Pentecost 17/Proper 20, Year C
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
This is a very familiar parable, isn't it? The Church has called it "the dishonest steward", and I suppose from our vantage point it certainly looks like the steward is committing a crime! What do you think?
Why would the master - who by our standards appears to have been defrauded - comment him?
Do you think we might be missing something? Well, yes, we are! And here's a way into understanding what we're missing.
Anyone have a broker here? Even if you don't, you know roughly what a broker does - he or she 'brokers' transactions of stocks and bonds. So how does the broker get paid? Commissions! Could be a percentage, could be a flat rate.
That's how the Stewards of the wealthy functioned in the First Century - they got a percentage. So one interpretation of this parable is that the steward, wanting to lay the groundwork for returned favors, simply dispenses with his commission just this one time.
Pretty smart, huh?! Everyone loves the steward!
Here's the problem, though. 50%! That's certainly way too high a commission, and the peasants would immediately have told the landowner, or would have rioted if the landowner was in collusion with such extortion.
On the other hand, if the steward were defrauding the landowner in some way he could end up having to pay that back.
So why would the steward cut the debt by 50%? What's the mileage for him?
Put yourself in this situation - how do you think the peasants would have reacted to such large debt reductions? They would have been ecstatic at the generosity! But the important point is that they would have been ecstatic at the generosity of the landowner, as well as the steward! And this creates a genuine dilemma for the landowner:
- If he rescinds the steward's new contracts (which he is legally entitled to do because they are unlawful) he will alienate the renters and the entire village. They have already been celebrating the master's generosity! He'd be a universal 'goat'!
- On the other hand, if he allows these reduced contracts to stand, and publically laud's the steward, he will be short of produce this year, but his "honor" will spread far and wide (as also will the "honor" of the shrewd steward for arranging the deals). People will praise the noble and generous landowner, and he becomes the beneficent and much-loved landowner that will greatly increase his esteem with his wealthy friends.
Guess what he does!? He acknowledges the brilliance of the steward, accepts his financial lumps, and basks in the love of his tenants!
Jesus has a distinct double-message in this for us, and it can be stated very simply:
- Be wise as serpents! As followers of God don't emulate the immorality of the steward, but sure as heck copy his brilliance, and,
- Recognize that he got himself in this problem in the first place because he was serving two masters - his own boss, the landowner, and his avarice and laziness. So don't allow yourselves to be come servants of things, or cannot be servants of God.
And that brings us to today's epistle. It's particularly relevant because it picks up from the Gospel. The Gospel talked about the nature of servanthood - that its ethical, that it learns from the examples of others, and that it is exercised on behalf of God rather than self.
The Epistle, talks about the nature of the community that is to exercise that servanthood. The first part - the "body" metaphor - is the most familiar piece, but the second part (which we almost never get to hear in connection with the first!) is just as important!
This is also a vision that's central to our Church, as the Baptismal Covenant reminds us, and its predicated on us understanding that the most important, most fundamental ministry is that of the Baptized. Every baptized person is a minister of this Church, of the Body of Christ.
And every baptized person's ministry is equally important in the eyes of God, and should be treated as such by every other baptized person.
Paul lists for us some of the ministries within the community of Christians in Rome, identifying them as equally important but different. As I've said before, I believe his vision here is based, at least in part, on the Book of Judges, where individuals were called out to serve particular roles on behalf of the community, and then returned to their places within the community when their role was no longer necessary.
It is a vision of radical equality, but it is also a vision of a hierarchy - a hierarchy of gifts rather an a hierarchy of power. The Baptized, Paul indicates, recognize that certain gifts have been bestowed by God on certain people - here he identifies prophecy, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and pastoral care, though elsewhere he includes other ministries.
The individuals concerned are then called by the community, by the baptized, to function in those ministries.
If you apply that model to the Episcopal Church then it works like this: the Baptized recognize particular people have received particular gifts: teaching, preaching, pastoral care, fund-raising, communications, care of liturgical vessels, stewardship of property, liturgical leadership, spiritual leadership, and so on - and then call those people to exercise the gifts on behalf of the Baptized.
There's another step, too. Paul is clear that - as Jesus said - ministry for Christians is servant ministry - we serve one another.
Each ministry has its own authority, but the authority is not 'of the person' - it isn't a personal authority, but one loaned to each individual to perform their ministry on behalf of the Baptized. In other words, each of you has given up some of the authority within the Body and intrusted it with, say, Liz Kershaw over liturgical vessels, Bill Carruthers over the buildings and Grounds, Carol Foster over the organ and choir, J. R. over the Christian Formation program, me over the liturgy, our new bishop, Greg, over our diocese, and so on.s
In the Episcopal Church we can get confused by this. There's language still in use about the "three-fold ministry" - of bishops, priests, and deacons, which, if used, without thought, has come to suggest that the only form of ministry is ordained ministry! One time I was visiting my brother's Church in England, and then going straight to an international Church meeting, so I was wearing a clergy collar. A parishioner of his parish, mistaking me for him, said "Martin, I didn't know you'd gone into The Ministry".
The key there is the definite article: "The" ministry. All other ministry, in this model, is secondary, derived, amateur.....lay.
There is, really, only one order of ministry - that of the Baptized. Everything I do, or our new bishop does, is done fundamentally as a baptized person. That the Church has recognized particular gifts and called me, and him, to a particular liturgical, or leadership, ministry, and has given names like "priest" or "bishop" to those ministries does not make us better, and should not make us more powerful. We are stewards of the authority that belongs to the Baptized.
To be a Christian comes with expectations, however, and one of them is that if you are baptized, you are exercising some sort of ministry on behalf of the Body of Christ, the Church. It is only when we exercise our ministries that we have any authority in the Body to give over to others. The issue for us all is not, "do I have a ministry?", but "what ministry do I have?"
The invitation of Paul, therefore, is to enter into discernment of what your ministry is, on behalf of the Body of Christ.
The invitation of Luke is to do so emulating the brilliance of the shrewd steward, without allowing the second master to distract you from serving the first! Amen.
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