the end (freedom) justifies the means (dishonesty)

Photo by Chris Briggs on Unsplash

If I stood outside the grocery store and stopped folks walking by, and I asked them this question: did Jesus promote dishonesty, or honesty? What do you think the response would be?

We live in an increasingly secular age, one in which fewer and fewer people are familiar with Christianity. But I think most people would still generally agree that Jesus was a promoter of honesty, not dishonesty. Jesus was for justice, and fairness.

So what do we do with this Jesus, this Jesus who, in this parable, seems to be commending, even encouraging, dishonesty?

The parable of the dishonest manager. This one is a toughy. There is a lot to unpack here. But first let’s remember what we’re dealing with.

This is a parable. And parables are dangerous.

Jesus used parables to communicate something deeper than fact, truths that we know somewhere deep in the marrow of our bones. Parables are kind of like myths, stories that are not true on the outside but are true on the inside - stories that cut to the core of something about humanity.

And parables are dangerous - because they’re powerful, and memorable, and we build our lives around them. They’re ambiguous, open to interpretation. Each one is a sharp metal blade - we can use it as a plowshare or a sword.

As we’ve been exploring recently in our gospel readings on Sundays, parables are meant to make Jesus’s listeners feel uncomfortable, if not outright shocked.

And I am shocked, and surprised, when I read this parable. Are you? Just before this story we hear the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son - all stories about the lost being found, about abundant forgiveness and tireless seeking. These parables are challenging, but I can fit them into my understanding of Jesus.

But today we meet a manager who has been cheating his boss. We aren’t sure exactly what he’s been doing, but perhaps he’s been taking a cut on the side, up-charging his boss’s clients and keeping the extra goods for himself.

Maybe he’s been outright stealing from his master, embezzling funds, cooking the books.

I think we ought to be shocked when Jesus praises this dishonest manager, who - in order to solve his problem - continues to be dishonest. 

This parable isn’t easily understood, and that’s a good thing. In the life of faith, the life of discipleship, there is always more than meets the eye. When it comes to faith, when it comes to scripture: if something is easy to understand, it’s probably not the whole truth.

This parable puts our beliefs into question and asks us to consider: can anyone have wealth and truly be honest? Can anyone participate in our systems of wealth, debt, money, economy, and not be dishonest?

When monks or nuns decide to leave behind their lives and enter a monastery or cloister, they take a vow of poverty. They promise to give over any material possessions they have in order to avoid the corrupting effect of wealth, to avoid participating in an economy that is inextricable from dishonesty.

This parable forces us to take a hard look at the systems of wealth that we participate in. And this parable asks us to question - what are we doing with the resources we have? 

There are no easy answers today, and for that I’m grateful. The further along the journey of my faith, I find that I have fewer and fewer answers, but more and more questions.

Today I wonder: how would I feel if I were the manager? I can tap into a bit of his anxiety. He’s desperate - he’s been found out. Have you ever been caught? In a lie, or a mistake? I have. Do you know the panic that sets in when you realize that your secret isn’t a secret anymore, and you’ll do whatever you can to get out of it?

This manager has been caught in a lie, and he knows he needs to act quickly - he needs to save face. 

He realizes that his boss is definitely going to fire him. There’s no way to repair that relationship. But he thinks, I have other relationships that I can still repair, potential future bosses who might give me work once I’ve lost this job. 

So he goes about significantly reducing the debt that the clients owe to the rich man. Apparently the rich man isn’t affected by this reduction in payment, and even praises the manager. Yes, he had been dishonest in his dealings with his wealth - but the rich man can appreciate the manager’s creativity and cunning idea, if nothing else. 

What is Jesus getting at with this illustration? He says, the children of this age - people like this dishonest manager - they are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light - those who call themselves Jesus followers.

Jesus is asking us to observe the behavior of the manager and learn something. Is it that the manager, while he knows he has ruined one relationship beyond repair, goes about building bridges with others? 

Could it be a call to Jesus’s disciples to be more creative, to be more cunning, in the way they use resources? 

Is Jesus promoting dishonesty? Is he saying that justice can be won by unjust means?

Here’s the good news - it’s clear that being a disciple of Jesus does not mean we get easy answers for our complicated, real-life questions.

It’s clear that being a disciple of Jesus isn’t easy or free of doubt.

Being a disciple of Jesus means walking a dynamic path, constantly calling our decisions, our actions, and our speech into question, seeking to understand our lives through the lens of the gospel.

