Sermon, "Planting Seeds: The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds," Matthew 13:24-30

Sermon 5/3/20

Matthew 13:24-30

Planting Seeds: Wheat and Weeds

We’re back today in chapter 13 of the gospel of Matthew with another parable of Jesus as we continue our sermon series on planting seeds. Two weeks ago, we talked about the Parable of the Sower, and today we’re reading the Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, or the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. It’s still part of the same series of teaching from Jesus. He’d been first sitting outside the house where he’d been staying, by the lake, and eventually, because the crowds were getting so large, he started teaching from a boat put out just a bit from shore, to give him space and a better platform perhaps while the crowds listened from the beach. So while we hear and are studying these parables one by one, Jesus’s audience heard them all, tried to absorb them all in quick succession. 

Parables are a specific type of teaching tool of Jesus. The word parable literally means to bring one thing alongside something else. A parable brings one thing parallel with another so they can be compared. The idea is that by bringing a more familiar thing alongside a perhaps less familiar thing, you’ll learn something about the less familiar thing by your understanding of the more familiar thing. Jesus’ parables, as I mentioned, are almost always about the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, God’s reign, God’s way of things on earth and in eternity. Jesus wants us to know what things are like in the way that God operates. What is God’s reign, fully realized, come to fruition, like? Jesus explains using parables, bringing something that might seem beyond our understanding - God’s rule and reign and hoped-for way of things - alongside something his audience did understand very well: stories about agriculture, farming, everyday items and situations they had experience with. Of course, for us, for today’s hearers of Jesus’ parables, we don’t always know much about either thing Jesus is talking about! We’re trying to learn about the Kingdom of God, but we also have to learn about farming or agriculture or whatever other first-century practices Jesus mentions in his parable that don’t always translate directly into how we do things today thousands of years later. Perhaps we need a parable that uses Facebook or TikTok in comparison to the reign of God. But in the absence of that(!), we work together to understand.

Jesus’ parables about God’s reign also serve to highlight how God’s reign is markedly different than the reign and rule of the human rulers the people were used to. Jesus’ first-century audience was living under occupation of the Roman Empire. They were ruled by the emperor and agents of the emperor who generally looked on them with disdain. They were heavily taxed. Their religious practices were sometimes curtailed and oppressed. They were afraid. And even their own leaders were sometimes working in collaboration with the Roman government. Corruption and greed and violence were all around. When Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, then, it sounds a sharp contrast to the kingdom, the empire of Rome. When we hear the parables, that’s another thing we listen for: how does this paint a picture that suggests that God’s ways are markedly different than the ways of the Roman Empire, than the corrupt ways of power-hungry human leadership? The parables paint an alternative, longed-for vision of the way things can be when we let God’s rule guide us fully.  

In today’s text, Jesus says that God’s reign is like this: Someone sows good seed – wheat – in his field. But while everyone is asleep, an enemy comes and sows weeds with the wheat. When the plants start growing, and the weeds are discovered with the grain, the slaves of the sower seem shocked, and go to the sower saying, “Master, didn’t you sow good seed here? Why then are there weeds? Where did they come from?” The master replies that an enemy sowed the weeds. So the slaves offer to pull the weeds up. “No,” the master replies, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” Both wheat and weeds have to grow together until harvest time, when the wheat will be harvested by reapers, gathered into the barn, and the weeds will be bundled and burned.     

Like with the Parable of the Sower, Jesus offers an explanation later in the chapter, but today we’re using our own imagination to look at the parable in different ways. What do we wonder about when we hear this parable? I wonder, for example, about the enemy that comes and sows weeds in the night among the good seed planted by the sower. I’ve never thought, outside of reading this parable, about someone intentionally planting weeds. Weeds hardly seem to need the help, do they? I have a big planter outside my door at the parsonage. I got it. intending to use it to repot my giant Christmas Cactus, but I couldn’t manage it, so the planter sat, full of soil, outside with nothing in it. But it still didn’t take long for weeds to start growing in the planter, as various seeds were dropped into the soil by the wind over time. No special planting required for weeds to abound. It’s striking, then, in Jesus’ story that an enemy intentionally plants weeds among the wheat. 

We also might be surprised that the Master tells the slaves not to pull up the weeds. If you do any gardening, you probably know that gardening includes the seemingly endless task of weeding. After all, when we read the Parable of the Sower, we were reminded that weeds can choke the life out of good healthy plants. But if you weed your garden, your healthy plants have a better chance of thriving. It’s hard work, pulling weeds. I remember getting away with leaving most of the weeding to my grandfather in my childhood gardening days. But growing wheat is a little different than growing carrots and beans and tomatoes. There are a few kinds of weeds that are candidates for what Jesus means in this parable - they look so extremely similar to the wheat, and they grow in so closely intermingled with the wheat that it is hard to tell them apart or safely remove the weeds without simultaneously uprooting the good wheat at the same time. You have to wait until both plants are mature to separate them.   

