Since the Fifth Sunday of Pentecost, July 1st, we have been reading from that portion of Luke’s Gospel known as Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem (9.51-19.44). This material spans ten of the twenty-four chapters in Luke, making it a sizeable portion of what the Evangelist has written and an important thematic device as well in what is also a long and extensive theological portrait of our Lord. It is a portrait that helps us understand more fully the Passion and Death awaiting Jesus at journey’s end and the implications and demands which subsequently arise pertaining to us, some twenty centuries later.
Today, we receive another installment in that journey, another glimpse of that portrait of our Lord envisioned and interpreted through the eyes of Luke. Furthermore, the Sunday Gospels until the end of October, on or about what is the twenty-second Sunday of Pentecost, will continue to update us and draw us along in this epic pilgrimage as they will also flesh out a theological understanding of the One who invites us to join him in the walk to his ultimate destiny which is both the holy city, Jerusalem, and something more. This morning, the Gospel places us at a point a little more than midway in this journey. Luke is showing us we have more to learn about this man Jesus.
Before I get to the parable of today’s Gospel, I want to review briefly what I’ve previously said in past weeks about the Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem material. This is because the two things I want you to remember about this composition are also evident in today’s account and shape its interpretation: 1) the Journey to Jerusalem is thematically unique to Luke; and, 2) it is characterized by two themes; a) the unfaithfulness of Israel, and b) “the new way” (18.1-8) of discipleship Christ reveals, because he is and brings the kingdom of heaven. These are two themes reintroduced in today’s Gospel. Bear in mind, also, that Luke’s literary style in composing the Journey to Jerusalem emphasizes teaching over miracle, so it is told in a didactic and factual manner.
Now, let’s move on to something which I hope is more interesting than technical background data. Permit me, therefore, an abrupt change of subject in order to pose a question: Are you familiar with Suzie Orman? You may know her as the popular financial planner, talk show host, author, and lecturer. I like her immensely and try to follow her sage advice, especially about keeping credit card balances to a minimum. She is brassy, smart, and especially gifted and helpful with money matters. Each week she hosts a television show, which bears her name. And, since I get up early on Sunday morning, I always tune in the 5:30 rebroadcast of her program from the previous Saturday evening, my cup of coffee firmly in hand. The part of her show I particularly enjoy is entitled “Can I Afford It?” Here, viewers telephone Suzie live on air to ask her opinion about a purchase they want to make. “Can I afford to buy an Hermes handbag for $14,000?” a lady asks. “Can I afford to go to graduate school” says a man from Florida, “I’d like to take out a student loan for $25,000?” “Show me your money?” chirps Suzie to each of the callers, meaning tell me your debts and assets. Suzie is clear to state that not all our wants are wise or best for us, but as she reminds both caller and viewer, her purpose is to only to say, “Yes, given what information you have shown me, you have the money” or “No, you cannot afford it.” She is clear. She is tough. She is focused and direct. She is also helpful in setting and determining financial priority to people for whom fantasy may be stronger than reality.
Now, you ask, what does Suzie Orman have to do with being in church this morning and Jesus’ Journey to Jerusalem? My answer to that is: Jesus in today’s Gospel appears to be in the role of Suzie Orman. Luke today is giving us a parable that has to do with the management of money; according to the story, stolen money; borrowed money. It is money as symbol of ultimate priority in the kingdom of this world; what we’re killing ourselves to obtain.
In a wonderfully Jewish story of the surprising reversal of expected judgment, the scallywag steward in today’s Gospel is at story’s end actually commended for his shrewdness in returning what he had misappropriated/stolen from his master. But, the story is about more than money. In a tale the Evangelist is actually using as a teaching parable about the kingdom of heaven, we are being told that the kingdom of heaven, which, remember in Luke, Christ is and brings, is surprisingly greater than our feeble attempts, sincere or not, at righteousness! What an affront to the Pharisees – and, what a condemnation of our or anyone’s sense of virtue and goodness!
What I find interesting about the unjust steward is that he is not a good guy or an honorable man at any point in the parable, yet he is the hero of the story, and, therefore, somewhat similar to the prodigal in the parable by the same name and which immediately precedes today’s account in Luke’s text (15.11-32), suggesting that the two stories are linked and meant to support and compliment one another while being different accounts about the kingdom of heaven, the mystery that is at the heart of the Gospel, and the mystery Christ as well as Luke invite us to enter, the mystery that is our journey to Jerusalem, as well! But, all journeys cost something. Can we afford it?
Before I set out to answer that question, I want to explore the linkage I mentioned between the parables of the prodigal son and the unjust steward.
Both the prodigal and the steward are greedy, they want what they want badly, that being the goods and services of the kingdom of this world. The price to be paid is at any cost. Getting what he wants, the prodigal proves to be a bad money manager. He can’t afford to sustain what he has always wanted. He squanders his patrimony on what Scripture terms “riotous living” – what we’d call fun or the Vegas life style – from which, he emerges financially, emotionally, and spiritually bankrupt. He has hit bottom. The steward, however, is better with money, actually skillful and shrewd. He has gotten his personal finances “confused/mixed” with that of his employer, costing his boss a considerable sum while the steward lends and profits from money that is not the steward’s own. Whereas, the prodigal proved to be a frivolous playboy, the steward is more like what we would term “a white collar criminal.” Whereas, we may “like” or identify benignly with the prodigal, we wouldn’t want to buy a car from the steward! He’s a huckster and a hustler.
