Good stewards of a Common Home

First preached as a sermon at Croydon Minster reflecting on the 'Dishonest Steward' on the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity as we continue to focus in prayer and reflection on the Creation and Care of our Common Home. The readings were Amos 8.4-7; Luke 16.1-13

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In a world of ethically murky financial dealings - of tax avoidance and tax evasion on colossal scales by individuals and corporations; of pay day loans that escalate debt at eye watering rates; of the exploitative business model of the gig economy – in that world, the parable that we have heard this morning holds a mirror up to the ways in which money is used, is moved and is acquired.

Money is a delicate subject. It’s particularly delicate in church. And yet Jesus frequently speaks about money. The Bible as a whole - our reading from the Prophet Amos being a case in point - speaks more of money justice and distribution of wealth than it does about other matters that often preoccupy religiously minded people.

The parable touches on the way in which human beings relate to money. For a start the rich man has someone else dealing with his money. So he is detached from the consequences of what his money is doing for good or ill.

The problem with wealth is not the wealth itself, there will always be disparity in income and accumulated wealth, what is a problem is when the rich subcontract the management of the wealth to others. They lose the connection with what wealth and money is and how it can be used.

As the parable shows the behaviour of the rich man opens up the possibility of a careless approach to money by his manager. And his manager, or better translated ‘steward’ has done just that. He has been squandering the rich man’s money and property.

Once found out, the steward feels shame. Money seems hardwired to our shame reflex. Is that why we squirm when money is talked about? And closely associated to shame and money is embarrassment and guilt: I am generous enough? Can I afford this? Should I pay for that? Am I wasting my money?

In the parable the steward addressed his sense of shame, and potential to be ostracised, by turning to what one commentator has called ‘ethically murky’ practices. He settles debts quickly by knocking off some of the debt.

But it’s not his money to do that with. And don’t we see that in the way in which financial systems and economies work? Other peoples’ money: in pension funds, do we know what’s going on with our money ethically, or not? And so often it is the poor who suffer. The words of the prophet Amos don’t need a huge amount of updating; human nature is absolutely recognisable in sharp practices of short selling and getting a fast buck.

So it’s little wonder perhaps that the master, the rich man, commended the dishonest manager: because he had a casual relationship with his money he wasn’t bothered by justice and probity.

So where does all that leave us? Well, read on. Read on because Jesus gives practical wisdom and sets a higher vision and standard which he links to faithfulness in financial matters to service of God. You have to engage with the world of money: don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly use! In a murky world be faithful, in small things so that the true treasures, the riches of heaven will be yours.

In his Encyclical Letter to all Christians, called Laudato Si’, Pope Francis speaks about our Common Home. He makes the point that we human beings inhabit a Common Home with all God’s creatures. The Greek word for ‘Common Home’ is oikomene. From the word oikomene we also get the English word economy. Pope Francis recognises in Laudatio Si’ that the environmental crisis of our times cannot be separated from economics.

The economy is not just about money, it’s much wider than that. A Christian vision of economics is more than money: it is about the good running of our Common Home, the oikomene; about being good stewards of the earth, of human society, of our household budgets and our church budgets. The steward in the parable – in Greek oikonomos - failed at that. He was not a good steward, and in that way he mirrors the poor human stewardship of the earth. And faced with his own crisis he used unjust means to get out of it, not unlike the way the rich trade carbon emissions without reducing it from their private jets.

We are stewards of the earth not possessors of it; we are stewards of wealth and money not possessors of it, and when we think we possess money without realising it possesses us, then are then we are serving wealth not God.

That’s where this parable takes us. So what we seek is not mammon but the Kingdom of God, and as Jesus promises, if we seek the Kingdom of God first then everything else we need will be given to us. And faithfulness in the little things will replicate in faithfulness in the big things. In other words small acts of generosity make a big transformative impact; small acts of caring for the creation – like fostering habitats or cutting energy usage - make a big impact when added together.

This is why we should be talking about money, the economy and the Common Good in church and not be bashful about it. What we do with our money tells us about what we value: ‘where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’ (Luke 12.34). That’s why praying about and pondering our giving to the church is important and should be talked about – and will be in the coming weeks – as a response to God’s generosity. That’s why we should encourage our children in church to think about and plan their giving.

As stewards of the riches of creation - the teaming seas and the fruitful land - may we be faithful in our enjoyment of them not exploiting but tending, and may our use of money be to the glory of God as we spend, invest and plan. Amen.

God or Mammon: Where are true riches to be found?

First preached as a sermon at Guildford Cathedral on 18th September 2016, on the text Luke 16.1-13.

Tax collectors Marinus van Reymerswaele

‘Mammon’ is a good old fashioned word: as the Authorised Version of the Bible renders Jesus’ words at the end of the gospel reading today: ‘you cannot serve God and mammon’ (Luke 16.13). More modern translations, accurately, translate the original Greek word, mamōnas, as ‘wealth’ or ‘riches’. But mammon conveys something a little bit more, it suggests wealth or riches that are not entirely above board, a bit dodgy or are the object of worship.