Where are we in this parable? What roles can we try on for ourselves? Typically, the wheat and weeds are seen as the people of the world, and we want to find ourselves among the wheat, the healthy, maturing plant, a product of good seed, ready for the harvest. I certainly think that’s what God intends for us. I can tell you for sure that everything God created God called good. Go back and read Genesis 1. “And God saw that it was good” is the theme of creation. We are good seed. I believe that deeply. But even if we can play around with different roles we might take in the parable, I think sometimes we want to take all the roles at once, and make the parable a one-person show. Ok, maybe we want to play every part except the weeds. We want to be the good seed, and we want to be the slaves and the reapers, eager to identify the weeds, ready to pull it up, and even if we have to wait, ready to throw the weeds into the fire at the first opportunity. Perhaps you read this parable and quickly think of people who are “weeds” in your life, in the world. If I’m honest, I know I could make a list: people I’ve experienced as weeds. 

But if we’re wheat, we’re not also the Master, the sower. If we’re wheat, even if we’re sure who the weeds are, it is not our responsibility to do the weeding. That job belongs to the sower and the reapers, and we can’t be all the roles at once, try as we might. Years ago, I volunteered at the Matthew 25 Farm in Tully, a farm dedicated to feeding hungry people, serving the community. The day I volunteered, I was assigned to picking peas. The farmer told me that a group of students had been helping harvest the day before, and they’d been so overzealous in their harvest, that they uprooted several healthy plants when they carelessly picked the peas. Friends, even if we’re right about who is wheat and who is a weed, our attempts to weed seem to end up like the overeager harvesters at the Matthew 25 Farm. In our attempt to pull out weeds, we uproot healthy plants, and find delicate blossoms that could have become good plants to harvest withering without roots. If we’re the wheat, it is not our responsibility to figure out and pull out weeds. Sometimes we really want it to be our job. But if we’re wheat, we don’t have the perspective of the sower. We can’t see everything clearly. And we don’t need to. If we’re wheat, we’ve got plenty to do trying to grow and mature. 

Where are we in this parable? What if, sometimes, we’re the enemy, sowing weeds in the night? I think this is a hard question to ask of ourselves: am I responsible for sowing weeds? Since we are humans who sin and fall short of the glory of God, our honest answer has to be, “yes.” Sometimes, we’re sowing weeds in the garden around us. It’s really hard to take an unflinching look at our behaviors and actions and attitudes and confront our own sinfulness. It’s really hard to own up to the things we’ve done wrong. But take courage: God’s grace and forgiveness can’t be exhausted. God is so ready to hear our confession and help us sow good seed instead. I think this season in our life together is a time to be particularly attentive to how we might find ourselves sowing weeds. As these days of disruption to our “normal” wear on, I think the stress and strain makes us vulnerable to behaving in ways that don’t reflect the servant hearts God seeks to find in us. We’re stressed. We’re anxious and afraid. We get cranky and irritable. We start to snap at each other. We’re quick to blame and judge. We get a little desperate. We’re sad and unhappy and we start to find it easier to spread all those feelings than to wrestle through them. If you’re feeling any of these things, you’re not alone. I’ve felt them too. But I don’t want to sow weeds. I know you don’t either. If you find you’ve been sowing weeds, what can you do? Ask for help! Ask God. Ask a trusted friend. Ask a dear family member. Ask your pastor. Ask for help. And trust that God’s help, God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s promise of new life - God’s gifts are there, ready for you to receive.   

Where are we in this parable? What if, sometimes, we’re the sower? The focus of the sower in this parable is simply on the wheat. The sower sows good seed, makes sure it grows, and harvests it. There are weeds, yes, but that’s not the focus of the sower. The sower’s purpose is to plant, grow and harvest an abundant crop of good wheat. If we’re the sower, let’s make sure that’s our purpose too. Where can we plant good seed in the world? How can we cultivate it? What fruit are we producing? What’s the harvest? I encourage you, in the weeks ahead, to think about where you are and where you can plant some good seed in the world, and then act. If you get a chance, you should look into a movement called “guerrilla gardening.” (Guerrilla as in fighters, not as in monkeys and apes.) Guerrilla gardening, despite the name, is a peaceful movement of people engaging in secret planting projects. A while back I read about a group of folks who thought it was silly that their city was planting a bunch of ornamental trees that didn’t bear fruit when so many people were hungry. So they started secretly grafting branches of fruit trees onto the ornamental trees, and posting signs: “Free food.” (1) I love the creativity, the determination of the movement. How determined are we to sow seeds of goodness, to sow seeds that produce fruit? Where can we surprise the world with abundant life? How can we be sowers of the reign of God? 

The kingdom of heaven is like this: God sows good seed with love everywhere, all around. An enemy tries to work against God’s vision of abundant life. But despite the weeds, God’s good seed can’t be, won’t be stopped. The wheat can thrive in abundance, undeterred, until the Lord of the harvest gathers it in again. Thanks be to God. Amen.

