Gators for Others

The Chapel of the Incarnation, Gainesville FL
September 19, 2010

Year C, Proper 20: The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Luke 16:1-13

Gators for Others

The gospel lesson I just read is usually called the parable of the dishonest manager. It’s found only in the Gospel of Luke – and, it’s one of Jesus’ more difficult parables. It’s difficult because at first it seems as if Jesus is praising dishonest behavior. But, since we know that can’t be right for nearly two-thousand years Christians have struggled to figure out what Jesus was trying to teach the disciples and is trying to teach us today.

The parable is about a manager who gets in trouble because he’s been squandering his master’s property. Jesus doesn’t give us any more detail, but I’m sure we can all fill in the blanks. We’ve all heard way too many stories of corruption and so-called white-collar crime.

Many of you know that it drives me a little crazy that so much of your knowledge of my home state comes from watching “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Obviously, those shows give New Jersey a bad rap. But even I have to admit that New Jersey, although a wonderful place, is notorious for corruption. Not too long ago a young guy was elected mayor of Hoboken as a…reformer. But, it turned out that he accepted $25,000 in bribes before he took office. He ended up serving as mayor for only three weeks before he was arrested. He admitted his crimes and it’s off to jail for him. Corruption is alive and well in New Jersey and all over, I guess.

Since this is the Bible, we might reasonably expect that, like the mayor, this dishonest manager would get his comeuppance and the moral of the story would be clear. The moral would be: Jesus teaches us not to steal. I could wrap up the sermon early and we could get on with the delicious meal made by our friends at Grace Church in Ocala.

Sorry, not so fast. Of course we shouldn’t steal, but that doesn’t seem to be the point of this parable.

The manager very cleverly goes around to all those who were in debt to the master and cuts their bills. He hopes to make these debtors happy enough that they will welcome him into their homes after he gets axed by his master.

The manager probably didn’t earn a salary. Instead he made his living by taking a cut of what people owed to the master. So most scholars think that the manager was eliminating his own “commission” on the debt. In that case, at least this time, he’s not really being dishonest.

But then, as usual, Jesus throws us a curveball. The master finds out what the manager has done. Jesus concludes the parable saying, “And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”

“And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”

And that’s it. That’s the end of the parable. In my imagination, I can see the disciples sitting around Jesus trying to make sense of this parable – and trying especially to make sense of that last sentence. What message are we supposed to take away from this parable?

And here we are two thousand years later here we are in Gainesville, sitting around doing the same thing - trying to make sense of this parable – and trying to make sense of that last sentence.

“And the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”

It seems followers of Jesus have struggled with this parable from the start. Luke himself seems to struggle with explaining it. After the conclusion of the parable, Luke offers us a series of Jesus sayings – as if hoping that something will fit. If you look at them, you’ll see that the sayings are mostly about how we use our wealth and the importance of being trustworthy.

But, I think it’s the first Jesus saying that is speaking to us today. “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

In the parable, the dishonest manager faced a crisis. The manager responded to the crisis cleverly and shrewdly.
Well, today you and I here at the chapel are also faced with a crisis.

We live in a world that is hungry and in pain. Much of that hunger and pain is in far-off places. I’m sure many of us suffer from compassion fatigue after seeing reports from the earthquake in Haiti and the floods in Pakistan – just the latest in a litany of disasters. We live in a world that is hungry and in pain, filled with people crying out to us. And God expects us to be shrewd and clever in responding to those cries.

Some of that hunger and pain is closer to home. The statistics on poverty in the US are bleak. In 2009, 43.6 million Americans lived below the official poverty line. And many more millions were poor by any reasonable measure. Many of our neighbors and maybe some of us here experience real economic poverty. In just a few weeks, I’ve been approached frequently by people looking for money – whether I’m wearing my clerical collar or not.

God expects us to be shrewd and clever in responding to that need.

We live in a world that is hungry and in pain. And some of that hunger and pain is just about invisible because it lives inside our own hearts. How many of us are anxious about the future? Will I be able to get a job? How many of us worry that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not good-looking enough? How many of us feel guilty about what we’ve done or not done? How many of us feel alone? How many of us are angry - at someone else or angry at ourselves?

Yes, you and I are faced with a crisis.

Since we live in a world that is hungry and in despair, God is challenging us – daring us – expecting us - to be shrewd and clever just like the manager in the parable. We need to be shrewd and clever in figuring out ways to feed and heal our brothers and sisters who are hungry and in despair.

God is calling us to be Gators for others.

And we need to be shrewd and clever in letting our brothers and sisters who are hungry and in despair know about this special place. This is where we are fed – fed by the Word of God, fed by the fellowship, fed by the music, fed by the opportunity to serve and to lead, fed by this beautiful chapel, and most of all, fed by the Body and Blood of Christ that we will receive in just a few minutes.

We live in a world, in a community, that is hungry and in despair. So, we, the children of light, need to be clever and shrewd like the manager in today’s parable. We need to figure out here in Gainesville, here at UF – with all its challenges and distractions – how to serve others and to invite the hungry into our community.

We need to be Gators for others.
Like the master in the parable, God is challenging us – God is daring us – expecting us - to deal with this crisis.
And at the same time God is also giving us everything we need. The Holy Spirit will continue to guide us and inspire us and, yes, make us shrewd and clever. The Holy Spirit will strengthen us as we continue to build the kingdom of God right here on West University Avenue.

And, if we give this our best shot, the master will commend us for acting shrewdly; God will thank us and congratulate us for being Gators for others.

Amen.