Ninth Sunday After Trinity, July 28, 2024
Ninth Sunday After Trinity, July 28, 2024
Israelite law at that time provided for three arrangements in the rental of farmland. One arrangement, that has come to be known as the sharecropper method, had the tenant paying the owner a fixed percentage of the crop produced. This method protected the tenant from outsized debt in years of poor production but permitted the owner to benefit from years of abundant production. A second arrangement required the tenant to pay the owner a fixed amount of the crop produced. In years of poor production, the tenant could be required to pay up to one hundred percent of the production, a boon to the owner but a boondoggle to the tenant. In the third arrangement, the tenant paid the owner a specified amount of cash. It has come to be known as cash rent. It provides both tenant and owner with a known cost regardless of what the land produces. The master’s debtors summoned by the dishonest manager fit the second category. Whether of oil or of wheat, the amount of indebtedness forgiven came to about five hundred denarii—nearly a year and a half of living expenses.
These are large debts and the forgiveness granted would have resulted in much rejoicing in the families and villages of the debtors. The master of this dishonest manager finds himself between a rock and a hard place regarding his honor. If he reneges on the forgiveness arranged by his manager, he alienates those celebratory families and villagers but protects his honor. If he lets the forgiveness stand, then he receives praise and notoriety far and wide, and receives honor of a different sort.
Jesus “writes down” the debt of your sin to zero by paying it all on the cross, a forgiveness certainly worthy of your personal and familial celebration. God the Father lets Jesus’ forgiveness stand by remaining faithful to Jesus, faithful to the writing down of your debt, and faithful to you and your forgiveness, even when you are unfaithful (cf. 2 Ti. 2:13). What appears as an affront to the master’s honor, the master (the Father) turns into a celebration of his magnanimity and mercy
Table Talk: Discuss the parable as a metaphor for Jesus’ forgiving our debt of sin.
Pray: Father, grant me to trust in your faithfulness even when I am contradictorily faithlessness. Amen
Luke 16:1–9 (10–13)
He also said to the disciples, There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager. 3 And the manager said to himself, What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses. 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, How much do you owe my master? 6 He said, A hundred measures of oil. He said to him, Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty. 7 Then he said to another, And how much do you owe? He said, A hundred measures of wheat. He said to him, Take your bill, and write eighty. 8 The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
(10 One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.)