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Our subject this week is another example of debt cancellation in the gospels and our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Luke 16:1-13)
This week’s reading puts serving God and serving wealth in tension. “Serving God” is a phrase that should be read in the context of the reign or kingdom of God. We can understand the gospel phrase “the kingdom of God” as God’s just future here on Earth, a new iteration of our present world where there is economic, social, and political justice. In that kingdom, resources and power are distributed with equity and everyone has what they need to not just survive but also to thrive. It’s a world where the rain falls and the sun shines on all.
In this context, we can begin to understand why, intrinsically, you cannot both serve this vision for human community and serve the interests of wealth. This is difficult for us in our capitalist culture to grasp. Jesus’ economic teachings in the gospels assume that there is enough for everyone to thrive abundantly because our heavenly Parent provides for us. Wealth is created when someone begins storing up more than they need, which creates a deficit for somewhere for someone else.
There’s a slightly different lesson in the manna story in the Exodus tradition.
We’ll pick up with that next.
(Read Part 2)
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