1. One example is here:

https://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/i-joined-guerilla-mission-turn-city-trees-fruit-trees.html

Sermon, "Planting Seeds: The Parable of the Sower," Matthew 13:1-9

Sermon 4/19/20

Matthew 13:1-9

Planting Seeds: The Sower

As is the case with many things, these days, preaching on Planting Seeds wasn’t my first plan for our post-Easter Sunday sermon series. In fact, I think it’s the third or fourth sermon series I had scheduled for this time slot, before feeling like I’d found the right fit for the right season. We celebrated Easter Sunday last week, but it’s still Easter. The season of Easter lasts for 50 days, representing the time between Jesus’ resurrection and between when we celebrate Pentecost, a day when the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit and were empowered for ministry by it. For 50 days, we celebrate Easter. In fact, as I’ve mentioned before, all Sundays are considered mini-Easters. We’re always people who live in the joy and knowledge that life can’t conquer death, and that new life is ours for the receiving. But in this season of Easter, resurrection and new life are our main focus. And I think that’s good news, that we get to experience both the abruptness that new life can mean sometimes - Jesus was dead and now he’s alive - and the slow way new life can sometimes work its way into our hearts. Sometimes bringing forth life takes time, doesn’t it? Reviving something from the brink of death isn’t always an instantaneous prospect. Resurrection sometimes takes time, and so this Easter season, we’re taking our time with resurrection. 

We’re focusing on planting seeds. There’s a lot of people trying out gardening right now - planting seedlings, looking to produce vegetables or herbs or flowers at home. Some of us have the time, now, that we don’t normally have. And I think many of us are drawn to the way planting seeds is an act of hope. Planting seeds means even when things are difficult now, even when we see people in pain, suffering, even when we are struggling, we believe there’s a future in which the seeds we plant will grow and produce and be ready for harvest. Planting seeds is a hopeful act, an act of resurrection and new life. I think it makes us feel like our time right now is not just useless. It’s not just a pause. This time is valuable. These days count, they matter. And maybe we’ll come out at the other side with an abundant harvest instead of overwhelmed by loss. 

And so, in this season of Easter, we’re looking at passages of scripture that talk about seeds and planting and new life. Today, we start with the parable of the sower. Whenever we read the parables of Jesus, it helps us understand them if we remember that they’re meant to tell us something about what the kingdom of God is like, about what God’s reign is like. One of the things Jesus tried to communicate repeatedly in his teaching was that the kingdom of God was at hand - God’s reign was here, on earth already, just as it was also eternal. When we live into the values and characteristics of God’s ways right here and right now on earth, we’re experiencing God’s kingdom, God’s reign already, as well as preparing our hearts and souls and minds for life everlasting with God. So, whenever we read a parable of Jesus, we can ask ourselves, “What does this tell us about what the kingdom of God is like, here on earth and in eternity?” 

There are actually two sections to this parable, the parable of the sower: the one where Jesus tells it to the gathered crowd, and then a bit later where Jesus gives an explanation just to the disciples. In the explanation, Jesus says that the seed is the word of God, and the various kinds of ground on which the seed falls are those who hear the word of God. But sometimes when we go straight to the “explanation” of this parable, we forget how flexible parables are. We forget to envision ourselves in many roles in the story. We forget how imaginative and playful parables are. So today, we’re focusing on the first part of the text. Jesus tells us that a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path where birds gobbled them up. And others fell on rocky ground, and without soil depth, they started to grow but never really got rooted, and they were scorched in the sun. And other seeds fell among the thorns, and were choked by the weeds. But some, some seeds fell on good soil, and brought forth grain, and they yielded 30, 60, 100 fold. Jesus concludes, “Let anyone with ear listen!” What do we hear? 

I want us to think first about the sower. What do we think about the sower’s actions? I’ve gardened off and on over the years, but my earliest gardening experiences were under the direction of my grandpa, who had a real gift for it. Grandpa always gave me a little corner of his huge garden to plant my own things. Now, I was the kid whose bean in a Dixie cup in school never grew – the one kid with the dud seed that left the teacher trying to come up with something nice to say about how I could share in caring for someone else's plant or something. But somehow, under my grandfather's care, my garden always bloomed. He taught me tricks of the trade – how to hang empty pie tins up to scare away birds, how to plant corn: "One for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the soil and one to grow," as the rhyme goes. How to space my seeds and pull weeds, and use chicken wire fences for tendrils of pea plants to curl around. I can tell you what my grandfather never did: He never just threw seeds here there and everywhere and hoped for the best. He didn’t throw seeds on rocky soil, or among thorns, or in the middle of a path. That would have been wasteful and foolish. Sure, maybe a stray seed or two goes where you don’t want it, but nearly all of the seed goes carefully into good soil which you’ve taken time to prepare.

