Working the System
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 19, 2010; 17 Pentecost, Proper 20, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
(Luke 16:1-13) -- Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the 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, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 19, 2010; 17 Pentecost, Proper 20, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
(Luke 16:1-13) -- Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the 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, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
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Maybe you remember the 1987 movie Wall Street. It’s about a young, ambitious wannabe businessman, Bud Fox, who wants to “bag the elephant” – to get a shot with the big-time money brokers. Enter Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, and his famous creed, “Greed is good!” Gecko manipulates Bud into passing some insider information and everything gets ugly. Finally Bud cops a plea to wear a wired microphone for a conversation that nails Gekko with conclusive evidence for a felony conviction. All are guilty, corrupt, rotten.
Now there’s a sequel – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. It’s twenty-three years later, June 2008, and Gordon Gekko is released from prison. Speaking to a packed audience he says, “Someone reminded me I once said, ‘Greed is good.’ Now it seems it’s legal. Because everybody’s drinking the same Kool-Aid.” Gekko tries to warn Wall Street of the upcoming economic downturn and stock market crash, but, nobody believes the ex-con. Greed prevails, and the movie chronicles the sins of the financial apocalypse of sub-prime mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps that have crippled our current economy.
Wicked Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko becomes the prophet of doom, speaking the truth to power because he’s shrewd enough to know the dirty truths.
I’m going to offer a sequel today too. Six years ago I preached on this gospel about the dishonest manager, and after working on it again, I can’t come up with anything I like better. And it’s complicated enough that I’ll bet you won’t remember it all from the previous sermon. So let’s look again at a bit of first century financial apocalypse.
In Jesus' day, the ruling elite owned nearly all of the land and controlled two-thirds of the annual wealth. That’s the absentee master in today’s parable. A landowner would delegate oversight of his estate to a manager who was expected to realize a large profit to fuel the master's political and economic competition with other elites in the urban centers. A manager had broad powers to represent the owner and to enter into contracts on his behalf. The manager would make his living by taking a cut of all of his deals – some off-the-record extra profit. This kind of "honest graft" was no problem to the owner as long as the manager would bring in profitable deals. For a merchant or peasant who wanted to do business with the manager, it was expected that they would pass something under-the-table to the manager in order to secure the contract and to court the good graces of the manager.
The manager could read and write – his greatest asset. So the manager kept all of the records of his contracts. Any assets that were recorded on paper would belong to the owner, 100%, and would delivered to the owner by the manager. But anything the manager could keep off the paper was his take of the deal.
The manager -- also called in some translations the steward or retainer -- was very powerful, but also vulnerable. He was caught between his master's greed and his tenants' or debtors' endless complaints. What pleases one will displease the other. If he doesn’t produce enough profit, he can be fired at the owner’s whim. But if he squeezes the merchants, tenants and debtors too much, he could be vulnerable to their back-stabbing.
So when we hear in Jesus' parable that anonymous charges were brought to the owner, "Your manager is squandering your property," you can bet this is a familiar story to Jesus' hearers. These kinds of charges were the normal part of the endless war between the landowners and their peasants and debtors.
Let me mention one more complication. Jewish law expressly forbade usury, oppressive interest. That's in your bible in at least five places. And the official teaching of the Mishnah opposed all interest, oppressive or not. The wealthy had tactics to work around these religious restrictions, of course. The most common strategy was to include the total amount of debt in a single figure that included both the principle and the interest hidden in the contract. The usual hidden interest rate was 25% for money and 50% for goods that could spoil or be tampered with.
So, if you as a merchant proposed to deliver at harvest 50 jugs of olive oil for an agreed price of $10,000, the manager would write 75 jugs instead of 50, contracting the hidden 50% interest on behalf of the absentee landowner. Then you might smile, and shake the manager’s hand and under-the-table pass a substantial gold coin to him for making the deal. You are now a debtor. You’ll have to deliver 75 jugs of olive oil for the price of fifty.
It was a complex and oppressive system. If a manager were accused and convicted of usury, he would have to pay the interest and the fine himself. If he didn't squeeze a good price and hidden interest, his master would fire him for inefficiency.
So what happens in this story? The debtor merchants accuse the manager, and the owner believes them. The owner signals his intention to fire the manager. “Bring me the books.” The manager has no options. A man in his position has no friends who will help him. He sees his future among the expendables who lived a brief, hard life. Digging was the hardest physical labor of those people who had nothing to offer but their animal energy. He couldn't compete with peasants who had worked all their lives. He knew with their physical labor, irregular meals, and long periods of hunger, he would quickly fall into lowest place as a beggar, facing sure death from malnutrition and disease. So the stakes are high for him.
