The Dishonest Manager

DAILY BYTE

Luke chapter 15 is famous for telling 3 well loved parables of being lost and found. A sheep was lost and then found. A coin was lost and then found. The prodigal son was lost to his father and then found amidst much rejoicing. Then, without so much as a please or thank you, we find ourselves in Luke chapter 16 where Jesus tells us a parable that just loses us. No found.

We read this story (see below) and wonder just what the heck is going on! Is this story even in the Bible? And we question it with good reason, because the story describes a man who embezzles money and yet is commended for it. Strangely enough, he is held up within the context of this story as a positive example.

So we find ourselves a little lost to be honest, and as we all know, being lost can leave us feeling uncertain and maybe even a little fearful. We feel that because this story is confusing, messy and almost amoral, that it is perhaps better to ignore it. It loses us so we will lose it kind of thing.

Yet, perhaps this is a mistake that we will find our faith slightly poorer for: For if there is one great and certain Gospel truth, it is that God can find us. Even in life’s murkiest, messiest, most amoral moments, when all hope and sense is lose, God CAN find us!

Ultimately, this story reminds us of that.

When I first encountered this parable I felt much like you might right now. I didn’t like it at all. There is good reason, I reckoned, that this parable is not read or discussed much within church circles. It’s like that cousin or uncle who embarrasses everyone with their loud and brash behaviour, it seems better just to pretend they aren’t there.

But after spending some time wrestling with this parable, I have grown strangely affectionate towards it. In fact, just like that embarrassing cousin or uncle, if you take the time and trouble to get to know this story better, you will find that there are previously undiscovered layers of depth that will enrich you in a wonderful way.

Which is exactly why it would be well worth our time to spend the next few days in the company of this story. Read through it again, and note down any thoughts or questions that spring to your mind, and then pray about them.

PRAY AS YOU GO

I give thanks to you, Almighty God, for being a God who delights in finding the lost. Thank you for the way you have always worked in my life to bring me closer to you. May I walk always in your paths. Amen.

FOCUS VERSE

LUKE 16 : 1-8a NRSV

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 accounting 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;