SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST
CHURCH, WHANGAREI
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST
(23rd SEPTEMBER) 2007
Readings:
Jeremiah 8.18 – 9.1
Psalm
79.1-9
1
Timothy 2.1-7
Luke
16.1-13
It is not surprising that only Luke that recalls this
teaching of Jesus. Matthew is concerned to demonstrate that the community of
Jesus is beyond reproach, and this story is slightly embarrassing: excuse me?
The followers of Jesus are supposed to emulate a corrupt and self-serving petty
middle manager? To Matthew it seems awkward.
Luke sees the potential of the story: Luke’s telling of the Jesus
story often focuses on priorities, and in particular the need for followers of
Jesus to place their possessions in the service of the gospel. So Luke can take
the words of Jesus and use them to emphasize the complete claims that Jesus
makes on us, claiming not just our religious practices, but our financial, moral,
environmental practices. The list of whole of life claims made by Jesus is
inexhaustible, for it is a whole of life surrender to him that he demands.
It is okay to see the humour of Jesus in the Parable of the Disingenuous Steward. The humour of Jesus should not escape us here.
So often we portray him as some kind of sombre and joyless teacher-figure.
Matthew was perhaps troubled, or concerned at the vulnerability to criticism,
entailed in retelling this story. But it is
funny. A worthless and corrupt person as a sign of the values of the Reign of
God? The parable acknowledges that we are all, followers and non-followers of
Jesus alike, a crazy mix of honour and dishonour. Commentators who have
attempted to clean up this parable by suggesting that the steward was simply
sacrificing his own commission from the debtor’ bills have missed the point:
this man was desperate, and desperation is the mother of ingenuity. We too are
called, as Luke tells the story, to be this desperate in both in our longing
for and our service of the gospel.
Luke’s presentation of this Jesus story offers some
other angles, too. The desperation of the steward is the desperation of a
person whose life has reached crisis point. It is the desperation of a life
that has reached rock-bottom and can see no way out but for the course of
action he takes. We have probably all heard conversion stories from those who
have reached a similar crisis point, and we know well that many who have
battled with the various isms of alcohol, gambling and other forms of addiction
have reached that point before allowing their lives to be invaded by the
presence of a higher power and sobriety or its equivalents. But there are also
many who have never reached that point: as a society, we, like every society in
history, find ways to numb ourselves from the deeper questions of existence.
Perhaps we need to, psychologically, but nevertheless this makes proclamation
of the gospel a difficult task. Why would we need Jesus – whoever he might be –
when we have sport, sex, television, the accrual of wealth and power? The list
is endless, but we who would live and proclaim Christ in the twenty-first century
West are swimming against a tide of anaesthesia and disinterest.
So if we are to proclaim Christ into our culture and
our era we must do so with credibility. There has been much that has no more
than masqueraded as Christianity in our culture, and our culture is highly critical
of religious hypocrisy. We tolerate hypocrisy in other fields, such as industry
and politics, but not in religion. Perhaps this is because as a society we find
the last vestiges of religion irritating and embarrassing, and want to be rid
of them, though with what we are replacing the narratives of hope I am not
sure. Perhaps as a society we want to be rid of religion because, for all its
faults, it speaks, at least in its Christian form, of a God who judges us, and
we prefer to be unanswerable for our actions.
Ours is a society that will see through any form of
phoneyism in the sphere of faith. To avoid phoneyism we must surrender, daily,
the whole to Jesus and to the reforming work of his Spirit. We can do that by
recovering the passion of the disingenuous steward: some who have been converts
to the way of Jesus will remember the first flushes of faith in early months
and years. Others who grew up in the faith will remember days of great
closeness to Jesus, of the high points along the journey. They can’t be
sustained day after day, decade after decade.
But there can be moments, thin moments as the Celts call them, when the Spirit of God breaks
through, enfolding and renewing us, and we rediscover the passion of the unjust
and devious but desperate steward. As a church and as individuals we can but
pray for those moments of touch once more. Moments of touch that are never
manufactured, but are the result of God’s response to our prayer: Lord, touch,
transform, renew us in the service of your gospel, that we may again know the
urgency of faith and the potency of your love.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment