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It is recorded elsewhere in the Gospels1 that Jesus taught the disciples and the crowds who followed him in
parables precisely because they were not able to understand what it was he was trying to tell them. Jesus thus
used parables in order to illustrate his message and provide for his audience a means toward understanding.
However, this being the case, I must confess that in today’s reading from The Gospel According to Luke, we
have a parable that probably requires another parable in order to make sense of it! Indeed, we are presented
with a parable that is possibly one of the most obscure and difficult of all of Jesus’ teachings. Moreover, the fact
that you and I struggle with this reading is reflective of the fact that, for 2,000 years, Christians everywhere has
found this passage problematic.
This confusion and struggle is illustrated by the tendency of those whose lot it is to try and communicate
the meaning of this parable to skip right to the end of today’s passage and latch on to the part right at the end of
the reading, which talks about a servant not being able to serve two masters, God and wealth. That tends to be
the default source of explanation for this passage, and which is then indiscriminately applied to everything by
which it is preceded.
The effect of this tendency is to narrow our focus: we hone in on the bit that seems relatively easy to
understand, and ignore the rest. But the very fact that this parable is complicated and difficult to understand is
actually an invitation – an invitation to not ignore the hard parts and focus on the easier passages, to wrestle
with and delve into this passage, and try and unpick its deeper significance. In that sense, this passage is a bit of
1
For example, Matthew 13:35; and Mark 4:33
a microcosm of the life of faith itself. Faith is not a static, monolithic exercise in which we get certain things
implanted in us in childhood, and then nothing further happens over the rest of our lives. The life of faith is a
constant exploration, one that we need to delve into and wrestle with over the whole course of our lives. Thus,
this passage, in its difficult and complexity, is likewise an invitation to exploration, to go further and dig deeper.
So what is going on in today’s reading from Luke? We can begin be examining what biblical scholarship
has to say about this passage; and one thing which we can note is the dispute among scholars around the
suggestion that this text contains elements that were inserted after its initial composition. These additions, it is
suggested, were made in an attempt to try and explain what was going on in this parable; possibly by gathering
together sayings of Jesus for that very purpose2. So we can see that this is a text that has mystified from the
outset, and may have been worked on in order to clarify its meaning.
There are also some scholars who argue that the parable itself is also not an original parable of Jesus; that
it was actually a story that was circulating as a part of the popular culture by which Jesus was surrounded, and
which he appropriated for his own purposes3. It’s a proposition that makes a certain amount of sense: there is
more than one example in the Scriptural canon in which something that already exists is utilised for the purposes
of prophetic subversion, overturning conventional expectations in order to teach us something new4. So it
2
Loader, William “First Thoughts on Year C Gospel Passages from the Lectionary”, located at http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkPentecost18.htm, accessed
15.9.16
3
Ibid.
4
The Book of Job being the quintessential example. See, for example: Kushner, Harold S., When Bad Things Happen To Good People. London: Pan Books, 1982; Coogan,
Michael D, A Brief Introduction To The Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible In Its Context. Second Edition. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012; and Coogan,
seems to me that there is nothing unusual in the idea of Jesus, master story-teller that he was, being perfectly at
ease in doing something like that. Indeed, as someone who was both deeply grounded in the Hebrew Scriptures,
but who was also embedded in an oral culture in which information and wisdom were transmitted through story,
taking an existing narrative and adapting it for his own purposes would have been perfectly natural and normal.
So if it is the case that this parable is, in fact, an existing piece of the culture which Jesus appropriated for
his own ends, what was the point of the original story? The scholarship suggests this story may have been a tale
about a rogue, of someone who is very clever in their dealings with other people5. Someone who is not
altogether trustworthy, but who somehow ends up being the hero of the piece. Someone we might today call an
“anti-hero”: not a superhero who turns up in a cape or a mask to beat the bad guys, but who walks the fine line,
the twilight zone between darkness and light. And it seems to me that the message which the original folk story
conveyed is one about shrewdness; a piece of cultural wisdom that extolls the virtue of sharp dealings with
others. It is a story that extols shrewd business-sense, one that knows how to do deals and generate profits and
form the kind of alliances that enable one to negotiate one’s way out of tricky situations.
Which, of course, reflects the kinds of stories and narratives that exist today. Ours is a culture which
lionises and which hero worships the “winners”, the “achievers”. And part of this adoration is a careful avoidance
of looking too closely into the back-stories of those whom we turn into idols, to ensure we don’t see the history of
Michael D. (ed.) The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With Apocrypha. Revised Fourth Edition. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press,
2010
5
Loader, William, op. cit.
elbowing aside partners with whom they once worked in order to become “top dog”, or other similarly sharp
practices by which they became famous or rich. Those of us who are old enough to remember the 1980s in
Australia will recall how the likes of Alan Bond and Christopher Skase were showered with praise and glowing
epithets, only for things to collapse once their criminality or corruption was exposed, leaving behind only
incredible damage to our society and economy.
All of which creates a point of connection with this folk tale from Jesus’ time: a tendency to make heroes
out of people who perhaps are not the most exemplary standard of ethical probity. And the message which that
reinforces is the legitimacy of the one with their eye on the main chance, the individual who is looking out for
“number one”. Which only raises the question: why would Jesus appropriate this story and use it as a parable to
illustrate the Kingdom of God?
