The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

Luke 16:1-13

Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 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.'
"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— I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
"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.'
"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For 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.
"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."

Oh, the cleverness of the man in today’s Gospel!

OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite bright.

It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service, but not being quite satisfied with his salary, he had been wasting the property, property that was not his but belonged to his employer. Finding out about it, the employer quite naturally decided to sack him. He gave his employee something like the classic “two weeks notice.”

The employee had evidently been living it up on his ill-gotten gains. Now he was really up the creek! He didn’t know what to do. How was he to continue to live in the manner to which he had become accustomed? He had lost his job, and now he had to give his employer a final accounting. It was not bad enough that he had been cheating his rich employer for some time, but now he proceeded to cheat him some more, destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for his employer’s debtors.

Nevertheless, those debtors must have been delighted. Who wouldn’t like to be told that they owed less than they thought they did. “I’ll just move the decimal point one space to the left on your credit card bill!” Or the tax man saying that he was going to let you off some of your tax and you would only have to pay a portion of the taxes you thought you owed. But those things don’t usually happen in real life, do they?

But let’s change this story a little. Let’s suppose that, instead, it was the rich man himself who called his debtors in and handed them their bill. Let’s suppose that instead of writing a new bill for a lesser amount, he wrote, instead, “Paid in full.” Let’s suppose, further, that he even forgave his dishonest manager, and gave him another chance.

Does that remind you of anyone you know? It should! Because that is exactly how our God deals with us. If the bill for everything we owe God were taken away and we were given a new one for a lesser amount, it might be like having a bill for a hundred trillion pounds reduced to a mere hundred billion. No matter what kind of break God gave us, it would still be impossible for us to repay our debt. What would be the bill, after all, for our life and the whole world and everything in it—not to mention the entire universe? So God did the only thing a loving God could do that would make any difference. As an old hymn puts it, “Jesus paid it all.” And if that sounds too easy to be true, well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. Take a look at the cross if you need to be reminded how “easy it wasn’t.”

So where does that leave us? Home free, you say? Well, yes and no. Our “legal” debt is cancelled, thanks be to God. No bills, notices of disconection, no insistent phone calls. The debt of love, however, isn’t one that goes away. What can we give back to this God who loves us so much and has given us so much—“who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger; who sets prisoners free; who opens the eyes of the blind…” The list goes on forever.

What can we give back? Nothing, for anything we could give is as nothing in the face of so much generosity. On the other hand, everything—for that is all we have to give, and it is also just what God wants.

Yes, God wants us to come to church and worship. Yes, God also wants us to give to the church and for the relief of those in need, out of what we have been given. God wants us to spend time in prayer and in reading the scriptures. And, yes, God wants us to reach out to each other and be kind and honest in our dealings with each other; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and so forth. God wants us to live as one family, to work together for justice and peace on earth. But more than that, God wants it all. God wants our hearts.

I think that it’s fare to say that Saint Martin’s has had its ups and downs over the last few years… But now we are to move on to leave what happened in the past in the past, not to forget the things that hurt or wounded us as a church in the past but not to keep picking at the wound. If we pick at the wounds of the past, they will not heal; they will fester and become infected. It is time for Saint Martin’s to move on, looking to the future not distracted by the past.

The Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Church Wardens believe that God has called me to this parish as do I. I intend to be with you for quite some time, so that working together we can do some serious work for the Glory of God. But we can only do it if we all pull in the same direction. So work with me please, I don’t like factions or divisions in the church because we can only do God’s will if we are working together and that is the only way that the church will grow.

I wish to close by all of us quoting together from my collation service…

I am here as a fellow servant to share with you the mission of Jesus. We are to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. We are to make new disciples of Christ, to build up one another in the faith, and celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant. Therefore let us commit ourselves afresh to the task to which God calls us.

Amen.

A question of authority

In the mid ‘80’s, a national movement arose in Britain called the Snowball campaign. It grew from CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It started in a small way, but it grew bigger and bigger, hence the name Snowball.

The campaign involved cutting a single strand of the perimeter fence of any military establishment which carried nuclear weapons. One such establishment was said to be the US airbase at Sculthorpe, on the outskirts of Fakenham.

One of the protesters was a young woman deacon whom the campaigners made sure they used for maximum publicity. That of course, was the object of the exercise. They made sure the police were informed of their intentions, so that as soon as that single strand of wire was cut, the police had no option but to arrest those responsible. Then the courts throughout the land became quickly clogged up hearing cases against the protesters, and justice in Britain for everyone else ground almost to a halt.

Opinions were strongly divided over this issue. An argument was that every citizen had the right to protest, but no-one had the right to break the law by causing criminal damage, even a small degree of criminal damage. And no-one had the right to protest at the expense of other people already waiting perhaps a long time in the justice system.

