“Stuck in the Middle With Jesus: Living Within and Pushing Back Against Unjust Systems”
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
September 18, 2016 - Luke 16:1-8a
Who wants to preach a sermon on this parable?!? I think it’s truly safe to say no one has any clue what it’s about or why it’s here. It only exists in Luke. There’s no real context for it. The author has just finished telling us three stories about things that are lost - the sheep, the coin, and the story of the Prodigal Son - and then moves straight on to this story about a rich man and his middle manager.
It might be helpful for a moment to get your Bible out and turn to Luke 16. The full passage that the folks from the Revised Common Lectionary selected includes verses 1-13 and ends with that delightful quip about how we cannot have two masters and must choose between serving God and serving wealth. Although that’s a fun bit to preach on, I decided instead to focus on the parable portion, which actually ends after the first part of verse 8. After that, the author of Luke gives a couple of guesses at what in the world this story might mean (“for the children of this generation”….etc. etc.) and then launches into this somewhat disjointed collection of pithy Jesus-sayings beginning with verse 10 and ending with verse 18.
Here’s how I imagine this got created: whoever wrote this gospel was perhaps sitting around with a bunch of post it notes and other scraps of paper. Good material that needed to find a home somewhere in the gospel. There was this odd little story about a rich man and one of his employees who was charged with squandering his wealth. And since the story of the Prodigal Son also included those themes, the author thought this might be a good place for it. Boom. Done.
Now I know I frequently stand up here and say, “Whew. This is a hard passage,” but, truly, this one? Almost incomprehensible. What I want to do today is just deal with the actual parable, which is why I had us only read through the beginning of verse 8.
There was a very wealthy man. Get a picture of him in your head. Think of him as a one-percenter. Very wealthy. And he had a midlevel manager who helped him manage all his money. I’m sure he probably had lots of them, actually, but the story is about just this one. Midlevel guy found himself in trouble because suddenly he was accused of mismanaging funds.
Rich guy called midlevel guy into his office, closed the door, asked him to take a seat and said, “Son, what’s this I hear about your behavior? I’m concerned. And I need to see all the files for your accounts on my desk by noon. Or else.”
Midlevel guy says to himself, “What will I do? I’m really in trouble here. If I lose this job, how will I support my family? I’m not strong enough to do physical labor and I certainly don't want to beg. Have you seen this economy? How will I find work?”
What happens next is interesting because in the original Greek it’s actually unclear whether this is happening now or in the past. Our English translation says he has a lightbulb moment and hatches a plan: “Here’s what I'll do. I'll go back to the clients and cut them a deal. A really great deal. And then they'll love me. And when I'm thrown out at least I'll have some allies who might take care of me.”
Now in the Greek, it seems as though he MIGHT actually be talking here about something that’s already happened. As in, maybe what he’s in trouble for is cutting these clients a deal in the past. (SOURCE) And I think that’s a really interesting thing to ponder because it makes me wonder a bit about just what this bland midlevel guy that I’ve been envisioning in my mind has been up to. It makes me wonder if I’ve stereotyped and misjudged him. Maybe he’s a bit edgier than I initially thought. A Robin Hood of sorts.
Either way, the deals are made. And the clients are likely very thankful for the reduction in their debts. Especially since, in this system, their debts were probably ridiculous. Think payday loans, think pre-2008 predatory housing loans. This was an unjust economic system set up to put more money in the pockets of the rich by taking advantage of those who had the least. I know, I know, it’s a foreign concept to those of us living in more enlightened times.
The twist comes at the end: rich guy discovers what midlevel manager has done and gives him a big pat on the back. I imagine him calling him back into his office and pouring him a drink.“Sit, sit,” he says with a smile. Midlevel manager sits cautiously on the edge of the chair, unsure of what’s about to happen. To his shock, the rich man says, “I’m impressed. You’re clever. I can’t say I would have thought of it myself. Well done.”