Firstly, I think that when we look at this story, we see that the figure of the roguish manager acts without
authority: he goes around counselling his master’s debtors in how to repay those debts – and does so in such a
way that they are written down to the point where they become payable. But the story is clear: the master does
not give the manager any authority to undertake this course of action. What he demands of the manager is an
accounting of his stewardship, not permission to re-write debts which he is owed. And it seems to me that what
Jesus is doing here is – rather mischievously – placing himself in the shoes of the rogue manager. Because the
charge of acting without authority was a constant allegation which the Pharisees and other religious authorities
levelled against Jesus himself6. Jesus wasn’t one of them, one of the priestly class; he didn’t have authority
from the Temple leadership to preach and teach and work miracles. And so by taking on the identity of the rogue
manager, Jesus is confronting and rejecting any notion of “authority” that is really about power and control.
Jesus is reminding his audience that the authority of God does not take account of human power structures, or
organisational or hierarchical prerogatives that define what is and isn’t “allowable”. Jesus is saying, in effect, that
the roguish manager is what God is like: humans can build all the authority structures they like, and vest them
with divine imprimatur; but God will demolish those structures and surprise humanity every time. In taking on the
role of the roguish manager, Jesus is reminding us of our tendency to forget that it is God and not ourselves who
is sovereign; it is God and not ourselves who has the final word.
Secondly, what I also think is going on in Jesus’ appropriation of this cultural story is a concern with the
issue of “debt”7. In modernity, we hear a lot of carry-on in the economic press about public debt, private debt,
and all the rest of it; well, in Jesus’ time, debt was a big issue as well, albeit for a slightly different reason. Jesus
lived in what is commonly called a “shame culture”: that is to say, social relationships were built around the
standing in which one was held by one’s neighbours, around whether or not one could “save face” in front of the
rest of society. As such, the worst thing that could happen to anyone was to “lose face”, to have their reputation
publicly destroyed because of their inability to reciprocate and fulfil the expectations which the culture placed
upon them. And so it was that, in Jesus’ time, wealthy people were using this “shame culture” to their own
6
7
Ibid.
Ibid.
advantage: they loaned money to poor people; and even though Jewish law prohibited the charging of interest
on those loans, the conditions around the repayment of those loans were so difficult and onerous, the borrower
often found it impossible to discharge their debt. The wealthy person would then seize what little land or
property the poor person possessed, and would effectively drive them to the margins of the community; and the
“shame culture” itself would decree that it was the poor debtor who was at fault and who was in disgrace before
the community, not the wealthy lender who had manipulated circumstances for their own benefit. The wealthy
creditor was thus legitimated by society and able to increase their wealth at the poor debtor’s expense.
But Jesus takes this story about debt, and he identifies the exploitation and manipulation that is taking
place in the society around him. And in so identifying the issue, he is saying, in effect: “I’m aware of what you
rich and powerful people are doing. I’m aware of how you’re driving people out to the margins, and acquiring
social legitimacy and ill-gotten wealth at their expense.”8 Moreover, this awareness extends beyond the
immediate issue of social and economic manipulation. In older forms of the Lord’s Prayer, we used to pray:
forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors9. And the word “debt” is in that context used in the same sense as
“sin” or “transgression”. And in appropriating the folktale in today’s reading to name the issue of debt or
transgression, Jesus is taking that idea and turning it around: he is saying that not only does God forgive us our
debts, but in fact God minimises them, God makes them less than what they ought to be. God does not proceed
on the basis of human economies of exchange and reciprocation; rather, God forgives us much more than the
8
9
Ibid.
Ibid.
actual debt owed. And as a contrast to the wealthy who not only don’t forgive debts, but confiscate the property
of their debtors, Jesus is making a trenchantly political statement about their conduct and the society which
facilitates their exploitation10.
Jesus is thus subverting this idea of debt to tell us that God does not demand of us the kind of repentance
and repayment that drives us out to the margins, that reinforces our sense of shame and excludes us from the
fellowship of community. What Jesus is doing is giving us an image of abundance: an abundance of love and
generosity and forgiveness that rejects notions of power based on debt, and which instead becomes the starting
point of forgiveness. A generosity that lifts us out of shame and exclusion, and draws us into the orbit of God’s
grace.
What does this mean for us as Christians in the 21st century? It seems to me that if we draw on the two
points I’ve already articulated, there are a couple of observations to make. The first is that, as Christians, we will
be constantly told by the culture around us that we are illegitimate, that we have no authority. Because we
proceed from a basis of faith rather than a post-Enlightenment basis of logic and rationalism, or political or
economic ideology, we will be told that the way we form and govern our lives is entirely without legitimacy. That
is part of the price we pay for being bearers of the counter-cultural message of the Gospel, which is not about
legitimacy based on achievement or wealth or power, but which is concerned with love, and abundance, and
hope – all at a time when the culture around us is filled with despair, and scarcity, and crippling, inhuman
10
Ibid.
competition. We are counter-cultural, not because we are “right” or “superior” compared to everyone else; but
because God is not who we say God is, and God does not operate in the ways which we think constitute due
process or legitimate conduct.
Secondly, we need to recognise that all-too-often as church, as community, as the people of God, we take
on the norms and the values of the culture around us. We take on the ethics of corporate prerogative, of
economic necessity, which leads us into less generous, less abundant, less loving, less inclusive ways of being.
But we are in truth called to be rogues in the world that declares human beings are more than the sum of cultural
conditioning, or what normative standards dictate to us as acceptable. The Gospel calls us to be the rogue
manager who, without authority, forgives debt, lifts people out of shame, and which brings the excluded out of
the margins and into the centre and fullness of human life11.
That is the message and the point and the promise of the Gospel; that is what Christmas celebrates; that is
what the whole of Holy Week culminating in Easter looks forward to. So let us be less concerned with trying to
make sense of or explain away difficult parables such as the one in today’s reading. Let us instead explore and
wrestle and mine the complexity and the difficulty for all the richness that it contains: a richness that stems from
the heart of God, who loves us all.
11
Ibid.