The Parable of the Crafty Trade Union Leader

Luke 16:1-13 (NIV)

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

16 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. ² So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

³ “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— ⁴ I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

⁵ “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

⁶ “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

⁷ “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

⁸ “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. ⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

This parable must have sounded impossible to the first hearers of it. I am sure they were not sure what Jesus was telling them. I remember telling my mother this story once and she did not believe that it was actually in the Bible. If we were to update the parable, perhaps it might sound a little like this:

Jesus said to the disciples, ‘There was an extremely powerful trade union official who held the highest office in a major trade union federation. He was well known and widely respected of in the world of politics and and exercised influence in the whole country.  But charges were brought against him that he had appointed a junior staff member in an manner that was contrary to the rules of his organization and that he had engaged in an inappropriate sexual encounter with this person outside his marriage.  So he said to himself, “What will I do, now that they may take my 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 they won’t be able to take my position away from me, I will call together the best of my friends and all those who owe their own high office to my power, and I will say to them, “With great care and subtlety of language I intend to refute this accusations whether what I say is true or not, and you will stick by me, no matter what is said, for I know everything about everyone one of you, and all that I know will go into the public domain if you don’t give me your undivided support.  If I fall you will fall too, so you’d better stand by me.’  And all the office bearers and friends did exactly that.

And Jesus said, ‘So I tell you, take full advantage of the power given into your hands so that you may be able to stand against the accusations of your enemies.  For it is better that you wield power, even with dishonesty, than others take that power from you.’

What do you think?

A Lost Son, a loving Father and a Bitter Brother

The Parable of the Lost Son

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons.12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

We return this Sunday to the story in Luke 15:11-32, traditionally called the story of the Prodigal Son, but which should, perhaps, be called the story of the lost son, the forgiving father and the bitter brother. This story has been the source of much art, particularly in the Renaissance, where both Protestant and Roman Catholic artists presenting artistic interpretations of the story. 

 “The return of the Prodigal Son to his father was a popular subject in seventeenth-century Christian art,” Hornik and Parsons write. “The [Roman Catholic] Counter Reformation embraced it as an example of forgiveness and healing between family members; Protestants viewed it as a return to God the Father despite their break from the Roman Catholic Church.” 

The first image below is Guercino’s painting; the second, is Rembrandt’s painting which illustrates a Protestant interpretation.

In Rembrandt’s painting, the light falls on the father’s hands, which “are disproportionately larger than the other parts of the father’s body,” Shiell notes. The father offers welcoming, noncontrolling love. In contrast, “the older brother stands to the far right, dressed like a Pharisee (ironically) with his hands and arms folded. Another man sits with his arms pridefully folded. They are afraid to love as the father does.”

Guercino emphasizes the father’s and son’s hands in a different way. They “are entwined in a classic gesture of reconciliation and…positioned at the centre of the composition.” Hornik and Parsons say, “The classicizing elements of the composition create a painting less of emotion and passion than of recognized rhetorical gesture of reconciliation.”

In his very famous book on the Rembrandt painting, Henri Nouwen writes,  

“Often I have asked friends to give me their first impression of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son. Inevitably, they point to the wise old man who forgives his son: the benevolent patriarch.

“The longer I look at ‘the patriarch’, the clearer it becomes to me that Rembrandt has done something quite different from letting God pose as the wise old head of a family. It all began with the hands. The two are quite different. The father’s left hand touching the son’s shoulder is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and cover a large part of the prodigal son’s shoulder and back. I can see a certain pressure, especially in the thumb. That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father’s left hand touches his son, it is not without a firm grip.

“How different is the father’s right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender. The fingers are close to each other and they have an elegant quality. It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand....

“As soon as I recognized the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches the son with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is, indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present. That gentle and caressing right hand echoes for me the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Can a woman forget her baby at the breast, feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”

The Cost of Non Discipleship

Luke 14:25-33 (NIV)

The Cost of Being a Disciple

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸ “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, ³⁰ saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

³¹ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³ In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

Following Jesus is not easy – and anybody who thinks it is has, clearly, not tried it. Dallas Willard, in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, wisely notes, “It was right to point out that one cannot be a disciple of Christ without forfeiting things normally sought in human life, and that one who pays little in the world’s coinage to bear his name has reason to wonder where he or she stands with God.” Willard adds, “The cost of non-discipleship is far greater – even when this life alone is considered – than the price paid to walk with Jesus.” Jesus himself tells us that “his yoke is easy and his burden is light,” and the apostle John tells us that “God’s commands are not burdensome to us.” Seldom do we consider what we would lose if we abandoned the life that Jesus offers. Willard again: “Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in light of God’s overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. It short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring.”

The language of salvation “by grace through faith”, for so long the hallmark of the churches that come from the Protestant Reformation, can be misinterpreted to mean that because grace is free, it is also cheap. In 1937, Dietrich Bonhoeffer published The Cost of Discipleship to remind us that while God's grace is a free gift, it is not cheap since God paid the ultimate price - the life of Christ - to demonstrate his unparalelled love for the world and to allow us to have access into a relationship with him. 

As people who follow in Christ’s footsteps, as those who pick up our cross daily, we are called to chose to give up the comfort of living for ourselves and chose to give ourselves for others.

v  What does it mean for you, today, to pick up your cross and follow Christ?