THE SCOUNDREL'S LESSON

Sermon by James W. Crawford

For Bill Ragan's Ordination, Allentown, PA

January 19, 1997

Luke 16:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

Jesus never used abstractions when he spoke of discipleship. He told of Good Samaritans and rich fools, of promising fig trees failing to produce, of wealthy people with poor people lying on their doorsteps. And once, in the parable we read this afternoon, he told of a dishonest, a corrupt manager. You will find the passage in your bulletins:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, '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.' 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.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light."

What, for heaven's sake, is Jesus saying? What kernel of truth could lie at the root of such a story? Well, let me offer an analogous tale. Some of you will be familiar with a nifty little film, starring Elaine May and Walter Matthau, entitled, "A New Leaf." The protagonist in the film, a man of phenomenal wealth, suddenly squanders himself poor. Being the inheritor of a tradition, described by his gentleman's gentleman as ". . . dead before you were born," our riches-to-rags hero finds himself faced by two choices: one, to live in poverty, before which condition he swears he will commit suicide. Or, two, to live in wealth--to gain which he must negotiate marriage. He chooses, of course, wealth--and marriage. And the chase begins. His search for the perfect matron leads him to charity balls, which he detests; to a variety of lecherous dowagers, all of whom he rejects. He finally settles on an unbelievably homely, incredibly naive, shockingly inept, fabulously rich botanist. In order to buy time to court her he borrows money from a usurious uncle at 1000% interest. He defends his lady's gaucheries by insulting and losing his friends. He deceives her guardian with a fraudulent sob story. He smilingly endures as she stains his furniture with coffee spills. He gently brushes bread and cookie crumbs from her skirt as they rise from table. He suffers her tastes in cheap wine. He finally proposes on a knee lacerated by shards from a glass she drops on the floor. But he wins her--and her fortune. Then, while she innocently goes about digging ferns and planning field trips, he plots her death through an overdose of pesticides.

Now, I am not up here this afternoon to endorse fraud or to applaud murder. But what does command attention is the hero's absolute devotion to getting his hands on that fortune, even to the extent of plotting his wife's demise in an Adirondack waterfall, or if all else fails, poisoning her with an overdose of Flit. There we see single minded pursuit of one's goals. There lies resolute, calculated planning. We can find ourselves perversely tempted to commend the film's hero just as Jesus commends that corrupt manager: for his shrewdness. In that New Testament managerial scoundrel Jesus introduces, we see deftness, quick thinking, unflustered action. We can almost hear Jesus saying to that crooked manager, "You rogue! Of all the impudent cleverness. You are an incredibly cunning scoundrel! I recognize something almost magnificent about you." While the disciples ponder the twist of this story, Jesus turns to them and drives home his point: ". . .for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light."

Our Lord makes his point simple: that corrupt manager works zealously, prudently, shrewdly, unflaggingly in his business of fraud, and Jesus covets that zeal and devotion for his cause. Be assured, Jesus does not commend the manager's fraud, but his resourcefulness, not his corruption but his unrelenting passion in pursuit of his chosen goal. And he closes the parable with a poignant observation: "It is too bad people with high aspiration and decent commitment, the children of light, do not work as hard at doing good as do those children of this age at making out for themselves."

II

This parable you see, invites us to resourceful, creative discipleship. It looks out on a fractured and difficult world and urges us to strong and courageous witness. And it treats us to a unique perspective. It encourages us to take a few lessons from that troubled world as we pursue the future of Christ in our churches and in our cities, whether it be Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, or that little overgrown New England village, Boston. Jesus says, "Put to use for gracious and compassionate ends the same imagination and creativity others use to hold their own or climb on the fast track in the world."

You all know how this works. The Allentown businessman, for instance. It takes more than strikes, taxes and inflation to put him out of business. A house full of guests will not keep him home in the evening if he is needed on the job. Competition forges his spirit. He is always thinking of something, tries everything, works three hundred-sixty- five days a year, never calls it quits. Now, we might condemn this fellow for being a wretched husband and father, but that's not the point. Our Lord wants that kind of zeal and tenacious perseverance invested in his future.

Or again--and I hope you will not think this, from a Boston boy, too chauvinistic--two weeks ago, as they do year after miserable year, 60,000 people sat for hours on a cold, rainy, drizzly, Sunday afternoon in a football stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, tolerating lewd and drunken behavior, risking pneumonia, unable even to witness the game through the dense fog, all for what is one of the most hexed, hapless and traditionally woeful franchises in the National Football League. Even good times bring bad things to the Patriots - like tearing down the goal posts after a rare victory, running onto Route One, crashing through wires and electrocuting yourself. (No one died.) But heaven forbid if it should rain or freeze when we should be canvassing for our political parties, raising money for our colleges, readying kids for church.

