Reason Me This

When I was a young girl, I had a few favorite TV shows that my Mother allowed me to watch after school. For some reason, Mom understood that I needed to let my brain relax and stop thinking for an hour so I could later do a little homework before bed. Mindless TV is a go-to choice for me. My routine was to arrive home after school, have a snack, watch two or three of my favorite afterschool TV shows, play outside with the neighborhood kids for an hour or two, have dinner, do homework, then bed. My favorite shows… Gilligan’s Island, Batman, The Green Hornet, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer and Lost in Space. In Batman, the villain called the Riddler always spoke in riddles and you had to reason the riddle to anticipate what the Riddler was doing. He would say to Batman, “Riddle me this, Batman,” then state the riddle. I loved to figure out what the Riddler was doing alongside Batman while sitting in the den enjoying a Drake's Ring Ding. It’s funny how things impress upon you like “riddle me this” did to me.

Another impressionable thing my Mom did was to answer homework questions like a rabbi. When you ask a rabbi a question, typically he won’t outright answer you and instead leads you in a reasoning discussion so through that process, you actually learn the answer yourself. When you learn something directly as opposed to simply hearing the answer, you understand it better, can recall and apply the learned lesson in your life. The answer means something to you now because you went through the learning process of reasoning. So, when I would ask my Mom how to spell a word, I was greeted with, “Well, how do you think it’s spelled?” I would have to guess and sound the word out phonetically working through the process to spell the word answering my own question. That process was probably the best learning process for me as one of my weaknesses is spelling. Needless to say, I did the same “rabbinical” teaching style with my kids.

As a result of some of these formative events, I enjoy reasoning. I enjoy looking at things and determining issues, opportunities, alternative plans, reasons for doing. Why is this happening? How is this happening? What’s really going on here? Where are the road signs and contextual indicators charting the course? What makes this tick? Where is the solution? Are there one, two or more solutions or courses of action?  This is how I try to approach Scripture when reading so as not to simply gloss over the text thinking the meaning is evident or drawing incorrect conclusions thereby attributing wrong interpretations to God’s character.

When reading Scripture, we forget that Jesus was also considered a rabbi with authority to interpret Scripture. He would not only want us to grasp what He is saying but also to have that lesson impact us at our core reflection to be the catalyst to impressionable and actionable change.  Being a rabbi, Jesus answered questions in a rabbinical style through parables or posing the question back to the inquiring person(s) asking the person to reason the answer. “Show me a coin. Who’s image is on the coin?” “Who do you think I am?” “Suppose one of you has… Do you not…?” When asked a simple question, Jesus many times would answer with a lengthy parable (or riddle) where in that parable, He poses several scenarios laced with contextual details that should have caused the questioning person to reason for the point. In that reasoning process, not only would the person come to the answer but he would also have to reflect on the intent of his own heart and thoughts as they relate to God and God’s truths. The reasoning process should reveal truths about who God is and who you really are. You can almost hear Jesus saying, “Reason me this, Pharisees. Reason me this, Disciples. Reason me this, Rose.”

If we simply read Scripture superficially and not engage with Jesus in His invitation to reason, critically think, chew on His Word and digest it, we are missing the greatest part of learning from Him and one of the most exciting parts of being in relationship with Jesus. After all, Jesus is called “the Bread of Life” and said that “Man does not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) Jesus is also spiritual water for those who thirst after God. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) So we are to chew on His Word. Feed our spirits and souls on His teachings. Drink down His teachings. Nourish and refresh our spirits and souls so we can be well nourished on God’s truth, grow strong in our faith in God understanding the lessons so that we can apply them to our lives, living out our faith as a testimony to God thereby glorifying Him and leading other. We are to be in active relationship with Jesus. 

“Reason me this, Rose.” 

While reading the parables in Luke, I came to chapter 16 where Jesus tells the parable of “the shrewd manager.” I have to admit, this parable gnaws at me. It’s one of those parables that seem out of place with God’s character. “Why is this in the Bible,” I find myself asking? And, “Why is Jesus telling this parable to the Pharisees?” It seems understandable but, then again it seems contrary to God’s character thereby being one of those sections of Scripture that seems conflicting with the Bible. I reread it over a couple of days asking God to explain it to me knowing there had to be more to it than what met my eyes. “What are you trying to teach us, Jesus? Tell me what this parable means? Why is the dishonest manager commended and called shrewd? And why are we to act shrewdly with fellow believers? And what about the rich man? Is there something with him, too? Help me understand, please.” Once again, Jesus did help me reason the meaning.

