Lectionary Reflection for Proper 20C on Luke 16:1-13

THE STRANGEST PARABLE

Early in my ministry as a preacher, I was asked to be part of a committee to review a trainee preacher’s sermon. When we gathered after the worship service, a colleague who was the chairperson of the group mentioned that he was disappointed that the preacher had not used the Revised Common Lectionary. I responded that for me, this was not a problem, because I was not a fan of the Lectionary. And, consistent with my conservative, charismatic faith at the time, I mentioned, rather arrogantly, that I preferred to be “led by the Spirit.” My colleague graciously smiled at me as he gently replied, “If we believe all of the Bible is Scripture, then there is something to be said for wrestling with a passage until the Spirit speaks through the text we have been given.” Those words transformed my relationships with both Scripture and the Lectionary.

And then we come to a pericope like the Lectionary’s choice for Proper 20C. Luke 16:1-13, the parable of the shrewd manager, “stands among the most challenging texts in the New Testament,” and has generated a wide array of interpretations.^¹ Some scholars argue that the manager is a slave,² while some insist he is a free person.³ Some commentators claim that this parable cannot be interpreted allegorically,⁴ even as others interpret it in exactly this way.⁵ In addition, as Barbara Bossing suggests, “To try to understand this parable (Luke 16:1-8a) and the attached sayings (verses 8b-13) in the context of Luke’s narrative world, we need a mini-course on the economics of Roman-occupied Galilee in the first century”.⁶ Clearly, if we are to hear the Spirit’s voice in this text, we will need to wrestle mightily!

Like all passages in the Scriptures, the context of this parable is revealing. If you have followed Luke’s Gospel in the Lectionary this year, you will have seen how the writer develops a few key themes, all related to the reign of God, which was the heart of Jesus’ message. Any interpretation of this parable must be informed by Luke’s use of the Jubilee to describe God’s reign, by his emphasis on hospitality, and by the way he prioritises simplicity and generosity over accumulation and consumption. When we allow these ideas to dialogue with the parable, we are able to interpret it wisely and with relevance for our world today.

One of the most curious features of all the commentaries that I have consulted is that they engage with the parable of the shrewd manager from a fairly literal sense, assuming that the wealthy man refers to an actual wealthy man, the manager to an actual employee, and the debtors to people who were literally indebted to the master. By literal here, I don’t mean that the characters in the story were real, living people in Jesus’ time. I mean that they are not metaphors for anything beyond themselves. The parable is viewed as little more than a ’slice-of-life’ story that Jesus used to illustrate God’s reign. But, as Tom Wright notes, “It is, after all, a parable, not a piece of moral teaching about money and how (not) to use it…”.⁷

If we had information about first-century Jewish business practices and economics, it would almost certainly offer valuable insights into the passage. If we could identify with certainty whether the manager was a slave or a free employee, that would definitely help us to interpret the parable. If we knew for sure whether the manager was cutting interest, his own commission, or part of the principal value of the debts he reduced, that too would inform our interpretation. And if we knew the extent to which the master was aware of the details of the debts owed to him or whether he preferred to leave everything in his manager’s hands, that could also help. But Jesus gives none of these details. We can speculate, as many commentators do, or we can work with what we have and find the most meaningful way to understand and apply it. The latter is the approach I have adopted in this reflection.

WHO ARE WE DEALING WITH?

Since Jesus does not offer a clear interpretation of the parable, there is a sense in which we get to choose whether to view the different characters as simply role players in Jesus’ realistic story or as representatives of something else. But there are also compelling reasons to engage with the parable metaphorically.

Luke seems to begin Chapter 16⁸ with a change in audience from the Pharisees and scribes to the disciples, but this does not mean that the religious leaders are no longer present.⁹ On the contrary, verse 14 confirms that they are hearing everything Jesus is saying. So while Jesus’ focus may now be on his friends, his message is really a continuation of what has come before. In Chapter 15, Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin were directed at the religious leaders who, like Jesus, should have been searching for the poor, the marginalised, and the socially unacceptable. The lost items represented those who were outside of the religious, economic, and social mainstream. And in the parable of the lost son, the gracious and forgiving father is usually viewed as a representation of God. It would make sense, then, to read this pericope as an ongoing discourse about God’s reign and the way the religious leaders are missing it.

There are many resonances between this parable and the parable of the prodigal son that precedes it.¹⁰ And, as many commentators note, the themes of Jubilee and hospitality are strongly present in all of Jesus’ teaching on the road to Jerusalem, including in this passage. With these thoughts in mind, it makes sense to view the wealthy man in the parable as God (much like the father in the parable of the lost son),¹¹ the shrewd manager as a religious leader, and the debtors as the ‘lost’ ones, the people the Pharisees and scribes were supposed to be seeking out and welcoming into God’s reign. Tom Wright uses a similar approach to this parable with some small differences. This is how he frames it:

If we were faced with a first-century Jewish story we’d never seen before, about a master and a steward, we should know at once what it was most likely about. The master is God; the steward is Israel. Israel is supposed to be God’s property-manager, the light of God’s world, responsible to God and set over his possessions. But Israel—as we’ve seen in so much of this gospel—has failed in the task, and is under threat of imminent dismissal. What then ought Israel to do?¹²