Uncomfortable Truths
Take my lips O Lord and speak through them; Take our minds and think through them; Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. Amen.
Our readings from Hebrew scripture and the Gospel today can be particularly challenging for our 21st century ears. Admittedly not my first choice of lessons to preach on. They don’t put us in a comfortable space, rather they present us with two unsettling pictures of economic injustice. We have a an 8th century BCE prophet condemning exploitation of the poor and Jesus telling a bizarre and perplexing parable about a dishonest manager whose shady dealings are commended by his rich employer. At first glance, these texts seem to be in conflict. Yet, these two passages, when taken together, reveal the responsibilities of the faithful and a profound and challenging truth about the hopes of the most vulnerable among us.
Amos, the ancient prophet of social justice, speaks from a world that is not so different from our own, living when Israel was split into two separate kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (Judah). He delivers a scathing indictment of those who “trample on the needy” and “bring to ruin the poor of the land,” at a time when religious observance stands in stark contrast to economic oppression.
It is a world where the powerful exploit the vulnerable while maintaining a facade of piety. They impatiently long for the Sabbath and feast days to end, not so they can get back to God’s work, but so they can get back to their own schemes of deceitful business practices and profit. They cannot wait to cheat the poor with rigged scales and false measures, selling the sweepings of the wheat—the lowest quality grain—to the poor at inflated prices. And they see no issue with this, because in their minds, the poor are little more than commodities to be bought and sold for a pittance.
This is a world that we know, all too well. We live in a society with increasing economic inequality, where the wealth of the richest few grows exponentially while millions struggle just to survive. We live in a time of deep political polarization and a decline in trust in government, where some use the mechanisms of power to harm the vulnerable.
We see legally sanctioned systems inflict hardship on the most vulnerable. We see political rhetoric that demonizes immigrants and refugees, and we see policies that, like the merchants’ practices in Amos’s day, make it harder for those struggling with poverty to get by. We are experiencing the of shrinking the social safety net, cutting essential services like SNAP-the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid, and imposing stricter requirements on those who need assistance the most. This is a modern-day form of “trampling the needy,” using the rules of the system to marginalize and exploit the poor.
Our 2025 version of “trampling the needy” stands in stark contrast to the core theme of Luke’s gospel, which promises a “great reversal” where the lowly are lifted up and the powerful are brought down, and where God’s primary concern is for the poor and the oppressed. It’s expressed from the very beginning of the gospel and continues right through Jesus’ public ministry.
As we turn to our Gospel, it is important to remind ourselves of the setting of this story. Jesus had been traveling around Jerusalem, preaching God’s realm, healing the sick, curing the infirm, raising the dead, and generally putting him at odds with the established religious authorities in Jerusalem. The Scribes and Pharisees grumbled about his dinner companions being less than respectable, but instead of answering their criticism, Jesus offered the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son. The three stories were about God’s love and open heart, and not about the rejection of sinners and outcasts. Then Jesus launches into the parable we hear today.
The parable known as the shrewd or dishonest manager is a story about a deceitful and wasteful manager who, after being fired, negotiates with his boss’s debtors to secure his own future. The shocking twist? The rich employer commends him for his shrewdness.
I’ll be honest with you—this passage is challenging to interpret because we’re used to finding a clear hero to celebrate and a villain to condemn. In this story, the lines are blurred. And it’s a challenging passage to hear because it can sound like Jesus is praising a crook.
But here is the reality. Throughout scripture, and particularly the parable in today’s Gospel, we are confronted with a God who takes our norms, our expectations, our perceptions and our preconceived notions and turns them on their heads.
As with many of Jesus’ parables, this one isn’t a simple, feel-good story. It’s a story designed to shake us out of our comfort zones and to make us think differently about what we value. It’s a parable of contrast, not comparison. Jesus is not praising dishonesty. He is challenging his disciples then—and us today—to be just as resourceful and intentional in our spiritual and ethical lives as the unrighteous are in their worldly affairs.
Our Gospel concludes with the stark challenge: “You cannot serve God and wealth.” We must understand that the shrewd manager and his boss serve wealth; they see the future the same way, they act the same way, and they belong together, comfortable with wealth as their god. And in their pursuit or desire for wealth and the trappings of luxury that it provides, it becomes their ultimate concern.
Jesus neither condemns or condones having wealth and possessions. It is the choice to serve God, seeking God’s Kingdom and its righteousness, that will shape the believers’ relationship to their wealth and possessions. Regardless of how much we have, we still have to decide how to use it. Jesus is not telling us to be dishonest, but to learn from the urgency and foresight of worldly people and apply it to our ethical, political, and spiritual lives. We are living in a time that demands our urgent attention.
The prophet Amos puts it pretty plainly, and Jesus resounds this theme, that money and wealth pursued for itself becomes an idol, demanding service and sacrifice that has nothing to do with God’s Kingdom and everything to do with our own little ego fiefdoms. The pursuit of wealth for its own sake, and for oneself alone, leads to a self-centered spirit, not a generous God-centered one.
When the power of wealth serves itself, it sees no wrong, or more aptly put, it does not see the suffering of widows and orphans, sinners and outcasts, because they are not a part of the picture of making more wealth. Status is defined by wealth and power and relationships with others are purely transactional—what’s in it for me?
In the new community that Jesus is calling into existence, our relationships are based on mutual concern and sharing. In the daily offices we pray, “Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten: Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.”
As the faithful, we must remember that even when things seem at their worst, there is hope because we serve a God who makes a way when there seems to be no way. The hope of the vulnerable is that God sees them. God hears them. And God will not forget the injustices committed against them. Their hope is not based on the whims of politicians or the latest polls. It is based on the unshakeable promise of a just God who says, “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.” This is the promise that sustains those who are at the mercy of others. It is the fuel for every advocate who fights for justice.
My siblings, the hope of the vulnerable is our call to action. In the current social political atmosphere, where fear and division are often used to justify policies that harm the poor, we are called to be shrewd managers of God’s resources. We are called to use our power and our influence not for our own gain, but to stand with the marginalized, to advocate for the oppressed, and to stand up for systems where all can flourish.
This is the ultimate hope of the vulnerable: for a society where their inherent dignity is recognized, and where those with power act with justice and compassion, because they have chosen to serve God and not wealth. It is in this radical act of serving God through serving our neighbors that the seeds of a more just world are planted. May the God of justice and mercy stir our hearts to action, that we may not only worship with our lips, but with our lives. And may the hopes of the poor and oppressed be realized through our faithfulness and our struggle for a more just society. Amen.