But, this sower is extravagant with the seed. Reckless. Do they even have a plan? I think we can interpret the sower as being either extravagant and wasteful, or extravagant and generous. Is the sower foolish? Or just reveling in the abundance of seed, ready to risk it, spread the seed far and wide, and see what happens? The text doesn’t tell us who the sower is, even in the explanation of the parable that comes later. So let’s try a couple of options. Perhaps God is the sower. If God is the sower, our experience of God lends us to understand the actions of the sower differently. If God is the sower, I’m more inclined to see God’s extravagance as generous than foolish, aren’t you? If the parable is telling us something about the nature of God, we see a sower who seems to have plenty of seed, and a sower who sows seed everywhere. God has an abundance to give - love that doesn’t run out, grace with unlimited supply, forgiveness to spare, good news that’s without end, an offer of salvation, wholeness that’s for everyone, that can reach into every nook and cranny of the earth. Of course if God is the sower, God doesn’t need to worry about where the seed falls - our God of abundance never runs out of God’s gifts, and they never cost God too much to share with us. God is reckless with generosity.

So what if we put ourselves in the place of the sower? If it is you and me who are spreading the seed, God’s word, the good news of Jesus' grace and love, the good news that God’s reign is right now, here on earth - what kind of sowers are we? Are we reckless and foolish? Are we extravagant risk-takers? Can we even get our heads around sowing in this way, or do we insist on counting out each seed and carefully placing it in the soil we already know is good? Truly, these are hard questions in these days when it is so easy to feel driven by scarcity instead of plenty. In days when suddenly you might find certain shelves empty in a grocery store that was once overflowing with options, when people are buying up anything and everything that someone mentions that might help us get through these challenging days, it’s maybe even harder than usual to imagine ourselves being so reckless with resources. It might be hard to imagine virtually throwing away seed by taking so little care for where it lands. 

And yet, just when we could be letting ourselves be ruled by fear, I am finding so many examples of people sowing seeds of hope in the same way God does - secure in the knowledge that that supply is limitless. I was talking this week with someone who has been working really hard to practice generosity in this season and to encourage generosity in others. And as she’s been trying to practice and encourage generosity, she’s been met with some resistance. Folks have suggested that perhaps some are taking advantage of the generosity. People might be getting help who don’t really need it. People are getting away with getting stuff they don’t really deserve. Sometimes I struggle with that too. I want to make sure people who need it most are getting what I have to share. I feel like that’s responsible stewardship of resources, some of which I have only in limited quantities. But I believe that God’s hope and aim for us is a life of generosity where we trust that we have enough to share. And if there are some resources we have in limited supply, there are others we have that are limitless. How extravagant are you with your love? How freely do you sow forgiveness? How much mercy can you give? How many times are you willing to share God’s love and the good news that Jesus brings? How many places will you share? With whom will you share? The kingdom of heaven, the reign of God is like a place where a sower sows knowing nothing ever runs out. If we want to see God’s reign embodied on earth, we sow like that, knowing there is enough of God and from God to share with everyone, everywhere. 

Once we have a picture of the character of the sower in mind, I find I can think about the seed and the soil with the same generous mindset. Jesus says that the seed is God’s word, God’s message to us, and the various places the seed lands are ways that we can receive God’s message. Obviously, we want to be good soil. There, God’s word, God’s message to us can take root, and grow, and be well-nourished, and produce magnificent results in our lives. But oh, sometimes my soul seems like a barren path, and sin gets in the way of responding to God as I’m called to. God’s message gets gobbled up by the other things I’ve given room in my heart, by the things I’ve let come first instead of God. Sometimes our souls are rocky ground, and when we’re facing struggles and challenges, when we’re in pain or suffering, we find it hard to hold on to God’s word, hard to trust, hard to hope, and our little bit of faith fades away. Even the Twelve disciples experienced that, falling away when Jesus was tried and crucified. Sometimes my soul is a thorny place, and tending to the “cares of the world” outweighs the attention I give to the ways of God, and so when I look for harvest, I find nothing. But when the soil of my soul is good - God can do amazing things in my life, in my heart, in the world when we receive God’s message and let it take root in our hearts.   

Jesus frequently repeats either verbatim or in essence the words with which he closes the telling of this parable: 30, 60, 100 fold results. His numbers sound extreme and grandiose. But they’re meant to. The kingdom of God, God’s reign on earth? What happens when we let God’s ways be our ways on earth? The results are more astonishing than we can possibly imagine. We get so much bang for our buck. The results are exponential. The return on investment is such that no savvy person should pass by the opportunity. In modern-day terms, the kingdom of God works like a meme you post on facebook that goes viral, shared over and over and over, reaching well-beyond your circle of friends. This is what God can do when we receive all that God offers to us and let it take root.   

We can help this happen by tending our soil as best we can. What are the practices you can keep that help create a spiritual soil that is ready for what God is planting? I encourage you to spend some time this week answering that question. Journal about it. Pray about it. If you’re watching live, you could post your ideas right now. What are the practices you can keep that help create a spiritual soil that is ready for what God is planting? But we can also help each other tend the soil. If God is the sower, then maybe we can be God’s helpers, helping to tend the garden. And maybe sometimes I can’t remove the rocks from my own life, because it seems to hopeless. But you could remove a rock for me. Maybe sometimes you can’t seem to pull out the weeds that are taking over your life, but I can help you. Together, we can care for God’s garden. 

