Our Sunday Worship Service will be viewable at this link:
https://youtu.be/DDCrw1aWyVA
Live Stream will start at 9:55am. Our bulletin for Sunday may be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jLcK4DDSEFkzn-e0eOmlj0UV1Mclj6_d/view?usp=sharing
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"We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing" Virtual Choir Project. See the bottom of this e-mail for details!
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Devotion for Friday, November 13th
Don't be like these people!
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Dear Friends,
During yesterday evening's Communion worship service we read the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15. Today's daily lectionary reading is from Luke 16.
Below I wonder if this parable isn't that of a "mirror universe" to that of Luke 15.
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Gospel Reading Luke 16:1-9 from today's lectionary reading.
1Then 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. 2So 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.' 3Then 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. 4I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7Then 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.' 8And 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. 9And 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.
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Dear Friends,
There is a parable or allegory that is at least at present most commonly attributed to an itinerant Rabbi Haim who ministered in Lithuania - perhaps at the beginning of the 19th century.
He tells of a vision where he is taken by God’s messenger to see both heaven and hell. He is taken to a corridor with two doors. The messenger opens the first door and tells the Rabbi to look upon hell. To his surprise there are figures sitting around a table covered in rich and delicious looking food. He is confused. This is Hell? And then he notices, the people at the table look miserable and are starving. They have in their hands ridiculously long spoons, and they cannot feed themselves. They are starving and miserable.
And the Messenger of God guides the Rabbi from the room. And he walks across the corridor and opens the door to heaven. And the Rabbi is struck by the fact that the scene is identical. Same table covered in a feast. Same spoons, but here those seated at the table are each feeding the people across from them - and everyone is smiling and happy.
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I suddenly understood. Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The critical difference is in the way the people treat each other.
I ran back to Hell to share this solution with the poor souls trapped there. I whispered in the ear of one starving man, "You do not have to go hungry. Use your spoon to feed your neighbor, and he will surely return the favor and feed you."
"'You expect me to feed the detestable man sitting across the table?' said the man angrily. 'I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of eating!'
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The difference between heaven and hell can be both subtle and huge.
Let's return to the Parable from Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 16.
This passage is really confusing in isolation!
John Carroll states in his wonderful commentary on Luke: “A host of difficult interpretive issues bear on the reading of this text, and navigating them while keeping clear focus and seeking a coherent reading is a daunting challenge.”
That is the Biblical interpreter version of a Doctor saying, “Yeah, I don’t know, it’s probably a virus. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”
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Interpreters offer different possibilities. Many try to see the good in the manager’s actions. He is reducing debts. Perhaps he does so by removing his own exorbitant commissions from the total balance of the debt. Perhaps instead he is correcting the unlawful rates that his master has charged.
Maybe, but I’m not convinced.
Unlike many other parables, there is no person whose actions unambiguously seem worth following.
Other beloved parables have been the subject of Vacation Bible School, but I can tell you that there is no danger that we will base a Vacation Bible School around this parable, and I defy Rachel to write an uplifting and catchy song about it!
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And while we are at it... here is a uplifting and catchy song written by Rachel:
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"Family of God"
Written by Rachel Doll for the 2016 VBS at WPPC
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Instead we have a parable that brings rogues and ne’er-do-wells to the fore. The master is a tough master, but unlike other parables, he doesn't seem to be a just master. The manager, called dishonest or shrewd, acts only to save his own skin.
This is one of those parts of scripture where I so wish we could hear Jesus’ tone of voice and see his face. Many of us who communicate by e-mail or text have been misunderstood along the way, sometimes wildly, because the tone we had in mind when we composed our message was not at all that assumed by the recipient.
This parable is a bit of a mystery.
I think we can access Jesus’ tone by looking at the context which this parable is given to us.
The way we so often read the Bible is to open up to a particular chapter and verse and see what we read there. And we tend to take the passage in isolation.
Taken in isolation, this Parable makes little sense, but if you look at all of Luke 15 and 16 as a unit - a collection of stories told together - it makes more sense.
In the first verses of Luke 15 you have two short parables on seeking the lost - first the lost sheep then the lost coin.
Then in the second half of Luke 15 we read the Parable of the Prodigal Son - an example of both great forgiveness and being forgiven.
Then we move to Chapter 16 - and it is worth remembering that the chapter divisions are not original to the text - and you have two parables - but they both offer negative examples.
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Remember, the chapter divisions in Luke and much of the rest of the Bible are not original. The Gospel writer (and presumably Jesus) did not intend you to read the parable of the Dishonest Manager without first reading or hearing The Parable of the Prodigal Son (and his Brother and the Father who Loved them both)!
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Our parable for today may be the negative counter-example of the Prodigal Son. What does life look like without the grace found in the Prodigal Son? Here it is... It is not pretty!
The last parable - the Rich Man and Lazarus which follows today’s: Far from seeking the lost Lazarus, the Rich man has to step over the suffering man as he goes in and out of his house. From beginning to end, that parable is a stark warning about how not to live. Could today's parable be the same sort of warning?
(Monday's Gospel Reading from the Lectionary is the Rich Man and Lazarus from Luke 16.)
This morning I would like to hold out the possibility that neither the master nor the manager nor any of their actions are commendable in this parable. From start to finish they are both greedy and self-serving at the expense of others.
