Luke 16

So it's a little more than a night after my last attempt to write this particular blog . . .

Well, it's time I got back into it!

I have always found the story of the Crooked Manager ("Shrewd Manager" was what it was called in my older versions of the Bible) a little puzzling.  I mean, what is Jesus actually trying to get us to do?  Is He wanting us to actually copy the actions of the manager? Surely not.  But then the manager's master PRAISES HIM, for acting "shrewdly".  What gives?

The old saying says "A text out of context is a pretext."  Well, here's a pretty good demonstration of that fact - this parable comes into focus when you read the text after it.

Verses 10 - 13 talk about how our attitudes are fairly consistent - if we have a certain attitude in one part of our life, it'll flow over to other parts.  So an attitude of love of money is a major problem, because "One cannot serve two masters".

But more than this, Jesus wants us to apply the shrewdness of the manager to our lives, without the obsessions with money and position.  Basically the message is "If the people you see around you can be this clever with the things of this world, why can't you be that clever with doing what is right?

Jesus is really coming down hard on the rich here.  This is possibly due to the fact that his opponents for the moment, the Pharisees, are described in verse 14 as "Money-obsessed" (MSG).  Now, as I have pointed out in my blogs before, in his approach to theology, Jesus was very much a Pharisee; however, he tears strips off them.

Why do that?

Why attack the people who are closest to your views?

I'm not sure why, but I think it might be as simple as this - they, of all people, should have known better.

As far as Jesus was concerned, their theology was pretty much on the money (hur hur hur).  They had the right idea of how to serve God, the right idea about what the significance of the resurrection was, they understood the idea that God could do the miraculous (people denying the miraculous is nothing new - see the Saducees!).  On the surface, they looked good, smelt good.

However, their weak spot was becoming too comfortable with things of the world.  Money.  Power.  Political influence.

And here Jesus tells his most damning story - that of the rich man and Lazarus. 

Why is this story such a shock?

Remember that the Pharisees have a fairly early version of what we call today "Prosperity Doctrine" - that is, that wealth is a sign of God's favour.  Therefore, the idea that the rich man goes to Hell and the poor man to Heaven is nothing less than a subversion of the entire Pharisee worldview!  It's putting everything in reverse of what the Pharisees expect.

Two thousand years on, we're past those attitudes, right?  Now we've got things all sorted out, right?

Heh.  Not at all, and we know it.  More than that, however, Jesus is still surprising us, still subverting our worldview. 

Sadly, I think we're still resistant to change. 

Pharisees, the lot of us.  At least, I am.