"HOPE IN A DODGY WORLD"

           

Now and again we come across a Biblical passage that puzzles us and that recent one of the Parable of the Dodgy Manager (Luke 16:1-13) is a case in point. Here Jesus describes a manager who, like the Prodigal Son in the passage beforehand, fritters away the resources entrusted to him. Hauled up before the boss he is called to account for his irresponsibility. The manager slinks away and in inspired desperation approaches his boss’s outstanding debtors and, off his own bat, discounts their debts if they pay up straight away.

The debtors are happy to have to pay less than expected, the boss is pleased the debts have been settled, and the dodgy manager survives. Everyone is happy except perhaps the auditor. Jesus points out how self-interest brings out the cunning more readily, something we have ourselves ruefully discovered in life. In case we are tempted towards abandoning our scruples, Jesus sternly reminds us at the end of this passage that we cannot at the same time serve both God and wealth.

We find this all too true when we seek social justice. No matter what we say or do, the ones with the wealth are there hard on the hand brake to frustrate our best efforts. Funding to help others up is always in short supply while the wealthy, untouched by all this, invest everything into accumulating more. Nothing makes us angrier than this deliberately widening gap. Yet, we depend on income to survive. It seems a trap.

Note that Jesus talks about the perils of serving wealth. Once we know how to serve God, we find that it is wealth that becomes part of our serving God. Wealth is created to serve us not the other way round. Hence we are called to be good stewards of whatever wealth that comes our way. Jesus talks a lot about money. Here in this difficult parable, we can see that it is not wealth per se but how we use it that matters and in this world where social justice requires wise redistribution of our resources we see the proper place of wealth.

How wealth is used marks whether hope comes to this world. Several of us attended a recent study on Isaiah where there were several other difficult passages. In this the longest biblical book after Psalms, we read of intertwined messages of stern prophecy and utopian hope and it is difficult to separate them.

To cut a long story short, unless you wish to plough through the 66 chapters yourselves, we are promised eventual hope but there is no escaping the strings attached. The people are called to account because of dodgy practices and they are to have visited upon them the ruthlessness of even greedier powers and to be carted off into exile.

They are promised hope, conditional hope. In Isaiah’s vision is the lion lying down with the lamb. Something in us tells us that would take a lot of lambs to find one which would remain safe in leonine company. That is the point Isaiah is making. There is no hope unless it is for the lamb as well as for the lion. We cannot expect hope for us if we want it at others’ expense. We see this all too starkly in Syria where the dreams of rule are costing so much blood and terror.

To enjoy God’s love means ensuring that our neighbour is included in this love. This is social justice. This is hope. Throughout history our ancestors have reaped the whirlwind because they sought through fear to exclude others from this promised hope. Isaiah talks about hope in terms where all can come together in safety. If we are to embrace this hope we have much to do.

Such a task seems hopeless until we remember that one lamb who took that risk and became that self-sacrifice to enable us to seek this goal of his kingdom. May we enjoy hope by ensuring that it is distributed among others.