Fiduciary
Responsibilities
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, 09/22/2013
Based on Luke
16:1-13
Our text this
morning is a continuation of parables that Jesus has been sharing with his
disciples and the Pharisees. In Chapter
15, the stories of the lost lamb, the lost coin, and the return of the lost son
(more commonly known as the Prodigal Son) all seem to lift up the idea of the
joy of the person who is doing the seeking of those things lost or more
spiritually put, how God rejoices when one who is lost is found and re-united
with God who is the seeker.
In this morning’s
text, there is a shift in who is being praised. The story Jesus now shares is a man who has
fiduciary responsibilities to his master, but has been squandering his master’s
wealth. Upon learning that he was going
to be fired, he gathers those people who have outstanding bills with the master
and goes about dismissing portions of those bills as a way of insuring his well
being once he is fired. Although those
who had had their debts decreased to the master now find that they are indebted
to this “over seer”, and this man appears to be praised by Jesus for his
shrewdness. If Jesus were living these
days, He might very well be using examples of many of the managers of large
corporations, who have received “golden parachutes” while the stockholders that
they had fiduciary responsibilities to were financially hurt in this Great
Recession. From a legal standpoint,
these people who received these “golden parachutes” have done nothing wrong,
but one might ask about the moral rightness in the way in which those CEO’s
conducted their business decisions on behalf of the stockholders they had
fiduciary responsibilities toward.
One of the
questions that this parable asks is the question of motives, “why do we do what we do?” By all accounts, this is one of the hardest
parables that Jesus has offered thus far in the Gospel of Luke. It is a definite challenge to those of us,
who have grown up with the teaching that “honesty” is the best policy, and a
strong Puritan work ethic, meaning I do my best at my job, then I will be
rewarded; if I slough off in my job, I will be reprimanded. Yet here in this parable, we read where the
lazy manager, who knows he is going to get fired, gives away large portions of
debt that belongs to his boss. In
essence, he damages his employer’s position financially. Now this actually isn’t an uncommon practice of
an employee doing harm to his/her employer when they know that they are going
to get fired, but the kicker to this story is that the employee is not
chastised or even brought to court for his actions, but rather is commended on
his “shrewdness” by his employer. This
story goes directly against what we are taught as what is and isn’t “ethical”
behavior. So how do we deal with such a
parable that seems to oppose our understanding of “right” and “wrong?”
Let me try to bring
at least one point of view on what we might learn from this story by re-reading
a portion of the text from the Eugene Peterson’s version, The Message:
3-4"The manager said to himself, 'What am I going
to do? I've lost my job as manager. I'm not strong enough for a laboring job,
and I'm too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I've got a plan,…and when I'm turned out
into the street, people will take me into their houses.' … 8-9"Now
here's a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he
knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard
than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles,
surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is
right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to
concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you'll live, really live,
and not complacently just get by on good behavior."
First off, we must understand that the “manager” was not praised for
being dishonest or dishonorable with respect to the “employers” property. What the manager was being praised for was
his ability to position himself so once he lost his job, he would have a way of
taking care of himself, he was being congratulated for his “shrewdness”, for
his “wittiness”, he was street smart and he knew how to survive. You see, the manager wasn’t actually
reducing the debt of those who owed money to the wealthy landlord to get back at
being fired, rather once these people accepted this managers offer, they became
“indebted” to the manager as well. For
once the manager loses his job, he can then go and “call in the favor” that he
gave them and have a home to live in and food to eat. His actions, although dishonest and even
harmful to his employer, were ultimately beneficial to his own well being. His motives were no more honorable toward
those whom he was forgiving debt, because, he was looking out for his own
benefit in the end, doing something that would allow him to receive favors
later down the road.
We need to understand that Jesus was speaking of the ability to
recognize the connection between resources and relationships. The manager knew what was at hand and acted
in such a way as to provide the most bang for the buck, so to speak. When we understand the parable from this
point of view, we can then start asking very important questions of our self,
or more importantly of the congregations that we are a part of, as to how are
we handling what we have been “entrusted” with?
If we combine a verse from the book of Proverb’s (Prov. 29:18), Solomon
says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” “The
parable of the manager speaks especially to Christians or communities who have
lost the vision of the larger picture.
Who are the people of God? What
have they been called to do? When we
have no idea where we are going, the treasures in front of us are hardly
treasures at all; they are simply things, things that have no larger value
beyond our own need for them. These
things too easily become objects to be used, misused, and manipulated.” pg 94 of Feasting on the Word, Yr C, Vol. 4
The question “what does our church
mean to us”, is a hugely important question, for it brings with it a value
that we place upon the function of this institution. Is the church just for us, or is it something
bigger than we are? What does it mean
when we say, “this is truly Christ’s ministry?”
If it is, then how have we been handling His property? You see, we are the “manager” in this
parable, when we call ourselves “disciples of Christ”. The landlord is ultimately God. As managers of God’s property, are we being
faithful to what God is asking of us?
Have we been treating our faith, this thing we call salvation with
honesty and integrity? Do we as a church
have a vision as to what “its ministry”
is supposed to be? For if we don’t have
a vision of what God is calling us to do, then we are very much like the
manager and our actions, our worship really, is not being honest to the one
that we call our God. We will
ultimately squander away the resources that are in hand and will perish as an
entity we call the church.
This is the crisis that Jesus addresses in
his parable. The children of light have
lost the vision for God. It is easy to
grow complacent about responsibilities God gives us. The parable is a call to reclaim who we are
and to renew our vision today for the kingdom of God beyond us and among us. Helen Debevoise, Feasting on the word, Yr C, 4
vol. Before we
can value the treasure that God has given us through our congregational
presence, we need to have a vision, a goal.
We need to be street-wise as to what we have in hand and know how to use
what God has given us in order to be proper stewards of what God has entrusted
to us. For without a vision
of what our ministries are to be, then we will ultimately perish and we will
have squandered the work that our predecessors have already achieved. If our motive is to “just survive” so there
is some place for us to come on Sunday mornings, then we have the worst of
motives and have given away the real riches that God has entrusted to us. If we invite people into our congregations
solely in hopes of keeping the church’s doors open, then we are no better than
the manager. Rather, we should be
inviting people into relationship; relationship with one another, relationship
with Christ, not expecting anything back, but fully prepared to give away the
resources of the church, solely because these resources are God’s to begin
with. What is this resource? Nothing less than love and acceptance, of
reconciliation and a place where everyone knows that they are accepted for who
they are, a child of God! Amen
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