Lazy and proud and incompetent – there’s a trifecta perfected by the manager in Jesus’ story, accused of squandering the property he was entrusted to oversee. Called on the carpet by his master, he responds: "'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'”
He acknowledges that there are honorable ways of getting out of his jam, but he chooses rather to run a scheme: "So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.'"
Not a bad plan. The boss gets some of what’s owed him, if at wholesale rather than retail prices. The customers get a deal. The manager has bought himself some influence with people who could do him a favor… which he will soon need. The approach is still in use – one of our former presidents made a career of paying his creditors much less than owed.
Jesus tells this story right after he tells one about a son who squandered his inheritance – two characters who misused resources entrusted to them, both in deep trouble. The son in the earlier story chooses to come clean and entrust himself to his father’s mercy. The guy in this story decides he will keep trying to play the situation, relying on his own strategies – which is pretty much what got him into this pickle in the first place.
A friend of mine calls these “self-saving strategies,” the things we do and say to justify ourselves, to stay self-sufficient instead of God-sufficient. What are some of your self-saving strategies? What in your life or work or relationships or self-image do you keep trying to “manage?” What patterns do you have that actually lead to more anxiety than peace?
Whether or not something comes to mind, we can all reaffirm our desire to trust God for what we need. We can say whether we feel God is close or far away, substantial or flimsy – and ask Jesus to show us how to trust more. That’s my prayer – “Show me your way, Lord. I’m tired of mine.”
Jesus could have taken all kinds of outs – he had people to run to. He had power. Instead, he put his trust, all his trust, in God’s plan, though it looked like a way scary and painful plan. He really had to expect blessing, trusting that the ending God had for this story was a whole lot better than it looked… In the long run, it was.
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