“Reason me this, Rose,” and the reasoning began.
 
I started with what was in front of me: the rich man and his manager who was accused of wasting the rich man’s possessions. The rich man and his manager. The one man was rich and the employer. The rich man’s employee was his manager and he has been accused of wasting his employer’s property. (Reason me this.) First, I noticed that the manager was accused of wasting his employer’s property. Not caught in the act. Not possessing evidence of misusing the property or possessing property. And what was the property, anyway? Food? Money? Land? Animals? Homes and furnishings? People? Then I thought, why would the manager feel comfortable misusing his employer’s property? Was he unsupervised? Was the employer overly trusting? And later Jesus calls this manager “dishonest” (Luke 16:8) so it becomes more reasonable to conclude that this man was worthy of being accused. But, I kept thinking about why the manager felt comfortable misusing his employer’s property and, if he was, he was now confident enough to do the actions visibly. People have now witnessed the actions and brought word to the employer’s attention. Perhaps now the manager was becoming brazen in his dishonest practices. A person only becomes brazen in his actions if he, 1) is confident the actions are acceptable and won’t be called into question, 2) is unsupervised enough that he believes he won’t be discovered or 3) thinks he’s in an untouchable position. So, either the rich man (the employer) was overly trusting, absent or he set a tone that the behavior was acceptable.

Ah ha! The rich man… hey, what about this guy do we know? I went back to the beginning of Luke 16 to see clues about the rich man – the employer. Seeing the parable appeared to be a continuation of the conversation from the previous chapter – Luke 15 – I went to the beginning of Luke 15 to read for context. Sure enough, it appears that Luke 15 and 16 are one conversation; actually, it appears that Luke 14 through 16 are one conversation where Jesus is dining at a prominent Pharisee’s home and taking advantage of the audience there to have teachable moments where Jesus is posed questions and He answers them in parables – riddles – causing the guests at the dinner to reason and reflect. In Chapter 14, there may be a break where Jesus leaves the home of the Pharisee, meets up with His crowd of followers (groupies) and continues teaching in parables but, even if that is the case, it doesn’t change the meaning of or reason for the parable teachings.

The first series of parables begins with Jesus healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath at this dinner. Have you ever noticed that at these dinner parties Jesus attended, there seemed to be people from the neighborhood who don’t appear to be invited guests to recline at the table but, party crashers there to see Jesus? These “uninvited” dinner guests seem to be allowed to crash the dinner party in order to see how Jesus would react to them, in front of the Jewish leadership so then the Jewish leadership could pin Jesus into a theological corner to question Him. In this case of theological sparing, it’s the presence of a man with dropsy – a man needing healing – at a dinner party, at the house of Pharisee, on a Sabbath. Can you see the set-up? Jesus knows what’s happening, heals the man, then begins to pepper the Pharisees and the rest of the dinner guests and party crashers with parables explaining truths of God while also revealing the intent of the hearts of each person in that room. Each person. Not just the Pharisees but, Luke 15 reveals that sinners and tax collectors have crashed this party and Luke 16 reveals that Rabbi Jesus’s student followers are at the party too. This is a big dinner party!

If we assume that Luke 14 through 16 are one event, then at that dinner party are Pharisees – part of the ruling body of the Jewish religious nation – Jesus, His disciples (maybe more than 12 of them as the 12 were the Apostles), most likely “the help” associated with the host Pharisee, the “party crashers” including the man with dropsy (Luke 14:2) and tax collectors and sinners (Luke 15:1). If Rabbi Jesus is addressing the entire audience with His series of “riddles”, then in each parable will be a character that will represent the heart attitudes of each person in the room. In the case of Luke 16, the rich man and his shrewd manager each have a role in the parable and, the heart intentions of both characters will speak to every person in the room.

