This parable, commonly referred to as "The Parable of the Shrewd Manager," has been problematic and even embarrassing for Christians for a long time.  It has confounded theologians and scholars. In the 4^th century the Roman Emperor Julian used this parable in an attempt to discredit Christianity. Marxists have used this parable in the rallying of the proletariat against the ruling capitalistic classes.

Even the biblical text itself seems confused and muddled by this parable.  Many biblical scholars feel that Jesus’ actual words end in the middle of verse 8, and from that point on what we have are interpretations of the parable formulated by the early Christian community added by Luke or even a later editor.  Verses 9-13 only seem to add confusion to what is already a very confusing story.

For example, verse 9 says, "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."  I don’t have a clue what that is all about – period!

Verses 10-11: "Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in very much.  If you then have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?"  Nice proverbial wisdom, but it doesn’t have much to do with the parable.  

Verse 13: "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."  I have no problem with that, but again, it doesn’t seem to connect with the story.

So, what I am going to do is just stick with the story this morning, add in my two cents and clear up centuries of confusion!   (Ha Ha)

The story begins with a manger being called into the boss’ office. In so many words the boss asks, "What's this I hear about you,  these accusations of mismanagement?"

The manager suddenly knows he's in big trouble. It may be a dilemma of his own making. He may be guilty of mismanagement or even embezzlement. Or it may be he has been the victim of unfortunate circumstances. Who knows?  The point is that the manager's world, for whatever reason, was out of control. In the face of such stress and complexities the manager of Jesus' story does a shocking thing! Instead of throwing in the towel, he comes up with a shrewd strategy.  He discounts everybody's debt to help insure his own future. In so many words he was saying, "While I still can, I'll give these debtors a break, so when it’s known I’m out of job, these folks will remember the favor I did for them and they will help me."

The boss, upon hearing what he had done, does an even more shocking thing! He does a 180 degree flip-flop changing his attitude completely! The boss goes from, "What's this? You're fired!  to "My wonderful boy, you’re a genius!" He congratulates him on his shrewdness in coyly tampering with the books and altering the accounts – his accounts!  For a deal that appears dubious and shifty, the boss goes crazy with accolades!

There's one important thing we must keep in mind about the parables. Many of the story parables are filled with irony.  Irony is contradiction and satire in order to make a point. We get into trouble and even do injustice to the parables when we try to squeeze out a moral lesson. Jesus did not tell story parables for moral lessons. Jesus told these rather enigmatic and sometimes disturbing stories to make a point about the off-the-wall nature of the kingdom of God; how it works, what it means to be a disciple of that kingdom, and how to live as a disciple of the Lord of that kingdom.

Inherent to the story parables is an invitation to the hearer (that would be you and me) to correlate the characters of the story with other characters: like God, Jesus or ourselves.

I believe Jesus means for his hearers (you and me) to correlate him with the shrewd manager! Before you protest and say, "Are you out of your skull?" just think about it.  Remember the parable is dripping with irony. It's not meant to be taken literally.  It's meant to illustrate, in a manner similar to a slap in the face, the way things are in the kingdom of God. The parable is what the kingdom of God looks like when pictured in worldly terms. Think about the shrewd manager. First, he identifies with the plight of those indebted to his boss. In a sense he becomes one of them.  Second, he discounts their debts and endears himself to them so that there's greater possibility of him dwelling among them later.  Third, we might even say he died and rose. The manager died to keeping accurate records on debts as the only way to do business, and he rose up to the whole new crazy idea of discounting debts as a way to do business.

Now consider Jesus. The greatest discounting of debt in the history of the universe took place on the cross.  Jesus took into himself the debt of your sin and my sin, and paid it off once and for all. The ledger on your sins, written with indelible ink was erased by His blood. In exchange you've been given the free gift of grace. There is nothing you can ever do to deserve it or earn it. It's free! It's a surprise!  

In 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul say an amazing thing: "For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (5:21)

Paul says that Jesus takes into himself, even more than that, he becomes the very thing – sin - that is the root cause of our alienation and estrangement from God. He takes upon his shoulders and into his being the responsibility for the debt that we owe to God.  I think Jesus looks a whole lot like the shrewd manager in the story.

The whole thing is positively scandalous!  It’s unfair, unjust and downright dishonest.  No rational business-person would conduct their business like this and stay in business very long!   But don’t you see that’s the point! That’s exactly what Jesus our shrewd manager does.  And not only does he do it, but God himself (represented by the boss) gets into the act and electrified by the whole idea.

God allowed his very own Son to become the very thing God hates the most - sin – in order that reconciliation could occur with the thing God loved the most – you and me and all of rebellious humanity. 

The gospel is not nice,  it’s costly and bloody. The gospel is not respectable, it’s a scandal. The gospel is not about trying hard – it’s about getting caught up in the embrace of our God who is so madly in love with his rebellious children that He is willing to forfeit His reputation as a God who drives a hard bargain in exchange for acting crazy. 

This is a very disturbing picture of God.  I mean who goes around discounting and writing off the debts of humanity – your debt and my debt.  No respectable God made in my image would do anything like that, no sir!  It’s downright reckless!

Now if any any body here this morning thinks that God and Jesus are boring and  uptight, this ought to blow you away!  It’s no wonder we've had centuries of trouble with this parable.  If the 16th chapter of Luke tells us anything, it tells us even the early church community didn't really get with all the mumbo jumbo that we have in verses 9-13.  We have trouble because we insist on turning this parable into something respectable.   We cannot imagine a God so out of control that he would behave in such a reckless way.  So we try to make it respectable!  We try to twist it around to say something or other that doesn’t even make any sense.  The point is it doesn’t make rational sense – passionate out-of-your-mind love never does.  Why can we not just let God be the passionate lover that God really is?  Why can’t we just stop being so uptight and stop making God so small and respectable?

Can you imagine how happy the rich man’s debtors must have been?  They must have been hysterical with joy!  I’d be willing to bet that every one of them had a great big smile on their face, giving high fives like they just won the lottery or got away with a fast one.  They couldn’t have been Lutherans of Scandinavian or German descent – no way!  I’d also be willing to bet that the doors of their homes and hearts were thrown wide open in invitation for the shrewd manager. 

How do you suppose you would feel if you got a call from your all your creditors on Monday you were told that the balances on your mortgage, car loan and credit cards were all paid off by your creditors?   

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ:  You have won the lottery.  By grace through faith you have the winning ticket to fulfilled living and eternal life.  For we have a shrewd manager, who decided not to collect on the debt we each owe God, but pay it himself.  If that doesn’t put a smile on your face and joy in your soul, I don’t know what can.  There’s only one thing you can do, and that is to open the doors of your home and heart and invite him in and take in a few more of his crazy ideas about how to live!