The Shrewd Manager

If there are images in this attachment, they will not be displayed. Download the original attachment

Parable M5 Sermon Notes June 6, 2010

Title: The Shrewd Manager

Text: Luke 16:1-9

Ken Shigematsu

Introduce KP and Firs.

Prop: some cash

BIG IDEA: We are called to use our position and our possessions to make friends who will welcome us into heaven.

In the movie Tokyo Sonata salaryman (businessman) Ryuhei Sasaki is the sole breadwinner for his wife and two sons in Tokyo (show powerpoint) Your browser may not support display of this image. The movie opens with his being fired as a manager at the Tanita Corporation (the medical electronics firm). He is downsized out, replaced by someone from China who is willing to work for 1/3 of his salary. But, Sasaki doesn’t tell his wife or his two sons that he has been let go. He’s too ashamed. He dresses in a suit and tie and each day, pretends to go to work, but instead goes to a park where he can get a free meal for the homeless. For a few months his wife and boys have no idea what’s going on.

As we continue our series in the parables of Jesus this morning, we’re going look at the story of man who like Sasaki-san lives in a culture where he finds it devastating to lose his job—and he also responds with creative deception. Jesus uses this man’s story as a parable that we can learn from.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Luke 16 vs. 1.

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'

3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'

5 "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'

6 " 'Nine hundred gallons [a] of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.'

7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
" 'A thousand bushels [b] of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'

8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

This parable, The Parable of the Shrewd Manager, has been a puzzle, in fact a problem for teachers of the Bible across the centuries. Many Bible teachers have tried to avoid this parable like it was a disease. On the surface the parable appears to present a story of a steward or a manager who cheats his master and then is commended by Jesus for being a liar and a thief. In the 4th century, the Emperor Julian, who was against the Christian movement, used this parable as an example to argue that Jesus taught his followers to be liars and thieves, and that people in the Roman Empire should reject all such contaminating teaching.

Biblical scholar, Kenneth Bailey, spent 40 years teaching the New Testament in the Middle East, and is considered a master interpreter of the Gospels in light of their first century cultural context. He points out how The Parable of the Shrewd Manager can be understood only in its traditional Middle Eastern context. Many of my interpretive assumptions come from his analysis of the parable in its original culture in 1st century Palestine.

In vs. 1 we read

1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions1

The rich man is the owner of a farm who is receiving this message from his friends in the community. “Don’t trust your manager. He is wasting your possessions. The guy is dishonest.”

The owner of the farm calls his manager into his office. “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management. You cannot be manager any longer.” The Greek word translated “account” has a definite article attached to it, which means it should be translated “the account books.” The manager is being asked to turn in the accounting books.

In the Middle Eastern culture of the 1st century, if the manager was in fact innocent he would have engaged in some kind of negotiation with his master. In a culture, where preserving relationships was important he might have said, “My father served your father. My grandfather served your grandfather. Surely you are not going to fire me over some little misunderstanding over money.” The manager if innocent could have asked some of his friends in the community to testify on his behalf before the owner. But the manager is completely silent. He doesn’t say a word to try to justify himself, which implies that he knew he was guilty.

Then the manager runs this speech through his mind to himself. It isn’t verbalized out loud. It’s a soliloquy. “I am a white-collar worker. I don’t have the strength to work as a laborer in the field. I am too ashamed to beg.” (He also realizes that he lacks the qualifications that the community would accept for begging—blindness, loss of a limb, etc.)

But, the manager is shrewd. He knows he has been fired. He knows he has no real authority any more as the account manager. But the people under him don’t know that yet. Obviously, this is in a day before e-mail and cell phones. Word has not yet gotten out that he has been fired. He says to himself, “Before the word gets out that I am fired, I must quickly do something to win favour among the people that I work with so I will be hired again.” So right away he calls in each one of his tenants. He asked each one, “How much do you owe my master?”

" 'Nine hundred gallons [a] of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.'

He reduces the first man’s bill by 50%. This would represented a huge amount of money in the 1st century—the equivalent of a year and a half salary for a farm worker.

