5
Proper 20 C (2016)
Luke 16: 1-13
When Gay Talese’s father, Joseph, was an apprentice tailor back in Calabria, he made a terrible mistake. His hand slipped and he accidentally cut a slit in the trouser leg of a new Easter suit being made for the head of a Mafia crime family. Disaster loomed. There was not enough material left to craft new pants and the proud and vengeful Mafia don might very well exact a terrible price for his disappointment. As siesta time approached, the tailor for whom Talese worked closed the shop and ordered his assistants to pray for help with this frightening situation. In due course came inspiration: the tailor cut an identical slit in the other trouser leg and stitched up both using an elaborate design. When the Mafioso boss tried on his new suit, the tailor explained that this leg design represented the latest fashion found in the great capitals of the world. As proof, he pointed to his assistants: each of whom now wore trousers with the identical hand stitched design. The don left, happily in style.
Now let me ask you a question. Did the tailor do wrong in misleading the Mafia boss? Most of us admire the tailor's ingenuity, but technically he did lie. His lie probably did no harm and likely kept him from physical harm, but it was still a lie.
Now, let me tell you another story. A middle-aged man was in trouble with his boss. In fact, he had already been given the pink slip. In a few days he would be finished - out the door. The man was mortified. He knew that at his age it would be difficult to find another job, particularly at the pay scale to which he had grown accustomed. Unemployment benefits would keep his family going for a while, but what would he do when they ran out? He was facing disaster. Then he hit upon an ingenuous plan. He was in charge of accounts receivable for his company. In the short time he had remaining, he decided to call each of his employers' creditors and offer them a deal. He told them that he was leaving his current position to start his own business. In order to win their good will he was offering them a sweet deal they could not refuse. If they paid their bills immediately, they could settle for 60 cents on the dollar. Of course, he assured them, with his fingers crossed, that he had been authorized to make this offer, and he hoped they would remember this act of benevolence when he came to solicit their business. In other words, he used his boss's money to buy good will with possible future employers.
Now, did this man do wrong? Of course, you say. He was not authorized to give away his company's money no matter how desperate he was to find another job. His behavior was inexcusable, even criminal. This brings us to the question for the morning: Why did Jesus make a hero out of this scoundrel?
Certainly it was not because of the manager's sense of ethics. He had no ethics. Like many people today this man believed that the end justifies the means. We often hear people rationalize their behavior: “My boss won't miss this money. Heck, he buys a new Jaguar every year. He takes trips to Europe all the time. This money is peanuts compared to what this firm takes in. Besides, I'm desperate. I've got a family to feed. There's nothing else I can do.” There's nothing surprising about such thinking. People do it all the time.
Following the Gulf oil spill, unscrupulous lawyers sent out thousands of letters to businesses, including churches, offering to help them file a claim for damages against BP. Many businesses did suffer losses, but not too many churches, certainly not here. I am proud to say that when I showed the Vestry the letter we received from one of these shysters, they found the solicitation disgusting. But I do know of one church which filed a highly suspect claim for alleged damages and received over $150,000. Their justification, “we’ll put the money to good use”—whatever that means.
Does that not sound familiar? In a survey conducted by the University of Florida's Insurance Research Center, one-third of the respondents said it is okay to falsify an insurance claim, and fully one-half felt it's all right to shade the truth in order to save on out-of-pocket deductibles. Sadly, this is the state of ethics in our society today. For one thing, we all pay for such chicanery. And secondly, it's getting so you don't know whom you can trust. If people tell little lies, are they not likely to tell bigger lies? What happens when the day comes when we will not be able to trust anyone?
But you say, “Father, aren't you being a little rigid here?” I think not. We need a consciousness that it is always wrong to lie. It is always wrong to misrepresent the truth. Even when bending the truth is necessary, it ought to be done with a queasy feeling in our stomach. For example, if you were hiding a Jewish refugee from Hitler's storm troopers, of course it would be permissible to lie. But still we need a consciousness that lying is wrong. Otherwise there is a danger that we will begin rationalizing far less critical situations and justifying falsehoods with regard to those situations as well.
There is a moral numbness in our land. Polls show that more and more people are playing fast and loose with the truth. Perhaps that is why the accusation of lying is heard in almost every speech given by our political candidates. Journalists have a field day parsing their words. My Lord, where are we headed? What happens when we are no longer able to trust our spouses, our attorneys, our police? Jesus certainly hit the nail on the head when he observed, “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.”
