February 27, 2014: Luke Chapter 16

The Gospel According to Luke Chapter 16

Originally posted Friday, March 21, 2008

Luke Chapter 16:1-13 The Dishonest Manager

This is a difficult parable to interpret. Many attempts to understand the meaning have relied on speculation, reading details into the text that do not exist. All we have is the text and it must offer up its own meaning. The core elements point to the typical agribusiness organization of Jesus' time. There is the Master who is the owner of large tracts of cultivated farm land. He is most likely an absentee landlord and has a business manager (steward) who handles all the accounts. There are at least two tenant farmers: One cultivating olive trees for oil and another growing wheat. The land may have once been owned by these tenants who were dispossessed of ownership. More and more farm land was commercialized to supply Rome with food. When the original owners could no longer afford to pay the costs of farming and defaulted on loans for seed or equipment their land was taken. As a result they became land-poor peasant tenants on land that once was theirs. 

In a tenant farming system the farmers would be given quotas for the amount of produce to be paid to the Master. The produce was a rent payment paid to the owner in exchange for the use his land. The system allowed the tenants to keep or sell anything over their quotas as long as they could meet them in a timely fashion. The Manager was responsible for overseeing the farmers to be sure they were providing accurate measures and good quality. As the manager he might earn a commission on the delivered produce.

Absentee farming is susceptible to both corruption and exploitation. In the parable this manager has been charged with "squandering" the Master's property (farm production?) and is being discharged. We are not given the particulars of the charge but squandering generally implies wasting or misusing money, property or opportunity. The manager considers his options. He could do manual labor but isn't strong enough. He could become a beggar but that would bring him shame. He decides to continue his deceptive squandering. In order to guarantee a place to live once he is discharged he will have the two tenants falsify the produce invoices so that they will be in his debt. He instructs the first tenant to change his invoice from one hundred jugs (baths) of oil (750 gallons) to fifty. He has the second tenant change the one hundred measures (kors or homers) of wheat (800 bushels) to eighty.

The parabolic hook of this parable comes in vs. 8a when the Master congratulates the deceptive manager for having acted shrewdly. If we try to apply business logic to this we will miss the point. It would make absolutely no sense for the defrauded Master to congratulate the person who cost him a large amount of produce. But what does make sense is Jesus' message in vs. 8b: the children of this age (this evil and adulterous generation) are shrewder in dealing with their own kind than are the "children of light" (followers of Jesus and early Christians).

Vs. 9 is the resolution of the parable. Jesus tells his disciples they too should be shrewd, making friends by the use of (with) their "unrighteous mammon" (Luke's usual term for material goods). By doing so and when the mammon runs out, they will be welcome into the eternal "tents." This is the end of the parable which is now understood as a Kingdom parable. The children of this evil generation will use their mammon to no good end. The children of light (Christians) will use it for good, through acts of justice, mercy and compassion - the works of God, and will be welcome in the Kingdom of God. As Matthew put it, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven..." (MT 6:19a, 20a)

The final part of the passage is Jesus' exhortation to his disciples (and to us) on the faithful use of whatever material resources they have been given (by God). Those who cannot be trusted to use wisely  these material resources that belong to God cannot and will not be entrusted with true (Kingdom) riches. For Jesus the moral teaching is, "[We] cannot serve God and mammon."

Luke 16:14-18 The Law and the Kingdom

Luke has placed three seemingly unrelated sayings together. As we read them, however, we will see the relationship. The first one follows the previous teaching on the proper relationship with material resources, particularly money. The last relates to the continuing application (and interpretation) of the Old Testament.

Vss. 14-15: The ever-lurking Pharisees have overheard Jesus' remarks about money. Luke characterizes them as "lovers of money" which is an interesting label based on what we know about them. They were not gainfully employed and were supported by contributions and patronages from wealthy Elders (aristocratic class). It is possible they earned fees from elderly persons for whom they had become trustees. Jesus uses the common perception of Pharisees to condemn their misguided attempt to serve both God and mammon while their heart was set on mammon. It is by this hypocrisy that they try to justify themselves to a less discerning public (make themselves look holy by outer appearances). Jesus sees their attempts at a dual allegiance as a failure to understand the Shema (Deut. 6:4-5) which calls for a devotion of the whole self to God. It is little wonder that they would ridicule Jesus' strong words. After all, the crowd was listening. 