A sower went out to sow, and the seed - it went everywhere. And the garden grew, and grew, and grew. Amen. 

Sermon, "Parables of Jesus: Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard," Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon 8/5/18

Matthew 20:1-16

Parables of Jesus: Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

When I was little, I noticed that there were a lot of people who called my Grandpa Grandpa even though he wasn’t their grandpa. This included some of my second cousins, who were so close to us growing up that it was natural to call Grandma and Grandpa just that, and that was ok. But there were also some of my peers - other young girls at church - who called my Grandpa Grandpa. I have to admit, my heart was not very generous. He was my Grandpa. I understood why they wished he was theirs - my Grandpa was one of the best people I have ever known. But he wasn’t theirs. He was mine. I never said anything. My Grandpa certainly didn’t seem to mind. But I was resentful in my young heart that they thought they could lay claim to my Grandpa.

It was a lot later - I won’t say how much later, but I will admit that it was too much later - that I began to realize a few things. First, there were a lot of reasons why someone might want to call my Grandpa Grandpa. They might have lost their own grandpas already. Or sometimes others had grandpas who weren’t so kind and loving as mine. And sometimes people had never even known a grandpa in their life. And my Grandpa just exuded Grandpa-ness. Of course others would want to claim him as their own. The other thing that I learned, a little slowly, is that my Grandpa liking it when other people called him Grandpa didn’t lessen how much he loved me, or how special I was to him. He could love other people, other children, and think they were special, and it didn’t change how much he adored me one bit.

I’m glad I learned this lesson, because I find the same thing happening with my Mom. She’s pretty awesome, and there are a lot of people, beyond me and my siblings, who think of her as Mom. In fact, I tease her often that even complete strangers usually see her as Mom. It is not at all uncommon for people to randomly treat her like you might treat a beloved mother. The big burly cashier at the convenience store who looks really tough and intimidating will probably end up chatting with her about his life because he sees my mom and thinks, “Oh good, my Mom stopped in to see me at work!” It doesn’t bother me anymore. Instead, it inspires me. I hope to be the kind of person that she is - someone who so radiates love for others that they see her and immediately know that she is someone they can trust, they can open up to, they can share their hearts with.

I had my Mom and my Grandpa on my mind as I was studying our text for today. Our last parable in our series is from the gospel of Matthew. Before our passage begins, at the end of chapter 19, a rich young man had approached Jesus and asked about getting into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus told him to sell all his stuff and give it to the poor, and the man went away disappointed, because he had many possessions. Jesus then says to the disciples that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The disciples wonder, then, at who can be saved, if God’s standards are so hard. But, Jesus replies that with God, anything is possible. And then he tells this parable.

It is usually known as “The Parable of the Workers (or Laborers) in the Vineyard.” Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, whose insights we’re using to guide us as we read these texts, reminds us that the titles we give to parables shape the way we read them, and this common title, she says, suggests the emphasis is on the actions of the workers in the parable.* But Levine is much more interested in the landowner. She also suggests that putting “vineyard” in the title distances us, 21st century readers, from Jesus’ parables, since most of us have no experience with such a workplace. Rather, “The Conscientious Boss,” Levine suggests, or maybe “The Parable of the Surprising Salaries.” (214-215)

A landowner - literally a householder (221) - goes out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard, Jesus says. They agree for the usual daily wage, and then the workers head to work. A little later in the day, he heads back to the marketplace, and sees more workers there. Our NRSV bibles say that they were “standing idle,” which might lead us to read some kind of laziness into the text, but the phrase literally means simply “without work.” There are workers who can’t find work, standing in the marketplace. The householder hires them too, and promises to pay them what is right. And the word there means: just. He will pay them what is just. (225) And then the householder goes again, and again, until the last workers hired have only an hour left to work before the end of the day. “Why are you standing here unemployed?” he asks. “Go to the vineyard.” The story Jesus tells would have the attention of his audience. What kind of householder doesn’t know what size workforce he needs? Has he underestimated the size of his project? Were there not enough workers available at first? Or does he have some other agenda? Levine suggests that the latter is most likely, and so we listen in extra carefully to see where this story goes. (227)

Finally, at the end of the day, the householder has his manager call all the workers in and has them paid. Everyone receives the usual daily wage. No one receives less than they were promised. But those who worked part of a day and those who worked all day receive the same amount. Those who started working first, we read, assumed that they were going to get more than they had agreed on with the householder. And when they don’t get anything extra, they get angry with the householder. “You have made them equal to us,” they complain, when we had to work all day in the sun. The householder, though, won’t hear it. “I’m doing you no wrong. You agreed with me for the usual daily wage,” which the text already told us was a just amount. “Take what belongs to you and go,” he continues. “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

