Text: Luke 16:1-18
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Christ is
risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
We
have many titles for our Lord Jesus Christ. One that I have never heard used, but would be
appropriate is “raconteur.” Our Lord is
a “raconteur.” This is a French word
that means “storyteller,” but one who is a true wordsmith who weaves wisdom and
humor together to hold our attention. Jesus
is the ultimate raconteur, the very Word by whom all things were made. To teach us, He spoke somewhere around 40
parables. Some are one-liners, and others are completely developed short stories.
Jesus
knows that storytelling is a way to reach people’s hearts with the truths of
the kingdom.
The
Parable of the Dishonest Manager is a great example. In this story, the hero is really a kind of
anti-hero: a crook, a thief, a weaselly sort of fellow who is only concerned
with saving his own skin. Such a strange
character to teach us how to be a good Christian! Jesus the raconteur is also a fan of
irony.
The
dishonest manager, when he knows that he is being fired, looks for ways to use
the tools at his disposal to find a soft landing. And so he cancels debts that he has no right
to do, rewriting contracts for his benefactors. And strangely enough, Jesus praises this
character – not for his dishonesty, but rather for his “shrewdness.” To be shrewd means being able to look at a
situation and really know what’s going on, to be able to make wise judgments.
And
the point of the story is: “the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing
with their own generation than the sons of light.” In other words, unbelievers know the score,
they know what they want, and they work hard to achieve it. We are saved by grace alone, but how we live
out that life of grace and bring the good news to others is where we Christians
need to be as shrewd as the unbelievers. We need to be willing to carry out our
vocations as Christians in a way that is as clever as our dishonest manager –
without, of course, the dishonesty.
Or
as our Lord said elsewhere, we need to be as wise as serpents, and as innocent
as doves. We need to make money serve
us, and avoid the temptation for us to serve money. For we cannot have two masters. So let us harness the power of this world in
whatever way that we can for the sake of the kingdom.
And
let us listen to Jesus our raconteur, the one who actually tears up our debts,
our Benefactor who rewrites the contract in His blood. Let us take to heart all of his instructions
for life in the kingdom in which we live and serve by grace, even unto
eternity. Amen.
Christ is
risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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