The Dishonest Manager

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
September 19, 2004; 16th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 20, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Luke 16:1-13 ­ Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had amanager, 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 accounting 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."

With all of the bad news coming out of Iraq daily, something promising caught my attention a few months ago. As the U.S. began work on the job of rebuilding Iraq, President Bush recognized a critical need and called for debt relief for Iraq.

There are many developing countries that are hopelessly in debt; there is no bankruptcy law for countries as we have for individuals. Debt repayment is the largest single national expense for some poor nations. Some countries have serviced the interest on their debt so long that they have paid back the principle amount several times over but made little progress against the principle. Iraq is not unusual. Most of its debt is from loans given to the former dictator, money used to oppress the people, and now the oppressor's hand still weighs on them through crippling economic obligations. That's not unusual in the rest of the third world. Because of our country's occupation of Iraq, we now recognize the critical need for debt relief in order for that nation to begin to rebuild and prosper. Our advocacy of debt relief for Iraq gives hope to other countries similarly troubled.

I thought about that 21st century debt story while reading our 1st century debt story in today's gospel about the rich man, the manager, and the debtors. It's one of the most puzzling of Jesus' parables, isn't it? Let's see if we can figure out what's happening.

In Jesus' day, nearly all of the land and two thirds of the annual wealth was controlled by the ruling elite, the absentee master in this parable. The owner delegates oversight of his estate to a manager who is expected to realize a profit large enough to fuel the master's political and economic expansion of power and competition with other elites in the urban centers. This manager has broad powers to represent the owner and enter into contracts on his behalf. The manager makes his living by taking a cut of all of his deals, some off-the-record extra profit. This kind of "honest graft" was no problem to the owner as long as the manager brings in the profits. Any merchant or peasant doing business with the manager expected to pass something under-the-table in order to secure the contract and court the good graces of the manager.

The manager's greatest asset is his literacy, he can read and write. So he keeps records of his contracts. Any money on paper belongs to the owner and must be delivered by the manager. Anything he can keep off the paper is his.

The manager -- also called in some translations the steward or retainer -- was very powerful, but also vulnerable. He was caught between his master's greed and his tenants' or debtors' endless complaints. What pleases one will displease the other. He could be fired at the whim of the owner if he doesn't produce enough profit. He was vulnerable to back-stabbing from disgruntled debtors or tenants.

So when we hear in Jesus' parable that anonymous charges were brought to the owner, "Your manager is squandering your property," you can bet this is a familiar story to Jesus' hearers. These kinds of charges were the normal part of the endless war between the landowners and their peasants and debtors.

Let me mention one more complication. Jewish law expressly forbade usury, oppressive interest. That's in your bible in at least five places. And the official teaching of the Mishnah opposed all interest, oppressive or not. The wealthy had tactics to work around these religious restrictions, of course. The most common strategy was to include the total amount of debt in a single figure that includes both the principle and interest hidden in the contract. The usual hidden interest rate was 25% for money and 50% for goods that could spoil or be tampered with. So, if you as a merchant sold the master 50 jugs of olive oil for an agreed price of $10,000, the manager would write 100 jugs instead of 50, contracting the hidden 50% interest, and you might smile and shake his hand with a substantial gold coin passing from you to him. You are now a debtor, to the tune of 100 jugs of olive oil for the price of fifty.

It was a complex and oppressive system. If a manager were accused and convicted of usury, he would have to pay the interest and the fine himself. If he didn't squeeze a good price and hidden interest, his master would fire him for inefficiency.

So what happens in this story? The debtor merchants accuse the manager, and the owner believes them. The manager has no options. A man in his position has no friends who will help him. He sees his future among the expendables who lived a brief, hard life. Digging was the hardest physical labor of those people who had nothing to offer but their animal energy. He couldn't compete with peasants who had worked all their lives. He knew with their physical labor, irregular meals, and long periods of hunger, he would quickly fall into lowest place as a beggar, facing sure death from malnutrition and disease. The stakes are high.

The manager summons the merchant debtors as though he were still in charge. They probably know about him. They're probably the anonymous accusers. He deals with them quickly, one at a time. The reductions in their contracts represent exactly the difference between the real value of the contract and the hidden interest -- 50% for oil that can be altered; 20% on more secure wheat. All of the loss is the owner's. It's on paper. The manager's cut is off the record. Now, he really is scattering his owner's goods, just as accused. The merchants who accept the deal are now in the manager's debt. They like what has happened, and they publicly praise the honor of their glorious patron and benefactor, the owner.

So, what is the owner to do. He can cancel the new contracts, make a martyr of the manager, compromise his own reputation and make it more difficult to work with the merchants in the future. He knows, even without the hidden interest, he's made an exorbitant profit. There are lots of ways for elites to recoup these costs. He also knows, the manager has exposed the anonymous enemies who are now in his debt. That shrewd manager has reminded the owner who it is who makes those risky contracts with hidden interests, and who loses if they are found to be usurious. The master does. He thinks, "I need someone shrewd like this. Sure, I've taken a short-term loss, but he'll bleed those merchants dry for me the next time. They owe him."

The manager belongs to a system of injustice and works it well. He has no intention of giving up just because another anonymous enemy has launched a campaign to remove him. The owner, who belongs to the same system of exploitation, recognizes a gifted manager when he sees one.

But look what's happened. Here is William Herzog's commentary: "The parable began with the usual social scripts: owners distrust managers; peasants hate managers; managers cheat both tenants and owners. But by means of his outrageous actions, the manager manages to reverse all these scripts so that, at the close of the parable, peasants are praising the master, the master commends the manager, and the manager has relieved the burden on the peasants and kept his job." Out of this sad story of wrong-doing, came something that looks almost like a piece of the kingdom of heaven, because the master had wiped off the debts and relieved the burdens of the debtors. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." It is a glimpse of another order -- one in which forgiveness of debt would be more than a petition in a prayer. A sorry and predictable tale of woe becomes a scene of rejoicing.

It's a hard parable to squeeze much good from. However, I find it hopeful. I look around at complex and sorry systems of oppression and abuse of power. They are beyond my influence. There is so much systemically broken in the world. Suspicion and hatred abound.

Yet even in the midst of scandal and outrage, another order can break through. In the most unimaginable and outrageous ways, God can turn a sorry and predicable tale of woe into a scene of rejoicing. That's a message that should be close to the hearts of all Episcopalians. After all, we have our genesis in the sorry tale of the peccadillos of Henry the Eighth. Look what God did with that mess. He made us!

It's remarkable that Jesus told this story. It shows he had stomach enough for the worldliness and intrigue of his day. Might we also have the stomach to face the complexity, oppression and suspicion of our age with enough courage and shrewdness to help another order break through, to turn our world's sorrow into rejoicing.

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