Marinus van Reymerswaele – "The Parable of the Unjust Steward" (1540). Luke 16:1-13
1. Theme – "The reversal"
1. God is an active force reversing the tide of history. God hears the plea of the tenant farmers in the Psalm suffering the Babylonian exile and the childless couple. In the Gospel, God is pitted against the Roman authority and those who exploit and have made their riches dishonestly since that will determine how you deal with true riches in the future. God reverses the role of the rich and poor looking at the riches in heaven as oppose to this life where the poor have little.
2. There is the need as spelled out in Amos to reverse the idea of collective guilt. The key in the lectionary is the effect of harsh relations with the poor and “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”
In the Gospel we need to use wealth effectively to serve the needs of other which will bring about more trusting and equal relations. This is the key with the dishonest manger reducing debt to his manager. One he was building his own wealth unethically he now works to enrich others, reducing their bills to his master and building a relationship of mutual benefit. Luke is all about the proper use of wealth. As David Lose writes "Except that it’s not just the use of wealth; it’s more like Luke is concerned with our relationship to wealth and how that affects our relationships with others."
3. In the Epistle, christians offer prayers for everyone but is clear that at the pinnacle is God who desires all to be saved. The request in 1 Timothy 2:2 to pray “for kings” instead of “to the kings” , thus bringing down in prestige the Imperial forces at Rome. And it would include the poor. The word about “a quiet and peaceable life in goodness and dignity” in 1 Tim 2:1-2 may be what we are looking for.
2. Lectionary Links
3. Summaries
Amos 8:4-7
God has shown Amos three visions of devastations he plans. Amos has persuaded him neither to ruin the crops nor to consume the land with fire, but when God has shown him that the Israelites don’t measure up, he has entered no plea: God will destroy all sanctuaries, both to him and to pagan gods.
Now God shows Amos another vision. There is a play on words: in Hebrew, “summer fruit” and “end” (v. 2) sound alike. God will not “pass them by” (v. 2), i.e. he will no longer ignore the Israelites’ erring ways: “the end has come”. The end-times (“that day”, v. 3) were known as the Day of the Lord. God will punish because merchants “trample on the needy” (v. 4): prohibited from commerce on the day of the “new moon” (v. 5) and on the Sabbath, they can’t wait to resume their fraudulent business practices: selling partial measures of wheat and including chaff (“sweepings”, v. 6). (Wheat was weighed in shekels, a standard unit of weight, with “balances” (v. 5). The “ephah” was about 20 litres or 4-5 gallons.) They will be charged and found guilty! (v. 7) To Israelites, sin literally polluted the land: earthquakes will occur because of human sin (v. 8); the land will rise and fall, killing many, as the “Nile” floods annually. People expected eclipses to precede the Day (v. 9). This day, expected to be a time of rejoicing over redress for oppression by enemies, will be a day of gloom (v. 10). (People donned “sackcloth” (drab garb) and shaved their heads in mourning; “it” is the earth.) Israel has failed to heed God’s “words” (v. 11), spoken through prophets; therefore, as punishment, God will cease to speak, i.e. provide his advice to Israel.
The country being (at least in theory) a theocracy, it will lack the ability to select leaders, to know when to wage war, etc. Without God’s word, it will be a mess religiously and politically. They will frantically seek his word everywhere, from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea (“from sea to sea”, v. 12) “but they shall not find it”.
Psalm 113
Psalm 113 is the first of the “Hallel” (praise) psalms; the word is found as a root in “Hallelujah” (literally “Praise Yah,” where “Yah” is short for “Yahweh”). There are a total of six such “Hallel” psalms: 113-118. These psalms are recited on major Jewish holidays, in particular, on the first evening of Passover, since many of the Exodus motifs can be found in these psalms.
This is a typical hymn, with a call to praise (vv. 1-3) followed by reasons for praise (vv. 4-9), all framed with “Hallelujah,” or, literally, “Praise the Lord.” The gathered congregation is invited to praise God throughout all time (v. 2) and throughout all space (v. 3). Let us not accuse these psalmists of thinking too small!
Praise is a reasonable thing to do, and the psalm provides two reasons. God is great, high and exalted (vv. 4-5). God is also good, stooping down to care for individual persons. The psalm which begins by stretching our imaginations as high as the heavens and as wide as all space now focuses on the particular.
Many scholars believe this psalm took its final form after the Babylonian exile for two reasons: the utter transcendence of YHWH (113:4-6) and his attention to the poor and weak (113:7-9). First, the view of YHWH seemed to shift around the Exile. When the Davidic kings ruled, Judea’s God was a national deity, while it’s neighbors had their Baals and fertility idols. Because of the cultural distance the nation had from its neighbors, Jews assumed there might be other gods, but only YHWH mattered. But, during the Exile, the faithful were surrounded by idols. The close proximity forced Jews to consider the place of their God among the gods. Their answer to the dilemma was a strict monotheism. YHWH was above the nations (and their gods); he was even above the heavens he created (113:4). He was so transcendent, no deity could compare in stature or power (113:5-6).
