Taking Offense

If Holy Scripture does not offend you from time to time you are not reading it thoroughly or deeply enough. If Scripture provides you with only support and affirmation, you are not really listening to what the Spirit is saying to you. In fairness, I expect that most of us probably expect a little more than just support and affirmation from the Bible; we expect the Word of God to teach us, maybe to gently challenge or stretch us. But I wonder if it is not in those places where Scripture offends us that the Word of God can be most alive for us, not just instructive or interesting, but alive. When we are offended we react, we argue, we engage, we have the potential to be radically converted by the living Word of God.

I’ve been rereading a little book by the Bishop of Atlanta, Neil Alexander, called This Far by Grace, published in 2003. In it, he tells this story:

"Several years ago, while I was teaching at the School of Theology, in Sewanee, Tennessee [an Episcopal seminary], we enjoyed a series of lectures by a distinguished visiting professor of biblical interpretation. The subject was "Hate in the Bible." He presented fine lectures, and we all learned a great deal about an important topic. But in the discussion after the final lecture, a man stood up and asked a question, not about hate in the Bible but about homosexuality. The way he shaped his question made it clear that he was coming from a conservative, if not fundamentalist, position on the matter. Our visiting professor answered him by saying, "Friend, you should read the Bible more." He went on to say that if you want to pick a small handful of verses and interpret them in a rather narrow way, then you can easily fortify the conclusions that lay behind your question.

After a few more exchanges on hate in the Bible, another gentleman stood up and, once again, asked about homosexuality. This time it was clear from the question that he was coming from a more progressive, if not liberal, viewpoint, and wanted some help fortifying his position. Our visiting professor answered him by saying, "Friend, you should read the Bible more." He went on to say that if you want to pick a small handful of verses and interpret them in a rather narrow way, then you easily can fortify the conclusions that lay behind your question.

I think we were all struck by the integrity and wisdom of the visiting professor’s response," Bishop Alexander concludes, "we all need to read and study the Bible more, not to fortify the prejudices we bring to the text, but so God’s living and dynamic word can be used by the Holy Spirit to teach and convert us over and over and over again."

Jesus, incidentally, says absolutely nothing about homosexuality in the whole of all four Gospels. Jesus, on the other hand, says a great deal about wealth and money and material possessions. And I personally find Jesus’ words about possessions in this morning’s Gospel reading offensive. This story offends my sense of justice. It offends my convictions on what constitutes commendable or moral behavior. Especially if we pick out just a "small handful of verses." This passage illustrates the pitfalls of placing a narrow meaning on just a small handful of verses.  For example, this verse:  "The master commended the dishonest manager." Is the master God? Is this meant to say that God commends dishonesty? And later in the passage, Luke has Jesus say, "make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth." Given phrases like these we have several options. We can, one, ignore them or arbitrarily decree that these particular phrases in the Bible don’t have any authority for us. You know, Thomas Jefferson did that quite literally, taking a copy of the Bible and using scissors to cut out the bits that did not fit his own enlightened perspective. Or choice two, we can try to find a different "small handful of verses" from somewhere else in the Bible that supports our own position so we can use "our" Bible verses to try to shoot down the offensive ones. Or, three, we can really read the Bible more. We can read more than just this passage. We can study this passage and others in greater depth and in broader context. We can take this point of offense, of our disagreement with Scripture, as an entry point into a deeper and broader and more thorough reading of Scripture. The living Word of God does speak to us on the issues and cares of our personal lives, but only if we read it broadly, deeply and thoroughly.

So, back to this morning’s Gospel. First, let’s look just a bit at this particular passage in greater depth, drawing upon the tools of biblical scholarship. This parable is commonly titled the parable of the dishonest manager or the dishonest steward. But a better title might be the parable of the shrewd or prudent manager. The manager’s dishonesty in squandering the master’s property is the starting point of this story. The ending point is the manager’s shrewd stewardship of the material possessions remaining under his control to help gain his future position in the community. Whether or not that community in which the manager seeks a position is meant to represent the Kingdom of God is not absolutely clear, but worth considering. But it is clearly his later shrewd management, not his previous dishonesty that is commended. Shrewdness is not necessarily a sin.