Many agreed with that argument. "There are channels through which to protest," they said. "In a democracy, people who feel that strongly should use the proper channels, and protest through parliament, not go around damaging defence property."

Those who supported the protesters said: "Not so. We could all be wiped out through nuclear war before parliament gets round to doing anything. This is a very good way of raising public awareness of the huge dangers of nuclear war. And this is a very gentle protest, with no violence involved. If the law is wrong or inadequate, it needs to be broken. These people are protesting on behalf of all of us, and they're prepared to go to prison for their beliefs."

And prison was the eventual consequence for all those who cut a strand of wire, including the woman deacon.

So, should Christians obey the law, whatever their individual beliefs? Should Christians always choose legal ways of protesting if they don't like the actions of the government? Or should Christians break the law if they consider government is itself breaking God's law?

St. Paul is pretty clear in his letter to the Romans, often considered to be his foundation document, the letter which most clearly sets out his theology. In chapter 13 he says: "You must all obey the governing authorities….The authorities are appointed by God and are there to serve God…. All government officials are God's officers." (Rom. 13:1-7)

The letter to the Romans is thought to have been written between AD 54 and AD 59, a time when the state was authoritarian. Paul's words in Romans seem to affirm the words of Jesus in today's gospel reading: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give to God what belongs to God." And this desire to uphold the Roman empire as the divinely ordained protector of law and order, is echoed in the first letter of Peter, despite the Roman persecution of Christians which was current at the time.

So the NT is clearly warning against anarchism. But conversely, the book of Revelation regards Rome as the enemy of God. And Acts 5:29 says: We must obey God rather than men.

Perhaps Jesus' words and the implication in the letter to the Romans isn't unquestioning obedience under any circumstances, but is rather a claim on Christians to behave responsibly. Surely if obedience to the state is in clear conflict with God's laws, Christians can still consider themselves subject to the state, yet seriously and responsibly oppose the state.

Let’s look at Nazi Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s. The eminent theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer shifted from Christian pacifism to a point when in 1939 Bonhoeffer joined a hidden group of high-ranking military officers based in the Military Intelligence Office, who wanted to overthrow the National Socialist regime by killing Hitler. He was arrested in April 1943 after money used to help Jews escape to Switzerland was traced to him, and he was charged with conspiracy. He was imprisoned in Berlin for a year and a half. After the unsuccessful July 20 Plot in 1944, connections of Bonhoeffer to the conspirators were discovered, he was moved to a series of prisons and concentration camps ending at Flossenburg. Here, Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging at dawn on 9 April 1945, just three weeks before the liberation of the city. Bonhoeffer considered that killing Hitler would have been the less bad option. Less bad than letting Hitler carry on with the mass killings.

For us in England in 2007, the problem perhaps arises in identifying whether or not the State is in conflict with God's laws. All types of government, even corrupt ones, will probably act in accordance with God's laws some of the time, and against them the rest of the time.

We're fortunate enough to live in a country where the State, generally, follows God's laws most of the time. But that probably makes it even more difficult to identify any moves away from God's laws. And because the State has largely Christian values, does it mean we should accept the whole package with unquestioning obedience? Or should we be looking much more carefully at the actions of the State, and raising Christian uproar whenever we think the State is moving away from God's laws?

Is the State acting for or against God's laws in its stance towards nuclear weapons, the Middle East, poverty or fair trade? Is it for or against God's laws in its objective to maintain income tax levels, when the NHS and our education system appear to be in danger of crumbling for lack of funds? In the level of aid it gives to third World countries? In regarding some degree of pollution as acceptable? In encouraging the use of GM foods? And so on.

And if any of these things are against God's laws, are any of them sufficiently important to justify breaking the law of the land?

The press often complains about lack of leadership in the Church of England. About how the established church is perceived to keep silent when it should be protesting. But we are the Church of England. If we felt strongly enough to inform our leaders, perhaps the Church would speak out more often.

Politics, the rule of government, is about real people and the lives they lead. Maybe the challenge to Christians today is to take much more interest in politics. To become much better informed about politics and the law of the land, even at the risk that that interest might cause us to protest against the government.

Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. But let's also make sure that Caesar as well as us gives unto God that which is God's.

Many Blessings,

Gareth

Christian Stewardship is a response to the Creed.

The Christian understanding of Stewardship is derived from the revelation of God to which the Bible bears witness. God is the Creator of all things and the Lord of all history; in Our Lord Jesus Christ he acted to save the world; through the Holy Spirit, he is at work in the Church and in the world to fulfil his purposes.

We Believe in God the Father…

Because God is the Creator and has given men and women a special place in his purposes on earth and dominion over all other living creatures, men and women are called:

To worship God and to give thanks for his goodness

To use the natural world and other living creatures in the service of God and all people and not for self-interest and exploitation.

