Rebuilding Community, Redistributing Wealth

 Luke 16:1-13

The other night I had an interesting conversation about whether in presenting a sermon the aim is to present simplified views of the world that might help the average person in their daily life. Yet as we dig into the scriptures, we find passages like the one that we just read and if you're anything like me you're asking yourself what the heck is going on here? The culmination of the whole story is the phrase “You cannot serve God and wealth.” But on its own even that phrase is difficult to unpack.

Rather than us interpreting scriptures, the words of the scripture interpret our lives and challenge us to rethink what it means to be a person and to live well in the world. This morning, I want to explore three ways in which the scriptures might challenge us today. The first is about Jesus and his authority to do what he was doing. The second is about the way in which Jesus reframes and rebuilds community by including those others would exclude. And the third is about the redistribution of wealth.

To be able to explore these things with you today it is important for us to dwell on the first word of chapter 16 which is the word ‘then’. This simple word then implies is that what we are reading comes as part of a sequence within a story and it might seem blatantly obvious to us that this is the case because we are in fact in chapter 16 of Luke's gospel. 

To understand a little bit of the context and sequence of events it is not necessary for us to return all the way to Luke chapter 1. No, we're only going to jump back 2 Chapters to Luke chapter 14. In Luke chapter 14 we encounter a diatribe between Jesus and the Pharisees around who people should eat with and who should have a place of honour at a table. We then find at the beginning of chapter 15 the challenge of the Pharisees to Jesus interaction with the tax collectors and sinners. We are told that the Pharisees and scribers were grumbling saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 

In response to this critique Jesus tells 3 parables to the Pharisees and the scribes who were listening. The three stories are the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. Each of these stories as elements which challenge the Pharisees thinking around who should be included and who might be excluded from the community. 

At the close of chapter 15, Jesus is describing the interaction between the father and the older son an encouragement to celebrate and rejoice in the finding of the lost son. 

It is at this point we get that small transitional word, ‘then’. “Then Jesus said to the disciples.” What is important for us to realise here is it Jesus’s audience hasn't changed. In the telling of the three parables Jesus had primarily been addressing the Pharisees and scribes, but now he turns to address his disciples directly with a story clearly knowing that the Pharisees and scribes are still listening. 

I'm going to recount the story very briefly. 

There is a rich man who had a manager who he thought was not doing a good job so he decided to sack him. 

The manager said oh no what will I do I am too weak to dig and I am certainly not going to beg. 

His plan was to create a situation in which he would find welcome not from those in power but among those whom owed money or were excluded. 

So he went off and called together everyone who was indebted to his master. 

He said to one who owed 100 jugs of olive oil, make it 50. 

And to another who owed 100 containers of wheat, make it 80. 

Now when the rich man found out he commended the manager for his cleverness. 

It may be helpful to add a bit of insight into the nature of the ancient culture as one in which honour and shame were determinative in relationships. By forgiving the debt of the 2 tenants the manager may have brought honour to the master by making appear benevolent and generous whilst at the same time providing an opportunity for the tenants to restore their honour with the master and within the community through settling their debts. 

As I said earlier, I want to explore three levels at which this story may be operating. The first is about Jesus and his authority to do what he was doing. The second is about inclusion in community. And the third is about the redistribution of wealth. 

What if we think for a moment that Jesus is placing the Pharisees and Scribes in the place of the master in the parable It is quite logical as the Pharisees and scribes were at the top of the religious heap in the society. 

If this is the case, then Jesus is saying to the disciples hey these guys who think they are my master want to give me the flick because they think I am managing God’s affairs and message badly. 

If this is the case Jesus may be having a bit of a go at the Pharisees and Scribes who are listening in the background.  “Oh no what will we I do I can’t dig or beg says the manager, says Jesus...  no Jesus has a better plan and Jesus’ plan is God’s plan for dealing with the tax collectors and sinners that the Pharisees and scribes had been grumbling about. 

I am going to include them; I am going to forgive their debts; I am going to forgive the sins; I am going to restore relationships which have eternal implications; and, he says to the disciples, I want you to do the same.” 

Jesus is saying, “These Pharisees and scribes might want to give me the flick but they can’t because I am doing God’s business, and you are part of that too.” 

