Text: Luke 16:1-13 (RSV)
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager
16 He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ 3 And the steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for the sons of this world[a] are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon,[b] so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations.
10 “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon,[c] who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”[d]
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen
Let me re-read the Old Testament lesson:
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
The Prophet Mourns for the People
18 My grief is beyond healing,[a]
my heart is sick within me.
19 Hark, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?”
“Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images,
and with their foreign idols?”
20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.”
21 For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
9 [b] O that my head were waters,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people!
What does it mean to be a “prophet”? We hear the word every so often; I recall hearing it more often than not in the term “prophet of doom” or the like, or as someone who can predict the future – Nostradamus is considered a prophet in that sense, for example.
But there’s more to it than that. The website MyJewishLearning.com tells us:
“[T]he earliest prophets described in the Bible were seers, charismatic figures who prophesied in a trance, usually induced by the use of music and dance. Often they banded together in guilds and were called ‘the sons of the prophets.’
“The guilds were based on the master‑disciple relationship and were intended to pass on a tradition of prophecy. There is no definite evidence that prophets of this kind were in any way involved in the moral and religious ferment of the times. They may have been foretellers of the future.
“By the time of the first monarchs, Saul, David, and Solomon, the role of the prophet had begun to change. It seems to have taken on some of the charismatic qualities associated with the judges in the period immediately after the conquest, and simultaneously the kings inherited the political and military aspects of the judge’s role. In the early days of the monarchy, the prophet appears as a religious model in the king’s entourage, deeply involved in the life of the royal court but able, at same time, to castigate the ruler by means of pointed parables.
“Other prophets, of lesser importance, may have been attached to the major cultic sites, according to some scholars. By the time of Elijah and Elisha, prophets were found in both the northern and southern kingdoms and were often in conflict with the kings. They had clearly taken on their well‑known role as critics of the Israelite society of the day, but had not yet developed into literary figures.”[1]
When we think of the great prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, we always think of them primarily in their role of critic. Critics are never popular. So, clearly being a prophet was never a job for the faint of heart! And the prophets of Israel never lost their role as predictor of the future – every year, we read majestic words from Isaiah like “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” (Isaiah 40:1, KJV) and “The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2, KJV). The only way you could tell that a prophet was genuine was to wait until his prophecies came true – which more often than not happened centuries after he was dead!
Jesus was called a prophet by some people in his lifetime; and other religions, notably Judaism and Islam, refer to him as a great prophet even today.
That’s an apparently somewhat tenuous connection between Jesus and the passage from Jermiah; you might be asking yourself why I’m concentrating on the Old Testament this morning. Fair question.
First, because the Old Testament is fascinating and worth reading and studying in and of itself. The passage from Jeremiah we have before us today was written somewhere around 600BC – that is, during the Iron Age. Jeremiah – known as “the weeping prophet” – wrote about the indifference and cruelty shown by his people during a time of prosperity. At that time, the Hebrew people were divided into two countries, Judah and Israel – but both countries had forsaken God; this has crushed Jeremiah’s heart.
Second, the Old Testament really is the foundation on which the New Testament is built. Jesus is the personification and the culmination of the Law; all the prophecies regarding the Messiah are fulfilled in him.
Third, all three lessons do in fact address a fundamental question, perhaps the fundamental question, of human existence: How are we to live together and treat each other? The word we traditionally use to sum up our approach to that question is “stewardship.” In other words, how we manage our time – which is the one commodity we have that is not renewable and not unlimited; how we manage our talents – and every one of us is talented in multiple ways; and finally, how we express ourselves in service to God, not just in worship but even more importantly by service to others – really and truly matters. We need to take a step back sometimes and recognize that all we have, all we enjoy in this life, and all we are come as gifts to us from God. Jeremiah implores us to hear the cry of the poor. The lesson from I Timothy admonishes us to express our connection to all people by praying for them. In Luke, Jesus challenges us to be as wise as the dishonest manager – though, of course, not to follow his example. These are issues worthy of serious study and reflection, issues worthy of thoughtful worship.
And then there’s this: We are also prophets! At least, we all have a prophetic part to play in proclaiming the Word of God that tells the world that God’s Kingdom truly is on its way. We proclaim this with words, but mostly with loving actions.
One very good action is to contribute to the upcoming Neighbors in Need Offering, which will be collected on October 6th. Another is to help with the initiative begun by Cheryl and Carmen to help refugees in our area. You can see their display downstairs.
How are we to live together? Here are two more quotes from the Old Testament:
Exodus 23:9: You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Jeremiah 22:16: “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the Lord.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] “Prophecy in Ancient Israel,” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/prophecy-in-ancient-israel/