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Trinity 15

Readings: 1 Timothy 2: 1-7; Luke 16: 1-13

19/09/04

Sometimes the bad guy wins. That’s life, and we have to learn to deal with it. But why is
Jesus making the bad guy into a good example for his disciples?

The manager in the gospel reading knows he’s done wrong and so he sets about making friends
with his boss’s debtors so that he might have someone to go to when he gets sacked.
Surprisingly, the rich man commended the crooked manager for his shrewdness. He certainly
has good business sense. His explanation? “For the children of this age are more shrewd in
dealing with their own age than are the children of light.”

He tells his disciples to “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that
when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” I just didn’t understand this
at all, so I had to look around for help. I looked at a contemporary translation of the
Bible by Eugene Peterson in which the passage is translated as follows:

“The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself.
Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant
alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way –
but for what is right – using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to
concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not
complacently just get by on good behaviour.”

Now, that does make sense to me. Then the message becomes that we should use all the means
at our disposal to engage with the world, to manage the resources God has given us, and to
build God’s Kingdom in this world. Whereas the crooked manager makes friends with his
master’s debtors in order that they will welcome him after he loses is job, we should make
friends with our master’s debtors so that we, and perhaps they too, will be welcomed into
the Kingdom of Heaven.

God gives each of us responsibilities. He starts off with small responsibilities, for our
own actions, then works outwards, showing us our wider responsibility for other parts of his
created world. Here’s an example: if I don’t drop litter I keep the local environment
cleaner; if I recycle as much as possible I reduce the use of landfill sites and the
resulting pollution is reduced; if I use recycled products I encourage commercial companies
to engage in recycling; if I buy organic food, I encourage farming methods that benefit the
environment; if I support an environmental charity I can have a larger impact.

We are stewards of God’s world, and should take that seriously because we will be held to
account for it. It applies to our finances, our family responsibilities, our work-life
balance, and our engagement with the political process. If non-Christians are thinking about
these issues then how much more should we, as stewards of God’s world, be thinking about
them?

Two weeks ago I attended an event at St Paul’s Cathedral where the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, took part in a discussion panel with various experts on the subject ‘How
should we be governed?’ Part of what came out of that discussion was that the political
process is beginning to open up to ordinary people, non-politicians that is, in a way that
has not been experienced before. The internet has opened up communication paths that were
not available before. Charities, non-governmental organisations, the church, are able to
lobby parliament and can have a real and direct impact on government policy. One example
quoted was the ‘Jubilee 2000’ appeal, where thousands of Christians of many denominations
appealed to government to reduce or cancel the debts of Third World countries.

The cancellation of a huge debt does not make sense in a worldview where money is the
master. But even that crooked manager in Jesus’s story realised that reducing a debt can win
you friends. In a world where the actions and policies of one government or people can have
a direct impact on countries in the opposite hemisphere, it is sensible for the nations to
be friends and not enemies.

To that end Paul instructs Timothy that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we
may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” So we are to pray for
everyone, whether it’s a politician we voted for or not, whether we like them personally or
not.

But that doesn’t mean that we are praying for a quiet life, “not [to] complacently just get
by on good behaviour”. Paul continues that praying, “is right and is acceptable in the sight
of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth.” We are praying for the opportunity to bring our world into reconciliation with God.

I’m reminded of a television interview I saw with Tony Blair where the interviewer, knowing
that Bush and Blair are both Christians, asked whether the two of them pray together when
they meet. Tony said no, and tried to laugh it off as if it was a silly suggestion which, in
fairness, the interviewer obviously thought it was. Maybe I’m naïve, but I thought ‘why on
earth not?’. I can’t imagine anything worse resulting from a meeting begun with prayer than
from one that isn’t. If world leaders could pray together, or perhaps the issue is they
could admit they pray together, what an example that would be to follow and what amazing
results we might see.

Praying is no small thing. Not everybody is in a position to be directly involved in the
political process, but we can all be involved in making our part of the world more pleasant
in some way, and to place our actions in the context of God’s love through prayer is an
important thing that we can all do.

Now we are going to pray together, remembering that what we do is “right and acceptable in
the sight of God” and also remembering our responsibility to live as we pray.