Vss. 16-17: Jesus announces what Luke has been hinting in subtleties. John the Baptist's appearance in the Jordan River marks the end of the old age - the time of the Law and the Prophets. Jesus, the one whom John came out to announce, stands at the beginning of the new age when the good news of God's Kingdom is preached. Since that time "everyone is being urgently invited into it." Another translation of vs. 16c is "everyone is pressing hard to enter it." Either of these reflects the dramatic response of the common people to Jesus' good news of the coming Kingdom of God. We are not to think from this that the Law and the Prophets are no longer important. Jesus says not even a single stroke of a letter will disappear (Isa. 40:8). This is not a contradiction with Jesus saying that the Law and Prophets were in effect until John. "Until" is not a stop sign. They are still in effect insofar as they point to Jesus and this new age, a conclusion and cornerstone of the early church's use of the Greek Old Testament as a fountain of "pointers" to Jesus and the coming Kingdom. It is this understanding that gives meaning to the Church's proclamation that Jesus has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. They are now embodied in and through him as their interpreter and protector.

Vs. 18: It is this understanding of the eternal presence of the Law and the Prophets that leads to this teaching on divorce. Scholars point to this verse as part of an older layer of the oral tradition. The teaching has no provision for divorce as a result of a woman's unchastity (MT 5:32); no exceptions for mixed marriages either Christian-Jewish or Christian-pagan; and no consideration of the Roman allowance for a woman initiating a divorce. Based on this verse and since no allowance is provided for the woman to seek a divorce, it is the man who is the adulterer in all cases. He commits adultery if he divorces his wife to marry another woman or if he marries a woman who has been divorced. The teaching does not forbid divorce. It forbids remarriage after divorce. As such, the teaching is in harmony with the Law, specifically Jesus interpretation of that Law.

Luke 16:19-31 The Rich Man and Lazarus

This story is an application of previous passages concerning the ultimate fate of those who are "lovers of money." It also reminds us of Luke's persistent theme of the reversal of status (see LK 12:13-21).The main characters are archetypes of incredible wealth and grinding poverty whose lives and deaths intersect. The guiding issue is the refusal of the rich who prized wealth (an abomination before God vs. 15) to notice or to show kindness to the poor. The descriptions of each are meant to portray the vast gulf that has separated them in life and will separate them in death. The only moment of equality will be their common fate - death. It is the scene that follows death which becomes the vision-metaphor depicting the coming Judgment in terms of forfeiture and recompense.

In death the two are separated by a great river which cannot be crossed. On one side is Paradise where Lazarus has been "exalted," sitting beside "Father" Abraham." The rich man has been "brought low," in the torment of Hades. In this reversal of status Lazarus becomes well fed at Abraham's table while the rich man becomes the beggar who now must plead with the Patriarch for a taste of water from Lazarus' finger. But it cannot be. The chasm between Paradise and Hades is too great and deep. No one can cross it in either direction. The suffering man in Hades, now stripped of every trapping of wealth, again pleads with Abraham, not on his own behalf but for his five brothers, lest they suffer the same fate as he. Send Lazarus to warn them, he begs. Surely they will repent if someone rises from the dead to warn them.

The final line is the moral of this fable. It is Jesus speaking to all those who have loved money more than showing justice, mercy, kindness and compassion to those who so desperately need them. They had Moses as their teacher, and Moses pointed to the one in whom God would initiate the Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven." They had received the invitation to the table but made their excuses. They had chosen the best seats of honor to draw attention to themselves. They had thought their place at the narrow gate was secure as a birthright. They had cursed Jesus' compassion in making people whole again on the Sabbath. They thought they could practice their brand of piety and ignore the weightier matters of the Law, "to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God.