"Shrewd Saints"
Jer. 8:18-9:1; Ps. 79:1-9; Tim. 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13
Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor
September 23, 2007
Last Monday more than 500 people flooded a Manhattan Barnes and Noble to meet a celebrity author. The author readers flocked to see was not Tiger Woods or Fred Thompson but former Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan. I mean, come on, an economist of all things. What a brilliant mind. The guy’s a genius. And I think the word fits—he is shrewd. For 18 years, Greenspan knew just when to add a pinch and when to hold a pinch, a magical managing of our nation’s economic fortunes.
You remember those old E.F. Hutton commercials, the ones where everybody stopped in his tracks—think Alan Greenspan—when he speaks, everybody listens. Alan is shrewd.
I tell you, said Jesus, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” It’s a very peculiar saying set within a very peculiar parable—the parable of the “dishonest manager” who is praised for his shrewdness. More than one preacher has stumbled over the text. In fact, the evidence suggests that Luke himself felt the need to clean up the story.
Jesus’ invitation to shrewdness doesn’t quite fit our expectations. We admire shrewdness in people like Alan Greenspan but we’re not sure it fits people of faith. Can Christians be shrewd? Are there “shrewd saints” or should there be?
Like you, I’ve heard many sermons about how we must become like children. And I’ve read books about how Christians need to enter a “second naiveté” in order to hear the gospel, neither of which appears compatible with shrewdness. Nevertheless, this text suggests that following Jesus requires savvy. It takes tenacity. To love as Jesus loved requires “shrewdness.” We are called to be “shrewd saints.”
“There was a rich man . . .”
That’s how the parable begins. And notice the audience. Jesus is addressing disciples. Luke will tell us that Pharisees also heard the sermon and that they “ridiculed” Jesus, but the intended listeners are followers of Jesus. Jesus is preaching to the choir.
“There was a rich man.” We like stories about the rich. The rich are different. The rich are not us. No matter how much money you have there’s always a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet. Jesus tells about a rich man who had a problem with one of his managers. The word manager is sometimes translated “steward.” And by the way, the word “steward” comes from the English word for “sty.” I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I saw a pig sty once when I was boy. And it was not pretty. Stewards, which is what we are, are “wardens” of the “sty.” And I’d say that pretty much fits. Life can be a muddy mess and worse.
The rich man has a problem with his sty manager. The guy is either a thief or inept. At the outset, we don’t know which. Some interpreters, wanting to save Jesus from commending dishonesty, have suggested that the manager really didn’t “cook the books” but rather acted in accordance with fair lending practices. Some suggest that what the steward actually did was to cut his commission and/or the interest owed to his boss, but even so the manager is still labeled “dishonest.” In fact, he is labeled both “dishonest” and “shrewd,” which in part explains why this parable is both confusing and troubling.
The rich man has a problem with his “dishonest” and “shrewd” manager so he calls him in for “an accounting.” It’s hard not to hear this parable as a parable of judgment. For all the Bible teaches about God’s loving us and saving us by grace, the Bible also teaches that we will give God “an accounting.” As Paul put it in Romans, which happens to be the Reformation’s bestseller on grace, “each of us will be accountable to God . . . we all will stand before the judgment seat of God.” Jesus may be talking about a rich man and a steward, but he’s also talking about final reckoning. Jesus is talking about judgment.
“What have you done with what I have given you?” That’s what the master wants to know. The steward knows he has a problem, a big, big problem, because he hasn’t done his job. The guy’s a book keeper, an accountant, perhaps a kind of commodities broker. The amounts are not chicken feed. The hundred jugs of oil are like 900 gallons and the 100 units of wheat are on the order of a thousand bushels. The steward is not a household manager. This is not a family farm. The steward manages a commercial enterprise. The stakes are high.
Anyway, he gets the word that the boss wants to see him. So in advance, he assesses his situation, “I’m too weak to dig and too proud to beg. I’ve got it; I’ll cut deals with everybody who owes my boss and make friends so when I’m fired I’ll have a place to go.” And that’s just what he does. He cuts deals. He gives steep discounts bordering on and crossing impropriety.
Jesus says the master “commended” the steward for his plan. Actually, Jesus calls the steward’s actions “dishonest,” but he still says the master “commended” the manager for acting “shrewdly.” The Greek means “practical wisdom.” The steward acted wisely, practically. Jesus then made this observation: “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
Do you think Jesus is being sarcastic here? It sure feels as if he is poking the disciples in the ribs, goading them, “Why can’t you be more like the children of this age? At least they know there are consequences. At least they know they have to have their act together. Stop lollygagging. Get a grip. God doesn’t do everything. You’ve got a very important job to do. Get to it.”