Oof. I don’t know about you, but it is hard not to sympathize with the workers who worked all day long. It is so unfair, isn’t it? We’ve all heard that life isn’t fair, but we value fairness nonetheless, and this scripture - oof. It is just so not fair. And that’s exactly the point. The parable shows us how God acts, and how we are called to act - like God would act. The laborers, Levine writes, “are interested in receiving their own payment, not in whether the other workers have enough food.” But whenever we’re ignoring whether or not others have enough, we’re on the wrong track, out of step with God’s picture of justice. (229) “The first hired do not want to be treated equally to the last;” says Levine. “They want to be treated better.” (231) But, “What God wants is not necessarily what ‘we’ think is appropriate … The workers seek what they perceive to be ‘fair’; the householder teaches them a lesson by showing them what is ‘right,’” what is just. (230) And God is always more interested in justice than fairness. The workers all receive the usual daily wage - plenty to live on, enough to meet their needs. And so, despite their grumbling, “the only point that the workers could make about [the householder] was that he was generous to others. And in making that point, the workers [learn] their own economic lesson: the point is not that those who have ‘get more,’ but that those who have not ‘get enough.’ One does the work - in the labor force, in the kingdom - not for more reward, but for the benefit of all.” (235-236)

We know that the greatest commandments are first to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then, to love our neighbors. The householder shows that love by making sure that as far as he can, he has provided enough for all. He’s worked for the benefit of everyone in his employ. Are we interested in working for the benefit of all? Or are we more caught up in what is fair rather than just?

The householder’s questions to the disgruntled workers really tug at me. “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” That second question literally reads, “Or is your eye evil because I am good?” (231) It’s kind of like our phrase “green with jealousy.” Our vision is distorted. We’re not seeing like God sees. Is our “eye evil” because God is good? Are we envious because God is generous? Yes and yes. We must confess, we are envious. We’re not seeing clearly. Somehow, we are like my little-girl-self who doesn’t like it when someone else is calling my Grandpa theirs. Over and over we get the message that we don’t have enough, that what we have is never enough, and that what we should seek is not what is enough, but what is more than what others have - whether it is more money, or more facebook friends, or more likes on our posts, or more square footage in our houses, or more vacation time, or more friends, or more of God’s love and affection. We’re not satisfied if everyone has enough. We want more. Need more. We’ve worked harder, after all. Worked longer. And we want our fair share, and maybe a little extra too.

My Grandpa being Grandpa for lots of other people too - eventually my vision cleared, and I looked on that fact with joy, because it was a sign of my Grandpa’s goodness. He was overflowing with love, and he always had enough for whoever needed some. My mom is that way too. I hope I am growing into someone who is that way too. Certainly, it is the nature of God. Remember, we talked about how parables are Jesus’s way of telling us what God’s reign among us, right here and right now, is like. It’s like this: God is a God of abundance. God has blessed us with abundance, both spiritual and literal. There is enough - more than enough for all of us - both spiritually and literally. More than enough food for all. More than enough resources. And more than enough, more than enough of God’s love and grace and affection. God’s goodness and grace means God is always seeking to make sure we all have more than enough of what we need to thrive. When we act to prevent God’s work of abundance, when we try to undo what God does because we don’t think it is fair? Well, God says to us, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” God will call us out on the jealousy and hard-heartedness. God will always choose what is right, what is just, which is not, as it turns out, always the same as what we think is fair. But what God chooses is always good, and always loving.

If we’re people who seek to follow Jesus, who want to nurture in ourselves a heart like God’s, then we need to seek out those who need a share of God’s abundance, who need a share of our food and shelter, who need a stand-in Grandpa or Mom, who need a measure of love that sustains and renews them. I promise, we’ll find that in God’s economy of plenty, there is more than enough for all of us. Thanks be to God. Amen.   

* All quotations/references in this sermon are from Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus.

Sermon, "Parables of Jesus: Parable of the Shrewd Manger," Luke 16:1-13

Sermon 7/29/18

Luke 16:1-13

Parables of Jesus: Parable of the Shrewd Manager

I think there are two categories of scriptures that I would call really difficult. The first category is where I think most of them fall. It isn’t so much that the text is hard to understand, but that I find it hard to put into practice. When Jesus talks about loving your enemies, I understand what he’s saying, but I find it difficult to do. When he talks about taking care that we don’t love our possessions and our money too much, I know exactly what he means, but I find that I have to remind myself of his teaching again and again. The other category of difficult texts is the group of passages where I honestly don’t understand what a passage is supposed to mean. Thankfully, even though I believe I can never fully understand a passage without a sit down with God explaining all the nuances to me, there aren’t many passages that seem totally confusing. Unfortunately, today’s text is one of them. And today, we’re diving right into the confusion of meaning. It’s my fault, of course. I chose which parables we would look at for this series. Amy-Jill Levine, whose book Short Stories by Jesus inspirited this series, doesn’t actually write about this parable, but I also have The Jewish Annotated New Testament, which she edited, and for which she worked on the gospel of Luke, so I figured I’d just use her thoughts from that resource instead. So, when I was getting ready to work on this week’s service, I looked up what she had to say about this crazy parable. She writes, “The parable defies any fully satisfactory explanation.”(1) Uh-oh. I started to panic a little. I’d preached on this text before, nearly a decade ago, but I read my old sermon, and it was nothing inspiring. It’s about this time in my sermon-writing process panic that my mother suggests I should see if we just want to have a hymn sing instead! Fortunately, Levine has a new book on the gospel of Luke, released literally just this week, that helped me wrestle through this passage. (2)