7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
" 'A thousand bushels [b] of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'

He reduces his bill by 20%. The percentage of the reduction is smaller here compared to the olive oil debt, but receives roughly the same amount of savings—over a year’s salary for a typical farm worker.

Now as we read how dishonestly the account manager has acted there is a part of us that wants the owner of the farm to catch him… grab him by the throat and push the rascal’s head back into the barn. There’s part of us that wants the account manager to get the punishment he deserves.

The farm owner could exact his vengeance as against his manager. The owner of the farm, the master in the story, can go to the village and explain, “My manager had already been fired by the time he cut those deals. He had no authority to reduce the bills. He acted dishonestly.” He could have made his manager lose face—which in a shame-based culture is severe punishment.

Legally, the farm owner could have even sold the manager and his family as slaves to recoup his losses, but he does not.

But, the master does not do what we would expect, he doesn’t do what we would have likely done if we were in his shoes. He doesn’t condemn his manager. He doesn’t try to recoup his losses. Why?

Because the master of the farm is very much like the father of the prodigal son in the story that immediately precedes this one. In the original gospel of Luke, this story of the prodigal and the parable of the shrewd manager were not separated by a chapter division. Chapter divisions were written in by the monks in the 4th century. That can be convenient for us, but in the original gospel of Luke the story of the extraordinarily generous father who embraces his rebellious son who finally comes home after he has squandered his dad’s money on parties, booze, and call girls and lavishes his son with the best clothes, a ring and a fattened calf to eat at a party to celebrate his homecoming stands side by side with this parable of the shrewd manager.

(Do a powerpoint comparison between the prodigal father and the owner of the farm.)

In both stories, as Kenneth Bailey points out, in both stories the son and steward deserve to be punished (and there’s a part of us that wants them punished—use story from Amazing Grace) but the noble master demonstrates extraordinary grace toward a wayward person under him. In both stories, The son and steward waste their master’s resources. In both stories, the son and the steward come to a moment of truth regarding their situation. In both cases, the son and the steward throw themselves on the mercy of their noble master. The son and steward receive grace.

In the parable of the prodigal son, we see the father throwing a party for the wayward son when he finally comes home. In the parable of shrewd manager, we see the master generously deciding not to pursue his legal rights against him, but he commends him for his shrewdness, and he decides to absorb the losses himself.

The master does not do what we expect, he acts with breathtaking generosity. He acts like the father of the prodigal; he acts like God. When we piled up series a debt of moral debts before God that we could never hope to repay, God could have demanded a payment from us... But, instead he became a human being in Jesus Christ, died on the cross, absorbed our debts, our sins for us that we might be forgiven…and free to enter into a relationship with God.

Not only does the owner of the farm pay the price so the manager can go free and retain his dignity and favour before the community so that he can be re-employed, but the owner of the farm congratulates the steward (the manager) for his cleverness.

The Emperor Julian in the 4th century was wrong. The farm owner who represents God is not praising his manager for acting dishonestly. There is a world of difference for praising someone who acted cleverly and praising someone because they acted dishonestly. 2x.

Show powerpoint

On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire he had secretly illegally rigged at night between New York's twin towers.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

After nearly an hour making acrobatic dance moves on the wire, he was arrested, and put in jail for a time. It became known as the artistic crime of the century.

What he Petite did was a crime, it was wrong, but it was also creative and beautiful. (describe in his words).

What the manager of the farm did was wrong, it was dishonest… and to be clear the master didn’t commend him for being dishonest, but he commended him for being creative and shrewd in a way that helped him enhance his relationship with people.

There are many ways the manager could have leveraged his shrewdness. He could have killed his master and covered it up; he could have cooked the account books; he could stolen the debt payments and run, but he didn’t. He used his shrewdness to enhance his relationship with people.

Jesus is not teaching us to be dishonest, but to use our shrewdness in the best way: to enhance our relationship with people.

He says use your position and possessions to make friends who will welcome you into the life to come.

