Well Played - Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C

Well Played

Pentecost 15C (Lectionary 25)

September 18, 2022

Good Shepherd, Wells, MN

Luke 16.1-13

Today’s parable about the Dishonest Manager, the Rich Man, and the dangers of wealth is a hard one to work with, mostly because it is so confusing. Next week we will encounter a different kind of hard parable, hard because we know exactly what it is saying, and we don’t like it. As an aside, I know that preachers sometimes use these parables to ask for money. I’ll not use the parable to ask you for money, but when I’m done you might wish I had. Remember, as we dive into this parable, it is helpful to recall that parables are not puzzles to solve but rather mysteries to be entered. We don’t open them up as much as they open us to the ways of God’s kingdom.

Typically, I would suggest a single avenue in the exploration of a parable.  But today, as I am inspired by the deal making of the Dishonest Manager I am feeling more like Monty Hall of “Let’s Make a Deal” game show fame. Just as Monty would ask a player to choose Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3, I’m going to suggest three different ways to understand the parable and invite you to explore each possibility. But beware: you might find stinkers behind all of them that will challenge your way of being and don’t seem like a grand prize.

Behind Door #1, we grapple with the parable itself at face value, one directed to the disciples. The Dishonest Manager has his livelihood threatened because he’s been playing fast and loose with his master’s property and so he’s in a bind. After some thinking, he slashes the amount of debt with the hopes of currying favor with those whose debt he has forgiven. The Rich Man unexpectedly praises the Dishonest Manager, in effect saying, “Well played!” Then Jesus tells the disciples they should be as shrewd in the world as the “children of this age.” Unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t tell them how to do that. A motto for this interpretation of the parable might be, “In God we trust, all others pay cash.”

Door #2 is a totally different take on the parable and is one I initially dismissed, but reconsidered after attending text study with my colleagues this past week. It suggests that the Dishonest Manager is Jesus who comes and provides forgiveness for the debts owed to God. This interpretation helps explain the context of the parable, which follows the Parable of the Lost Son (also known as the Prodigal Son) who squanders his father’s property. The Lost Son is not fed in his need, but then receives his father’s forgiveness when he returns home. This “Door” also provides a bridge to next week’s parable about the Rich Man and Lazarus and further explains why the religious leaders get so upset with Jesus. As you can see, it makes the Rich Man to be God who also says to his Son, “Well played!”

Door #3 bypasses the parable to focus on the wisdom sayings that Luke has clearly added to it at the end. But this door also has its own downside. Though we are okay with the commonsense advice about trusting people (or not), and we also understand we are to serve only God, this Door contains a challenge for us. As St. Augustine is reportedly to have said, God gave us people to love and money to use; the problem comes when we confuse the two. It’s painful to admit that we have confused the two at times. There are times we’ve been used and there are times when we have used others, when we’ve loved money more than we have loved people.

Perhaps that brings us back to Door #2, where Jesus offers God’s forgiveness and riches to us. And perhaps that forgiveness that we receive today in Jesus’ body and blood, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, strengthens us to continually serve God, figuring out ways to be in the world and not of it, which brings us back to Door #1. So, maybe all three doors (and whatever others you see) lead us back to the same place, the heart of God who sent Jesus to give us what we need to be God’s loving, living, presence in the world. Well played, God, well played. Amen.

My written sermons often preach differently "live." To watch the video, click here.