The parable we’re looking at today is called The Parable of the Shrewd Manager or The Parable of the Dishonest Manager. Again, how we name it shapes how we hear it: shrewd sounds better than dishonest, doesn’t it? Levine calls it “The Parable of the Dishonest Manager and the Trapped Master.” (3) In Luke’s gospel, this parable follows immediately after the parables of lost things that we talked about last week. Only, this parable, Luke tells us, Jesus directs to the disciples. He no longer seems to be speaking to the religious leaders. So these words are for the disciples, about discipleship, and for the crowds who have been following along with them.  

There is a rich man, Jesus says, who had a manager. And the rich man has charges brought to him that the manager is squandering the rich man’s property. We don’t know the details. The rich man summons the manager and makes three statements in succession: What is this I hear about you? Give me an account. You’re fired. (4) Whatever he’s heard, he believes it, and even though he asks for an accounting, he’s really already decided to fire the manager. In response, we hear the internal monologue of the manager. It’s a pretty rare literary feature in the gospels, and Levine writes, “We don’t know whether to feel sorry for the manager, or condemn him, but the speaking “to oneself” trope in Bible usually indicates conniving, not thoughtful planning.” (5) In other words, the manager is scheming, strategizing. He reflects that he can’t do physical labor, and he won’t beg. So he decides to try to ingratiate himself with the folks who owe money to his master. He summons them one by one, and drastically reduces their bills. Various biblical scholars have suggested that the rich man was charging excessive interest, a sinful practice in Mosaic law, and that the manager was just getting rid of the unlawfully inflated price, or that the manager was forgiving whatever commission he was owed on the transactions. Or, perhaps the manager was reducing the payments to better encourage the debtors to pay his master. Those theories are possible, but the evidence is just not there in the text. (6) Even if it makes us uncomfortable, the reason the manager slashes the debt is directly stated, in his own words: He’s hoping to secure himself a place to work now that he’s been fired, a household he can serve, or maybe even a just a place to stay.

Self-centered though his actions may be, though, the results are good for everyone. We read, “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” Levine writes, “The rich man appears … to be a dope but, eventually, a lucky one.” (7) The manager “engaged in dishonest business practices, and yet everyone benefits from his machinations. We are hard-pressed to determine whether we should celebrate his cleverness, laugh at his solution to his problem, or feel guilty for enjoying an account of cheating.” “The rich man finds his economic capital depleted, and his social capital intact given his generosity.” (8)

After Jesus tells the parable, he adds some reflections, which don’t immediately shed a lot of light for us on the text. He says, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” He says we should make friends for ourselves from dishonest wealth. He says if we can’t even manage the dishonest wealth we have, how can we manage true riches with eternal value? We can’t, he concludes, serve both God and wealth. What a strange parable! How can we make sense of it?

A few facts can help us out: The word shrewd means prudent, wise, sensible, practical, pragmatic. The shrewd manager takes on a role that is fairly common in literature, and more common in the Bible than we might think at first. He’s a trickster. A trickster, who often seems to be at a disadvantage, uses savvy cleverness that proves to more valuable than other assets, helping them triumph over the person who seemed the sure-win. Think of David and Goliath. David beats giant Goliath because David cleverly figures out how to use his resources to his advantage. Esther is a trickster who uses her position as Queen to save her people. Jacob and Rebecca are tricksters who deceive Isaac and snag Esau’s birthright from him. Tamar uses a disguise to trick her father-in-law to giving her a child. Naomi cleverly helps Ruth position herself to get Boaz as a husband. In all of these stories, the hero is one who is clever, and uses that cleverness to grab ahold of blessings, ensure a good future, and wrest away some power from those who seem to be in charge. They aren’t all paragons of what we think of moral behavior. But clearly, the scriptures have a place for these figures, and Jesus says we have something to learn.

It also helps us if we remember that parables are not allegories. In an allegories, each part of the story represents something specific. This equals that. Parables aren’t like that. We get mixed up if we try to figure out which character in the parable is supposed to be God, and which is supposed to be us. It isn’t so straightforward. Jesus usually tells parables to tell us something about what God’s reign is like. Often he includes the very phrase, “The kingdom of heaven” or “The kingdom of God is like” when he starts a parable. They tell us something about how things are or will be when we do things on earth the way God means for us to.

