Crooked Spirituality
“…Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way — but for what is right — using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behavior.” — Jesus, Luke 16
This Parable of the Crooked Manager has been one that has haunted my Biblical readings all my life, yet has strangely remained absent from the sermons, classes and seminaries I’ve attended. Yet it comes directly after The Prodigal Son in a series of stories Jesus is sharing dealing with money and relationships and seeking the most important things. Its a story of a manager who has been embezzling funds from his company. Soon the owner finds out and fires him. As the manager is cleaning out his desk, he does some last minute changes to the books, offering clients to settle their debts for less than what they owe. Jesus praises this guy for his incredible shrewdness. What’s going on here? Is Jesus teaching us to be unlawful with our money?
I see Jesus’ summation of the Crooked Manager (quoted above) as a connecting point to the Prodigal Son and to the rest of his teachings. Think of it through the lens of religion. How many do you know who “play it safe” with spirituality, who never step outside of the “laws” long enough to ask if it is actually bringing them life and a closer relationship with God? I have known Catholics, Pagans and even atheists who do this – who never think to ponder if God might actually be calling them into a personal relationship of freedom and outside the confines of “good behavior” or “law-religion” or “me-centeredness.” They, unlike the manager, would have left their job quietly and discovered what the manager feared – a lifetime of begging. Or maybe they would have not embezzled in the first place…but then there wouldn’t be much of a story!
Much like the Prodigal Son, we have the choice to simply follow the rules (the older brother) or to find ways each of us are off in a distant country and return to our Father, desperately seeking forgiveness. We can choose the life of spiritual stability of the 99 sheep and never experience of being sought after as the 1 lost sheep was.
We can live with a love for “an old time religion” or “advanced philosophies and theories” or “laws that keep me in good graces with the Lord” and truly miss being in love with our Father.
But God sees behind appearances. He knows our hearts. He wants to guide us into love. But my question is, do we have to “get fired for embezzling” or “run of to a far away country and spend our money on riotous living” in order to feel the forgiving love of God? The answer I think is, “Yes…and we have.”
Yes, we have lived the life of the crooked manager and the prodigal son. But most of us don’t believe it – and therefore most of us refuse to return to Father seeking desperate forgiveness. Most of us don’t forgive the debts of others because we don’t believe we have debts that need forgiving in our own life.
If we truly knew where our deeds take us – where our lifestyle of me-centeredness leads – all of us would be leading a life “using every adversity to stimulate us to creative survival” not just compacently getting by on good behavior.