And that’s it. Scene. We don’t know what happens next. Does he get to keep his job? Does the rich guy have a change of heart? We have no idea.
With no real context for this parable, we could read almost anything into it. Is it a parable about economic insecurity? Taking care of yourself when the going gets tough? Making friends in unusual places? The anxiety that comes with working without a safety net?
It could be all of these things. And more. One of the stories I hear in this parable is a story about what it looks like to live within and push back against an unjust system. This parable is sometimes called “The Parable of the Dishonest Manager” which I find to be a little funny, because how, precisely, can one be dishonest in a system that is already totally corrupt? An economic system that exists to continually put money into the already fat pockets of the rich, at the expense of the poor is fundamentally dishonest. Full stop. I wonder if Jesus was being a little cheeky when he referred to the midlevel manager as “dishonest” when he’s actually doing a kind thing within a corrupt system.
In this unjust economic system, the midlevel manager is vulnerable. Just as the debtors at the bottom of the pyramid are vulnerable. There are no safety nets if they lose their jobs or suddenly find themselves out of favor with the elite. The exorbitant interest rates? They aren’t evidence of a broken system. They are evidence of the system working as it’s intended to work.
So when the midlevel manager exercises the authority he has to push back against that system? That’s huge. Whether he’s doing it to buck the system or simply because he’s watching out for himself, he is pushing back. He is dismantling things “as they are” and using what power he has to move into a different realm.
Earlier this week I read an article about a tactic female White House staffers have been using for past eight years. (SOURCE) When the Obama administration began, the women who were a part of his staff noticed that they frequently overlooked in meetings. Women like Anita Dunn and Susan Rice talk about how they intentionally banded together and used an amplification strategy to shift the system. When they were in meetings together, one woman would repeat what another had said if it had been overlooked. And she would be sure to use her name, giving her credit. Over time, this strategy of amplification worked. The men in the room started to hear women’s voices and more women were even brought to the table.
This strategy of amplification is brilliant, isn’t it? And one of the things I love about it is that it’s positive. The women's worked together, lifting one another up, trusting that their female colleagues would do the same for them in return. They could have, instead, seen their female colleagues as competitors and worked to climb over them. But they didn’t. Instead, they pushed back against culture where competition reigns and embraced a culture where victories are shared.
Thirty-three years ago, Audre Lorde wrote about her experience of being invited to present at a major conference. She was called late in the game and discovered she was really asked to be token. She felt that the organizers realized they needed a Black lesbian voice, but she was certainly the only Black lesbian who was present. In this essay Lorde shares this gem, “...the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” (SOURCE)
One of the things I love about this parable is that the midlevel manager, living and working in a corrupt system, chooses to opt out of the acceptable rules of the game. He knows, inherently, that he is at risk. And he chooses to form unlikely partnerships across class lines to not only ensure his own safety, but subvert the system entirely. He does not use the “master’s tools” to dismantle the master’s house. Instead, he reaches out in generosity of spirit, seeking ways that both he and those who are less privileged that he is can work together to create safety nets.
Paolo Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher. His work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was published in Portuguese in 1968 and translated into English two years later. His words, from nearly 50 years ago are as relevant today as they’ve ever been: “It is necessary that the weakness of the powerless is transformed into a force capable of announcing justice. For this to happen, a total denouncement of fatalism is necessary. We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.”
We are transformative beings and not beings for accommodation.
That’s the good news I see in this bizarre little parable this week. We are all, in one way or another midlevel managers. We have some power but not absolute power. It is tempting to stay in our own little bubble, thinking of the ways we are better off than some people and looking to the ways we might continue to climb.
But Jesus shocks us out of our complacency with this parable, insisting that there is another way. We were created to transform the world, not accommodate and merely survive within unjust systems. How might we follow the midlevel manager’s lead, seeking unlikely allies, finding ways to simultaneously care for ourselves and those who may be more marginalized, and creatively challenging unjust systems?
As is the case with most parables, there are fewer answers than there are questions. So we sit with the questions.
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