So, we must also look at the rich man to see why he is in this parable and what does the rich man say about us. Which brings me back to the tension between the rich man (employer) and the shrewd manager (employee) and the question of why the manager felt confident in wasting his employer’s property? In order to consider the rich man’s position in this parable, we need to read what the shrewd manager did after being confronted by his rich employer. The manager calls all of his employer’s debtors – those the rich man did business with who owe him money – and asks each debtor what each owes his employer. After learning what each debtor owes, the manager takes a percentage off each bill thereby reducing the debt each man owed to the rich man. Then the strangest interchange happens. The rich employer commends the accused employee – the dishonest manager – for his actions calling the employee shrewd. The actions by the employee just placed him in a position that, if the rich man were to fire him from his job, one the grateful debtors may consider hiring him. We also do not see the rich man following through and firing the now shrewd manager. To add to the puzzle, Jesus now calls the shrewd manager dishonest but tells the hearers of this parable to act shrewdly like this manager when dealing with fellow believers. Huh?! Oh my… time to digest and think.

“Reason me this, Rose.”

Perhaps we should consider that the rich man, just because Jesus suggests that this man has been wronged by his employee, became wealthy by some dishonest ways as well. Perhaps his business practices allowed him to make additional wealth and, if his manager was aware of any alleged dishonest practices, then the manager had a reason to believe his dishonest management practices would be acceptable to his employer or at least overlooked. Mulling over this, within the parable, what clues show that the rich employer may have also been dishonest?

As we reason, keep in mind that the Bible doesn’t condemn wealth. Many people featured in the Bible were wealthy and accepted by God such as Abraham (Gen 13:2), Lot (13:5) David, Solomon (1 Kings 3:13), Job (Job 1:10), Nebuchadnezzar, the woman in Proverbs 31, Joseph of Arimathea (Matt 27:57), and Lydia (Acts 16:14) to name a handful. However, throughout the Bible we see that people wrongly believed that wealth was given to a person because God deemed that person as righteous (or in right standing with Him) and, the reverse, poverty was an indication that the person was not righteous or worse cursed by God. Similarly, good health was seen as proof that the person was considered righteous by God and illness was a sign of being a sinner thereby cursed by God with poor health such as being lame or a leper or blind, etc. If there wasn’t a well-known reason for a specific person to be suffering from poverty or illness or another affliction, then it was assumed that someone in that afflicted person’s family had sinned and the punishment for the sin was being administered to several generations as a result (John 9:2).

However, Jesus spent much time correcting this thought process showing that it is the thoughts and intentions of man and the actions that come from those thoughts and intentions (beliefs, thoughts, will, desires) that deem a person to be a sinner or accepted by God. Wealth and money were to be stewarded well and used to help people. Trust was to be placed in God and His abilities and not placed in wealthy people or the money itself (Luke 12:20). Remember God Himself is actually the creator of all things that we call wealth. Following the creation act, God calls all things He created good. God has heavenly storehouses and treasuries filled with His created good things. He also created civilization, community and the economy. He is the ultimate wealthy being. And yet, when God came to earth to dwell with us in human form – Jesus – and to teach us His truths, God came as a homeless, severely destitute person. Jesus arrived into this world poor and left this world poor. From all indications in Scripture, Jesus never amassed any wealth during His 33 years as a human on this planet. So, if God lived both extremes, then He deems neither existence over the other as an indication of righteousness or cursed.

In the case of this parable, being the rich employer doesn’t mean he was good at heart and had amassed his wealth by being righteous thereby blessed by God. And, if everyone at the time Jesus was teaching this parable wrongly thought that being rich meant you were righteous according to God, and if Jesus was teaching God’s truths through these two parable characters correcting misperceptions, and if some of the Jewish religious leaders (Pharisees) were in the audience, then perhaps the rich man’s appearance in the parable has more to do with the position of the rich man rather than the dishonest/shrewd manager.

Back to the clues: When the rich man calls the dishonest manager shrewd, it’s because the dishonest manager reduced the debt of each debtor by what appears to be an arbitrary amount. So, if the manager was being accused of wasting his employer’s property, why would the rich man appear to commend his manager for reducing the debt of the people who owed the rich man money? Furthermore, why would Jesus tell His disciples to act shrewdly with fellow believers like non-believers act with one another? Yes, it’s getting sticky… unless… unless the manager corrected something that his rich employer was doing dishonestly too! Then that would explain why the rich man commended his employee rather than fire him and have him thrown into jail for confirmed stealing.