‘You cannot worship God and mammon’. It’s a pretty punchy conclusion to Jesus’ rather extraordinary parable, variously known as the ‘Unjust Steward’, the ‘Dishonest’ or ‘Crooked Manager’.

Every time I read this parable, and believe me, I read it through a number of times in preparation for preaching this morning, I find myself squirming. What is going on here? Why do I squirm and recoil when I read it?

First of all, I don’t like the manager. He’s squandering the rich owner’s property and is negligent. He clearly should have been disciplined years before. And when he’s found out - after whistle-blowers have finally plucked up courage to expose him - the manager wriggles and finds strategies to make the best of a decidedly bad situation.

Here we don’t have hot blooded sin - like rampant sexual passion, intemperate violence or spur of the moment lying, which are bad enough - but cold blooded sin, calculated plotting and scheming. This is the worst kind of white collar crime going on.

And then there’s the rich man, the master, who colludes with all of this and somehow thinks it’s laudable. Many a tycoon seems to enjoy seeing an employee being quite as devious and slippery as the tycoon himself: after all, what were his riches based on?

The debtors also quite happy to accept the freebie that they are gaining: none of them challenges the dishonesty of the manager. We might even start to think, ‘well, I wouldn’t be like the manager, and I wouldn’t be like the fat cat tycoon, but as for the debtors, well, what they did by accepting some reduction of the debt they owed wasn’t illegal: he’s rich he won’t notice…’

So what’s Jesus up to in this parable? Is he really commending all this behaviour? If we think that, then I want to suggest that we might read the parable completely the other way round.

The problem comes when we read this parable thinking that Jesus is commending it to us wholeheartedly. Jesus isn’t holding this parable up as an example to us to look at, study and replicate. Rather he is holding a mirror up and asking: ‘what do you see of yourself in this? How do you make choices as you negotiate the complexities of the world? What does all this look like to you when you are my disciple?’

This parable should make us squirm and then examine why. We should take heart from that squirming; it means that our ethical antennae are alert to the contradictions in the parable, and the cognitive dissonance it contains, because we realise that there is something profoundly wrong going on, that there is no such thing as victimless crime ultimately, and that lack of probity and honesty in small things grows and mutates rapidly into something bigger and impossible to control. Jesus refuses to give us the answers we expect but makes us do some work so that we are not the spiritual equivalent of the manager, being bad stewards of what belongs to someone else: that is to say, not being negligent and squandering our God-given gifts.

When we squirm at this parable we are drawing from a deep ethical tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures articulated by, amongst others, the prophet Amos who condemns those who exploit the poor, by making small measures, profiteer and passing off the sweepings of the wheat for good grain.

Yet we know, and this is hard too, that the world of business relies on risk, on taking a chance and exploiting an opportunity. Without entrepreneurs generating money and moving it round then economies stagnate and poverty becomes endemic: look at North Korea or Zimbabwe. The parable of the talents reminds us that money needs to move and work in an economy: the servants who made their money work and grow are commended and rewarded; the servant who dug a hole and put his talents of money in it is told that, because his expectations were nil, he should expect nothing now the master has returned.

Then there is the whole business of being financial directors, fund managers, budget holders, accountants or those of us dealing with household budgeting: each of us has to manage money, however limited or plentiful it is.

The Cathedral itself has to wrestle with a financial deficit and ask questions about endowment income, the balance of income and expenditure, prudent use of resources, the fostering of generosity.

There are plenty of good Christian disciples who are faced with the challenges money brings at work and at home, and many, I know, wrestle deeply with issues around the ethics of money, endowments, dividend yields, implications of low-interest rates and personal debt.

This is where the word ‘mammon’ comes back in. Mammon is corrupted, corrupting wealth. It is the blind pursuit of wealth hanging the consequences for the poor. Wealth becomes mammon when it is pursued for its own sake, when little corners are cut or small deceits begin and inevitably snowball into bigger ones. That is the deceit and corruption of mammon, that money is worth chasing for itself and not what it can do for others.

So then, this parable holds a mirror up to us to ask do we seek to serve God or mammon? Managing wealth with an eye to the Common Good for the building up of the Kingdom of God is one thing, blind pursuit of wealth for its own sake is quite another.

This parable moves us to ask where true riches are to be found. We need constantly to move from serving mammon to wealth that serves; from worshipping mammon to wealth that worships and is used to honour God

This is where a reading of the parable that says it is not an example but an examination actually gives us space to hold together commitment to justice, equity and fair dealings with the demands of making money and appreciating its value.

The binary choice: God or mammon has always been, and will always be, a demanding one. Our very presence here today, and the offerings we make financially and the bread and wine presented, point us away from mammon and to the pursuit of true riches and wealth which is receiving the inexhaustible riches of God, given without price and yet everything given.

© Andrew Bishop, 2016