Put simply, I think the point of the parable might be: “don’t be like these guys, ever!”
Again, it is worth noting that there are in fact the similarities between the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Dishonest Manager. Both involve landowners of some means who appear to have workers or tenants. Both involve questions of money.
But there are also striking differences between the two parables. The loving father of the Prodigal Son is present on his farm. He knows and interacts with his employees. As the son says as he starts his return journey, his father’s workers have more than enough food. When the feast is thrown, it seems like everyone is eating and dancing.
The master of today’s parable seems to be an absentee landlord. Rather than pay enough for his workers to live, he seems to offer little pay and loans with high interest rates, and he profits by trapping his workers in a cycle of debt and poverty from which they cannot escape. Such a situation might have been known all too well by those around Jesus, and such situations have been all too well known by many since. Whether sharecroppers or coal miners in debt to the landlord or the company store in the last century, or the men and women whose “travel but really trafficking expenses” force them to work as near slaves on high seas fishing boats, in fields, as domestic servants, even as prostitutes, debt bondage is nothing new, and it is as harmful and heartbreaking then as now.
The Manager is the overseer who has been participating in this system. He mays have gained favor by being as ruthless and miserly as possible to the tenants, and his only failing has to been to not be ruthless enough.
So, the Landlord calls him to account. And I imagine it as some twisted parody of the Final Judgement (of Matthew 25):
O Manager:
Why have you not squeezed more wealth out of my tenants?
Why do the tenants not owe me yet still more?
The Manager sees the writing on the wall. His only way to escape the consequences of his not being quite ruthless enough is to turn his Master’s books against him before he loses access to them.
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I think Jesus is telling us, don’t be like these people. There is nothing redeeming or grace-filled about how they are acting:
"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."
I think that line may have been said ironically!!! Friends made with dishonest wealth may well have no eternal homes to welcome you into!
What might we learn? - First - how do we live in the world?
Be like the Prodigal’s Father - Not the manager or his Lord of today’s parable.
Relationships:
- Forgive others. Forgive us our debts, we pray, as we forgive our debtors.
- Don’t enter into bad systems. Don’t hurt others to give yourself a boost.
- Don’t gossip to push others down and make yourself look cool by comparison.
- In the workplace, don’t try to get ahead by knocking others out of the way.
Economic justice: We are part of an enormous and extraordinarily complex economic system, but I think that it is fair to say that Jesus takes a dim view of those who use the vulnerabilities, poverty, and desperation of others to further their own self-interest.
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From a practical standpoint:
- It is worth something to support businesses that treat their employees well.
- It is worth something to support businesses that work to make sure that the people at the bottom of their supply chain are not subject to abuse such as debt bondage, human trafficing, and child labor.
- It is worth something to support businesses that take care of this planet which we call home.
But - this parable is also about what God is like - or maybe what God is not like.
The managers frantic efforts to make the accounts balance in his favor are not how we interact with God.
There is no love. There is no grace. There is no trust - only selfish lying.
That is not God.
If we are relating to God in such a way. If we are acting selfishly. If we are loving things more than God. If we are cheating God and others in our hearts or in practice, no amount of last-minute cooking of the spiritual books is going to matter.
I might compare this parable to a Drug Lord building a chapel in his village. No chapel - no matter how beautiful - provides cover for someone who continues to poison his community with drugs and violence.
God sees through such things. They look ridiculous to God.
You can’t serve two masters. You can’t love money with all your heart, soul, strenth, and mind and love God.
God sees through that. It looks ridiculous to God.
Instead, God seeks us, and God calls us to stop. To turn around. To go home. To love God with our whole, heart, mind and strength.
And God wants to welcome us. Not like the unforgiving landlord or dishonest manager of Luke 16. God wants to welcome us with the amazing grace and joy of the Prodigal's father. God wants to find us like the woman sweeping for a coin or the Good Shepherd.
I hope we can live into the beauty, forgiveness, grace, and love of Luke 15.
Grace and Peace,
Emile
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"We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing"
You don't have to be a member of our Chancel Choir to participate! Just record yourself singing! All are welcome!
How to participate:
1. Watch and listen to this video of Sharon singing (with Ruth and Susan):
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Base Track : "We Gather Together"
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2. Download the music: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zVjEy2SPgD8_29VLTqoSHISzo2zgUE6K/view?usp=sharing
3. Make a recording of you singing this song in sync with Sharon
Sing any part!
To record in sync with Sharon you will need two devices:
- One phone, tablet, or computer to listen to the song video as you play along
- and a second camera/phone/tablet to record the video of you singing.
(PLEASE wear headphones while recording. This makes it much more likely that you will be in sync and makes the editing process easier.)
4. Then share the file with Emile by Google Drive, Drop Box or another file-sharing service. (The video will be too large to text or e-mail. If you need help, please ask!)
The deadline to send me a video will be Wednesday, November 18th at 5pm. After that I will begin editing the video together - and it is really difficult add a late video after I've begun work.
5. Call or text Emile to make sure I got the video. (Sometimes file transfers don't work the first time - especially if you've not sent a file to me before. I REALLY don't want to accidentally leave out someone who recorded a song!)
If you need help with any part of this process, please contact me - I would love for you to be involved!
Thank you all! The more voices the better!
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