Now just as in the story the master commends the manager, I think Jesus is saying to the Pharisees and scribes who see themselves as his master, “what I am doing brings honour to all of us, to you as well and rather than grumbling you should be commending me who is doing God’s will.” 

The question then for us as third party observers to this story is whether we can see the value of what Jesus is doing and whether we see that he is about God’s work. 

Paired with the 3 stories told to the Pharisees and scribes about what had been lost and found this parable is a continuation on the same theme of the way in which Jesus was behaving in relationship to the tax collectors and sinners by including which is my second point. 

Through the process of negotiation the shrewd manager gives opportunity for those who might owe something to God to find a way to balance the ledger. Jesus constantly includes people throughout his ministry as part of God's Kingdom that others seem to wish to exclude. There is a universality about Jesus’s desire for people to understand that they are part of the human community. 

This was highlighted for me during the week When I was listening to the Soul Search podcast. In an interview with the scholar John Behr, Behr was explaining the insight of Gregory of Nyssa about the being in the image of God. According to Behr, Nyssa’s concept of being in the image of God is that of the totality of humanity from the beginning to the end of creation. In our highly individualised western culture, the notion of the image of God being the totality of humanity rather than who I am as an individual is deeply challenging. One of the implications of this is it every human person that has ever existed is part of the image of God and therefore this has radical implications for whom we include and exclude. 

This concept of the image of God appears to be played out in Jesus’ insistence that those who have been excluded are incorporated into community once again. In contemplating this there may be political implications for us in terms of our advocacy for those who find themselves at the margins of society. The well-known advocate 4 justice and equality in America, Martin Luther King Jnr., provides us with a good example of political advocacy which reflects the kind of thinking that we encounter in this passage and Jesus’s behaviour around those who are treated as outcasts. In this sense the story is challenge us to consider who we include and exclude from the human community. 

This brings me to speak to one other aspect, the third aspect, that this passage provides a challenge for us on and it is based on a more literal reading of the story. The manager in the story is described in the Greek as an oikonomos. John Squires explains this terms, “In Greek, it is a compound word, joining together oikos, meaning household, and nomos, meaning organisation or arrangement. Thus, the oikonomos is the person who oversees the organisation and management of the household.” You can hear within this word the origins of the term economy and based on Jesus final injunction that you cannot serve two masters God and money there may be issues for us to consider here in terms of the redistribution of wealth. 

The renegotiation of the debts allows the wealthy to show generosity whilst it also empowers a person carrying debt to be released from the financial burden. Again, in a closer reading of Luke’s gospel there is an interplay between the place of the rich and poor in the kingdom of God and how wealth is shared or not. It is interesting to note that wealth may have been understand as a sign of faithfulness by some within the ancient culture and the reversal of this thinking occurs a few chapters later when a rich young ruler is told to sell everything that he has a give it to the poor. Something neither he nor we do. The theme of the redistribution of wealth in earl Christian community is no clearer than Acts Chapter 2, which is also written by Luke, where we are told in the Christian community the earliest disciples share “all things in common,” distributing “to all, as any had need” (2:44-45) 

Radical notions of the redistribution of wealth and reorganisation of economic approaches were a theme of the liberation theologians of the mid twentieth century. The Catholica Priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who is seen as the starting point for the liberation theologians, “developed a new spirituality based on solidarity with the poor and called on the church to help change existing social and economic institutions to promote social justice.” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gustavo-Gutierrez) 

Jesus’ story brings us into an uncomfortable conversation with our own prosperity and wealth and challenges us to consider our own generosity and limits to that generosity. 

In verse 14 the response of the Pharisees which we didn’t read out is to ridicule Jesus and his ideas. The fact that it is the Pharisees who make the response, not the disciples to who Jesus was speaking, indicates that Jesus’ actual target audience was the Pharisees and scribes after all. 

The polemical debates that Jesus has with the Pharisees and scribes were part of the rabbinic culture. Jesus’s words invite the Pharisees and Scribes to consider Jesus’ actions as potential bring honour to them as much as to those that the are labelled as sinners. The hope of the good news is found in Chapter 18 when in response to being asked by the disciples, “Who then can be saved? Jesus declares “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.” This is at the heart of Jesus’ ministry inviting people to reconsider their place in the world as part of the community of humanity in which all have a place and in which all can be honoured as being in the image of God.