Furthermore, In each of the two parables, when the problem about money comes to the light of day, the response is different: the prodigal repents and returns home to his father’s forgiveness, which frames the point of the parable, God is merciful to sinners: the steward, however, does not and at no time in the story repent but turns more shrewd and calculating in exacting a plan of action of repayment, because he is threatened not only with dismissal from his master’s service, but also, and importantly as a motivator of his behavior, the loss of respect from people in the community. Unlike the prodigal who is motivated by the need for forgiveness, the steward is not so high minded, his motivation not being righteousness but shame; which is, seeing one’s self through the eyes of others as having fallen short/failed/or having been found out.
“Can I afford this?” asks the steward. He comes to a conclusion, and then sets on a resourceful course of action to save his hide and his wounded pride and fallen esteem in the eyes of others. Scallywag that he is throughout the parable, the steward successfully pulls the iron out of the fire by “hondel and schmeikeling” (Yiddish) his creditors; which is to say, bargaining with them and cutting a deal of pay back on debt owed him at a discount rate. All that he is and has, all the riches of the kingdom of this world that the steward has amassed [i.e., mammon in the text of the Gospel (v.13)], all his personal energy is committed and given to the task of paying back the cost of his misdeed to his master, the one to whom he is first of all and most importantly obligated, the one whose will he serves and fulfills. Luke is telling us, that this is also the task/cost to the believer regarding the kingdom of heaven, because both Christ and the kingdom he is and brings are of surprising significance, a greater mercy than we scallywags in the kingdom of this world know or deserve. Understandably, this is good news, especially for the guilty. But, this good news is something Israel at the time does not welcome or understand because it is so caught up in the pursuit of righteousness, the Law which Christ claims to supersede with mercy. These are the two main themes of the journey material reintroduced in today’s text.
The questions and problems of this particular parable associated with the pursuit of pharisaical legalism as set forth in arguments about righteousness and virtue continue, I think, to the boundaries of the present day. We need look no farther than our own Anglican Communion, as religious leaders and we ourselves, wrestle with the nature of the kingdom of heaven and what God’s generous mercy means, or might mean, or must mean. Whatever is underway is I think of great importance, because to answer wrongly, even if sincerely, are buried the seeds of sacred violence, which is to say, religion’s need to find a victim so that it may define itself over and against the suffering of another. In the journey to Jerusalem, we see this enacted against Christ in judgment, exclusion, and finally murder – symptoms not of heaven but of the kingdom of this world and a rule and need for fear, violence, and death which demand blood to bring about peace, blood to give hope and identity. Can we afford this cost? It’s little more than an old solution to a new problem, an old solution that doesn’t work except as if by magic from which we expect to pull a rabbit from the proverbial hat. Sacred violence will ultimately end up leaving us bankrupt or shamefully exposed, like the prodigal or the unjust steward, or more importantly, like the judgment upon the kingdom of this world from the cross of the Crucified one, our most notorious and famous sacred victim!
The question and dilemma of the kingdom of heaven now here and amongst us, its cost, I think Christ answers and tackles for us. I am referring to that place and time of the coming of the kingdom of heaven in our own lives, specifically, at our Baptism; more especially, the promises made in our behalf as to the nature and cost of Christian discipleship with our Lord in God’s kingdom come, that kingdom where earthly labels fade or get washed away completely and where law, and true righteousness and virtue are replaced with a greater mercy and we are made sons and daughters of God’s own family, which makes the Almighty both wise and foolish as our parent because God’s vision and understanding are so very different than our way of seeing and believing.
Yet, even though we cannot pay our debt for the kingdom of heaven, we are still left with making it and the one who is and brings eternal life our utmost priority, what is meant in the saying at the heart of today’s parable, “first things first.” More simply put, we need to remember and to imitate Christ; remember and imitate his surrender, forgiveness, and mercy as our priority in all the people, places, things, and events that are our daily life; for to do this, is to make room for God to come in our midst, wiggle room I’m saying for the kingdom of heaven. This sounds simple, but we all know it is difficult, impossible really without the help/power of God, and always imperfectly done yet perfected, nevertheless, in the grace of the Almighty and the promise of resurrected life, the joy and hope that is at the heart of our collective identity as sons and daughters of the kingdom of heaven, already here but not yet fully revealed either to the righteous or to the scallywags of this world to whom it is equally and freely given like rain which falls upon both good and bad seed alike.
Christ and the kingdom he is and brings shall always disturb us because the question he posses requires that decision, “Can I afford it?” It is the same question, I think, God posed to ancient Israel at the Exodus, the answer to which made of those who journeyed on led by cloud and pillar of fire a new people and gave them a new freedom. That goal is what God wants for us, to give us a new identity in a new creation, to make of us who we are not. God’s love is like that: It is eternal life, and like a net, it has caught fish of every kind – small and big, good as well as bad – like the Anglican communion, like our country and city, like this parish, like this our planet home – and God has set that net on the shore of something we can only barely comprehend and about which we have only hints and glimpses in a mystery in which Christ has made our life his life, his death and resurrection, our death and rising. This love is for the believer to be our life long priority as we each and all journey to our final destination. It is a priority to which we return and revisit again and again and make known to others who share also in this pilgrimage of time and history. The surrender, forgiveness, and mercy we undertake in God’s Name will never leave us empty or diminished. It will, however, cost us our pride and willful self-sufficiency. In fact, it will ultimately cost us everything, yet it will never destroy us but only redeem us, bringing each and all more and more fully into a kingdom without end in and through the Crucified One, the sacred victim, who is also our Saving Lord and this world’s Deliverance. It is a cost well to consider. It is a cost borne for us by the Christ. Thanks be to God!
