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| Photographs by Gnangarra...commons.wikimedia.org |
Amos 8:4-7
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13
When
I was an undergraduate student, many years ago, there were glossy posters that
you could buy from the Christian Union stall. They featured photographs of lovely
scenes, a landscape, a sunset or a field of flowers, with an inspirational
scriptural text emblazoned over the top. You might, for instance, have a
picture of a mountain, majestic and snow-capped, with the text “The Lord God is
an everlasting rock”.
These
days, you can see the same sort of thing as memes on social media. A tranquil scene,
an inspiring text. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself. The beauty of
nature is inspirational. But when we read the scriptures in depth we come
across a message that is bigger and more challenging than that.
For
starters, posters are still life pictures. But in the Gospels Jesus gives us
parables. These are never still images, but always a story of something
happening. Jesus says, “the Kingdom of God is like this…” and then tells a
story of change and transformation. God’s Kingdom is not still life, it is something
happening.
The
parables are often challenging, even disturbing. At first glance, you think you
are looking at a scene in daily life, but look more closely and there’s always
something odd about it, a twist in the tale. A sower who sows seed in obviously
unproductive places; a mustard seed that grows bigger than a house; a shepherd
who abandons 99 sheep to go off and look for just one.
And
then there’s today’s parable. What are we to make of the dishonest manager who plays
a trick on his employer, to buy favour with his clients? Parables were stories
told to ordinary people. There’s perhaps a hint of stand-up performance about
them, a touch of humour. The rich man and his manager could be the Del Boy and
Rodney of first century Palestine, dodgy dealers wrong-footed by their own
crafty schemes.
But
it’s a humorous story with a point, and a sharp one at that. The rich man has
lots of debtors, and look at what they owe: olive oil and wheat. They are
ordinary people living off the land, just like the people Jesus was addressing.
At
the time of Jesus Roman taxation on farmers was heavy, and those with
smallholdings often got into debt and had to sell their land. Meaning that a
small number of rich people got to own more and more of the land. The former
owners stayed on, now as tenants, paying rent from their produce, effectively trapped
in bonded labour. Like those denounced by the Prophet Amos in our first
reading, the landowners “trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of
the land”. Jesus’s story describes a situation of injustice and inequality that
would have been very familiar to his hearers.
But,
this is a parable. Not a still life image but a story of change and
transformation, revealing the possibilities and new beginnings that are signs
of God’s Kingdom.
The
change at the heart of this story is that of the manager. He changes sides. He
starts the story on the side of the rich landowner, operating his economy of greed
and exploitation. But he ends the story on the side of the oppressed debtors, inhabiting
a new economy of generosity.
It
is, in fact, a story of repentance, which means changing direction. The manager
moves from oppression to liberation. Yes, his motives are mixed, his habits of
dishonesty and sharp practice are hard to break. But repentance does not mean
arriving at the goal all at once. It means changing direction. For the manager,
that means beginning from the thoroughly messed-up place he had got himself
into. That is where the possibility of a new life has met him, even amid the
disaster that has overtaken him. For him also repentance means a change in
attitude towards money and material things. Formerly, his life had been driven
by them, now he uses them to bring freedom to others.
Like
the manager in the parable, our attitude to material things, money and
possessions, can reveal uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Whose side are we
on? Are we serving our own comfort and wealth and privilege, regardless of the
cost to others? Or are we serving others, using what we have with generosity to
break the bonds of oppression and bring freedom? But the parable, as well as
asking these difficult questions, brings us hope. Like the manager, grace meets
us where we are, bringing new beginnings even in the midst of the ways we have
gone wrong. Grace brings the possibility of change, not only for us but for
those around us.
Climate
change has been much in the news this weekend. We know that climate change is
impacting the poorest regions of the world with drought, rising sea levels and
extreme weather. If nothing is done, most scientists agree, eventually
catastrophe looms. The young protestors around the world ask us the same
uncomfortable questions as today’s parable: whose side are we on? Our own
comfort and convenience, or the side of the poor and of future generations? In
the midst of the mess we have got ourselves into, how are we going to change? What
we choose to do with the material resources of the earth tells us where we
stand in relation to God’s Kingdom values.
We
can choose to change, and that choice brings change to others, the possibility
of a new beginning. It is possible to inhabit this world in a way that enables
all to flourish. But we have first of all to notice how we are complicit in
exploitation and oppression. If we use the resources of the earth as though
they were ours to possess, and without limit, then we are actually taking away from
other people what they need to live.
Repentance
opens to us a new beginning, a fresh start. It reveals to us afresh the beauty
and fragility of this world that we must receive as God’s gift, and share with
all his children. That is not a still-life picture of a beautiful scene, but
something living, changing, growing. This world is the place that is given to
us in which we can encounter God’s grace even in the midst of the ways we go
wrong. It is in this world that we must cherish God’s good creation, and one
another. It is in this world, and in the community of all its peoples, that we
can make the choice for God’s Kingdom.
