Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Emily Dickinson
I open with this Dickinson poem because I feel this is why Jesus teaches in parables. A parable is not an allegory or extended metaphor, where each character and element is meant to symbolize one thing. On the contrary, a parable can and often does have multiple meanings, depending on the audience and the circumstances. I will paraphrase the poem and say a parable tells the truth, but tells it “slant,” and it often leaves the end of the story open, in order to make us squirm a bit, as we try to figure out what it means!
Today's Gospel is Luke 16:1-13 called either "The Parable of the Dishonest Manager" or "The Parable of the Shrewd Manager". Pastor Ray preached about how did the economy work in first-century Galilee. The Torah expressly forbade Jews from charging interest, so in order to get around this biblical prohibition, some landowners simply overcharged the peasants when they sold them necessities such as wheat or olive oil. What they did was effectively fold hidden interest into the total amount of the bill. This could be a source of "dishonest" wealth and suggests this is why the rich man could not very well point to a manager's dishonesty if he was also engaged in this practice.
Perhaps this parable is more mysterious and confusing than some. However mystery, confusion and a squirming reaction invites deeper exploration. If that is the case perhaps it is better to leave with a Anne Lamott quote I feel after reflecting on this parable, "I do not at all understand the mystery of grace-- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
Recent translations of Luke 16 have shifted away from "Mammon" (King James Version, Revised Standard Version) to "wealth" (New Revised Standard Version) or "worldly wealth" (Common English Bible). But perhaps retaining the personified idol named Mammon better reminds us of how a financial system itself can function as an idol or "religion."
English Renaissance literature portrayed Mammon as a character on a lower moral level than Avarice. In Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Mammon escorts people down into the underworld, to the gate of Hell, to learn to mine and smelt gold. Milton (Paradise Lost) and other authors portray Mammon in league with fallen angels to lead people astray.
Preaching on the vivid parable in Luke 16 means following Jesus into questions of how we practice neighbor love in economic relationships, in the midst of unjust structures. What is important is to situate the parable in the broader economic context of how Jesus was reviving village life by reviving biblical covenantal economic life, forgiving debts and giving people new hope. In Luke, the joy of the Gospel is the joy of God's healing of relationships, including economic relationships. Jesus repeatedly warns that we cannot be disciples while accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor.
As Luther warned about Mammon 500 years ago, “‘Many a person thinks he has God and everything he needs when he has money and property, in them he trusts and of them he boasts so stubbornly and securely that he cares for no one. Surely such a man also has a god -- mammon by name, that is, money and possessions -- on which he fixes his whole heart. It is the most common idol on earth."
God's justice and grace makes us squirm when it appears to be contradictory to the law or the financial system we agree to live under. Yet, as Pastor Ray pointed out, when there is a reversal of economics like this who benefits and who is the victim? This may show us how God's grace cannot be understood as justice in our world unless we learn this through a parable that tells all the truth but tells it slant while we react by squirming.
And our squirming is good.
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