Proper 20 C – George Yandell
Amy-Jill Levine writes [in Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (N. Y.: HarperOne, 2014): “Jesus knew the best teachings come from stories that make us laugh even as they make us uncomfortable. [Parables are] not tools for shaming or inculcating guilt, but for good hard lessons learned with a sense of playfulness.” We tend to domesticate the parables in order to control their meaning. “If the interpretation does not raise for us more questions, if it does not open us up to more conversation, if it creates a neat and tidy picture, we need to go back and read it again”. Parables challenge, provoke, convict, and amuse.
Today’s parable is a doozy. It does all the above- challenges, provokes, convicts and amuses. Over the centuries followers of Jesus have scratched our heads and gone to exhaustive lengths to try to understand, or explain away, what Jesus was (or was not) saying here. One writer suggests that this parable in particular, along with numerous other passages in Scripture, is more fully understood when viewed through the lens of humor. Unfortunately, the humor of Christ is usually overlooked as an aspect of his teachings. Laughter is the sudden perception of incongruity between our ideals and the actuality before us. [Adapted from Elton Trueblood in The Humor of Christ (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1964.]
Jesus deliberately exaggerated to point out our foibles; he used hyperbole to clarify and increase our understanding; to reveal aspects of truth which would not otherwise be revealed; and to call attention to what would, without [humor], remain hidden or unappreciated. Truth, truth alone, is the end and the goal. [ibid]
Today the question from Jesus seems to be: Dishonest Steward or Shrewd Manager? Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.
You might say Jesus was telling his hearers: “I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” [Adapted from Eugene H. Peterson in The Message Remix: The Bible in Contemporary Language, Colorado Springs: Navpress, 2003.]
One theologian suspects that Jesus set up a barter economy with the people who followed him. The feedings of the multitudes could have had that barter economy as their basis. They could exchange the necessities of life without entering the market place, avoiding taxes and looking after one another in the process. In that context one can ask: Who is this manager? Is he an unscrupulous crook who cooked the books and cheated his boss? Or did he outwit a corrupt system in which the rich were exploiting the working classes? Perhaps the master himself was a less than upstanding member of the business community. In contemporary context, he might have been the manager of a shady hedge fund or a Ponzi scheme perpetrator; or perhaps he hid company profits in tax-sheltered offshore accounts. [ibid]
Whatever the case, the steward’s quick thinking and ingenuity benefited not only him but ultimately his master, as well as the master’s debtors. Unquestionably, few passages of Scripture have created more conflicting views than this parable, especially since the steward is commended by his master for his actions. The story probes and tests the limits of our neat moral universe. [ibid]
One way to view the steward is to associate him with the underdog trickster figure of literature and folklore. Perhaps he could be likened to a Robin Hood character who stole from the rich to give to the poor. The Hebrew tradition is rich in underdog tales—the person who is least likely to succeed, and yet does. “Trickster narratives help us cope with the insurmountable and uncontrollable forces in our own lives, personifying and in a sense containing the chaos that always threatens.” This image held special appeal for Israel, since throughout its history, the nation held a self-image as underdog and trickster. [Adapted from Susan Niditch in Underdogs and Tricksters: A Prelude to Biblical Folklore, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987.]
Although we may not always condone the tactics of a trickster such as the steward, we can admire their pluck and willingness to take risks, and may even find ourselves cheering them on. [ibid]
That the steward in many ways did not really deserve to be commended may be a means of making the Gospel’s point. Grace is a surprise—as it was to the disciples. Grace comes anyway, even to the unredeemable—even the steward! The expedient actions of the steward—whether dishonest or shrewd—call to mind one of the Dalai Lama’s eighteen Rules for Living: “Learn the rules so that you know how to break them properly.” [Adapted from Frederick Houk Borsch in Many Things in Parables: Extravagant Stories of New Community (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.]
The paradox of the steward’s behavior can be summed up in this way: “The point of the Unjust Steward is that it’s better to be a resourceful rascal than a saintly schlemiel.” [Frederick Buechner in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, N.Y..: Harper & Row, 1973].
In The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, the senior devil warns his apprentice: “If the fact ever gets out that you and I cannot stand laughter, then the game is up and over.” That is an apt way of understanding the steward’s actions, and his master’s acceptance of them. If you can’t laugh at the way God acts on occasion, how can the impishness in creation be accepted? It seems to me that the parables can be read as high and holy jokes about God and about humans and about the Gospel itself as the highest and holiest joke of them all. [Adapted from Frederick Buechner in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, N. Y.: Harper & Row, 1977.] In one of her visions, or “showings,” the 14th-century Christian mystic Julian of Norwich “laughed greatly” for she “understood that we may laugh to comfort ourselves and rejoice in God, because the devil is overcome.”