people in this one are rogues. The renters of the land are only too happy to swindle the landlord, the master, out of what they had agreed by written contract to pay him for the use of the land.

The manager of the properties was a known embezzler. “Charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property”. This was probably a small town or village. Everyone knew the manager was a crook.

The rich man, the master, probably did not live near his farm land. He would have only come around a couple of times a year to have a look around and collect the rent. The master was somewhat of a rogue himself. Instead of being shocked and disgusted at the actions of the manager he appreciated the shrewdness of how the manager handled the situation.

This parable is a textbook example of the patronage and honor systems that was and is, paramount in Middle Eastern culture. Jesus makes use of both those systems here to underscore His point of how Christians and Jews should live their lives, striving to reach the eternal kingdom.

Patronage is doing a favor for someone and expecting that favor returned at some time in the future. The manager has the master's debtors change their written contracts to reflect a lesser amount than had been agreed upon before. The managers pay would have been a percentage of the rent due. Part of the new rent due would have been less the manager's cut, but not all of it.

The landlord would still have received a lesser amount than he was expecting.

The manager already knows he has lost his job. He has also realized he is not cut out for manual labor, a job that is more than likely all that will be left for him to do. And to his credit he is too proud to beg. He knows by cutting the amount of rent these share croppers will have to pay they are going to owe him favors in the future. Patronage.

The rich man, the landowner, the master, knows his rent is not going to be what he was planning on. He also knows the steward has given up what would have been his manager's pay.

The landowner is facing a real dilemma. If he rescinds the managers new contracts, which he has a right to do, he will have the whole village up in arms. If he stands by these new reduced contracts the whole village will be singing his praises. His “honor” will be increased. The people will praise the noble and generous landowner as well as the manager for making the deal.

In the Mediterranean world “honor” is the true wealth. All of these rascals are happy as clams. The landowner, even though his yearly rent has been reduced is happy because his honor has been increased. The manager is happy because even though he lost his job he can now make claims for favors to the renters at some time in the future.

The renters are happy because they can now keep more of their crops than they had counted on. Maybe they won't go hungry this year, thanks to unsavory means.

In this parable Jesus did not commend the manager's dishonesty, only his prudence. Ethics is the study of good and bad behavior. Understanding ethics helps people decide what to do when they have to make choices. There was a man named Niccollo Machiavelli who lived around the year 1500. He is often called the father of modern political science, maybe, maybe not. One of his most famous quotes was “the end justifies the means”.

That might be translated as: “if a goal is morally important enough, any method of getting it is acceptable”. Like I said Jesus did not commend the steward's dishonesty, only his prudence. He is telling his disciples to use worldly wealth to accomplish their up coming tasks.

The last five sentences of this reading were probably added by scribes after Luke penned the original parable. They are a list of cultural truisms summarizing a time and place sensitive attitude toward wealth.

This reading is a conglomeration of random dots, or thoughts, of different shapes, sizes and colors. There is a number in there somewhere, it's just hard to see.

Amen.