When Jesus chose a dishonest manager to be the hero of this parable, his goal was not to extol the man’s ethics. He had no ethics; the man was a scoundrel, a knave, a liar and a cheat. Why then did Jesus make him a hero? It was the man's ingenuity and drive that Jesus was extolling. The man didn't sit around whining over his situation. He got busy and found a solution. He came up with a plan and he followed the plan to fruition. He may have been a scoundrel, but at least he was an industrious scoundrel. Jesus was a man of action and he wanted his disciples to be people of action. It saddened Jesus that many of his followers were good people, but it was a passive kind of goodness that did not advance the kingdom. You can almost see the sad expression on Jesus' face as he concludes this parable with this commentary: “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
Some years ago an interesting legal question was posed in The Saturday Evening Post. It seems that one lovely Sunday morning when the service was overly long, the whole congregation rushed out of the pews on the last syllable of the recessional hymn. That is except for Faithful Abigail, the only worshiper entranced by the service. Moving slowly out of her pew into the aisle, she was knocked over and nearly trampled, sustaining a broken arm and two cracked ribs. She sued the church and its officials for damages. “Those in charge of the church knew that most of the congregation stampedes after long sermons,” Abigail argued. “They should have recognized the inherent danger in the situation and prepared for it. They were negligent.” In response the church's attorney argued, “A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. No one has a right to expect it to be run with the same efficiency as a business concern. Abigail, therefore, has no real claim.”
If you were the judge, would you award damages to Abigail? What I found interesting in this case was the characterization of the church. “A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. . . No one has a right to expect it to be run with the same efficiency as a business. . . .” Why not? What if we were as good at what we are supposed to do as Apple or Microsoft is in developing their products? What if we were as committed to spreading the good news of the kingdom of God as Facebook or Amazon is to winning new customers? This is the point Jesus is trying to make. He wants people who bear his name to be not only nice people but to be people who make a difference in the world.
The great Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon put it both colorfully and clearly years ago when he preached a sermon on this text from the Book of Job: “And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, ‘The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them’.” Glancing about the congregation Spurgeon said, “And that is still the case. Some of us are always plowing, breaking up the fallow ground, preparing the soil for good seed. And others are feeding.” Then he looked his congregation in the eye and said, “I know you dear people. Some of you never miss a service if you can help it. Feeding, everlasting feeding. It is good to feed; it is necessary to feed; but DO a bit of Gospel plowing as well, for the health of your soul and the glory of God. ‘The oxen were plowing, but the asses were feeding!’” There's a powerful message in Spurgeon's mischievous words. Jesus got frustrated by people who were nice but who never did anything to advance God’s kingdom.
Most Christians, indeed I hope all Christians, are well intentioned. We want to do good but just don’t know where to start. Like many Americans, Fr. Jeremy Lucas, Rector of Christ Church in Lake Oswego, Oregon, was concerned about the tens of thousands, actually about 33,000 Americans who are killed each year by guns. When he read that the town’s girls softball team was raffling off an assault rifle to raise funds to send the team to play-offs in California, he decided to take action. While the cause was a worry one, there was no need, he reasoned to put even one more assault rifle into the hands of the public. But what to do? He hit upon an idea. He took $3000 from his discretionary fund and bought every remaining raffle ticket. Although the odds were only 1 in 4, he did win and the gun will be destroyed.
Some parishioners argued the money could have been spent to buy food for the poor just as Judas argued that it was wrong for Mary Magdalene to have used very costly perfume to anoint the feet of Jesus rather than selling it to help the poor. Some said he could have bought 10 handguns for the same price and destroyed them. The NRA protested that his action deprived some worthy individual of obtaining a first-class assault weapon cheaply. My point here is not to debate gun rights, but to point out this Christian encountered a situation which he sincerely believed to be ethically wrong, and he took action. You may not agree with his decision, but unlike so many of us, he did not just wring his hands, and cry, “Oh my, I just don’t know what to do”. He acted. I think Jesus would have commended him.
When you leave here today, ask yourself Spurgeon’s question, “Am I plowing or just feeding?” My guess is that Jesus used this scoundrel, this dishonest manager, to shock us into awareness. To be a faithful follower of Jesus requires decisive action. Yes, of course it’s important to be nice, but that’s hardly enough. Jesus calls his disciples to lead a life of action. As the Epistle of James puts it, “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only”. There is a world out there which needs to be saved from the powers of death and darkness. This will only happen if each of us is fully engaged in life.