My soul! Think of the fervor spent in mastering the game of bridge, matching our wardrobes, building our hobbies. If it takes more coaching, more books, more equipment, more cosmetics, more money, more clubs, we will spare nothing. We eat, drink, sleep the rage of our lives. We know where to find a recipe for a gourmet soufflé, but can't tell in what biblical book to find the ten commandments. Some of us remember who handed off to whom, who blocked for whom, who threw what touchdown pass to whom in super bowls ten, fifteen, twenty -five years ago, but the great contributions of Paul and Augustine lying behind the vibrancy of our churches, gets sidetracked into oblivion. We can curse out Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, but are stumped when called upon for prayer. We can remember license plate numbers, telephone numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, E-mail addresses, and on-line passwords but our minds turn to mush when called upon to remember any Psalm beyond the 23rd. We can defend our political choices with vigor and eloquence but get tongue-tied if asked to defend the Gospel.

You all get the point. And as you ordain and install this young man and welcome his family into your midst this afternoon, I would plead with you to make a witness from Hope Church to match the  focus, the energy, the imagination of those who rigorously pursue more worldy ends. Indeed, to take Jesus's example, I would beg you to match those who would subvert, tarnish, and corrupt our life together.

Can you build character here at Hope Church? Well, if you take even a cursory look at what spews out of our nation's capital, with its cover-ups, its sell-outs, its dirty tricks, petty vengeance and its millions paid to political hacks to reveal through books their self proclaimed genius and the betrayal of their spouses, we can pray this afternoon at Hope Church, that the compounded shrewdness devoted to that sleaze be devoted in and through this church to an alternative life-style: an approach to personal character perhaps defined by one of Congregationalism's great spirits, Boston's George A. Gordon, who proceeded Bill Ragan in the ministry by over 100years. Gordon listed four words grounding radiant character:

. . . (1)simplicity, one purpose and one purpose only;
(2)sincerity with one purpose, real, utterly real;
(3)nobility, high tone, fine spirit, something of honor and light in the purpose;
 and (4)magnanimity, greatness of mind and heart . . . To con these words, to get them into the fiber of ones mind, to be arrested and tried by them, should be our daily habit. The simplicities, the sincerities, the nobilities, the magnanimities of life, how they conquer everything.

Those are watchwords for the children of light right here in this room this afternoon: watchwords in your homes, your work places, in this pulpit week by week, in that office down the hall, day by day.

And yes, looking out on what Jesus calls "this generation," we don't have to look far to discover those who would divide us by race or religion, by creed or nation. We see it in every ounce of shrewd planning and calculation that goes behind bombs in Belgrade, explosives in the Kashmir, terror in the Middle East, threats in Ulster, and right here in the good old U.S.A. tightening the ratchets on the poor, the vulnerable, the outsiders, scuttling the safety net, eroding the sense in our cities of the solidarity born of all-for-one-and-one-for-all.

Heaven forbid! Not here. Not in this church. Not in a church called Hope. One prays in these times we may reflect the mind and soul of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birth we celebrate this weekend.  Wondering, where we go from here, "Chaos or Community," Dr. King compared the world's human community to "a widely separated family inheriting a house in which we must live together." It is a large house," he said "a great world house reflecting the infinite diversity of the human family. Dr. King Pleads for the "Love of God to dwell in and be perfected in us." And he urges, "Let us hope this spirit will become the order of the day. We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever increasing tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals who pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee once said, 'Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning force of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope. [Do you hear that, you Allentown Hope churchers]? The first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word."

O my friends, this afternoon as you begin a new era in your church, as you join with this young man and his family in the inauguration of their ministry among and with you, I beg you take seriously this ironic and pungent, this artful and prickly parable.

Through it we hear our Lord saying to us that if we, the children of light, care as much for our goals, if we pursue compassionate, just and peaceful ends with the diligence, resourcefulness and shrewdness of that corrupt manager, perhaps some gracious and transforming changes would occur in our world. My prayer, as Bill and Betsy, Jimmy and Sarah begin their life among you, and you celebrate today this new ministry, my prayer says simply, be resolute in love, steadfast in courage,  patient in hope because dealing with this generation, for Christ's sake, demands the best, boldest, the bravest in you--yes, you!--the children of light.

Let us pray: Bless, O gracious God, this congregation, its mission and ministry. We pray for Bill Ragan as he begins his labor in this corner of your vineyard; succor and encourage Betsy and their children in seeking and serving you. Grant the ministry of pastor and congregation may prove to the world what they pray most to be: a church called Hope.