Perhaps the amount reduced by the manager to each debtor was a percentage amount. Perhaps it was an interest on top of the debt. If that was in fact the case, then the rich man was violating the Law by charging interest on top of the debt owed. Deuteronomy 23:19-20 says: “Do not charge your brother interest whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.”

This harkens back to the truths of God. God doesn’t hate wealth. It is to be used to assist people. And when you assist people with your wealth you can do one of several things. You can just give expecting nothing in return. Maybe you trust that one day, when you need the assistance, someone will do the same for you. Or you can lend someone out of your wealth and allow the person to reimburse you the amount borrowed. Sometimes there may be a good reason to do this. The last option is to lend expecting reimbursement in full plus an additional interest amount to compensate you for the loss of your investment. In the Law such as Deuteronomy 23:19-20, God tells us how to minimally act in acceptable ways. In this scenario, He says not to charge interest to fellow Israelites when lending. What we do with that Law and how it guides our intentions and actions, determines if we seek after the heart of God or not. If we give out of our wealth to assist someone and expect nothing in return, we leave the door of trust open for God to bless us knowing that, when we are in need, He will provide in some way.

In the case of the rich man’s debtors, what did each debtor owe? Gallons of olive oil and bushels of wheat – food items. More than that, these items are also items that are required sacrificial gifts for temple worship. Olive oil was used for food, medicinal reasons as well as for temple worship activities from the lampstand in the Holy area of the temple, to mixing with fine flour for offertory cakes, to pouring onto offerings. Wheat ground into fine flour was used in many of the gifts given at the temple during the required worship times. Plus, if you were ‘very poor’ (a status below just poor) and could not afford a dove or pigeon for a sin offering gift – which was a substitute gift for the poor who couldn’t afford a lamb, goat or young bull – the very poor were allowed to give fine wheat flour for a sin offering gift. Now the rich man’s potential offense has increased significantly.

Perhaps this rich man was at minimal charging interest on top of food items to fellow Israelites. Worse, perhaps he was charging interest on top of food items to fellow Israelites who were also using the food items in their worship activities. Even worse, for the man that owed a thousand bushels of wheat, perhaps he was very poor and was being charged interest on top of what he owed and some of the wheat was being used as a sin offering as well as food. This man would have been in a situation of perpetual indebtedness to the rich man which would have been a form of slavery.

I think we can safely eliminate that the man owing the wheat may not have been “very poor” because the manager was hoping his debt-reducing actions would lead to future employment should he lose his job as the rich man’s manager. I think we can safely deduce that the rich man was simply charging illegal interest to fellow Israelites on top of what was owed.

That debt-reducing action now revealed to the debtors and others within the rich man’s household, who perhaps knew the manager was being accused of misusing property, that the rich man was also being dishonest. Once this rich man’s dishonesty was made known publicly, the rich man could not fire or imprison the manager for any dishonest actions he did without self-accusing. And that is a shrewd action. That is why the rich man called his dishonest manager shrewd. The manager indirectly and professionally exposed the dishonesty of the rich man doing it in such a way that it placed the rich man in a position to correct his behavior too.

This is why I think the manager felt comfortable abusing his authority by using the rich man’s property in a way that was above customary.  If his employer was breaking the Law in such a fashion, then the employer certainly wouldn’t mind if the manager used an animal for his personal needs or ate food from the storehouse designated for the rich man or did something else. The manager felt safe with his dishonesty because his employer was also doing illegal things.

This showed that the wealth gained by the rich man was not a blessing given by God because the rich man was “righteous in God’s eyes”. This showed that the rich man was abusing his wealth at the detriment of his fellow Israelites. And THAT would have stuck in the throats of the Pharisees because they loved money (Luke 16:14) and reasoned that their wealth, no matter how they acquired it, was seen as an indication of being in right standing with God.  Now here is Jesus (God in human form) telling them that they are not in good standing with God. Worse yet, Jesus just told everyone at the party that all fellow brothers and sisters in the faith should expose the wrong doings of other fellow believers when they act like the dishonest manager and the illegal rich man. Ouch!

