SUNDAY, AUGUST 4 2024 - ROCK & A HARD PLACE
August 4, 2024
Carolyn Smith
Rock & a Hard Place
Today is about MONEY - how are you feeling about it lately? Hangups and fears,
disagreements and logic. Groceries. Housing. Different values and plans and a
lot of judgement and nerves around money.
Today’s request, this upsetting parable about shrewd, maybe even dishonest
practices comes to us from Grace, who happens to be studying accounting and
happens to work with our finance team here at the church. Grace, we appreciate
knowing that you approach this topic faithfully.
All of the scholars of Jesus’ parables agree - this one, more than others, is mired in
confusing language and distant historical habits. And each of us come at this with
different lenses too. Some of us have plenty, some of us have struggled, or both.
Some of us are running businesses or managing projects for big companies, others
get to punch a clock and go home. Some see a global view, others are focused on
family finances.
Jesus used Parables because everyone can connect with tangible experiences. -
everyday things, everyday people. But we don’t think about gooey yeast or
Samaritans every day - or ancient economic structures. Clear as mud, right? But
we know what Dishonest means. And we know when a rich man says to his
manager ‘ you can’t be manager anymore’ - it means a pink slip, “you’re fired...”. We
know that’s bad. But our gospel is good right? So why does Jesus say “The master
commended the dishonest manager;” AND then "use worldly wealth to gain friends for
yourselves,.” When we see Greed and dishonesty seeping into systems, taking
advantage of loopholes and real people, and we here, at church, spend time
working and praying for change, this demands clarity.
Drift your imagination back 2024 years... let’s sort out a few details:
The Master, the rich man - almost never a woman. the Boss might be Roman or
might be a town leader or Temple leader. He would have been healthy, educated,
connected. Ok, it seems like that hasn’t changed much.
The manager, rather than paid with a commission, best we can tell, was more of a
self-employed collection agency. The Masters hired managers to collect their
customers’ debts, and the manager would add his top-up to the accounts when he
collected. No one had access to a computer cloud of account information. Only
the manager had an ongoing sense of how much had been paid by whom. When
caught between a rock - the impatient Master, and hard place - customers who
couldn’t pay, the manager could reduce his own earnings without fully answering
to anyone.
Here’s something else - this was a small world. People knew each other and felt
connected. Everyone, powerful or not, felt the boom & bust/feast & famine. A key
theme in the whole Gospel of Luke, in a time when cultures were mingling and
outsiders coming in, is about how to be together as the people of compassion and
justice, when the community is growing diverse, with new laws and influences?
Who is “of the Light” and who isn’t. Except it’s not either /or. It’s every person,
every day deciding to how to be together in community. Rulers & Masters,
Managers, Customers Living in the world together, trying to be faithful or not.
So the writer tells of Jesus sharing a vision of a Manager who may have let his
greed get the best of him, and pushed too far. The rock. But the hard place was
being a person of that community, and letting them down. A Rock and Hard place.
What’s the fix? Don't think of this as a real person, an ongoing situation - this is a
parable about the choice we make in tough places. The character was dishonest,
and then his actions of easing the debts are seen as shrewd- The Greek is -
phronimos- definition: wise, sensible, prudent.
What is prudent when you’ve let everyone down and have nowhere to go? To
repair and repent, to make it right. To reconcile the accounts and ease
everyone’s confidence in a sensible way. If he could bring in some debts for the
Master, with customers relieved by easier prices, everyone could breathe easier.
What is sensible for a Master when the situation has been repaired? To get angry,
at losing money from people who couldn’t pay, or to recognize a fresh, stable spot
to move forward from? There’s a sense of relief, appeasement and the value of
relationship in the wrapping up of the story. Dishonesty will break trust.
Honesty will build it. Too much strain vs building relationship. The way of light &
love isn’t separate from having to navigate the rocks and hard places, it’s an
everyday perspective on all we do.
If you see it from the Master’s lens having found this dishonesty - He might feel
indignant and resent a happy ending with second chances. What good come from
that? Money is sneaky like that, making us bitter.
That’s one of the hardest aspects of Emancipation Day and racial justice, or
Reconciliation with Indigenous people. How does a country steer our community
towards wholeness and right relations? There is so much that can't be measured
or undone, and is it enough to look forward together? We pray to find our way.
So let’s take this even bigger...right now we live on a planet we have damaged and
we owe big time.. We’ve destabilized our weather patterns and temperatures and
storms and fires... Mother Earth Personified is righteously, rightfully angry with
us.... And there is no way to pay this back. And who would fire Humans from
their role as stewards - that does the planet and people NO Good. We do our
future generations no good by focusing on the past and wringing our hands and
being locked up for assault and battery on the planet. What is prudent... what is
wise or shrewd from this point?
(Suggestions... cutting our losses, changing our habits, Lessening the demand on those
future generations by stopping the flow of oil and pollution, and instead doing without so
much excess.
Who benefits if we get shrewd and find a clever way to cut our losses, ease the
temperature increase, find new alternatives? .... Mother Earth isn’t healed
completely but she can heal. The grandkids may still have effects to adapt to but
we’ll be finding ways to do it. And we’ll have a renewed spirit of forgiveness and
repentance, of reconciliation and new abundance.
Money or God. Money or Love. Which one is actual abundance? I’ll say it out
loud - having enough money eases stress in this messy world, but ‘enough’ means,
not a number, but a comfort and contentment. And Contentment is less possible
if our spirits are suffering... So which gives abundance?
I had someone say in a church meeting once, “The rich people don’t need God.”
And I watched the face of a wealthy person across the table wince with pain.
Money is a resource, not the measurement of Abundance. You choose: either you
measure life by Money and you fall short, or you measure life by Love. By
Flourishing spirits and Beloved Community.
Humans live in and create a world of rocks and hard places, you & me, and
everyone. Some are choosing greed, some are just trying to make it to another
day. But some of us with the right resources or strong community can actively
work together, or at different levels is bigger ways.
I don’t think this is hopeless, in fact, I think St. Paul’s has made it’s choice again and
again, in sending 10% of givings to the Mission and Service fund. In supporting
young people and raising a rainbow flag, even after vandalism. Our Core team had
a great meeting with Halton Black Voices last month and plans are in the works.
We’re learning what a future connected to Wesley might be like, and have you
heard of Social enterprise? It’s a business model alive and growing in Canada
where profits are designed to create social good - to elevate vulnerable people or
to create equality, and churches like us are buying into it as a funding model of
abundance and good faith. We have a bright future of being LIGHT in this
community if we’re shrewd about it, if we honestly face our circumstances but
wisely and bravely look after each other. There’s rocks and hard places. Money
won’t solve everything. But an abundance of wisdom will help, And an abundance
of friendship and abundance of Spirit. Look! Already, all of us together are
already thriving in this! We’ve created, with our own capacity big or small, we’ve
created this privileged and beloved community, and in sharing widely, we create
heaven on earth.
May it always be so.