Good Morning! Before
we go into our gospel lesson for today, I feel the need to ask for your assistance.
What I propose is very simple - I’m
going to read to you gelled down versions of all the gospel texts we’ve had
since the beginning of August followed by who preached on them. I want you tell me if you notice a
pattern. To begin:
August 7th : “It is the Father’s good pleasure to
give you the kingdom” – Pastor Don
Aug 14th I have not come to bring you peace but
the sword – Pastor Keven
Aug 21st The
old woman healed on the Sabbath – Pastor Don
Aug 28th Humble yourself so you may be exalted – Pastor
Craig
Sep 4th Hate your Father and Mother – Pastor Keven
Sept 11th Welcoming
Sinners – Pastor Craig
…and now this week I get “How to make friends by stealing
from your boss.”
The question I have to ask here … is it just me? I mean, I don’t want to name any names, Don
and Craig, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were pranking the new
guy. Now, I know that would never happen
in Chuck Prokosh’s church, and with such pillars of seriousness as Jeremy
Webber and Raymond Staffa, I know that can’t possibly be the case. But, guys, I’m seriously in danger of
developing a reputation here! “Oh, whose
preaching today at Eastside? Uh,
oh. Looks like old “hate thy mother and
thy father” Glassel’s preaching from the pulpit again.” A little variety, please! I mean the holidays are coming up, I don’t
want to preach on Herod’s slaughtering of the innocents over Christmas!
Now,
I’ll be the first to admit our text for this week is extremely difficult, it is
by far one of the most confusing things Jesus has ever been recorded as
saying. Would you like to know how
difficult this text is? In preparation
for this week, after pouring over the history and the language, after double
checking the Greek and looking over Luke as a literary whole, after spending
hours and hours letting it all gel …yeah, I got nothing. This text was really frustrating, it’s oddly
placed and the content is just strange.
Even the other gospels avoid this story!
Matthew, Mark, and John are all looking at Luke and saying, “THAT’s the story
you put in?” I even looked in the commentaries, both modern and classic, and
you know what I found out? They don’t
have a clue either. I did find a
translation that worked well.
“Jesus
told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting
his possessions. 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.’ “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— I
know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into
their houses.’ “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors… “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. I tell you, use worldly
wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be
welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
The
translation is nice, much more preachable, but there’s just one problem. It doesn’t actually say that! I mean other than the fact you are
deliberately misconstruing Scripture, I guess it’s ok. So, here we have a gospel text that stumps
the lawyer/preacher, confuses the commentators, and is so strange that even
translators are embarassed by it to the point where they feel the need to cover
it up. That’s how tough this text
is. So, Don, you were busy this week,
that’s why you wanted to switch?
So
the question is, what are we supposed to learn from this? What’s the point of putting this story in the
lectionary? Why preach on it at all? Well, as it turns out, I think it’s actually
here for a very good reason. Quite a few
reasons, to be honest. And perhaps I am
exaggerating things a bit to say, “I’ve got nothing,” but the reality is this
text is rather inscrutable. I do have an
interpretation to give but that interpretation is only my best guess. It’s not going to be any better than yours or
anybody else’s and I have no right to pretend otherwise. I think, though, that is the first lesson our
text provides: that when you come to Scripture, be prepared to be humbled.
Luther
himself said that if there be any disagreement between men, that the only godly
recourse is to have them both come to the Scriptures as beggars looking for
bread. I find I cannot disagree with
that sentiment, for beggars we are. No
matter what job we have, no matter how many protections we have built up, how
many insurance policies we pay for, it can all fall apart in a matter of
moments. Though we have had many
technological breakthroughs, though we cure diseases that once scourged the
ancients, though we fulfilled that ancient human wish of flying with the birds
and searching out the mysteries of the deep, we all still exist by God’s grace
alone. It is not by our intellect, not
by our power, that knowledge gets revealed to us, and the meaning of every
verse in our Scriptures will only become apparent when God wishes it so. Not before.
So when we come across texts like this, when we read in Exodus that
Moses’ wife Zipporah saved her husband from God’s wrath by circumcising him and
touching his flesh with the skin, when we read in the book of Kings that God
wanted an excuse to be mad at the Israelites so he made King David screw up so
he could punish them, we know that the first lesson these texts teach is humility. The reality is we don’t know their
meaning. Our Scriptures, ladies and
gentlemen, are comprised of documents that are at least 2000 years old, all
from long dead cultures, penned in three long dead languages, and all authored
by very long dead people. And when I
think of that, when I really dwell there, I realize the miracle of the
scriptures is that any of these texts should speak to us at all. That after years of study that this pastor
can only think of three difficult portions within a whopping 66 of these
ancient books is an amazing testament to God’s providence.
