“What Shall I Do Now?” - Baccalaureate Address by George Lyons

“What Shall I Do Now?”

Luke 16:1-13 (NIV)[1]

Baccalaureate Address ▪ Northwest Nazarene University ▪ May 11, 2001

George Lyons

Because you’ve heard the scripture read, you probably realize that the title for my remarks tonight is a line from one of the most unlikely characters in all the parables of Jesus. The words of the “Dishonest Manager” are not his musings over what he will do after graduation. Quite the contrary, he’s just received notice from his employer that he’s being terminated; and he’s considering his limited options. Although his words — “What shall I do now?” — seem appropriate enough for this formal gathering, we must take care not to read them entirely out of context.

No doubt, most of you graduates have plans for the near future — jobs with starting salaries surpassing your professors’, continuing education in prestigious graduate schools, marriages to perfect mates, and new locations miles away from the familiar aroma of the beet factory. You think you know what you’re going to do next. With your diploma in hand, your options seem almost unlimited and your future, promising. Such was not the case with this hapless manager.

He was the employee of a certain rich man, who does not seem to be the hero of our story. Everyone knows about rich people! Ancient stereotypes make today’s seem mild by comparison. Misers. Insensitive. Cheats. Power-hungry. Money-grubbers. Most came by their wealth dishonestly — taking advantage of the poor — and preserve it by manipulating others to gain more. Others inherited their wealth without lifting so much as a finger. Everyone knows about rich people! And everyone knows what the rich and powerful think about the rest of us.

If you’re seen “The Wizard of Id” comic strip, you’re familiar with its intolerant little king. In one strip an angry mob has gathered in the streets outside the palace. A messenger rushes into the throne room with the news, “The peasants are revolting!” to which the king responds, “You can say that again!” Peasants don’t care much for pompous princes either — or for their aides, for that matter.

“There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions” (Lk 16:1). Of course, it is possible that the rumors about the manager’s malfeasance were maliciously motivated — maybe even untrue. Perhaps, the manager was the unfortunate target of a smear campaign. As the representative of a rich man, the manager’s position was extremely tenuous. To stay on good terms with his employer required him to enhance his master’s holdings. Just doing his job brought him into direct contact and daily conflict with the impoverished masses as the despised “bill collector.” In this exploitive and predatory system the manager’s position in the middle made him a target from both sides — his master’s insatiable greed and the debtors’ backstabbing.

Whether or not the gossip was true, the rich employer distrusted his manager enough to act promptly. “So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer’” (Lk 16:2). If the manager said anything in his own defense, we are not told what he said.

Perhaps, a crimson flush moving up his neck and face said it all. Did the shame of being caught red-handed leave him speechless? Is the manager’s silence an implicit admission of guilt?

Or is there another explanation? Perhaps, he discerned from the tone of his master’s voice and his demeanor that nothing would change his mind. He’d been summarily fired. What room was there for explanations or pleas for mercy?

Although the manager said nothing to his master, Jesus lets us enter the desperate man’s thoughts, as he talks to himself, so we can empathize with his plight. “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg’” (Lk 16:3).

Cut loose from his only viable source of livelihood, the dismissed manager recognizes that his options are few and bleak. His cushy job had ill-prepared him to compete with those who survived by sheer brawn. And his association with the elite gave him no appetite for the soup kitchen. He’s been charged with corruption or incompetence; but the manager admits only that he is weak and proud.

So it is in total despair that he asks himself, “What shall I do now?” (Lk 16:3). Suddenly, a course of action dawns on him — “I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses” (Lk 16:4). At this point in Jesus’ story, we are denied further access to the manager’s thoughts. We are not told his scheme, only its motivation — future security.

What exactly did the manager hope to gain by his apparently dishonest scheme? If incompetence got him into this mess, would conniving get him out? We get just two glimpses of what the manager did next.

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

For those who don’t keep up on the commodities market, the manager’s unauthorized “discounts” amounted to the first-century equivalent of over three-years’ wages for each debtor. And these were just two of who-knows-how-many debtors. This “discount” did not directly benefit the manager. He simply wrote off from twenty to fifty percent of the debts owed — at his master’s expense.

What did the manager hope to gain by his daring scheme? Was this just one example of how he typically mismanaged his master’s possessions (Lk 16:1), one last opportunity to defraud his master, even if it brought him no direct personal gain? If he imagined that his generosity would allow him to become a permanent houseguest of those debtors his “creative” accounting benefited, how long would they extend hospitality to their former enemy, once he lost his job and his ability to benefit them further? Did he hope that the goodwill generated by his “generosity” would get him a better job? Did desperation drive him to desert his usual integrity and live up to the charges against him? Or, is it possible that the manager was now dealing honestly for the first time — dispensing with the exploitive interest he’d previously added to the debts, despite the provisions of God’s Law against usury? Had he come to his senses at last and decided to obey God and use his final moments in office to the advantage of the downtrodden?

