Monday Morning Matters

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I took a class last summer that was designed to help preachers engage the sermon text more spiritually. One of the main questions to answer was “What is the good news about God in the text?”  I tried to apply that to this week’s text in Luke 16:1-13 The Parable of the Dishonest Manager. It’s hard to come up with a good news statement for this one without making it very broad and generic.  So I’m wondering if all texts can give us an answer to that good news question?  Is it sometimes the wrong question?

One of the sticking points in this week’s text is the frequent use of that word dishonest. Luke 16:8 says that the master praised the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly.  Many of the commentaries work hard to make that verse make reasonable sense, especially if they’re putting God in the story as the master.  But does God always make reasonable sense?  Does grace make reasonable sense?  Or is it illogical?  Isn’t love often illogical?

The Greek word for “dishonest” is alikia which also means unrighteousness or injustice. Alikia is used to describe, not just the manager, but also the money in verses 9 and 11. “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth…” (v9). It almost sounds like this verse is encouraging us to manipulate people with money.  Or maybe the verse is simply pointing out that this is something we already tend to do.

A common saying is that to find someone’s motivation one must follow the money. Where is it coming from and where is it going?  Often in business and politics the result will be that someone is making money from whatever they’re encouraging us to do or buy or believe.  I don’t think we can know that with this parable, but it is telling that we can do that with so much of what happens in the world.  Money really is too often our driving force.

So what if the point of this parable is to derail money from its power by using it in unreasonable and illogical ways?  Or to apply some logic by using it for a purpose – the purpose of making friends?

And once again this parable has me going in circles.

Today I am thankful that I have money for buying coffee, sundaes at Dairy Queen, books, and air conditioning.

Thanks, God.