What does he do? The manager summons the merchant debtors as though he were still in charge. They probably know about him. They're probably the anonymous accusers. He deals with them quickly, one at a time. The reductions in their contracts represent exactly the difference between the real value of the contract and the hidden interest -- 50% for oil that can be altered; 20% on more secure wheat. But all of the loss is the owner's. It's on paper. The manager's cut is off the record. Now, he really is scattering his owner's goods, just as accused. The merchants who accept the deal are now in the manager's debt. They like what has happened. They happily and publicly praise the honor of their glorious patron and benefactor, the owner.
So, what is the owner to do? He could cancel the new contracts, make a martyr of the manager, compromise his own reputation and make it more difficult to work with the merchants in the future. Not good for business. Yet, he knows, even without the hidden interest, he's made a good profit. There are always lots of ways for elites to recoup these costs. He also knows, the manager has exposed the anonymous enemies who are now in the manager’s debt. That shrewd manager has reminded the owner who it is who makes those risky contracts with hidden interests, and who loses if they are found to be usurious. The master does. The master thinks to himself, "I need someone shrewd like this. Sure, I've taken a short-term loss, but those merchants owe him. He'll bleed those merchants dry for me the next time."
The manager belongs to a system of injustice, and he works it well. He has no intention of giving up just because another anonymous enemy has launched a smear campaign to remove him. The owner, who belongs to the same system of exploitation, recognizes a shrewd “Gordon Gekko” manager when he sees one.
But look what has happened. Here is William Herzog's commentary: "The parable began with the usual social scripts: owners distrust managers; peasants hate managers; managers cheat both tenants and owners. But by means of his outrageous actions, the manager manages to reverse all these scripts so that, at the close of the parable, peasants are praising the master, the master commends the manager, and the manager has relieved the burden on the peasants and kept his job."(1) Out of this sad story of wrong-doing, came something that looks almost like a piece of the kingdom of heaven, because the master had wiped off the debts and relieved the burdens of the debtors. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." It is a glimpse of another order -- one in which forgiveness of debt would be more than a petition in a prayer. A sorry and predictable tale of woe becomes a surprising scene of rejoicing.
I find that hopeful. I look around at complex and sorry systems of oppression and abuse of power in our world. They are beyond my influence. There is so much that is systemically broken today. Greed and corruption, suspicion and hatred abound.
Yet even in the midst of scandal and outrage, another order can break through. In the most unimaginable and outrageous ways. God can turn a sorry and predicable tale of woe into a scene of rejoicing. That's a message that should be close to the hearts of all Episcopalians. After all, we have our beginnings in the sorry tale of the peccadillos of Henry the Eighth. Look what God did with that mess. God made us!
It's remarkable that Jesus told this story. It shows he had stomach enough for the worldliness and intrigue of his day. Might we also have the stomach to face the complexity, oppression and suspicion of our age with enough courage and shrewdness to help another order break through. How can we be shrewd enough to work the system in order to turn our world's sorrow into rejoicing.
Now there’s a sequel – Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. It’s twenty-three years later, June 2008, and Gordon Gekko is released from prison. Speaking to a packed audience he says, “Someone reminded me I once said, ‘Greed is good.’ Now it seems it’s legal. Because everybody’s drinking the same Kool-Aid.” Gekko tries to warn Wall Street of the upcoming economic downturn and stock market crash, but, nobody believes the ex-con. Greed prevails, and the movie chronicles the sins of the financial apocalypse of sub-prime mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps that have crippled our current economy.
Wicked Gordon “Greed is Good” Gekko becomes the prophet of doom, speaking the truth to power because he’s shrewd enough to know the dirty truths.
I’m going to offer a sequel today too. Six years ago I preached on this gospel about the dishonest manager, and after working on it again, I can’t come up with anything I like better. And it’s complicated enough that I’ll bet you won’t remember it all from the previous sermon. So let’s look again at a bit of first century financial apocalypse.
In Jesus' day, the ruling elite owned nearly all of the land and controlled two-thirds of the annual wealth. That’s the absentee master in today’s parable. A landowner would delegate oversight of his estate to a manager who was expected to realize a large profit to fuel the master's political and economic competition with other elites in the urban centers. A manager had broad powers to represent the owner and to enter into contracts on his behalf. The manager would make his living by taking a cut of all of his deals – some off-the-record extra profit. This kind of "honest graft" was no problem to the owner as long as the manager would bring in profitable deals. For a merchant or peasant who wanted to do business with the manager, it was expected that they would pass something under-the-table to the manager in order to secure the contract and to court the good graces of the manager.
The manager could read and write – his greatest asset. So the manager kept all of the records of his contracts. Any assets that were recorded on paper would belong to the owner, 100%, and would delivered to the owner by the manager. But anything the manager could keep off the paper was his take of the deal.
The manager -- also called in some translations the steward or retainer -- was very powerful, but also vulnerable. He was caught between his master's greed and his tenants' or debtors' endless complaints. What pleases one will displease the other. If he doesn’t produce enough profit, he can be fired at the owner’s whim. But if he squeezes the merchants, tenants and debtors too much, he could be vulnerable to their back-stabbing.
