Luke 16:1-13
Proper 20 (25) - Year C
As you forgive, so you will be forgiven is a difficult lesson to learn.
We will put it off as long as possible. Case in point: when squandering gifts, yours and others, is finally realized and called we may consider better options. Among these is forgiving debts.
Note that forgiveness is called “shrewd”. This is a healthy way to look at an otherwise fuzzy idea.
Note further the dictionary definitions of “shrewd”:
1 archaic: mischievous
Forgiveness throws a wrench in the best laid plans to gain power over, what fun to watch.
2 obsolete: abusive, shrewish
Heard of heaping coals of kindness upon another?
3 obsolete: ominous, dangerous
Forgiveness is dangerous to dangerous behavior as it calls for a change on both sides of the equation. It is not dependent upon either a forgiver or one who is forgiven. Forgiveness is simply one of the realities of life and we can either work with it and flourish or work against it and be dead-headed.
4 a: severe, hard [a shrewd knock]
b: sharp, piercing [a shrewd wind]
Forgiveness cuts to the bone of what it means to Live, to be one with G*D, with steadfastness. Forgiveness simply is; deal with it.
5 a: marked by clever discerning awareness and hardheaded acumen [shrewd common sense]
b: given to wily and artful ways or dealing [a shrewd operator]
Shrewd forgiveness takes the archaic, obsolete, and current understandings of forgiveness and evaluates its long-term benefit within a communal context.
You can’t honor forgiveness and keep debts to your benefit. Debts must be released lest they fester into entitlement and sin upon sin eventuate.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/09/luke-161-13.html
O God, I am hard pressed to make a living. Pressure from this side, pressure from that. I've been put in difficult situations and my attempts to satisfy everyone, including myself, have come to naught. I've been trapped and done my best to strike deals with everyone that I might continue to live in the manner to which I have become accustomed. What deal do I need to make with you?
Can I bring a ten-dollar bill to your offering time and agree to throw in an extra buck?
Can I commit to only making one questionable deal this next week instead of my usual three?
Can I take a swing at the big time and show how well I can turn things around in 1,000 member congregation when we can't seem to do it with only 100?
Can I arrange to serve you three-quarter time instead of just half-time as I taper off of Mammon?
Surely you would like to look good in front of my friends and so your cutting a good deal on all this would be to your advantage as well as mine.
I think we can still do business on this, God. What do you say?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/september2004.html
It's me again, God. Have I got a deal for you!
Let me get away with one more ___(your excuse here)___ and I'll be at the right place to bring you more thanks than you've seen in a hundred generations. We are right on the edge of new spiritual technology that will clone those who give thanks. We'll be able to get you so much praise it'll be coming out your ears.
It may just look like I'm squandering your resources, but my past investments have all had you in mind and we are now so close we can both taste it.
For the first time in history, well, maybe the second or a few more, we are going to so connect wealth with God that folks won't be able to say one without saying the other. This is going to have a great outcome for you God, so let's hold off on your threat to ship my position overseas. I'm sure that within the fortnight you'll get what you've always wanted - constant praise. Enough of this meaningful living stuff, let's get back to the basics that you can't have too much adulation.
Thanks. I know you won't regret it. A big Amen.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/september2004.html
Sounds like the rich man was the head of his Enron equivalent. He seems to have claimed plausible deniability about not know what was going on under him. Until someone else brings it up, he is satisfied with whatever it takes to keep the dough rolling in. Shrewdly turning a blind eye is an old story. Question: to what has it been to your advantage to turn a blind eye?
How different this story would be if the one asked for an accounting of their practices was able to hearken back to their original blessing rather than to their supposed fall. Instead of trying to make up for a little graft under the table with a little gratuity passed back, the manager (one who has dominion, not domination) might have worried less about their strength or shame. So much less might they have worried that this story might not be told about them as manager, but remain a story of the rich man.
It may be that we are called to so live that less stories will be told for we know we are already welcomed into eternity and don't have to connive to either make up for not knowing our welcome or not believing it.
A punch line of faithfulness in much or little might better flow from a lack of story than this all to familiar one. And a conclusion about G*D and wealth might be better demonstrated: "See, wealth wasn't needed to be able to participate in life."
At issue is what one step would move us in the direction of honorable living at every level - even at your level.
- - -
oh what charges
could be brought
against any of us
squandering might be
a charge we could wiggle
out from under most easily
having lived by our wits
we will also die by them
but not yet
we will have just enough friends
to keep us living in a style
to which we are accustomed
to have us lose our style
would impact their style
so they enable our style
we collude with one another
and yet we might learn
to openly play with G*D
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Given: Wealth is inherently dishonest. To accumulate wealth in our world is to do so at the expense of the poor. No matter what the economic system, there is none that is sacred, discrepancy of wealth requires keeping the poor poor. Remember the kicker, "You cannot serve G*D and wealth".
How then does one make friends through the use of "dishonest wealth"?
Is it to use the same amount of smarts but for what is right (as The Message would have it)? This is to again focus on individual salvation and to lose track that we are all in this together - as G*D's creation, we can't have it otherwise.
Honesty requires that we see our economic lives in light of the well-being of all the people and the environment. Whether you have much or little of the dishonest wealth, if you are not using what you have to look to the well-being of others, your own attempt to bridge the gap between G*D and the Bank (a helpful image from The Message), your own well-being (present and anytime afterward), is diminished.
The process of debt-forgiveness here outlined is still a good one and needs to be further used. You may want to look again at the canceling of international debt as a cause to support (Jubilee: USA Network).
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/09/luke-161-13.html