We Believe in God the Son…

Because God has made himself known most fully in Jesus Christ, and has acted uniquely and decisively in him to save the world and to give forgiveness, grace and eternal life, men and women are called:

To put their trust in God and live in companionship with Jesus Christ

To follow Jesus in showing love to others; to use their minds, bodies and possessions to glorify God, and to give practical help to people in need.

We Believe in God the Holy Spirit…

Because God has formed the Church, entrusted the Church with the Gospel and given gifts to men and women through the Holy Spirit:

The Church is called to make Jesus Christ and the Gospel known.

Individual Christians are called to use their gifts in his service.

A response in active Stewardship

So the Christian seeks to give, because God has given to us. "We love, because he first loved us".

To describe our response and love we use the words "Christian Stewardship". We do so because the word "steward" is used in the Bible to express the concept of responsibility for the use of material possessions and spiritual powers.

Christian Stewardship may therefore be defined as the response which we the Church, collectively and individually, are called to make to God for all that he has given us and done for us, above all in Jesus Christ.


In this response:

We worship God with praise and thankfulness;
We look on the universe as God's creation;
We treat the earth and its resources as God's provision for the needs of all mankind;
We regard our lives, our powers, our possessions, as gifts from God to be enjoyed and used in his service;
We seek to share in Christ's mission to the world.

Our response in Christian Stewardship is therefore active:

As we respond to God in praise and thanksgiving
As we look on the universe as God's creation
As we treat the earth and its resources as God's provision for the needs of all mankind
As we seek to consecrate our personal wealth to God
As we regard our lives, our powers and possessions, our money and material wealth as gifts from God to be enjoyed and used in his service
As we seek to be "Stewards of the Gospel" and to share in Christ's mission to the world


Many Blessings,

Gareth

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii.[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Matthew 18:21-35

I was once told about an elderly lady who had been a churchgoer all her life, but who hadn't spoken to her only sister for the last 40 years. I can't remember what had happened between the two of them only that this lady entirely blamed her sister for the trouble and forty years later, was still waiting for her sister to apologise. The two of them never met again, and both died with their differences unreconciled.

It seems such a sad loss of the love and companionship which family members can bring, yet it's a very common story. There are many families where one member of the family is not talking to another member, or where the entire family is at loggerheads. And that's just in families. In the wider world, neighbours or friends fall out (often over something trivial) and never make it up, because each blames the other and neither will make the first move.

And of course it's well known that in churches people who take offence very often simply walk out and never attend that church again. For some people that's a pattern in their lives. They attend a church, they're offended and they leave, so they attend a different church and in due course the same thing happens all over again - and again and again.

Forgiveness isn't easy either to give or to receive, even over the most trivial offence. It's much easier to deny all culpability and to walk away in high dudgeon than it is to face the problem. It requires considerable humility to be able to even begin to see that both parties might be partially responsible, let alone to apologise. And it requires considerable sensitivity to begin to understand what it might feel like from the other person's point of view.

"How many times should I forgive my brother?" asked Peter. "Seven times?" "No," said Jesus. "Not seven times, but seventy times seven."

That's a tall order. Real forgiveness is a gift from God and it doesn't come easy. Insults and injuries and offences damage pride, and only those who are able to face the pain of wounded pride are really able to forgive. And only those who dare to begin to approach those dark, hidden corners of their inner being, are able to face the pain of wounded pride.

It's a difficult business, forgiveness. It's much easier to totally blame somebody else for all problems than it is to accept that I myself might bear some responsibility. And taking that first step of approaching the other party, whether I'm the offender or offended against, is very difficult indeed.

Sometimes people are precipitated into forgiveness, but that usually takes a major, earth-shattering event, like a sudden death or a life-threatening illness. That sort of event changes priorities, and wounded pride is suddenly seen for what it really is.
Yet forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, and without it Christianity is just a hollow sham. "Forgive us our sins," we say to God, "as we forgive those who sin against us." Forgive us Lord, in the same measure that we forgive other people.

Forgiveness over trivial offences which haven't caused much hurt, is difficult enough. But is it even possible to forgive a really serious offence? And should we really go on and on forgiving those who commit serious sins against us?

Forgiveness may be possible and desirable when the injury is slight, but can it be either possible or desirable when the injury is unspeakably brutal, is evil and is, for instance, against a child?

Jesus placed no limits on forgiveness. He repeated again and again that forgiveness is always essential for those who wish to remain close to God.

The problem with lack of forgiveness is that it causes a hard, intractable knot inside the inner being of the person who is unable to forgive, a knot that even God cannot penetrate.