We cannot be sure. And we are not told whether his plans were successful. What we are told is by far the most puzzling feature of this strange parable: “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly” (Lk 16:8a; emphasis added). Are we to imitate this sleazy character? Is he the hero of our story? What are we to make of this strange parable and of this strange master?

What makes the Parable of the Dishonest Manager all the more difficult to understand is its location immediately following one of the best known and most loved stories of Jesus — the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Keep in mind that chapter divisions in the Bible are not an original part of the ancient text; they were introduced well over a thousand years later. Is the proximity of these two parables in Luke’s Gospel merely an unfortunate coincidence? Or do these two stories shed light on each other, mutually informing their correct interpretation?

Is it possible that the despised and envied “rich man” in our parable actually represents the distorted image of God held by many people? Distant? Demanding? Inscrutable? Are the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Dishonest Steward really about the “Indulgent Heavenly Father,” who forgives the undeserving, and about the “Foolish Divine Master,” who commends those who likewise forgive others? Can we learn from these stories about a God whose forgiveness overrides the scheming of a wayward son and a crooked manager?[2] Is this a shocking glimpse of a kingdom in which the forgiveness of debts is more than a petition in a prayer?[3]

Is it even possible that the “dishonest manager” somehow represents Jesus, whose “outrageous and scandalous cancellation of debt . . . so upset the religious authorities of his day”? He certainly practiced a forgiveness that defied human expectations and seemed unjust by human standards.[4] I’ll let you decide.

My concern is this: Does this strange parable teach us anything that might be relevant to graduates pondering the question, “What shall I do now?”

Immediately following the parable’s conclusion Jesus remarks, “. . . The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings” (Lk 16:8b-9). “If a bad man will take pains to make friends to cushion his fall, then good people ought to take time to make friends to further the reign of God.” Far too often “the people of the light” grudgingly receive prodigals more like the unforgiving elder brother than like his indulgent father. We alienate the very people we should cultivate “with kindness and friendship.”[5] If worldly people are shrewd enough to use their masters’ money to its best advantage, shouldn’t God’s servants use their resources to further his cause, and their own eternal good?[6]

Should we see ourselves in this desperate, destitute, devious manager? What can those heading out to make their place in this world learn from this parable?

John Wesley’s entitles his sermon on this parable, “The Use of Money.”[7] For him its central point is that the way we handle our temporal assets determines our eternal destiny. If we believe — really believe, as we profess we do — in the world to come, we will give careful attention to how we use our resources in this world. Money is never to be an end in itself, but always a means to an end.

Wesley notes that worldly people are wiser in their use of money than most Christians. They are more consistent with themselves; truer to their principles; more committed to their goals than the people of the light. Jesus urged his followers to learn this from the dishonest manager: Gain friends by doing all the good you can, by all the means you can, so that when you and your wealth are gone, God may welcome you into heaven.

Wesley protests the neglect by most Christians of this issue. It is true, he says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” But money itself is not evil. The fault does not lie in the money, but in those who use it. It may be used badly. And what may not? But it may be used well, to serve noble ends in the hands of God’s children. It may be food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, clothing for the naked, shelter for the homeless, home for the orphaned, defense for the oppressed, health to the sick, relief to those in pain, eyes to the blind, feet to the lame.

To instruct Christians as to how money may achieve such glorious ends, Wesley formulates three simple rules. By carefully observing all of these, we may prove ourselves to be faithful managers of our assets.[8] First, gain all you can. Second, save all you can. Third, give all you can.

To gain all we can applies not only to money. Wesley insists that it is a shame for Christians not to improve on whatever assets they have. We should continually learn — from the experience of others and our own; from reading and reflection — to do everything better today than we did yesterday.[9]

By save all we can,[10] Wesley does not have in mind wise investments in the stock market. The virtue he recommends is frugality: Do not waste any of your God-given assets.

But Wesley continues. If we stop here, all is for nothing. We do not save anything, if we only pile it up. We either use assets wisely, or effectively throw them away. If we are to use them to gain friends for ourselves, we must add a third rule. Having, gained all we can and saved all we can, we must give all we can.[11]

But can we really learn this from the dishonest manager? After all, the money he gave away was not his, but his master’s. Wesley insists that this is precisely the point. Christian giving is grounded on the biblical conviction that God alone is the Owner of everything. We are in his world, not as masters, but as managers. God has entrusted us, for a while, with assets of various kinds. But they remain his property. We do not even own ourselves. God calls us to offer ourselves and our substance to him as living and holy sacrifices, acceptable to him through Jesus Christ, to serve him and those for whom Christ died.[12]

Graduates, has news reached the Master of the universe that you have been wasting his possessions? Time is of the essence! Ask yourselves, “What shall I do now?” Consider this carefully and prayerfully; your very lives are at stake.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Lk 16:10-13).

“What shall I do now?” you ask. What NNU has urged you to do throughout your time here: “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33).