An Uncomfortable Mirror
- Pastor Serena Rice
- Oct 3
- 7 min read
A sermon on Luke 16:1-13
[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash.]
Recently I have been reading the book Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
It’s a weird title, but it’s a fascinating book that applies the scientific principles of economics to understanding how human being process information, and from those insights it offers guidance for how to overcome common errors in our efforts to solve problems.
One of the chapters in the book addresses “How to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded,” a task that I know many people in this congregation are interested in, based on recent forum discussions.
The authors are forthright about just how difficult this task is, and they chronicle the (limited) effectiveness of various strategies, but then they share the one approach that is most likely to bring success: “tell them a story.”
As an illustration of the power of storytelling, they site the biblical prophet Nathan’s approach to confronting King David after his horrifying abuse of power in which he took Bathsheba for his own pleasure and then had her husband killed to cover up his misdeed.
Rather than coming straight out with his rebuke, the prophet shared a tale of a rich and selfish man who slaughtered the deeply-loved and only sheep of his poor neighbor, rather than feeding a visitor from his own flock.
It was only once David had expressed outrage at this action that Nathan revealed the story was just a parable, meant to expose David’s own crimes.
It worked. Once he had seen his own guilt through the lens of the story, David immediately repented.
It strikes me that Jesus probably understood this same principle of human nature at least as well as the prophet Nathan or modern economists.
Jesus did a large portion of his teaching in the form of parables. He understood that storytelling was the best way to get past people’s instinctive defenses to present the truths they needed to see, even if they didn’t want to.
And just like Nathan’s parable, this strategy is particularly effective when it gets us to first recognize a problem in the story, before we realize it implicates us.
I think that analysis gives us a way into this week’s rather confounding parable… by inviting us to consider how Jesus might be setting up his characters to deliberately incite strong reactions in his listeners, in order to turn the mirror on them at the end.
So, let’s consider the set-up… try to listen to the story with an ear for the clues about how we are “supposed” to feel about the characters.
Jesus begins by introducing a “rich man.”
In our culture that descriptor might not be an automatic trigger t, but we have to remember that Jesus’s disciples had primarily been peasants in an occupied country, where wealth meant at the very least accommodation of the foreign oppressors.
Add to that the reminder from today’s reading from Amos about how the prophets frequently warned against the abuses of the rich who came by their wealth through cheating the poor, and we can be pretty confident that this man is not meant to be sympathetic.
So, we turn our attention to the manager.
The fact that he is “squandering” his master’s property seems like it might be a red flag too, but the original Hebrew is actually a description of “scattering” (exactly like the sower in another parable scattered seed anywhere and everywhere, extravagant in hope).[1]
We don’t yet know where the manager has been scattering his master’s property, so we might want to reserve judgment.
Then we hear the rich man’s imperious dismissal, demanding an accounting from his manager even though he has already made up his mind that “you cannot be my manager any longer.”
Any listeners with a soft heart for the underdog might be warming up to the manager at this point.
But then the manager goes and sullies him image with his inner dialogue.
“I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”
So, in other words, he’s afraid of hard work and has an attitude to boot. He’s not really helping his case.
Then comes his action: we get the details of his scattering, but amped up even higher: he is cooking the books in the favor of the master’s debtors… the very people with whom Jesus’s listeners are most likely to identify.
At this point, I expect the average disciple is expecting Jesus to finish the parable with a satisfying assertion. Something like, “in the same way, the Kingdom of God will take from those who have much and give to those who have little, for the rich who exploit the poor will get their just rewards.”
That would be neat and tidy and comforting.
It reassures the listener that they were siding with the right character and that the imbalances they experienced in their own lives would be righted in the end.
But instead, we get two surprises back-to-back.
First, the master offers a commendation to his manager. It’s neither logical nor satisfying.
It undercuts the vision of the heartless rich man who recognizes only his own entitled rights. What are we supposed to make of his generous interpretation of the manager’s actions?
Then, Jesus finally reveals his assessment of the manager: he is dishonest. Not a Robinhood character, righting the wrongs of an unjust and rigged system… just a shrewd man looking out for himself.
And to make it all worse, Jesus doubles down on his approval of those who are clearly the wrong people to root for: “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
WHAT?! Why would Jesus say that? He doesn’t honestly want us to emulate the morally bankrupt, self-serving characters in this story, does he?
To be fair, I don’t think he does.
The final summation at the end of today’s reading warns clearly against greed, equating it with the worst sin there was in the Jewish scriptures: the sin of idolatry.
“No slave can serve two masters…. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
So, this is not a “go and do likewise” parable.
But then, what’s the point? What mirror is Jesus holding up for his disciples to actually see themselves clearly once he has slipped past their defenses? What unwelcome teaching is he trying to persuade them of?
To answer that question, I think it’s helpful to remind ourselves that this reading is a continuation from the chapter before…
A chapter where Jesus had faced accusations of “welcoming sinners and eating with them” (Luke 15:2), to which he responded by telling three parables about rejoicing when the lost are found.
The third parable, which is conventionally the crucial story for interpretive purposes, ends on a cliffhanger.
The prodigal son has returned to be welcomed by his father, but the older brother is quick to judge, confronting the father for his profligate grace and reciting a litany of his younger brother’s sins.
The father challenges his oldest son to join in the rejoicing in his brother’s return, but we never hear how he responds… we never find out if he is able to set aside his self-righteous judgment and join in the welcome…
This is the immediate context for Jesus telling another parable… one that practically bates his listeners into their own self-righteous judgment…
And I cannot help but think THAT is the mirror Jesus is holding up. THAT is the uncomfortable truth that his listeners do not want to hear:
The truth of just how easy it is for those who want to think of themselves as good to be seduced by the self-righteous idolatry of moral superiority.
At our Loving Dialogue discussion here last Wednesday night we talked a bit about the role that self-righteous disgust is actively playing in the ever-widening divide that is tearing our nation apart.
We talked about how affective polarization is qualitatively different from political disagreement.
How visceral reactions of aversion and distrust so easily slip into the kind of dehumanization that erodes psychological barriers against violence.
And we talked about how it can feel nearly impossible to resist that pull, especially when we are on the receiving end of dehumanizing rhetoric or political attacks.
I think Jesus knows exactly how hard that is. He was, after all, the subject of virulent attacks and violence himself.
I think that’s why he told a story lacking in any redeeming characters.
Because, sometimes, the accusations we want to leverage at those we disagree with are valid criticisms.
Sometimes the other side is dishonest, or self-serving, or heartless, or even cruel.
Sometimes their scheming disgusts us and what we long for is a simple moral to the story where they get what they deserve.
But the story Jesus tells us in those moments isn’t really about our enemies at its core. It’s about us.
He tells us a story to show us the power of our own self-righteous judgment, and in doing so he reminds us that we cannot stand in judgment without exposing our own fault.
And then, he gives us a choice: which master are we going to serve?
Greed is not the only idol that will try to capture our love. Self-righteousness is a more subtle, and thus the more dangerous temptation.
But if we want to serve God, we have to let it go.
We cannot look at the evils in this world from the self-satisfied position of condemnation and disgust.
We have to be shrewd enough to recognize the ways that divisiveness and self-righteousness erode our capacity to actually be faithful to the task that has been entrusted to us.
The task of welcoming the lost… of eating with sinners… of loving our enemies…of setting aside our condemnation to try to do the work of healing. Not by pretending that evil is good, but by remembering that love is stronger than evil.
The older brother in the prior parable does not give a response to that invitation. But we can.
Thanks be to God.
