We can tell that the author of Luke is also scrambling to find his ethical bearings, because he tacks on three different sayings of Jesus to the end of the parable, perhaps hoping one will stick for the reader. Verses 9, 10-11, and 13 are glosses that have been added. Although they are most likely words that Jesus spoke, Luke threw them in here. Each saying is about money, after all, and the parable is about money. Each of the glosses, however, lead us away from the story, and leave us with only more questions when we try to measure them against the message of the parable itself.
I, and other scholars (i.e. Robert Farrar Capon) argue that interpreters must look at the parable alone, without all of the editorial glosses. Jesus' parable ends with verse 8. The story is rather simple:
A rich man hears accusations that his manager is squandering his property. Without ascertaining the truth of these allegations, the Master summons the manager, asks for his spreadsheets and tells the manager that he will be fired. The manager scrambles to figure out what to do. He is now unemployed and he is too weak for manual labor and he is too ashamed to take on a life of begging. Then an idea hits him. While he still has the authority to do so--in his final official acts--he calls upon those who still owe his Master. He sits down with these debtors and he lessens their debt considerably. The manager comes before the Master to receive his pink slip, and the Master congratulates--commends--the manager for acting so shrewdly.
The manager is commended for cooking the books and cheating his master out of what was rightfully owed him. At this, our moral compass starts to spin so wildly that we can't wait to move on to the glosses in verses 9-13 and forget all about the manager and his wily, but deplorable actions. How much nicer to focus on the ultra-moral, proverbial saying: "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much...." But don't give into the temptation to ignore Jesus. Stay with him.
The manager was dishonest. However, he was operating within a different ethical structure, to wit, what theologian James Cone calls the slave ethic. In Jesus' day, the position of manager of an estate was often, if not solely, given to a slave. This was an old tradition, since even in the book of Genesis we see a slave, Joseph, given a high position of power in ordering a property owner's wealth, the Pharaoh's, in Egypt. So, the manager was a slave. Cone, a foundational thinker in modern Black Liberation Theology, argues that slaves exist within a different moral and ethical place in relation to their masters. Ethically, the slave must first look out for his or her own survival and the well-being of his or her community--that is, his or her fellow slaves. Slaves are not ethically bound to those who have subjected them in to absolute servitude. Thus, even stealing and deception are allowed, as long as these acts are directed against their masters and not against their own community. James Cone relates a story in his book, God of the Oppressed:
"A housemaid who had the reputation of being especially devout was suspected by her mistress of having stolen from her bureau several trinkets. She was charged with the theft, and vociferously denied it. She was watched and the articles discovered openly displayed on her person as she went to church. She still, on her return, denied having them--was searched and they were found in her pockets. When reproached by her mistress and lectured on the wickedness of lying and stealing, she replied with the confident air of knowing the ground she stood upon, '...don't say I'm wicked...its alright for us poor colored people to appropriate whatever white folks' blessings the Lord puts in our way."
The oppressed reside in a unique moral and ethical region when it comes to relating to their oppressors. If this sounds abominable to my Dear Readers' ears, allow me to bring to light an hypocrisy. Take, for example, the Boston Tea Party. On December 16th, 1773, colonists, dressed as Native Americans (deception), threw three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor (stealing, or more specifically, squandering the property of others). These colonists felt justified--and we still today consider them justified--in this act because of the oppression the colonies endured under the British crown, particularly regarding the matter of representation in the governance of the colonies. Dressing as Mohawk Indians not only obscured the identity of the tea party participants, but also served a symbolic purpose: colonists identified themselves with America over against their official status as British subjects. The colonists were making clear what community held their moral and ethical obligations--the oppressed and not the oppressors.
The libertarian Tea Party movement, which began in 2006, has taken on its name to evoke the powerful image of that famous protest in Boston harbor. By taking this name, Tea Party members are implying that they are being oppressed under the status quo, and so it is time for protest and for drastic measures in order to bring about freedom and equality (particularly in governmental representation).
In the minds of white Americans, the Boston Tea Party, as well as all of the espionage and guerilla violence of the Revolutionary War are ethically and morally justified because liberty and justice themselves were at stake. To deny, in turn, that a slave ethic is morally justifiable is hypocritical. Especially when the Revolution was about power (colonists were still making money for their work, and they were not against taxes per se. The heart of the issue was having a voice in governance, again, all about the power). Meanwhile, at stake in American slavery were still more fundamental human rights. The first is a matter of liberty and justice, and the second is about that too, with the added matter of life and death.
And so, the manager in our parable is commended because he found a way to lie, cheat and steal his way out of a problem. More than that, he figured out how to orchestrate matters in such a way that his master had no recourse. The slave could not be punished for cooking the books and gyp-ing the master out of money owed him, because he committed these acts while he still had the authority to do so as manager of the estate. Besides, what was the Master going to do? Fire him?
Here, in the manager, we find an anti-hero akin to Robin Hood. The manager steals from the rich master (who, note, only thinks about how much money he could be making), and gives to the poor who are stuck with exorbitant debts that they cannot pay. The manager is thumbing his nose to the master, who assumes the allegations of squandering are true without an investigation--who is the master loyal to? Mammon. The manager is acting in his own best interests since the system is looking to destroy him. And the manager is allying himself with the poor, oppressed debtors, so that they might band together for mutual benefit and survival.
Christ takes on the same role of anti-hero when he takes on flesh. The manager in the parable, is the one with whom Jesus Christ must be identified. For Luke, Jesus came down to take from the rich, righteous and powerful, and give to the poor, sinful and weak. Jesus is the one who, under a higher moral and ethical authority, steals from the Master of this World in order to save the poor and oppressed debtors. We are the debtors. And unlike in many of Jesus' parables, the Master in this parable is not God the Father, but rather the Devil. Because of our sins, we are in debt--enslaved not to God, but to sin, enslaved to the Old Foe. But Jesus, by becoming dishonest (that is, by taking on our sins), fools the devil and helps us free us from our debt. See, the manager was wrongly accused of squandering, but he, ironically, became dishonest in order to save not just himself, but those who were in debt to the Master. Just so, those in power were out to get Jesus early on. They accused him of breaking the Law and instigating against Roman oppressors. What did Jesus do? Instead of trying to prove his innocence he went ahead and broke the Law. He hung out with sinners and the unclean of all kinds. He broke sabbath and purity laws. Jesus broke the Law himself, and what's more, he payed the punishment for the sinfulness of all. The Devil thought he had Jesus right where he wanted him in order to get rid of him--on the cross. But the cross turns out to be the shrewd action that brings freedom and forgiveness to the oppressed...and loss to the Devil. Meanwhile, Satan, though bested, can appreciate the shrewdness of the plan.
This parable is about what Jesus does with the Devil's property in order to save the ones the Devil oppresses. It is a parable about what Jesus does--bears the Cross. It is not about morality and ethics. If you want to learn the other side, that is, what to do with your wealth, just peek ahead to the end of the 16th chapter of Luke (v.19ff) to another parable that begins, "There was a rich man who...".
Thus, the Parable of the Dishonest Manager becomes a teaching about the victory and redemption won on the cross. Such a reading is supported by the context of the parable in Luke. First of all, Jesus is being hounded by the Pharisees just then for breaking the Law. They are trying to defame him and dismiss his authority. Second, at the time Jesus tells this parable he is already on the road to Jerusalem. He has set his face to the cross, and that act is starting to become his main focus. In the same way, when reading the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, the Cross must be our lens.
Books used, mentioned and/or quoted in this blog:
Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgement: Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.
Cone, James H. God of the Oppressed. Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1997.
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