The
second lesson I think this text teaches is the need to be uncomfortably honest
with one another. This is not something
we Americans are good at. Indeed, in our
culture it’s assumed that we hide things, that we deliberately misinform people
and we’ll get mad at you if you don’t play this particular game. The answer to “how are you doing” is not about
eliciting an honest response anymore than “how does this outfit make me
look!” And let me tell you, that it is
assumed we hide important things from each other gets built even into
seminarian education. It was rammed home
to me time and time again how I need to meet perceptions as a pastor, that I
must always have an answer, that I must always seem like the expert. And I thought to myself, “Oh, there’s a
resume zinger if I ever heard one.”
“Keven Johnson-Glassel, appears
knowledgeable and is really good at seeming
like an expert.” I don’t want to appear
knowledgeable. I don’t want to deceive
people into thinking I’m an expert. My
position here behind this pulpit is not pretend to be an expert but to actually
be an expert. And as an expert I am here
to tell you there are still lots of stuff in these books we’re trying to figure
out. So when reading your Bibles, it’s
okay to be confused. We get that way,
too.
And
I think that’s the third lesson this text teaches. That it’s ok to fail. We don’t need to get awe inspiring wisdom out
of scripture every time. We don’t need
to get mystical fulfillment out of scripture every time. We don’t even need to get a meaning out of
scripture every time. What we need to do
is to show God we tried - that we are willing to struggle and wrestle with the
words even though we might fail. Valuing
Him enough to put our egos aside and be confronted with our ancestor’s
experiences of Him I think means more than any Bible commentary and is far more
spiritually fulfilling than any sermon.
And
that’s what we try to model for you up here.
That it’s okay to struggle with this. Often times, if you just keep at it, it is
very rare that you’ll get nothing out of a particular verse or text. Something profound almost always comes. So, yes, this text was difficult for me, and it
outwitted every single one of my resources: from language, history, culture,
and scholarship. But I asked God for
help, the same option you all have, and while I wasn’t given anything like a
definitive answer, I was given something helpful that I had never considered
before.
Now,
it’s pretty clear that Jesus doesn’t want you to steal so you can make friends,
so you can just calm down right now, but given that there are two things that
jump out at me. First and foremost, the
fate of the unrighteous manager is not stated.
While the rich man praises his shrewdness he does not say he can still
be manager. The second thing that jumps
out at me, however, is, yes, this man is dishonest. Yes, this manager is a thief, and when he
helps people it is only in the most lazy, self-serving way possible. So yes, the accusation laid at the manager in
this parable is that he is a lazy, dishonest, self-serving sinner who helps
people, but the reality is the accusation laid against me might very well be I
am a lazy, dishonest, self-serving sinner who doesn’t. In the upside-down world of the gospel,
salvation is an active sought-after thing.
God wants us to be saved, he wants us to give him at least some excuse
to come to our rescue. Now I don’t mean
this in a works-righteousness kind of way, we in no way earn God’s grace. I will not insult the Father by trying to buy
what God offers for free. Rather I
believe our actions evidence our intent, and if we want to be saved it means we
have to act like it. Have no illusions,
ladies and gentlemen. When the time comes for us to meet our Maker don’t think
for a minute that all we didn’t do
will be some kind of defense. I think to
a great extent, the unrighteous manager is us.
That’s how God sees us. We are
all lying, thieving, self-serving and lazy.
We can’t help it. Even when we do
good, there is still a part of us that does it for evil reasons. It’s what we are. As St. Augustine himself said, I cannot not
sin. The question is not whether I will
refrain from sin; that is out the question, but whether I will help others
despite my own sinfulness, to give God even a pathetic excuse to come spare my
sorry hide. That, I think, is the point
of this text.
But
once again, that is only one interpretation among many that are possible. So, I invite you as your pastor, read this
for yourself! Go to God and ask him to
reveal what you need out of the text, do not let these pages go unturned. The books of our Bible have frustrated
many. Luther himself is said to have
thrown a copy of Revelations into the river.
The words in our Scriptures can be inscrutable, but there is wisdom and
purpose there, thousands of years worth of experiences, successes and
failures. You will not find such
treasure in any other book on earth. So
go home this afternoon and open these pages anew. The worst that will ever happen is that
you’ll be forced to preach about it, but even then you will still find riches
meant only for you. Amen and Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment