Not Scattering, But Bringing Together

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Course 2022

When Our Lord told parables to his followers, He was saying to them, “gather around me and listen. I have a story that might help you understand God’s kingdom.” So in many cases, we ought not spend too much time trying to analyze the characters, asking which character stands for Jesus and what does this or that action mean. Sometimes we are challenged to look at the story as a whole, and ask what general lesson Jesus is trying to help us learn.

The parable we just heard is one of those. It’s a simple story. The store owner had a general manager we’ll call “Graft.” This was the era before the use of double-entry bookkeeping, so he kept one set of books for the owner to see, and the other where he kept his own records, showing what price he actually charged the customer. Lots of time, before the general use of currency, the customer would pay for goods purchased by signing a note specifying what amount of his crops would satisfy the claim, once he harvested his fields. The general manager would rake off his markup and give the balance to the owner, and cancel the promissory note and mark “paid” on the owner’s ledger.

But this manager was, in the words of the Gospel, accused of scattering his goods. The Greek has the ominous phrase diablethe diaskorpizon. You can see in the phrase the root of the word “diablo,” or in English, devil. Satan is good at only two things, or perhaps we should say, effective and bad at two things: lying and scattering. Remember that Jesus and the saints are distinguished from evildoers by being truthful, and bringing diverse people together. So the manager was a really bad dude. He was being given the equivalent of two weeks’ notice by the owner. So, being fundamentally lazy and dishonest, he signed off on the reduction of the customers’ promissory notes. Ordinarily the owner wouldn’t even see those notes, because he was only interested in his own bottom line–payment of what was owed written in his ledger. The customer would walk away with the note stamped “paid” by the manager. So all the manager was doing for these customers was taking off his merdida, which he would never get to collect anyway since he would not be around to enforce the contract. The customer walks away feeling good about the manager, and the manager has a shot at a job with the customer.

The manager then got a commendation from the owner. Why? Because he was able to provide for his future without doing any more damage to the owner. Everyone walked away thinking he had won. But none of them were exemplars of goodness.

So Jesus is looking at His disciples and is not telling this story because He wants them to imitate the dishonest manager. Our Lord does not want us to cheat, even to spread the kingdom of God. But He does want us to be clever as we spread the Gospel. Do you want an example? The Church wants to encourage members to tell their friends and relatives about the joy of being a disciple of Jesus and member of the Church. So should we ask them to publicize the many ways that our worship is like what they experience in secular society, or the two or three differences that they experience here and don’t see in the secular world?

Any advertising pro will immediately tell you to emphasize the differences, the benefits of being in Church rather than on the golf course. Any good counselor of high school juniors will teach them to highlight in their resumes the ways in which they are unlike every other high school junior. The Church, for instance, has a very long tradition of beautiful and unique musical styles, chant, polyphony, works for choir a capella or with pipeorgan. If your parish has that kind of music, invite friends to come if only to hear the Gospel beautifully sung. People are not going to be attracted if your musical groups are just like everything they hear on their iPods or radio stations, but live and maybe performed with less accuracy. Maybe you have a great preacher, or a beautiful Gothic architecture in the sanctuary. Attract with beauty, and then they will stay because they perceive truth and goodness.

St. Paul today has a special reason for writing to St. Timothy, bishop of Ephesus. A big reason for the remarkable spread of Christianity in the first four hundred years after Christ is the dominance of the Roman empire in Europe and west Asia and even north Africa. There was one system of government that had built a great communication network, peace within the empire for the most part, and a general tolerance of multiple religions, only messed up for a few decades when one of the Emperors got a burr in his blanket about the Christians or Jews, who got persecuted for their faith, but who just got stronger as a result. So St. Paul, who might find his letters intercepted by the police at any time, was careful to urge Timothy (and probably all his other bishops) “that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.” In other words, be faithful to Christ, but don’t disobey the just laws of the government. The overarching reason for this was clear. God wants all humans to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, who is Christ. Getting in trouble with the authorities gets in the way of our proclamation.