Notice vs. 9 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Jesus here is saying use your world wealthy to gain friends for yourselves so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into the world to come.

As was true of the French franc, the Deutsche mark, the Italian Lira as many European countries switched to the euro in early 2002, one day all of our earthly currency will be useless… (use prop of money) (And the day we die all our money will be use to us personally.)

But if that money is invested in people, the effect of that money will last forever because people last forever.

Jesus is not against investing; he’s not against ambition; he simply calls us to aim higher than just the stock market; he calls us to use our position and our possessions to make friends that will welcome us in the world to come.

Jesus says don’t use people to serve money, use money to serve people.

That will last forever.

Jesus teaches in this parable that people will remember what you did for them in this life in the life to come. 2x

So use money, use your position and possessions to make friends who will welcome you into heaven.

Are you doing that?

In Mitch Albom’s novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Eddie works as an elderly amusement park maintenance man for most of his life. After he dies, he meets five people who help him bring meaning and understanding to his life.

The movie version of the novel begins with a scene of Eddie, already having died, walking out of the ocean. Show image

Your browser may not support display of this image.

He sees the large amusement park where he worked most of his life and walks in. Several hundred people are there, welcoming him, smiling at him, nodding at him, happy to see him.

The narrator says: "All the accidents he had prevented, all the lives he had kept safe—and all their children, and all their children's children—there because of the simple things that he did, day after day."

Eddie unknowingly used his position as a faithful maintenance man to make friends that will last forever.

We can use our position and our possessions to make friends that will last forever.

Steven Christian, his real new name, recalls how he was able to escape poverty and pursue a dream on the Indonesian Island of Bali because John and Violet Bonar from here in Canada sponsored him as child in Bali in the 1960s.

The Bonars had a meager income as farmers of a small grain and cattle farm in Saskatchewan. According to Steven Christian, they “sacrificed everything” to support him. Christian was born to a Hindu family in 1956 and was named Nengah Wiadnayana. Growing up in an improvised family, Nengah and his siblings were forced to scavenge in the forest for mangos and coconuts. When Nengah was 10 years old, his parents divorced and he ended up being placed in an orphanage funded by World Vision. At first he was bitter in his new home, but experienced the love of Jesus through the orphanage staff. He decided to be baptized and to have his name changed from Nengah Wiadnayana to Steven Christian to reflect his new faith. He also soon learned that John and Violet Bonar in Canada were sponsoring him, which meant he could eat, go to school, and receive medical attention at the local health centre. “I was always sick,” Christian says. But the doctor at the clinic was kind to me, and inspired my dream to become a medical doctor. The orphanage directors discouraged Steven dream, thinking that it was unrealistic, “We can’t support you to go to medical school… become an engineer.” But, John and Violet Bonar encouraged Christian’s dream, always ending their letters with the words, “Become a good Christian doctor.” Christian went on to become one of Bali’s few oncology surgeons. When he contacted World Vision to express his gratitude and learned that the Bonars had died, he traveled to Canada to meet and thank their daughter Merle.1

John and Violet Bonar used their possessions to make a friend who will one day warmly greet them in the world to come.

Jesus said use your position and your possessions to make friends who will welcome you in your eternal dwellings.

Once in a while I will take time to look back over my life and to give thanks to God for the things that he has given me. My story is not nearly as dramatic as the doctor from Indonesia, but I am truly grateful for the people who have opened the door for me to go to school by investing in my education, for people who opened their homes for me when I have been in transition, out of work, the person who helped us to get into our current home.

When I look back, I realize that if there is any good at all in my life, if there is anything redeeming, it is not because I have somehow pulled myself up by my bootstraps, it is because people have generously given me their time; they have used their have position or possessions to open the door. And I am grateful for them. In the world to come, I will remember and have the opportunity to thank people, even those who have gone to the world to come ahead of me.

Jesus calls on me and you to do the same for others. Jesus never said don’t invest. He never said don’t be ambitious. Jesus said aim higher than just the stock market. Invest in things that will last forever. He said, use your position and our possessions to make friends who will welcome us into the world to come.