The Pharisees were wrestling with the taught beliefs of their faith. They wrongly assumed they were in good standing with God because the enjoyed a lifestyle bought with wealth and when this man Jesus showed up doing the things that only the promised Messiah could do, the Pharisees expected Jesus to positively recognize and confirm them for being righteous. And Jesus does the exact opposite. Jesus is saying through this parable to the Pharisees and anyone who thinks like they do that, having an easy life or wealth isn’t an indication that you are in right standing with God. Having blessings from God doesn’t mean He justified the actions that you did in defiance of His standards. In fact, God gives us blessings to, 1) steward it for Him in the ways He called us to steward and, 2) as a test so that through the test we will see where our thoughts and intentions are thus where we stand with God and not deem ourselves deserving or self-righteous. (Matthew 25: 14-30)

Yet this parable isn’t solely about the rich man and Jesus isn’t condemning wealth. The shrewd manager didn’t get off easy, in Jesus’ eyes. Jesus calls the manager dishonest (Luke 16:8) so, what the manager was being accused of seems appropriate. The manager was trusted to act honestly on behalf of his employer – the rich man – and he did not. He took advantage of his employer’s trust so therefor, the manager may have been shrewd but not trustworthy. The manager was most likely part of the illegal practice as he probably issued the interest on top of the debt owed by the borrowers to his employer. After all, how did the manager know what amount to reduce each each when he was looking to protect himself? And what would the manager have been like if he were both shrewd and honest and trustworthy?

This parable is not an either-or conclusion. This parable points to a comprehensive understanding of God and man in relationship with God. Jesus didn’t come to abolish the Law – all 600+ standards of God – but to fulfill them and teach us the correct interpretation. In doing so, He also didn’t say that following the Law directly is the way to be considered righteous by God because God desires that we show mercy and compassion in addition to rules and regulations. Mercy and compassions should guide the actions resulting in following God’s standards.

When Jesus gave His sermon on the mount towards the beginning of His earthly ministry (we call it the Beatitudes), He corrected many teachings showing that it’s our hearts and minds – our intentions and thoughts – that indicate our right standing or lack thereof. People in the crowds following Him, who most likely had been excluded from the Jewish faith for breaking its Law, thought Jesus was telling the religious leaders that God wanted 100% mercy and compassion over the Law. Then Jesus says (in Matthew 5:17-20) that He didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it saying the standards of God outlined in the Law will not disappear until everything God is accomplishing is completed. Jesus was speaking out about being hypocritical. Don’t hold others to standards that you yourself cannot meet. Don’t incorrectly teach God’s truths to justify your actions. Don’t say you’re one kind of person then act like another acting against the standards of the primary person you claim to be.

Looking at the characters in this parable in this manner helped me better understand Jesus’s concluding points in Luke 16: 8 through13. From what I gather, Jesus is saying that we fellow believers are not to allow other fellow believers to take advantage of a situation, misrepresenting God’s truths for personal gain. We are to use what God has blessed us with to benefit others for the eternal sake of others. By doing this you are “storing up treasures in heaven” as opposed to storing up treasures here on earth that will be threatened by theft and calamity (Luke 12:16-21). Jesus said that if you are trustworthy with the little things in life, it’s a good indication that you will be trustworthy with the bigger, weightier things as your guiding, root intentions and thoughts are correct. And lastly, life is not God plus something, in this case money. You cannot well-serve two bosses. You cannot serve both God and money. Or to think of it this way: You cannot profess to be a follower and believer of God and not have that faith impact your life’s decisions and actions. You cannot worship God just one day a week then go off and live your life any way you please. In effect, by living this way, you are serving two masters; 1) God and 2) Life, in this case Money. In both cases – the rich man/employer and the dishonest/shrewd manager – each man allowed their selfish thoughts towards money shape their life’s decisions and actions. They each had the opportunity to have God shape their decision and actions and, until the dishonest manager acted shrewdly, neither acted in a right manner towards the people placed into their lives. Neither managed what God had entrusted each to manage. Because, after all, in God’s economy, the people He created are His valuable treasure worth saving.

And where am I in the parable? I hate to admit that after reasoning, I am now reflecting, questioning myself and will ask God to correct me. Yes, I am a work in progress. I am surely not perfect and these lessons apply to me as well. The point being is that, through reasoning with Jesus, the process exposed in me aspects about myself that need the hand of God to touch, heal and correct. Without this process, I would be oblivious to the things in me needing correction. For that, I am thankful for this process shared with Jesus.

Reason me this.