The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, 18 September 2016: Queen Camel w West Camel, Corton Denham w Sutton Montis
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 22 September 2019: St Columba's Church, Gruline
Imagine a world where the greatest power in it, the principle by which the world operated, was that of mercy, compassion and forgiveness.
Imagine a world where you called up your credit card company, said, “I’m sorry, I’ve overextended myself this month; and I can’t make my payment,” and the bank said, “Oh, that’s O.K., you’re forgiven. Don’t worry about it.”
Imagine a world where you make a huge mistake at work that cost your company thousands of pounds, and your boss simply said, “Never mind! These things happen. You’ll do better next time.”
Imagine a world where Philip Green takes a look at his finances, hands over three-quarters of his personal billions to his BHS employees, and says, “I’m retiring from this, but here, organise yourselves into a workers cooperative, do it your way, and succeed, with my blessing.” [2]
Why do we laugh at such suggestions? Only because the world we live in, which has shaped our outlook on life, is a world which doesn’t operate on mercy, compassion and forgiveness, it operates on the cold, hard exchange of value, on the survival of the strongest. The business world is a ‘dog eat dog’ world.
What would it be like to live in a world which was run on merciful and compassionate lines?
Our calling as Christians is to be people who can imagine such a different world, and in the imagining, help bring this world into being.
Our faith is that the ‘dog eat dog’ way is not the only way, for we can see the way of mercy, compassion and forgiveness gently breaking in, like flowers through concrete. Our task is to tend these carefully so that they flourish and spread.
Our inspiration is Jesus of course, whose teachings about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, whose parables, provoke and encourage such imaginings.
Take today’s parable for example. It seems to be about the usual 'dog eat dog' world of work and business. A manager who works for a rich man is caught in some kind of incompetence. Jesus tells us that he has squandered his master’s property. In other words, he’s made a mistake of some sort that has cost his company maybe millions of pounds. So as a consequence, he’s fired.
But rather than firing him immediately, taking his keys, giving him a few minutes to clear out his office, and have a security guard escort him out, the Managing Director in Jesus’ parable makes the mistake of letting the manager stay on to settle up his last accounts. And this shrewd manager makes the most of his opportunity. He pulls a sting operation. He makes some friends with his Managing Director’s clients by writing off substantial portions of their bills. How clever was that! He gets even with his old boss and potentially wins himself new people to work for. These clients of his old boss will owe him a favour. Out, but not down, the sneaky manager has pulled a fast one.
Following the parable Jesus gives us some pithy proverbs to follow: proverbs which offer two ways, two paths, through life: the children of this age vs. children of the light; being a very little faithful vs. being a very little dishonest; ‘No slave can serve two masters.’ And the ultimate statement, ‘You cannot serve God and wealth.’
The essence of Jesus’ message is that we have only two choices in life: to serve the kingdoms of this world, which amounts to serving wealth, or to serve God in his way of compassion. You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve God and wealth. There are only two basic paths in life: God’s way is the way of merciful love, the way of compassion.
For those who have benefited from the tit-for-tat way, the survival of the fittest - me and you included - it’s almost incomprehensible that our God sent Jesus into the world to essentially be one of the losers, branded a criminal and hung upon the cross. It’s astonishing that from the cross Jesus refused to play the game of tit-for-tat. Instead, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” Can you imagine any more mercy than that? Can you imagine the same power of merciful, compassionate forgiveness that raised Jesus from the dead transforming our lives, the life of the world around us, if we are only faithful to it even a very little. If only we can try to unlearn the dog-eat-dog ways, to reshape our behaviour towards compassion.
It is possible to imagine mercy breaking into our world. It even breaks into the parable, albeit in limited ways. We see the manager in this parable being just a little bit merciful, in a 'dog eat dog' sort of way. We see him using mercy as a commodity, to trade. To his master’s clients, he shows a contrived form of forgiveness, writing off big chunks of their bills, in order that they might show mercy back to him. He’s using mercy as a form of self-protection; but he’s using mercy.
Now this minuscule piece of faithfulness, use of mercy, surprisingly gets the poor dishonest manager far more mercy than he bargained for. For his incompetence, the manager got fired. For his dishonesty, one might expect him to get thrown in jail. Instead, Jesus tells us that “His master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” No jail. No retribution of any kind. Rather, a commendation. In our 'dog eat dog' world the doubly-wronged MD is showing mercy to his manager.
And so this trickster manager, this child of the age who, towards his clients, showed the smallest amount of faithfulness to God’s way of mercy, from his MD found an even greater mercy.