Second, scholars also point to the theme of the poor and weak (113:7-9). There are three groups mentioned – weak, poor, childless women. Let’s look at the poor.
Before the Exile, Jews farmed ancestral lands; because they believed God gave their families the land they tilled, the harvest was a direct reflection of God’s blessing. In the ideal scenario, the rich farmer was the righteous man. After the Exile, the lands were confiscated and given to foreign landlords; the local people became tenant farmers. In addition, the people were heavily taxed by their foreign rulers. Under this occupation, Israel identified itself as the poor, those without land and burdened with tribute. Yet, the return gave the people hope. God smiled upon the self-described “poor” and gave them a place of local authority (113:7-8); the faithful (the barren) returned home from Exile to start the nation anew (mother of many children in 113:9).
The transcendence of YHWH and his activity among the poor became the reasons for the praise of his name and, so, his power (113:1-3). Notice the “pattern of three” when the name of God is honored: 1) the faithful (or priests in the Temple as “servants”) were commanded to praise the name (113:1), 2) they were commanded to honor the name as a perpetual (eternal) activity (113:2), 3) they were commanded praise the name in the cycle of daily activity (113:3). In other words, the servants were to praise the name of YHWH constantly.
God also hears the prayers of the childless couple. The psalm concludes with an unforgettable scene: a young Hebrew mother who had been childless is now playing happily with her children in her home. When you have meaningful work, when you see a young wife enjoying her children, you have reasons for praising God and saying Hallelujah!
Psalm 113 gives us a direction for our daily prayer life. We owe him praise for who he is and what he does for us, even in our darkest times. We are to praise him at every moment of the day. Of course, attentive, vocal praise is impossible to give all the time, but praise can set our attitude for our daily routine. One moment of focused praise can precede a spontaneous outburst of joy to God’s glory.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
At a time when Christians were suspect for not joining in worship of Roman gods, an act expected of all, the author urges them to pray for “everyone”, including civil authorities (“kings …”, v. 2), so that Christians may live “a quiet and peaceable life”, as good citizens yet godly ones. This, he says, is in accord with God’s plan, for he wishes “everyone” (v. 4) to be saved, through knowledge of Christian “truth”. God desires this for: he is the “one God” (v. 5) for all people; the “one mediator”, Christ, shared in being human with all of us, and represents us all before the Father, and gave his life as the price of freedom (“ransom”, v. 6) for all.
His life and death were “attested” (shown to be an authentic part of the plan) “at the right time”, at the time chosen by God. Paul (“I”, v. 7) was “appointed” by God to announce (“herald”) this to all, genuinely sent out by him (“apostle”) to teach doctrine (“faith”) and the truth about God to everyone.
Luke 16:1-13
As he continues to travel towards Jerusalem, Jesus says more about what is required of a disciple. Many in the crowd were poor, oppressed by the rich, so a story about a “rich man” (vv. 1-8a) would be popular.
Jesus speaks in their terms, calling money “dishonest wealth” (v. 9) or filthy lucre. (A “manager”, v. 1, negotiated and signed contracts on his master’s behalf; the master was usually a (hated) absentee landlord.) Mosaic law forbade charging interest on a loan, but there was a way round this: the debtor in v. 6 had probably received 50 jugs of olive oil but the bill was for 100. The manager settles the account by forgiving the usurious interest, probably to his master’s benefit, not his own. Both the “master” (v. 8, the rich man) and the manager are businessmen; the master praises the manager for acting “shrewdly” (the Greek word means pragmatically). Both understand prudent use of financial resources.
From elsewhere in the New Testament and from the Qumran literature, we know that “the children of light” (v. 8) are the spiritually enlightened: business-people are more pragmatic in their sphere than are disciples in affairs of the Kingdom. Then v. 9: Jesus advises accumulation of heavenly capital by providing for the needy. If one does this in one’s own small way, God will see one as trustworthy regarding Kingdom affairs (v. 10) – and if one isn’t, he won’t. Being “faithful” now involves sharing possessions; one who doesn’t now won’t be entrusted with “true riches” (v. 11), i.e. the Kingdom. Financial resources are God’s gift; they belong “to another” (v. 12), i.e. to him. “Your own” is your inheritance as God’s children, i.e. eternal life. So in v. 12 Jesus asks: if you have not managed your finances prudently, will God give you eternal life? Then v. 13: one cannot make a god out of money and serve God. Disciples must serve God exclusively, using material resources for his purposes, sharing with the needy. The alternative is enslavement to materialism.