I think Jesus is saying something like that. Children of light can’t sit back and wait on God to do everything. Children of light must deal shrewdly with the world. The world is a mess and getting through it means taking risks. It means getting dirty hands. And to make it, we’ve got to act shrewdly. Jesus wants us to live with urgency, with purpose, with focus. That’s what it means to live shrewdly. It means to live with urgent responsibility.
Some years ago Bob Inman, a TV anchor from Charlotte, NC, wrote a novel titled Home Fires Burning. Inman’s book was published in the late eighties and at the time was also made into a Hallmark film for TV.
The story was set in a small southern town during WWII. The main character was a sixty-year-old newspaper publisher named Jake Tibbets, a grumpy old man who kept a bottle of whiskey in his bottom desk drawer. You know the type, rough around the edges, but a heart of gold. Jake represented a central theme in Bob’s novel: “A man’s got to take hold of his life and shake it for all it’s worth.” That was Jake Tibbet’s favorite saying, “A man’s got to take hold of his life and shake it for all it’s worth.”
Not long after Home Fires Burning came out Bob visited to a local book shop where we lived so I went for an autograph. Some time later I used his book in a sermon and I sent him a copy. Bob surprised me by writing back. At the time, I remember taking issue with Bob’s spin on fate and chance. And I also remember thinking he was wrong about “taking hold life and shaking it for all it was worth.” At the time, that posture seemed to smack of arrogance and pride. But in the twenty years since then I’ve come to think Bob was right. We need to “take hold of our life and shake it for all it’s worth.”
Surrender to God does not mean we roll over and play dead. Following Jesus does not mean we disappear. Following Jesus means taking hold of the life God gives us and ‘shaking it for all it’s worth.’ But when you take hold of your life with Jesus there’s a difference. Life with Jesus is not about me and what I get, what I need, and what I worry about. Life with Jesus is about loving the world God has created and responding to the coming reign of God in that world. And that takes shrewdness.
Last Wednesday I had this discussion with a group from Westminster Village. It wasn’t long before someone brought up children. “You know when it comes to your children,” a woman said, “it’s hard to know when to step in and when to back off. I guess,” she said, “it’s a little easier when they’re grown, but not really.”
That led to a conversation about being overly responsible. Paul advised that we are to be at peace with others “so far as it depends” on us. I believe that, but I must tell you I don’t always know exactly what depends on me and what doesn’t. And sometimes even when I think I know, knowing doesn’t always lead to peace. Sometimes it leads to heartache.
You know that proverb, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Wise people, so this age teaches, don’t get fooled or at least not twice. But then, we are not “children of this age,” we are “children of light” and “children of light” are supposed to forgive not just once or twice but seventy times seven. So, I don’t always know. I’m not always sure where to draw the line between faithfulness and foolishness, which is why, I think, Jesus tells us to love “shrewdly.” When you love “shrewdly” you have to forget about where the line is drawn or at least you have to stop worrying about it and sometimes you may even have to color outside the line. Loving shrewdly means we practice both forgiveness and fairness. We not only do justice but we also love mercy. And the truth is sometimes justice and mercy collide. So, as much as we may want to resolve the tension between forgiveness and fairness, we never will, not in this life. We have to settle for shrewdness, for hard-headed, determined persistence, perhaps the most important trait of shrewd saints.
Alan Greenspan didn’t stay on top of the Federal Reserve for 18 years by accident. Yes, he’s smart. And yes, he had lots of help. But Greenspan also had persistence.
Emily told the group at Westminster Wednesday that she’s hearing from college friends who are now out in the real world—investment bankers, brokers, doctors, teachers, lawyers. She said it was amazing to hear how hard they all worked, how many hours they put in. Getting ahead requires persistence, hard-headedness. Likewise, when you do justice and love mercy you’ve got to be hard-headed. If you’ve never felt like giving up on or crying over the world you probably haven’t loved life nearly enough. Some things are worth crying about. Think about Jeremiah, “My heart is sick . . . O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people.” You can’t feel that way without loving deeply. But once you’ve had your cry you’ve got to get back in the game. God wants us in the game and to stay in the game takes persistence. It’s the only way we can live shrewdly as the “children of light” we are. Amen.