Recalculating

September 22, 2019

Luke 16:1-13

This summer the drive to the beach was hideous.  It usually is on summer Saturdays, but this was the worst I’d seen.  The crawl of cars wasn’t only before the Bay Bridge but all through the little confusing webs of roads on the other side too.  I probably had five times where the little lines on my GPS were so red for so long that the nice British lady inside decided it was time to rethink the whole thing.  The screen would freeze for a minute then shift a bit and the lady would say “Recalculating.” And then she would find me some slightly less painful way to go forward.  

Finally, after a much longer drive than anyone was prepared for, we got to the beach and unpacked the car.  Finally it was time to head to the beach and forget the last five hours. Finally I would get to ensconce myself on my chair under the umbrella as the kids frolicked in the waves.  Finally I would get to lose myself in a great novel, one of my favorite things about the spaciousness of time at the beach. And so with joy I reached for a book in my beach bag.… Only to realize that in the chaos of sunscreen and towels and snacks I’d forgotten to bring one with me.  My husband Holden offered the extra book he’d brought -- White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.  Not quite the fun, fictional novel I was hoping for.

I wasn’t really surprised by the substance of the book, but the writer talked about racism in a way that caught me in a new way.  She wasn’t talking about racism as an event -- like white nationalists marching with tiki torches -- something that we all could point to and judge as bad and easily distance ourselves from.  Instead, she was talking about the structure of racism that has been bred over centuries into all of our systems in the United States -- housing and criminal justice and education and finance and employment and politics and, I’m sorry to say, even the Church.  She made it clear that as much as I would like to distance myself from these systems, to hold myself innocent, the truth is that I -- as a relatively well-off white person -- am enmeshed in all of them. I may not be responsible for slavery or Jim Crow, I may not have created the systems that resulted from those things, but I certainly benefit from them.  It isn’t enough to just be a nice person with good intentions who doesn’t say ugly things.

While reading, and ever since, my reactions to this book have ranged from defensiveness to guilt to new awareness.  I’m seeing things differently. But while I know there is a lot of work for me to do, I haven’t figured out yet exactly what that looks like.  The issues seem so huge and pervasive that it’s hard to know where to start. It’s hard not to feel paralyzed and hopeless.

And so I read with interest and gratitude the news about two weeks ago that Virginia Theological Seminary, my alma mater and St. Paul’s sister in ministry, had decided to set aside a $1.7 million endowment fund for reparations.

The press release explained that while the seminary itself hadn’t own enslaved people, many of the early professors did, and at least one building was built by slave labor.  And even after slavery ended, the seminary participated in segregation until 1951. The seminary leadership wanted not just to repent for past sins, but (as the press release explained) to repair the material consequences of the past and “commit to a radically different future” through this new fund.

Now, I know there are different opinions about reparations, and I am not educated enough on the subject to know whether it is the most practical or effective route to changing systems that have been steeped in racism for centuries.  But to me It felt good to see the seminary doing something - taking a step towards repairing the mess we have all inherited from the past.  It won’t change everything, but it feels like a start. It sure beats being paralyzed and hopeless.

Enter, I think, this parable…. 

This story, sometimes called the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, is a hard one.  The hero of this story isn’t likable. He is lazy and conniving, and he seems to be out only for personal gain.  He triumphs by being sneaky and cheating his boss to save his own skin. And then he gets commended and held up as an example.  It seems like a very strange story for Jesus to tell.

But, of course, parables aren’t meant to be morality tales.  They are stories that use everyday life to reveal deeper truths about God’s kingdom. And, like our manager today, they are often sneaky and unexpected.

With this parable, a little context helps.

In Jesus’ time and place, there were mainly two classes of people -- the very rich, and the very poor.  The poor were at the mercy of the rich landlords who demanded most of their crops, and the Roman government with its outrageous taxes.  The rich would generally delegate their daily business transactions to managers, just like the Roman government delegated their dealings with people to tax collectors.  And these middle men were both privileged and despised because they made their living by taking a cut out of every transaction.  Their money came off the backs of the poor, an additional payment required along with whatever was owed to the landlord or to the government.  And if the poor reached the point where they could no longer pay what was owed, they could be sold into slavery.

These were awful and harsh systems.

But in this parable, the system gets turned upside down.

A rich man hears that his manager has been squandering his property.  And so he summons the manager and says 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.”  When the manager realizes he is about to lose his job, he knows he is doomed unless he thinks quick.  No other job awaits him, and he’s made a lot of enemies in his dealings. And so he hatches a plan to redeem whatever he can about his situation.  He quickly forgives the poor debtors a portion of their debt in his last moments as manager so that they will think kindly of him when he is fired. His motives aren’t pure and his methods are questionable, but his actions still result in the lessening of an impossible burden of debt for people in great need.  The manager helps to break down the unjust and oppressive system and gives away the fruits of that system to the people being oppressed.

And the rich man “commends the dishonest manager.”  Not for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. But interestingly, this phrase “dishonest manager” actually translates literally from the Greek as “steward of unrighteousness.”

For me that changes everything.

A steward is a trustee and manager of another's property and resources.  This manager has been a steward of the rich man’s property and resources, which rely on the unjust and oppressive system to increase.  As a steward, he is supposed to care for whatever is entrusted to him for his employer’s benefit.  But it seems like before this moment of reckoning, the manager’s stewarding work has been all about demanding money from poor people to line his own pockets.  Now, though, the tide has turned. And the manager is instead stewarding the rich man’s property and resources in a way that benefits the poor as much as possible.

We too are stewards.  This is a familiar term for church folks who are used to hearing about stewardship.  We have been entrusted by God with all kinds of resources. We are stewards of personal things (like our time, talent and treasure).  And we are stewards of our relationships (our families and friends). And we are stewards of communal things (like the earth, our communities, and our institutions). 

But what if we are also called by God to be stewards of unrighteousness?

Jesus certainly was.  Eating with tax collectors and sinners, lovingly welcoming the unholy, patiently explaining the mysteries of God to the stubborn and unyielding pharisees, even forgiving those who nailed him to the cross.  Jesus was constantly stewarding unrighteous people and situations and systems toward the light of God. Constantly turning things upside down.

And I think in telling this parable Jesus makes clear that he isn’t naive about the world his followers live in.  He knows that we too are surrounded by unrighteousnees, sometimes of our own making, but often not. He knows that we too are enmeshed in a world of unjust systems, some of which we benefit from, knowingly or unknowingly.  

How can we, like this dishonest manager, become stewards of unrighteousness rather than middle managers that keep the oppressive systems strong by our willingness to look the other way?  

How can we move from being paralyzed and hopeless in the face of the unrighteousness that surrounds us to to stewarding it into transformation and wholeness?  

How can we begin to repair the brokenness all around us?

Maybe we can take a hint from the dishonest manager from our parable today, from VTS, and from the unflappable British lady living inside my GPS -- it’s time for some shrewd and imaginative recalculating.

Amen.