Unrighteous Mammon

Luke 16 gives us the parable of the "unrighteous steward" -- he was going to be fired, so he made friends with his master's debtors by reducing their debts. The master finds out and commends him. Jesus tells us to learn from his example.

Hmmmmm...

As I look a things this time, I wonder if I have been missing something because of the way we read the word "unrighteous" (adikaios). The word is a big basket word that carries lots of stuff. It can mean wickedness and iniquity. But it also has an accounting sense that means something more like "unfair." Hosea 12:7 has "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress." The "deceit" here in the LXX is our "not-right" word. Ezekiel 18:8 has the same mercantile use: "He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man." The "iniquity" in this verse is the not-right business practice of usury and gouging. Obviously the wicked can use not-right scales to cheat and oppress.

But here in our parable, the servant is commended for his not-right accounting as he reduces the obligations of his master's debtors. And we are told that not-right mammon should be used this way.

So how about this: We serve a master who has entrusted us with the management of his money. We come across people who are indebted to him. We are not to worry about strict accounts. Go ahead, be generous, take a loss. It's not our money, remember, and the master has a wealth of reserves. And if we're good enough to waste mere money with those who owe, then our master will commend us for our failure to keep full accounts of debt.

What I'm trying to get at here is the way this parable speaks to our practice of ministries of charity and mercy. These are exactly the kind of ministries that require poor book-keeping and bad business judgment. We're gonna lose on the deal every time. Anybody looking at our practice with an eye on the accounts will conclude that we're being foolish: this is not right.

But in the parable, it is the not-right steward who is commended by the master and whose practice gains him a reward. And without taking a breath, Jesus goes on to say, "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. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" Which suggests that this not-right practice is actually the kind of faithfulness that God looks for as he prepares to give the true.

I think this is what I think about this.

Winning & Losing, Gaining & Losing

Winning and Losing
In Andre Agassi's biography, he made an observation that made me smile. Agassi was seen as an talented underachiever by the press for the first years of his career: he failed to climb the mountain right away and start producing Big Wins: particularly wins at the four majors: Wimbledon, US Open, French Open, and Australian Open. The criticism was no fun. Finally, he won a slam: Wimbledon. He was ready to be elated and enjoy the life of a Winner. But he was disappointed. He observed that a win is not as good as a loss is bad. A loss lasts a lot longer: you carry it with you and brood and re-play it. A win: not so much.

Gaining and Losing
Aaron at the Racquet Club pointed out that the older you are, the slower your progress will be in fitness and training. And not only that, but the more quickly you lose whatever gains you made.

Truth Is ...

Stranger than Fiction.

SPOILER. If you haven't seen this movie, you'll want to see it before reading this.

Will Ferrel plays an IRS auditor who is the subject of a novel "Death and Taxes", being written by the reclusive Emma Thompson character. He doesn't know she exists. She doesn't imagine that her character is actually a real man. But he begins to hear her narrative voice describing his life. He is spooked by this; finds no help from a couple of counselors, but finds his way to a university literature professor (Dustin Hoffman) who becomes interested in the story. He explains to the auditor that he is in either a comedy or a tragedy: a comedy ends in a marriage, while a tragedy ends in the death of the main character. And the Ferrel character is naturally alarmed to hear Thompson's narrative voice speak of his impending death.

The progress of the novel is put on hold as the novelist, whose characters always die in the end, has a writer's block: she can't figure out how to kill him. That gives the auditor time to fall in love and learn to play the guitar, since the literature professor has told him that it looks like he is in a tragedy and must die, so he had best make the most of the time he has.

A character in a novel is in a Calvinistic world: everything in his story is determined by the storyteller. The literature professor is clear on this: the auditor can't do anything about it.

Just as the novelist figures out how she will kill her character, the auditor succeeds in finding her. He wants to appeal to her for his life. But she already has a handwritten draft of the final pages on a legal pad. She offers to let him read it. He can't bring himself to read it and gives it to the literature professor: "Do I die?" The professor reads the book and tells the auditor that it is perfect; the best thing this author has ever produced. And yes, the auditor must die.

Finally, the auditor reads the whole story himself. He brings it back to the author and says sadly and quietly that he really liked her story. And he understands why he must die. He accepts his fate and turns away.

But as the author types the last pages of the story, and we hear the narration and see the events leading to the auditor's death, she comes apart emotionally. He is hit by a bus, and she can't bring herself to finish typing the last word: "he was dead."

Next thing we know, the auditor is in the hospital, miraculously recovering.

The author visits the literature professor, who is not happy. He says the story is weaker for this ending. She answers that with the new ending, the rest of the story will now need to be rewritten. Because: "if you have a character who finds out that he must die, and then accepts it, ... isn't that the kind of character you want to keep alive?"

So the tax man whose life is as inevitable and unhappy as death, becomes a new man, a musician, and a bridegroom. When he faces death, he pleads "let this cup pass from me" but finally accepts it, "not my will, but thine be done." And so his god is pleased to let him die, but then raises him back to life. The tragedy becomes a comedy which must work its way back through the whole narrative. That which is written on the Legal Pad is overthrown my mercy and grace. And all this is Truth. Which is stranger than fiction.

I could go on.

I really like this movie.

Saying, Singing, ...

I'm following a discussion of the ancient practice of giving voice to poetry. The modern question: "did Mary speak or sing the Magnificat" probably imposes an alien distinction. Many students of antiquity believe that the accent marks in the texts of Greek and Hebrew for instance, indicate tone and pitch for reading / chanting.

Okay, they even have a "Society for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin Literature." This page has a recording of a guy reading from Homer's Iliad according to their reconstruction of the ancient practice:

http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/iliad1.htm

You wonder how they know such things.

And you wonder how this would work for the Scripture Reading on Sunday mornings...

What is it about kids and mud puddles?

Puppets

After a stretch of working with puppet sketches for the kids Christmas program, I'm now able to return to real life, dig out, and clean up. My puppeteers all did good work and I was generally pleased with the result. We prepared as much as we had time to prepare, and we performed at the level of our preparation. A broad-stroke success, even though I always see more, tweaks and polishing and such.

During the course of the effort, the puppeteers did a good job creating characters for their puppets. They were able to invest them with some personality that contributed to the liveliness of the production. So I'm boxing up the puppets for storage, and I pick up the Innkeeper's Wife and I lay her on top and close the lid, and all I can think of is those Twilight Zone episodes about the ventriloquist and his dummy, when the dummy starts talking back on his own and eventually takes over. Not that the Innkeeper's Wife would do such a mean thing. But I didn't like the idea of telling "her" that she was going in a box, the lid would close, and the box would be shut in the dark now.

The moment was instructive. Humans have a capacity and tendency to invest objects with personality. The child's teddy bear receives affection, hears secrets, and bears an emotional load that makes him hard to part with.

With that in mind, consider again the command of God not to make images for religious use. You make an icon of old Saint Soandso, you greet him, you talk to him, you set his picture in a place of honor, he receives affection, hears your prayers, and bears an emotional load that the command tells us belongs to no one but God. Humans have a capacity and tendency to invest objects with personality. But the personal God demands that we not give impersonal objects any place in our devotional expression which is due to him alone.