So when we hear in Jesus' parable that anonymous charges were brought to the owner, "Your manager is squandering your property," you can bet this is a familiar story to Jesus' hearers. These kinds of charges were the normal part of the endless war between the landowners and their peasants and debtors.
Let me mention one more complication. Jewish law expressly forbade usury, oppressive interest. That's in your bible in at least five places. And the official teaching of the Mishnah opposed all interest, oppressive or not. The wealthy had tactics to work around these religious restrictions, of course. The most common strategy was to include the total amount of debt in a single figure that included both the principle and the interest hidden in the contract. The usual hidden interest rate was 25% for money and 50% for goods that could spoil or be tampered with.
So, if you as a merchant proposed to deliver at harvest 50 jugs of olive oil for an agreed price of $10,000, the manager would write 75 jugs instead of 50, contracting the hidden 50% interest on behalf of the absentee landowner. Then you might smile, and shake the manager’s hand and under-the-table pass a substantial gold coin to him for making the deal. You are now a debtor. You’ll have to deliver 75 jugs of olive oil for the price of fifty.
It was a complex and oppressive system. If a manager were accused and convicted of usury, he would have to pay the interest and the fine himself. If he didn't squeeze a good price and hidden interest, his master would fire him for inefficiency.
So what happens in this story? The debtor merchants accuse the manager, and the owner believes them. The owner signals his intention to fire the manager. “Bring me the books.” The manager has no options. A man in his position has no friends who will help him. He sees his future among the expendables who lived a brief, hard life. Digging was the hardest physical labor of those people who had nothing to offer but their animal energy. He couldn't compete with peasants who had worked all their lives. He knew with their physical labor, irregular meals, and long periods of hunger, he would quickly fall into lowest place as a beggar, facing sure death from malnutrition and disease. So the stakes are high for him.
What does he do? The manager summons the merchant debtors as though he were still in charge. They probably know about him. They're probably the anonymous accusers. He deals with them quickly, one at a time. The reductions in their contracts represent exactly the difference between the real value of the contract and the hidden interest -- 50% for oil that can be altered; 20% on more secure wheat. But all of the loss is the owner's. It's on paper. The manager's cut is off the record. Now, he really is scattering his owner's goods, just as accused. The merchants who accept the deal are now in the manager's debt. They like what has happened. They happily and publicly praise the honor of their glorious patron and benefactor, the owner.
So, what is the owner to do? He could cancel the new contracts, make a martyr of the manager, compromise his own reputation and make it more difficult to work with the merchants in the future. Not good for business. Yet, he knows, even without the hidden interest, he's made a good profit. There are always lots of ways for elites to recoup these costs. He also knows, the manager has exposed the anonymous enemies who are now in the manager’s debt. That shrewd manager has reminded the owner who it is who makes those risky contracts with hidden interests, and who loses if they are found to be usurious. The master does. The master thinks to himself, "I need someone shrewd like this. Sure, I've taken a short-term loss, but those merchants owe him. He'll bleed those merchants dry for me the next time."
The manager belongs to a system of injustice, and he works it well. He has no intention of giving up just because another anonymous enemy has launched a smear campaign to remove him. The owner, who belongs to the same system of exploitation, recognizes a shrewd “Gordon Gekko” manager when he sees one.
But look what has happened. Here is William Herzog's commentary: "The parable began with the usual social scripts: owners distrust managers; peasants hate managers; managers cheat both tenants and owners. But by means of his outrageous actions, the manager manages to reverse all these scripts so that, at the close of the parable, peasants are praising the master, the master commends the manager, and the manager has relieved the burden on the peasants and kept his job."(1) Out of this sad story of wrong-doing, came something that looks almost like a piece of the kingdom of heaven, because the master had wiped off the debts and relieved the burdens of the debtors. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." It is a glimpse of another order -- one in which forgiveness of debt would be more than a petition in a prayer. A sorry and predictable tale of woe becomes a surprising scene of rejoicing.
I find that hopeful. I look around at complex and sorry systems of oppression and abuse of power in our world. They are beyond my influence. There is so much that is systemically broken today. Greed and corruption, suspicion and hatred abound.
Yet even in the midst of scandal and outrage, another order can break through. In the most unimaginable and outrageous ways. God can turn a sorry and predicable tale of woe into a scene of rejoicing. That's a message that should be close to the hearts of all Episcopalians. After all, we have our beginnings in the sorry tale of the peccadillos of Henry the Eighth. Look what God did with that mess. God made us!
It's remarkable that Jesus told this story. It shows he had stomach enough for the worldliness and intrigue of his day. Might we also have the stomach to face the complexity, oppression and suspicion of our age with enough courage and shrewdness to help another order break through. How can we be shrewd enough to work the system in order to turn our world's sorrow into rejoicing.
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posted by Lowell @ 9/18/2010 02:10:00 PM
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