But we have seen this before in Luke’s gospel: someone who was faithful to the kingdom of mercy even a very little and then was overwhelmed by it. There’s the beloved parable of the Prodigal Son. That story comes immediately before the one we’ve heard today, suggesting that we should read these two parables together. Jesus says that the Prodigal Son and the Dishonest Manager both “squandered their possessions.” Both trying to hatch a way out of their fixes. The Prodigal Son “comes to himself” and plots a scheme to live once again off of his father’s being, albeit as a hired-hand this time instead of as a son. He hopes his father will have at least enough compassion to make him a hired hand. The Dishonest Manager is discovered by his master, but schemes another way in which to find mercy: if not from his master, then from his master’s clients.
Both men try to find a way to warrant mercy - and see how mercy comes! Before the Prodigal Son even has a chance to work his scheme, he finds his father running out to welcome him home. The dishonest manager forgives the clients in the expectation that they will repay him in kind, with the end result that “they may welcome me into their homes.”
Jesus seems to be suggesting that the children of this age can often show more imagination than the children of light about how to find mercy, albeit an exchange form of mercy. It’s a challenge to us. How often do we show faith in the generous mercy, compassion and forgiveness of God? Are we more like the Prodigal’s elder brother, not wanting to celebrate mercy, not wanting to be seen as incompetent fools like the prodigal son or the dishonest manager, squandering our possessions away? Would we rather rely on our own competence than imagine ourselves into a world operated by a loving Father, a world of merciful, compassionate, forgiveness?
You know, as the gospels record it, when Jesus taught The Lord’s Prayer these were the words he used: ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ And he meant it in a monetary way. In Luke, Jesus constantly encourages us to imagine ourselves into a world of forgiveness that impacts the way we live every area of our life. [3]
Imagine a world where those deep in debt are shown a way out, are given practical guidance and assistance towards becoming debt-free, and free of the problems of employment or addiction which may be contributing to their poverty. Well, that is the world which an organisation called Christians Against Poverty are bringing into being, with Debt Help, Job Clubs and addiction support groups working to try to release people who are ‘held hostage by the debt and poverty (which are) are rife in the UK’.
Imagine a world where a man called Matt, from one of the most deprived council wards in Britain, chronically disabled through injuries sustained at work, is able to sit face-to-face at a table at Westminster with the government welfare minister discussing the finer points of welfare policy, with a view to the minister making changes. Well, that is a world which the other CAP - Church Action on Poverty - bring about; a UK Christian campaigning organisation, ‘working in partnership with churches and with people in poverty themselves to find solutions to poverty.’ One of the profoundest moments in my ministry so far was in helping set up that very Westminster meeting. [4]
Imagine a world where energy companies are specifically established to help those affected by fuel poverty. Well, look at what a friend of mine Phil Levermore did 15 years ago, starting the company Ebico with just that aim, operating through a system of simple, fair and affordable tariffs. [5]
Imagine a world where people in business try to act with grace and compassion towards the vulnerable, the poor, and the earth itself - and look, there are plenty around today, in Fairtrade and renewables and sustainable farming, and so on.
If we open our eyes, hearts and minds we can see it already coming into being. Yes, it is possible to imagine ourselves into a world operated by a loving Father, a world of merciful, compassionate, forgiveness.
FORGIVE, Jesus says. Forgive it all. Forgive it now. Forgive it for any reason you want, or for no reason at all. Forgive even someone who’s sinned against you, or against your sense of what is obviously right. You don’t have to do it out of love for the other person, if you’re not there yet. You could forgive the other person because that's what you pray in Jesus’ name every Sunday morning, and because you know you’d like forgiveness yourselves. You could forgive because you know what it feels like to stay unforgiving, the bad taste of bitterness festering inside you. You could forgive because you are, or we want to be, deeply in touch with a sense of Jesus’ power to forgive and free sinners like us. Or you could forgive because you think it will improve your odds of getting to heaven.
It boils down to the same thing: deluded or sane, selfish or unselfish, there is no bad reason to forgive. Imagine how extending the kind of grace God shows us into every possible arena - financial and moral - can only put us more deeply in touch with God’s grace. [6]
Notes
[1] This is an adapted and Anglicised version of the sermon The Reign of Compassion by Paul J. Nuechterlein, delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, WI, September 19-20, 1998.
[2] William D. Cohan, How Sir Philip Green Made an Outrageous Fortune and Outraged an Entire Nation. Vanity Fair, September 9, 2016.
[3] Luke 11.4 / Matthew 6.12 Sarah Dylan Breuer, SarahLaughed.net: dylan's lectionary blog, Proper 20, Year C. Quoted in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Reflections, Year C, Proper 20C.
[4] Christians Against Poverty / Church Action on Poverty.
[5] Ebico.
[6] Sarah Dylan Breuer, SarahLaughed.net: dylan's lectionary blog, Proper 20, Year C. Quoted in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Reflections, Year C, Proper 20C.
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