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Amos 8:4-12, I Timothy 2:1-8, Luke 16:1-13
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw
Several years ago at St. James' the rector, the other priest and I were going to be out of town over the same weekend. Neither deacon felt comfortable preaching. So the rector asked a retired priest (no longer in Utah) if she would take the services. Her response was, first let me see what the propers—scriptures—are because some are easier to preach on than others.
Today is such a day, particularly with the Gospel lesson. I had
thought it would be much easier to preach on Amos and the call for
justice in our society. Or preach on Timothy and how we should
in every place...pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or
argument.
This lesson seems particularly appropriate with our
bishops meeting in New Orleans right now.
But I could not let go of the parable of the steward who squandered his master's wealth. That story kept coming back to me, basically because it made me so uncomfortable. What is this parable about?
The steward has done some shady business deals and lost money for his master. Now he is being called to account for his dishonesty and faces being fired. This is a major crises for him on several levels: the lack of employment, the loss of trust from his master, and by his actions his master's name and reputation has been shamed in the community. Remember that in this honor/shame society, a person's honor is of foremost importance, even over financial wealth. The steward has really messed things up and he knows it.
There are some very close parallels with this parable and that of the Prodigal Son which precedes it. Both the steward and the son squandered money that had been given or entrusted to them, both of them schemed to make it right, both of them set about to fix things in a way which seemed the most expedient: the son, by coming home and giving himself as a hired servant to his father, and the steward by making adjustments on amounts owed his master. The son receives forgiveness. The steward extends forgiveness. These two exclusive Lukan parables compliment one another on many levels.
The steward goes about his plan to restore his own and his master's honor. He forgives debts. He forgives debts he had no authorization to forgive. He acted in this time of crises by forgiving debts. By so doing he restored his own honor and also gave himself access to others who would now welcome him into their homes if he is eventually fired. For the master it was on the one hand a loss of financial gain, on the other hand he was a major gain in honor in the community since he had been shamed by his steward and now was being honored by the steward. The master's honor is restored as a generous and benevolent man who looks beyond his own personal gain.
As one writer noted:
So what's the moral of this story, one of the stories unique to Luke? It's a moral of great emphasis for Luke: Forgive. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all.
...Why forgive someone who's sinned against us, or against our sense of what is obviously right? We don't have to do it out of love for the other person, if we're not there yet. We could forgive the other person because of that whole business of what we pray in Jesus' name every Sunday morning, and because we know we'd like forgiveness ourselves. We could forgive because we've experienced what we're like as unforgiving people, and so we know that refusing to forgive, because we don't want the other person to benefit, is as the saying goes, like eating rat poison hoping it will hurt the rat. We could forgive because we are, or we want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Jesus' power to forgive and free sinners like us. Or we could forgive because we think it will improve our odds of winning the lottery.
It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish or unselfish (or both), there is no bad reason to forgive. Extending the kind of grace God shows us in every possible arena—financial and moral—can only put us more deeply in touch with God's grace, (Dylan Breuer).
The master commends the steward for his shrewdness in dealing with the crises in which both of them had been shamed because of the steward's misdeeds. Now both were restored to places of honor in the community because of the forgiveness offered by the steward on behalf of his master. Therefore, should not the children of light be as extravagant in their offering of forgiveness to others?
So, what does that say to us? I believe we are to be as generous in our forgiveness of others as God is generous in his forgiveness of us. We show forth the grace and mercy of God as we extend grace and mercy to those around us.
As Episcopalians in this time of crises in our own faith community, I believe we are called to show forth forgiveness to those in our midst who continue to seek to create schism and division within our church and the Anglican Communion. We cannot necessarily affect healing or reconciliation right now through our forgiveness, but we can in all honesty say: I forgive you, go in peace to find the place where you need to be.