So, even as we might understand what is happening in this parable more clearly, the real matter at hand is: what does this tell us about how we should live? First, it tells us that we need to be as wise, as shrewd in our discipleship as others with their money. “Children of light” is a term used in the New Testament that refers to disciples of Jesus. And Jesus says that we are good at handling business, the things of this world, but disciples aren’t good at handling what they have been given responsibility over. Think about it: there area a lot of tools that encourage us in managing our financial resources carefully so we can plan wisely for our futures. Some of us have more to manage than others, and some of us are better managers of our resources than others, but most of us would agree it is important to do our best with what we’ve been given. I don’t consider myself a skilled financial manager, but even I will periodically login to my pension plan account website and run the calculator they have to make sure I’m on track to be able to support myself in retirement, even though that still seems a long way away. Or there’s the finance chair at one of my former churches. He’s about a decade younger than me, and he’s a whiz with money. He’s constantly aware of which credit card he has that has the best rewards for that particular month, even putting little Post-it notes on his wife’s credit cards each month so she knows which ones she should use, and he figures it all out so those cards are earning money for him. He’s been a saver since he started working as a teen. He haggles with businesses for the best price. And he was able to put a significant down payment on a home when he was 21 or so because he’d been managing his money so carefully. Most of us think in some way about how to be careful and thoughtful with our money, in our present, for our future.

Do we take as much care with our resources when it comes to wisely investing in and for our relationship with God? Are we, children of light, followers of Jesus, good stewards, good long-term investors, when it comes to discipleship? Disciples are managers – all that we have responsibility for is not our own, but is what is put into our care by God. Have we, like the manager, have been caught in the act of misusing, squandering what God has given to us. Now what will we do to rectify the situation? Can we act shrewdly? John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement, wrote in his sermon, “The Use of Money,” that this parable means for us “"Render unto God," not a tenth, not a third, not half, but all that is God's, be it more or less; by employing all on yourself, your household, the household of faith, and all [humankind], in such a manner, that you may give a good account of your stewardship when ye can be no longer stewards . . . Employ whatever God has entrusted you with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree to the household of faith, to all [people]!” (9) Are we doing all the possible good we can with everything that God has put in our lives? Now is the time to take action to change things where we haven’t been as savvy as the shrewd manager.

This strange parable also tells us that we need to be smarter when it comes to confronting the powers that be. Jesus’ audience of mostly lower-class folks would have paid careful attention to parables that started with “There was a rich man…” Sometimes, when we feel that we’re without power to speak out against injustice in the world, we feel helpless, and helplessness can immobilize us. But Jesus’s parable, and indeed the whole witness of the scriptures with tricksters who shrewdly fine ways to turn the table even on those who seem to hold all the cards in a situation are models for us, reminders that if we are shrewd, if even children of the light can learn to be smart with the tools God gives us, there is no power greater than God, and no power that can keep us from seeking to love and serve God and neighbor. Luke’s gospel contains several parables where an individual has to confront a crisis of some kind, and in particularly, where a person of higher status has to resolve a crisis they face. In each of those parables, it is someone with a lower social status who helps, who provides a path forward. (10) In this case, the manager, in trouble because of the rich man, is helped by debtors. Another mark of the parables in Luke’s gospel is reversals. The shrewd manager doesn’t repent, and he’s not a virtuous character for us to model our behavior after. But he does do something the reverses the expected order of things. He takes some of the rich man’s wealth, and he relieves the debt of some of those who owe significant sums. Jesus frequently talks about reversals as signs of God’s reign, God’s kin-dom. What happens when God’s reign unfolds right here and right now? God’s reign interrupts the normal way of things. The first are last and the last are first. The humbled are exalted and the exalted are humbled. A manager who is shrewd might be commended instead of punished, and someone who is rich might be happy to have their wealth slashed to make it easier on those in debt. “Old hierarchies are overturned and new friendships are established.” We may find that it is those who we thought of as below us are the ones with power to welcome us into God’s home in this life and eternity.

This parable may never be one of your favorites. Levine noted in her book that there are no beautiful paintings of this parable like there are of the emotionally moving Prodigal Son. But we should pay more attention, I think, to the shrewd manager. How clever are we being when it comes to working for God’s reign in the world? How smart are we with all that God has given us? How often are we embracing the flipped-upside-down ways of God’s kin-dom that has us making friends in unexpected ways? As it turns out, if you’re a bit of trickster, you might be right at home in God’s reign on earth, where Jesus is always surprising and challenging us. Amen.

Notes:

1.   Levine, Amy-Jill, and Mark Zvi Brettler, ed., The Jewish Annotated New Testament, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 134. 
2.   Levine, Amy-Jill and Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 
3.   Ibid., 435.
4.   Ibid., 437. 
5.   Ibid., 438. 
6.   Ibid., 440-441. 
7.   Ibid., 438. 
8.   Ibid., 442. 
9.   Wesley, John, “The Use of Money,” https://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-50-The-Use-of-Money. 
10.   Carey, Greg “Commentary on Luke 16:1-13, Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=675. 
11.   Lois Malcolm, “Commentary on Luke 16:1-13,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1783.