But that hard knot doesn't remain static. Like a malignancy, it slowly grows and spreads and poisons the soul, so that God is squeezed out and the coldness and the hardness and the evil take over. The effect of lack of forgiveness on a whole nation can be seen very clearly in Northern Ireland or in the former Yugoslavia.

The treatment for lack of forgiveness is simple, but never easy. Like lancing a deep-rooted boil without anaesthetic, it's very painful. It can mean suffering the depths of humiliation, because at the very least it means swallowing pride.

And it seems to me that forgiveness for serious offences lies solely in God's hands. Most mere mortals would probably be incapable of forgiving, for example, a child molester or a murderer. But inasmuch as we are unable to forgive, so to that extent we are cut off from God and are slowly poisoned by insidious evil within ourselves.

Perhaps the way forward is to ask God for the gift of forgiveness, then to try to open up all parts of our inner being to God. It will undoubtedly be a painful process and probably a long process, but the one who eventually is able to forgive will be the winner.


Forgiveness is tied up with understanding. Once I begin to understand the reasons for another's actions, I can begin to forgive them for those actions. God understands everything about all of us. He knows what's happened to us in the past. He knows why we act the way we do, and therefore he can and does fully and completely forgive us, whatever the sin.

If I fail to forgive, it has an effect on the other person, but nothing like the effect it has on me. If I really want inner, spiritual health and an increasing ability to love, then I must learn to forgive in all circumstances, seventy times seven.

Many Blessings to you,

Gareth

Come away to a deserted place

I don’t know about you but I always seem to fill the time available to me. I seem to need to be doing something. Perhaps that’s what human beings are like?

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."

So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
Mark 6:30-34

In Mark’s Gospel, Christ tells his disciples to do something. What he says is: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” In other words, he tells them to take a break to devote some time to being rather than doing. Often Christ tells us the same thing.

Yet often we ignore this command. We want to follow Jesus and are willing to take action, but when it comes to rest, when it comes to Jesus telling us to take a break for a while, the protestant work ethic kicks in: We’ll do something big and brave, but rest is too simple and so we ignore what Jesus tells us.

Jesus has his reasons for inviting his disciples to rest. They have just returned from a mission. He had sent them out in pairs and in haste. They were not to encumber themselves with gear or supplies, but simply trust local hospitality to meet their needs. They were not to linger where they were not wanted. Instead, they were to be on the move, calling people to repentance, casting out demons, anointing the sick. It was work they had never done before, and once they returned, they must have been exhausted.

Many of us do critically important work and find ourselves exhausted. Yet we don't rest. We may even believe that we cannot or should not rest. We push ourselves in a way that we would never push others. Our life may be productive, we may check off everything from our daily “to do” list, but deep down we recognize something’s wrong, that we lack a sense of deep meaning, and so we feel cheated.

The disciples have returned from their travels, but the pace has not slackened. As the Gospel reports, “Many were coming and going, and they had no time even to eat.” Does that scene sound familiar to you? Is your workplace like that? Is your home like that? This is a common experience for people today. Many are coming and going, and they have no time even to eat.

Jesus listens to the disciples as they report on all they did and taught in the numerous places they visited. He does not, however, tell them to throw themselves into action again with even greater abandon. He doesn't ask them to do something difficult and dangerous or big and brave. Instead, what he asks for is disarming in its simplicity: “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”

Jesus invites us to rest, but we treat rest as a four-letter word. If people are resting, we may be suspicious of them. If we are resting, we may be suspicious of ourselves. There's always more to do, further ways to justify our existence by what we produce. In the face of this, Jesus smiles and says, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”

If asked, most of us could recite something of the pattern of our work as we engage in it day by day, week after week. I wonder, though: Can we do the same regarding our rest? Do we have patterns established that ensure that going off by ourselves to rest for a while is a reality for us, rather than simply a desire?

Some of us may lack such patterns of rest, but we can take steps to establish them. Gradually we can build into our lives rhythms of rest and solitude to balance out the busy rhythms that already pulsate so strongly. It can be done.

Monday is my day off I don’t answer the phone, I don’t check my E-mails, I don’t work, my mobile stays switched off. I just spend the day just being. Being at peace. Being with Julie.

The French mathematician and theologian Blaisé Pascal once said that “more than half this world's ills come from how people cannot sit in a room alone”. Our refusal to rest can hurt us, the people around us, and the endeavours to which we devote ourselves.

A lot of us try to function without the Rest Factor that Jesus wants us to include in our lives. We're busy, but the results are disappointing. When we factor in some rest we are not working as much, but what we do is more significant, more meaningful than it was when we were always on the go.

As human beings we may be willing to do something dangerous and daring or big and brave but we should also take time out from doing to rest and just to be… after all we are human beings not human doings!

Many Blessings,

Gareth