“Faithful Living”
September 21, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
We are continuing in our reading of the gospel of Luke. Two weeks ago we were poked pretty hard with the message, “True discipleship costs something.” Last week, Jesus told parables about lost things—but ended each parable by exclaiming how we should mirror God by living in joy about finding and being found. This week, well, I just throw up my hands.
Sure, I could circle back and say that this is just a continuation of what Jesus is saying about our priorities—“You can’t serve God and wealth.” You have to make choices. You have to work at living faithfully. That’s a pretty good topic for a sermon. And the whole last part of the reading—all that talk about “if you not faithful in a little, why should you be given even more?” makes sense. Even our financial giants use this logic. If they have an unfamiliar credit card, they will send a small charge, say $1, to see if the charge goes through—and then they will charge the larger amount. (This is how scammers work also). Faithful in a little, and maybe you can be trusted to be faithful in a lot.
But I’m a person who likes stories, and so I usually enjoy Jesus’ parables. This parable, called the “dishonest manager” is just hard to understand. Which means I want to spend a little time on it. The set-up seems easy enough. A manager of a large estate (of a rich man) is caught cheating—the parable says, “squandering the estate.”
We’re not told exactly what the manager is doing (we can imagine all kinds of things—like skimming money off the top of the accounts, or adding “extra” commissions to the charges and pocketing the surplus, or some other type of fraud).
So, we have a shifty manager. But he gets caught. Somehow his boss finds out. His employer calls him in, tells him to give him the accounts, to wrap up his business, because he, the manager, will no longer be working for him. What a dilemma! We almost feel sorry for this guy, because he tells us what he is thinking in his anxiety. I’m too old to dig—I’m not capable of performing manual labor anymore. What else is there? I can’t go on the streets and beg—I’ve got too much pride for that?
What else could he do? Thank goodness he doesn’t decide to go on a killing spree like the tragic man in “Fargo.” Or decide that he can’t go on living like this. And then it strikes him. His boss, the rich man, has possibly given him a way to make friends and influence people—as he is settling the accounts. One wonders why the rich man didn’t just throw this guy in jail! Or escort him from the property (not even allowing him to clean out his desk). The boss of the story doesn’t take away the keys, doesn’t bar him from working in the estate—he asks him to “give me an accounting.”
Here this dishonest manager changes his priorities of reaping as much monetary gain for himself, to reaping as much good will as possible for himself (thinking that when he is out in the street he will need people who are willing to help him, even welcome him into their homes). So he rewrites the bills. He calls the debtors in, one by one, and looks them in the eye and asks—“What do you owe?” One says, “100 jugs of olive oil”—so our manager says, “Make it 50.” Another says, “100 containers of wheat”—and our manager says, “Make it 80.”
See what he is doing? These creditors know that he is giving them a deep discount. He is giving up his “commission” or maybe even just defrauding his boss even further. However he is doing it—this dishonest manager is building up good will that he can cash in on later (such as when he is out of work and has nothing). It’s a smart move, even the rich man acknowledges that. (He doesn’t rehire him, but he “commends” him.)
Why would Jesus be telling us this story? What could he possibly be trying to say? Let’s look at the man himself. This is not a faithful person (unless you look at it that he is only faithful to himself). He has been given responsibility and he has taken advantage, for his own gain. And when he is found out, he “makes it up” to those creditors in another fraudulent scheme by “cooking the books.” But, you could say, that when he does that he switches his priority from greed, to good will. His actions in the end benefit more than just himself. They benefit the community—and thereby help him out as well.
Is Jesus trying to say that is what we should be doing? I don’t think Jesus is saying to pull the wool over our employers’ eyes. But maybe he is suggesting that we use the same energy, and craftiness, and smarts that we use in business as we go about our lives of faith. I’m not a very smart businessperson so I’m not sure I understand how Jesus thinks this might work in our world. Maybe Jesus is asking us to widen our vision of what gains and losses look like in our lives. If we could calculate what the kin[g]dom of God is worth to us—would we make more effort at living amid its realm? If we could understand how much value being faithful has, (symbolized by getting invited into eternal homes) would we be more likely to do what it takes?
And what is all this talk about how you treat a little is how you treat a lot? It looks like we are talking about money. And some of us might hear echoes of another parables (what we call the parable of the talents). If you can’t be trusted with a little money, how can you be trusted with a lot? That seems fairly straightforward. But I think Jesus is being trickier than that. Because we are not just talking about money. We are talking about money AND about being faithful to God. In fact, the concluding sentence even says, you have to pick—you can’t have both money and God as a first priority.
What if Jesus was talking about apples and oranges, instead of just apples. What if the meaning of his questioning is “you can tell a lot about a person in the way they manage their money.”
Are they greedy, keeping everything to themselves? Do they ever think of others in their spending? Maybe, Jesus imagines that how we manage money might give insight into how we live the rest of our lives? Do we focus only on ourselves? Do we also look out for others, including others in the way we envision our world? Maybe there isn’t a solid connection between one (money) and the other (faithful living) but then again, maybe we can make comparisons. Is it true that If we are greedy with a little money, we might also be greedy with a lot? And possibly, if we learned to be faithful with a little in our lives, might we be faithful with even more?
I don’t think Jesus is saying we can imagine a faithful life in terms of money, but if it helps maybe we could imagine it in terms of eternal value. (Remember Jesus’ words earlier in the gospel? “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [12:33b-34])
The funny thing about this parable is that the dishonest manager because of his misfortune begins to act in a more faithful, kin[g]dom, way. At first, his actions are purely for himself—and seem centered on how much he can make out of these fraudulent transactions. But when faced with the “ultimate end”—no job, no prospects, no way of making money, no desire to beg—he changes his tune. He is still acting dishonestly (since he is still shortchanging his boss), but his priority has shifted. He no longer is in a bubble that includes only him. He has to acknowledge that he is a part of a community, and only in taking care of other members in the community will he be welcomed warmly into it in his time of need.
This is certainly not an ideal story. It is not the story of true repentance, of a wholescale change of heart. But what if the God of grace and mercy is suggesting that if we take one little step, even an imperfect step, it opens up a world where more steps are possible.
This parable does not have a tight ending—so let’s just imagine one. Our dishonest manager, let’s call him Jason, has been held to account. He has looked into people’s eyes and given them a break in their indebtedness. And then Jason is tossed out on the street. He is unable to work. He won’t beg. Maybe he goes to one of those community members whose bill he “fixed.” And they welcome him into their home.
Maybe Jason eats at their table, and plays with their children, and listens to their stories, and shares some of his own. Maybe Jason realizes that his life has been very lonely, and pretty sad. But he knows what it is to be in need, and he has been given the gift of food, and fellowship, and friendship by others. He decides he can give that as well. He starts to work at a community food bank, and gets real satisfaction from being of use in the community. And maybe he even offers to make outreach to some business people in the area who might want to experience the joy of being strongly tied to community that he has found. Maybe he is even able to convince some of those businesses that they should give back to the community by funding the food bank, or even working there with him.
Is Jason a perfect human being? No. But he had his eyes opened, in an imperfect way. And because of the grace of others, he has been drawn into a community. Isn’t that what we want? Isn’t that what Jesus asks us to do for others? Isn’t that what God has already done for us?
May we continue to take imperfect steps toward faithful living. Being faithful in a little and open to so much more, Alleluia, Amen.