And most Biblical scholars do seem to believe that that point is the end of Jesus’ parable. "And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly." The end. But that’s not the end of this morning’s reading. And although Luke casts the verses that follow as pronouncements from Jesus, they are most likely not Jesus’ own words; they are reflections on, expansions of Jesus’ parable written by those first people who heard Jesus preach and teach. What follows Jesus’ parable are, in essence, a series of mini sermons or reflections on the parable conceived by Jesus’ followers. This was an offensive, challenging, puzzling story from the get go. It was hardly out of Jesus’ mouth before people began struggling to understand it. So that even the Bible itself includes early efforts to interpret and explain what Jesus said.

Basically, in the second part of the passage we heard this morning, the Bible includes and models a process of engagement and discussion of Jesus’ teaching, providing several different perspectives on Jesus’ parable. The process, the difficult struggle to understand are important… so important that the process is included in Holy Scripture. Maybe, one interpreter might say, this passage is about seeking entry by any means into God’s eternal home. "Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes." Or maybe the parable is about valuing the more important gifts of God over the less important gifts of the material world. "If you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" Maybe the parable is simply a blatant condemnation of the mastery of wealth over most of our lives. "You cannot serve God and wealth." All of those interpretations are presented in Luke. None is clearly favored over any other. The Bible itself doesn’t tell us which one is right. I don’t totally like any of them; I still find this passage offensive, troubling…. So maybe I need to read the Bible more… to read more of the Bible.

In our Sunday lectionary, we have been working our way through Luke. Last week from the 15^th chapter of Luke we heard two gracious parables about God’s search to find us when we are lost, a search that does not end until we are found, and then all heaven rejoices. They are about God’s deep, deep yearning to be united, reconciled with all of us. Following those parables, there is one more parable that concludes the 15^th chapter of Luke, coming right before this morning’s passage from Luke 16. It is the so-called parable of the prodigal son, a parable that offends at least those of us who identify with the older brother. In a commentary on Luke (Interpretation), Fred Craddock notes that many people have only really heard a casual partial telling of this parable, with no real sense of the way grace offends a sense of fairness or how forgiveness comes across as condoning. Consider the party at the end. "It was the music and dancing that offended the older son. Of course, let the younger son return home. Judaism and Christianity have clear provisions for the restoration of the penitent returnee, but where does it say that such provisions include a banquet with music and dancing? Yes, let the prodigal return, but to bread and water, not fatted calf; in sackcloth, not a new robe; wearing ashes, not a new ring; in tears, not in merriment; kneeling, not dancing. Has the party canceled the seriousness of sin and repentance? We might even ponder whether, had we lived next door, we would have attended that party."

God’s grace offends a sense of fairness. That’s something for me to work on. God's grace offends a sense of fairness.  We really can’t have it both ways. To cling to our personal sense of fairness is to close the door on God’s grace. To be offended by God’s gift of grace to another person, especially a person whom we may deem undeserving, is to deny our own potential to receive that gift of grace.

As we read all of these parables in this portion of Luke, there is an even broader context to remember. Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. The crucifixion and resurrection are on the near horizon; death and resurrection are the context for these stories. I have tried to imagine hearing this morning’s parable as if I were on that journey towards Jerusalem. We all are, of course, traveling towards Jerusalem, traveling towards death and resurrection. Remember today’s collect? "Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure." That’s a prayer about being on the road to Jerusalem. To pray that we may truly lose all anxiety about earthly things, like money and possessions.

I don’t know. Remembering a God who will do anything to restore the lost… Trying to imagine a life’s journey unburdened by anxiety about money… Maybe today's parable is less about the manager and more about the master. After all, it does begin, "There was a rich man." The master.  Maybe it is about a rich man traveling the road to Jerusalem who is not offended when his material resources are used by others as vehicles for grace, who rejoices to have his debtors' obligations reduced to make a space where hope and reconciliation may grow. Maybe this parable is about a rich man who is not anxious about his riches, who is not troubled if those riches are " unfairly" distributed, who celebrates the gracious gift of God’s grace whenever and wherever and however it is made known. Maybe in this parable, we are meant to learn from the master.

If you are still troubled or unsettled by this passage, good. If you leave church still thinking about what this parable may mean to you, even better. Go and read the Bible more. I plan to.