I do hope you noticed that story from Luke just now, because it is in so many ways weird, challenging, extraordinary. It’s usually called the parable of the “dishonest steward,” which in our translation is the “dishonest manager.”
Let’s put this story in a more modern setting, if we can. There’s a very rich man—the sort of man who owns multiple businesses and businesses that own other businesses and buildings and assets and a house here and a house there and more property than he knows what to do with. And so he has a top manager, a wealth adviser, a CFO, an executive of some sort, who runs the day-to-day operations for the rich man’s empire. And it comes to the rich man’s attention that the manager is not doing his job, which is to say he is not extracting the greatest amount of money from the greatest number of people. So he calls him in one day and fires him.
Our manager, however, is a smart man. Perhaps the reason he has not extracted the greatest amount of money from the greatest number of people is that he knows they are people who have responsibilities and needs of their own. Perhaps he knows that they have some purpose in life other than making the rich man richer. And so he comes up with a plan. He pays a visit to the various companies, the individuals, the small people, who owe the big man money—and he says to them, The rich man would like to forgive some of your debt. This says you owe $1M? Now you owe $500K. This says you owe $10,000? Now you owe $1. And by the wave of a hand, it is gone.
The people are ecstatic, grateful, amazed: what for them had been this impossibly large burden, this huge shadow over all their work, was lifted. And they are excited that now their debts are manageable, possible, doable within their means.
He does this, of course, with no authority whatsoever. It is in legal terms unjust. It is dishonest. It is not his debt to forgive, if it ever had been, and certainly not since he lost his job.
So what happens? The rich man, visiting some of these smaller companies and individuals, perhaps on the quest to find a new top manager, starts getting these amazing expressions of gratitude. People are so excited that they can finally start paying down their debt to him. People are praising his generosity, saying that he’s the best boss they’ve had for decades. Productivity is up, morale is up, and everything is a win-win.
Except for that dishonest manager. What’s the rich man to do? He can’t really go around and say, “It’s all a big mistake! I didn’t cancel your debts.” Imagine saying that on a factory floor full of workers. Imagine saying that, going back a couple of thousand years, to a whole village full of laborers, seeing their smiles turn to anger and resentment and hatred. No—the rich man acts as if everything is in order. He calls the manager back, commends him for his clever work, and tells him to keep it up.
What’s the moral? Jesus says, pretty bluntly, “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”
What could this possibly mean for us?
I think it is really quite simple: Forgive.
Forgive. Whether it’s motivated by virtue or vice, by fear or by love, by desperation or by duty. Forgive.
And maybe what’s interesting to us is that, in the story, material forgiveness, financial forgiveness, is the first thing. Other things follow. In Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, our familiar words “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” becomes “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” and the Greek is pretty clear that “debts” and “debtors” are financial terms, not symbolic ideas. Luke replaces “debts” with the more direct “sins,” so we needn’t limit the petition to economic matters. Still, if we want God to forgive us, we have to be prepared to forgive those who owe us something, whether it’s money, or stuff, or whatever kind of emotional or spiritual or legal obligation we can come up with.
Whether you’re motivated by goodness, or fear, or selfish interest, forgive.
Why? Because forgiveness brings us closer to the God who has forgiven us.
God has forgiven us of everything: of all that we owe him for our very existence; of what we owe him for the particular gifts of our lives; of what we owe him for the evils, small and large, that we have done.
God has forgiven us, at great cost. God’s forgiveness was embodied on the cross, when God the Son opened himself to the consequences of a world indebted to debt in every form. And so forgiveness of any kind brings us closer to God, opens us more deeply to God’s goodness and power in us, transforms us more into his image and likeness.
What can you forgive? Can you forgive that parent who wronged you? Can you forgive the $2 debt of the friend who forgot his wallet and really needed something to eat? Can you forgive the stranger who looked at you and judged you without saying a word? Can you forgive that colleague who said something incredibly rude? Can you forgive the person who wasn’t there when you needed him?
On your own power, on our own power, probably not. Forgiveness is not something you can get from Amazon Prime, or from the power of positive thinking. It’s always hard; it always comes with a variety of feelings and motivations. But it is possible and, in the end, necessary. We can do it when we understand that to forgive is to participate in the power of God, to participate in the work of God in this world, to participate in God’s goodness in this world. Amen.