Tackling the News of the Day

You probably saw in the news that, Friday Sept. 27th was a day of activism for climate justice.  Around the world people gathered at marches, rallies, and events to pressure governments to work together to address climate crisis. A global cry is outpoured: creation, the environment, the world is not ours. We do not own it.  It belongs to our children and our children’s children – if it survives. It has been put in our hands for a time – to manage. As a people, we are not gifted managers.
The Gospel for this morning talks about a shrewd manager. Shrewd is polite – honestly, the manager squanders the owner’s property, is dishonest, buys off friends, is focused on self-preservation, and tries to keep all options open and both sides content. The manager demonstrates a lack of being a gifted manager.
This portion of Gospel text is a convoluted parable that comes at the end of Jesus’ response to the scribes and Pharisees who have grumbled that Jesus eats with tax collectors and those they deem sinners.  Jesus has been pointing his finger at the grumblers to hold them accountable for missing the point of the covenant and the Law.  Jesus has used the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son, and now this parable of the dishonest manager to call attention to the heart of the matter – self provision has become more important than the fortune of others, the care for the widow and the orphan; mercy, compassion, justice are not the terms of management being used. Living covenant life where relationship is fostered through just management of the abundance of God’s world has become an absurd idea. Jesus tells this confusing parable, where a dishonest manager is rewarded for being a poor manager. Why?  Because are we not all poor managers of all that has been entrusted to us? We squander the owner’s property – the earth and the environment. We mismanage relationships, often for our own gain.
The mismanagement of relationships, also hit the news this week; the issue of race was used for self-serving purposes to confuse, confound, and complicate the politics of the day, as we move to the fall election. The issue was put on an individual and their actions, lost is an honest conversation about societal racism and relationships requiring  justice. Once again as a people, we are not gifted managers.
Today I need to be honest with you:
I confess that I have used single use plastics.
I confess that I have wasted water and electricity.
I confess that I have used insecticides, rat poison, and plant-killer.
I confessed that I have told off-coloured jokes in public spaces about people from specific geographic areas and cultures different from my own.
I confess that I have made judgements of others due to their religion, gender, and/or skin colour.
I confess that I have avoided areas of the city with a high volume of public housing.
I confess that I have believed that reserves and tax free status meant that Indigenous people were taken care of.
I confess that I have called people debasing names and used language, knowingly and unknowingly, that is  racist and homophobic.
There are no pics or videos, that I am aware of, of me doing any of these things. I am not anticipating anything from my past coming back to bite me in the rear end. None of these things were okay.  None of these things are okay. I apologize for these words and deeds. I am a dishonest manager.
Although you can likely make a similar list of confessions, I would like to think that most of us aren’t actively racist or purposefully destroying creation.  That said we are passively participating in climate crisis and systemic racism.  We are adjudged as dishonest managers. Now let us not get disheartened by this fact or use it as an excuse to continue on as if we are oblivious to the cries of the world.
Jesus’ parable speaks to this week’s top news items: climate crisis and systemic racism. Jesus plunges listeners into a story that throws out the idea of the ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’; where the ethical will win and the immoral will loss. Jesus has everyone in a entangled circumstance where options are not easy to choose, where choices are affected by a wide range of variables, and that poses the manager as a villain regardless of actions taken.  Let us take this to heart. No human being is owner, only a poor manager – can we not just start with the truth and accept and admit that each of us as individuals, and collectively as: special interest groups, political parties, societies, countries, and world organizations are dishonest managers.
Since last Sept. we have been reading and studying the Gospel according to Luke. Luke has been forthright with us about his understanding of the Gospel, about the meaning of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, and how the gospel and Jesus’ teachings are to be applied in our own lives. Luke’s story consistently speaks to the stewardship of material possessions and questions people about their ongoing obedience to the Law. Luke focuses on these two items because, as I delightfully read in a commentary, Luke was a hippy.  Luke’s description and presentation of Jesus came from his passionate desire for love among all  people and as an advocate for the poor and excluded. Luke recorded Jesus as compassionate to outcasts and in relationship with the poor, the sick, women, foreigners, Samaritans, Gentiles, tax collectors, and sinners. Jesus tells a lot of parables about money and wealth in the Gospel of Luke., but Jesus is not to be seen as rich person hater, rather one is to see Jesus’ concern in what wealth does to people.  Luke’s theology is serious about sin, but when judgement is cast somehow God’s mercy is greater than anticipated. This abundance of compassion is to turn individuals and whole peoples to living a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds.
With this in mind, although dishonest managers, as part of this community and as followers of Jesus we have been welcomed here in this place.  When we gather we experience a portion of God’s mercy and God’s grace. Jesus’ parable sets up the opportunity for Luke to compel listeners to live, not from the accusation of being a dishonest manager, but from the overall theme of the parables as recorded – turn to living a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds; sharing the compassion you have received or experienced, or if you think you have not received or experienced God’s mercy and compassion than be dishonest about it and live that way any way.
As I have moved off the playground, matured, and grown older, I have found myself more willing and able to change, to accept, to appreciate, to try my best to build relationship; to be more passionate like Luke the hippy, and Jesus the revolutionary.   To counter dishonest management on my part, I strive to live a law of love and inclusion through words and deeds.
Years ago, I was telling a story to a group of clergy. In the telling of the story I used the term Paddy Wagon to refer to the police vehicle that transported people to jail. A colleague interrupted and asked that I not use  that term; it was offensive. I apologized and then with a little embarrassment asked for an explanation because I didn’t understand. Paddy was a derogatory ethnic slur used to describe the Irish in 19th Century America. During riots of 1860’s, where poor Irish immigrants were protesting the army draft while the rich were given provision to buy a waiver, police arrested the Irish and took them to the station in horse drawn wagons; thus Paddy wagon.  For the next century the term associated a particular people with disorderly conduct, violence, drinking, and the criminal.  I no longer use the term, because I listened and learned the hurt that is experienced when the term is used.  This is a small example, where managing includes changing language to be loving and inclusive. In like manner, I no longer use the term Indian summer, as it is a derogatory stereotype put on indigenous peoples.  I now use, harvest summer. As one learns one can turn from dishonest management to a new wholeness, and in that wholeness experience a place of compassion and mercy beyond one’s understanding.
The Atlantic Ministry Area clergy met this past week and it was time for us to pick our next study book. We have decided to read a newly released book published by Augsburg entitled: Dear Church: a Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US. The author, Lenny Duncan, is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He preaches that, symbols are important; they shape the way we think about the world, often without us knowing it.  If we don’t deconstruct harmful symbols, we will slowly poison our children. Luke’s Gospel has been teaching us this too.  We are all sinners, get over it already; we are all dishonest managers.  Now get to work: love, include, right your relationship with the wealth you manage, and opulently administer compassion and mercy.
The product description for the book commissions dishonest managers who make up the church: It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice.  Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow the revolutionary path of Jesus.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is certainly revolutionary.
In the complexity of the parable, the dishonest manager who has acted shrewdly, making friends and building relationships through dishonest means to protect his own self-interest... when all is said and done, when all is gone, the manager is welcomed into eternal homes. Yes, what a revolutionary, upside down, “say-what,” conclusion. At the end the manager is welcomed home – despite the inability of being a gifted manager, and by the lack of mention in the parable of no remorse or apology or I will try to do better. The parable points to compassion, mercy, and welcome; period. Once again we are told a Jesus’ parable where God’s activity – God’s final judgement, the kingdom principle -   is outside of what we can conceive and imagine. The opulence of welcome, the extravagance of compassion and mercy, are given... this is Good News.