The Kingdom Conundrum

Luke 16: 1-13

Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.” So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” He answered, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” He said to him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.” Then he asked another, “And how much do you owe?” He replied, “A hundred containers of wheat.” He said to him, “Take your bill and make it eighty.” And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 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.

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 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.’

The fog is rolling in off the ocean like a blanket of cloud right now and the forlorn foghorns are sounding. Don’t you ever wish you had a spiritual foghorn?  Sometimes it would be great to even get just an echo that lets you know you’re at least in the right vicinity and that you’re not heading for a bunch of jagged rocks.

I have been trying to write this reflection over a period of a couple of days – and getting nowhere. The fog has rolled in. It’s as if every point I try to develop fades away into the mist leaving me stranded and floating in the middle of a paragraph. In starting a line of thought I would push off with great confidence, thinking I knew exactly where I was going to go. Everything would seem to be going well and then I’d be reminded of a scripture that contradicted the point I was making. Other times I would realize that I was contradicting myself, starting out with one truth and ending up with another that didn’t support what I started to say at all.

In the end, I had to head back to the dock to regroup, hit delete and ask the Spirit again about what is going on with this Gospel parable that seems to point to one truth but confounds us with a story that cannot be examined too deeply before we run into contradictions to a lot of perceptions we generally hold to be true. If Luke hadn’t included that one parable in his writings, this week’s reading would be a simple, easily understood Gospel passage. Tossing the parable of the dishonest manager into the mix creates a tension that frustrates our desires for easy and straightforward truths about God that we can turn into neat little packages that can be quickly filed under preset headings. And then forgotten.

It’s a parable that brings up questions:

What does it mean to be shrewd in the spiritual life? Is it better to do great acts of charity with wrong and selfish intentions than to do minor acts of charity in a spirit of self-righteousness?  Do our inner motives matter as long as we do the right thing?

Meanwhile, back at the dock, I am being pointed in a direction that doesn’t seem to pertain to the parable of the dishonest manager directly but has everything to do with our reactions and responses to that scripture and others that are difficult to comprehend. It has to do with why this parable makes us so uncomfortable. It has to do with our innate need to have the spiritual life presented to us as a neat and tidy set of rules. We want policy. We want truth that stays exactly the same no matter what so that when we run into difficult situations we can run to the Policy Book or look under the right file heading to find out exactly what is expected of us and why.

Can we handle that it isn’t that way? Are we open to the fact that the spiritual journey requires us not to be always right but to be in relationship?

Let me give you an example:  If someone asked me to state an unchanging truth about God I could say, “God wants me to love others the way he loves me.” I would be right on the money with that statement. But how many situations do we all run into every day where we struggle with what is truly the loving thing to do? There are so many situations where we can see that being loving or charitable in a certain way could possibly lead to unhealthy consequences for the other person or for a community. Sometimes saying ‘Yes, I will” is a loving thing to do and sometimes saying, “Absolutely not!” is the most loving response.

Sometimes loving generosity feeds our egos more than fulfills another person’s needs but does that mean we should not give? Can charity be misguided? Can we give our money, time or possessions in an inappropriate way or is every act of charity and extension of God’s love to the world?

Sometimes love seems to require me to allow another person to walk all over me and abuse my rights. Their behavior is unhealthy and toxic – is it loving to allow them to engage in that behavior thereby increasing the sickness within them?  On the other hand, not being confrontational can cause a difficult person to be touched and changed by our gentleness. In the gospels, Jesus’ love was sometimes gentle and compassionate and at other times, his love was a strong and difficult challenge for change.

How can we know? Where are the rules that will unerringly guide us through all the big and small conundrums and questions we face almost every moment of every day? Scripture is full of self-contradictions; does this mean it can’t be trusted? What’s the deal here?

The deal is that while we are blessed with many wonderful guidelines and protective fences in the spiritual life, God does not require us to always be right. What he desires of us is relationship. He doesn’t want us to always assume we know what he thinks without asking him. We are called to always seek his face, to continually ask for the Spirit’s wisdom and to unceasingly knock at the door to the kingdom every moment of every day, struggling to hear his voice, see through his eyes and find the way. It doesn’t mean we will always be right or never make mistakes but it does mean we will always be surging in the right direction - toward the heart of God. And the nearer we get to the heart of God the more we discover that 'black and white' cannot possibly define the spectrum of colors reflected by the light of his unchanging Truth. 

Back to that dishonest manager: he pondered all the alternatives, asked questions and struggled through to find a creative way out of his predicament. The Pharisees assumed they always knew what was right and what was pleasing to God because they had a good handle on the law. The shrewdness of the manager led him to find a unique and unorthodox solution to his problem, one that ended up blessing many people, including himself, even though his motives weren’t pure.  The Pharisees were more likely to stick to their righteousness based on close observance of the rules – often ending up being a blessing to no one, including themselves. But not always. We can't say that their adherence to the law always compromised their compassion. We don't know that.  

You choose whose way was best. Or can you? I would check with the Lord first. 

Because it's foggy out there.