Jesus urges us to be more like the manager, more shrewd. And when we really think about it, isn’t it true that each of us participates in the economy, and therefore participates in dishonest systems? Can any person account for every single cent they possess, and show that it had no part in a system that contributes, in some way, to injustice?

There’s a great TV show called The Good Place. Has anyone seen it? It takes place in the afterlife, as characters grapple with the cosmic consequences of their actions while they were alive. The thing that they end up realizing is that in our modern, globalized world, there is no such thing as a truly good action, free from complication. 

Okay, you choose almond milk instead of cows milk because of the carbon footprint implications. But don’t you know how much water it takes to make one gallon of almond milk? In this show, Kristen Bell and Ted Dansen wrestle with the fact that because of the systems we are embedded in, even our most ethical, honest decisions are caught up in a complicated web. 

In our world, wealth is generally built upon the backs of the enslaved, of women, of the poor, and of the oppressed. The systems of commerce and exchange that we participate in every day are rife with dishonesty, even if we are doing our personal best to be honest.

So is there even such a thing as totally honest wealth, when all gain relies on someone else’s loss? When our very systems of exchange are historically founded in unjust institutions? 

Jesus is asking us this question: what are you doing with the resources you have? Jesus isn’t outright condemning wealth, but seems to be asking us to be more shrewd, be more like the manager who relieves debt in order to build bridges.

You cannot serve God and wealth, Jesus tells us. You cannot love money and still have room in your heart to love God. But as long as we exist in the systems of this world, we have to, on some level, love money, or at least revere it. We need it to survive. 

God knows this. And so we will participate in unjust systems - we can’t escape it. Jesus wants to know - how will you use those resources to build up the kingdom of God? How will you be shrewd for the sake of the gospel?

Parables reveal a deep truth - they reveal something about who God is and how God works. They show us how God is at work reconciling and reconnecting everything in the world. 

In this parable, God is at work reconciling even our broken systems of wealth, even in ways that we aren’t sure are within the rules.

But our God is a rule breaker, a reconciler, a justice-giver. We can never have totally honest wealth, can never be totally removed from dishonesty and injustice. But we can participate in the bigger story here - the story of God’s redeeming love for the world.

Jesus had a bold and subversive streak, too. Many of his teachings and actions involve bending or flouting rules, brazenly calling out the powers-that-be, or lifting up supposedly questionable characters as admirable role models: a Samaritan, for example, or a marginalized woman, or, as in this week’s story, a “dishonest manager.”

There is no such thing as honest wealth. In a system where the wealth and security of so many are built on the poverty and insecurity of so many others, is it possible to use that very system to liberate people? The real question today is this: since there is no other kind of wealth than dishonest wealth, how will we use dishonest wealth for the sake of the liberation of all people?

You don’t have to go far to see that the way our economy is set up isn’t working for everyone. You don’t have to know much to know that a tiny percentage of people control a huge majority of wealth. The wealth gap in our cities, in our country, in our world is the root of so much violence, so much suffering.

So, Jesus asks us: how can we act within this broken, dishonest system for the good of the oppressed? 

Jesus is calling for action. He’s calling for us to be shrewd like the manager, to use our dishonest system of wealth for the liberation of the very people who are oppressed by it.

We can use our resources to participate in God’s liberating, life-giving kingdom now, by giving away more than we thought we could. By giving recklessly of ourselves. By forgiving the debt that is owed to us. By calling out the injustice of the system, by building relationships with our neighbors and sharing what we have. By boycotting companies that profit off war and violence, companies with CEOs that make billions while their employees can’t afford healthcare. 

And this kind of work? This is what we mean by stewardship. This kind of cunning gospel work is what Jesus is calling us to imagine. 

Yes, we are embedded in broken systems. Some of us - maybe the lucky few - are called to renounce it all and join monastic communities with a vow of poverty; and the witness and spiritual lives of those communities are a golden thread through the muck of human history.

The rest of us are stuck here in the world, doing the best with what we have, making the most honest decisions we can make.

Jesus sees the folks who use devious methods to cheat people and says - you ought to do that, too - but for the sake of the gospel.

Be shrewd as snakes, Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew, and innocent as doves. Jesus knows what we’re up against. Use every tool available to you, Jesus says - your vote, your voice, your wallet.

Be shrewd. Be cunning.

And do it for the sake of freedom.