"Generosity on the sidewalks." by Pure Charity, on Flickr

Amos 8:4-7
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, "When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat."
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Luke 16:1-13
Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

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Our nation's lawmakers are currently stuck in another series of heated budget debates. With an October 1 deadline looming over their heads, Congress struggles with how to make ends meet, and where to place the burden of budget cuts. Already on the chopping block are cuts to the food stamps program and threatened cuts to healthcare.

It is easy to get cynical about the state of our government and the workings of our economy when these sorts of decisions hang in the balance. Our faith calls us to pursue God’s justice and to build up a kingdom of God where special care is given to the poor, the hungry, the outcast, and the powerless, that peace and justice might always prevail. But our economic and government systems call us to seek efficiency, prosperity, and measured justice.

Which means that when Jesus, in today’s gospel, encourages us to be faithful with our wealth, whether in little or in much, we struggle to understand what that might mean for us in our world.

Today’s gospel reading doesn’t, on the surface, seem to give us a satisfactory answer to the question.

Jesus tells the story of a man who has been hired to manage his master’s wealth. This manager is dishonest and corrupt, and squanders away the wealth that he has been charged to care for. Knowing that he’s about to get fired, he decides to continue his shady dealings, that he might make a few friends on the way out who might take care of him one he’s kicked to the curb. So he goes behind his master’s back and reduces the debts of the master’s clients, once again costing his master money. But instead of getting angry, the master folds his arms, gives a chuckle, and commends the manager rather than reprimanding him.

Friends, if you are looking to this parable for an example of how to be faithful stewards of the gifts God has given us...well...I don’t think this story gives us much to go off of, at least on the surface.

I mean, it certainly describes the sort of economic climate that we find ourselves in. A gap between rich and poor that isn’t close to closing, people falling prey to cheating and corruption and shady dealings in order to get ahead, or to make ends meet, shrewd business dealings valued more highly than charity or generosity...

This is the exact sort of economic situation that the prophet Amos was addressing in our first reading today. The rich were getting richer at the expense of the poor, and God sent Amos to speak truth to power, chastising the wealthy for abusing their power, criticizing the businessmen who wanted to rush through the sabbath day and through religious festivals so that they could get back to selling stuff and, even worse, cheating the poorest of their customers.

It’s so easy for us to feel like our hands our tied when we stare down issues of economic justice. Because no matter what our best intentions, we realize very quickly that there is sin and corruption built into the very systems that pay us our wages and give us the means both to live and to give generously.

Julie Clawson is a writer who is especially concerned with issues of faith and justice. A few years back, she went on a mission. A mission to see whether she could buy fundamental, everyday items fair trade. It’s easy enough and popular to buy fair trade coffee and fair trade chocolate, and fair trade gifts. But, she wondered, what would happen if she wanted to buy something as basic as, well, fair trade underwear. It proved difficult and eye-opening. The companies who paid a just wage to their workers had purchased cotton from manufacturers who didn’t pay their field workers justly. The companies who ensured that their materials were produced in an ecologically sensitive way outsourced the assembly of their products to low-wage factories across the world. Julie was shocked to see that, despite her good intentions, it was nearly impossible to make even a fundamental, boring purchase that was just from start to finish.

So if the fingerprints of injustice and dishonesty are all over our money, all over our wealth, all over our commerce, what on earth does it mean for us to follow Jesus’ instruction to be faithful in little and in much? When we feel powerless to change unjust systems, and when our human propensity toward greed or self-interest get mixed up with our desire to do good, what do we do?

This is where today's parable helps us out. A lot.

Yes, there’s a lot of shady stuff happening. The manager takes advantage of his master, squanders his wealth, gets himself fired for doing so, and immediately worries about how to save his own skin. But despite some pretty dishonest motivations, this manager unwittingly does two very, very good things.

First, he reduces the debts of his master’s clients. This means that he eases the financial burden of those who can’t pay their bills. Despite his self-serving motivation, the manager lifts a great weight off of those who are themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Second, he reduces these debts in his master's name. This means that the manager ends up representing his master as gracious and kind, generous and compassionate. Despite his self-serving motivation, the manager reflects the best qualities of the one whom he represents.

These are two lessons that we can all run with.

We are called to do our best to lift burdens off of the shoulders of those who are weighed down. And we are called to do our best to reflect the grace, generosity, and compassion of God our master.

Because, okay. As long as we're still waiting for the full redemption of all things, we are all a jumbled-up mess of sinner and saint. Our good intentions and shady shrewdness get mixed up all the time. But maybe what Jesus is trying to tell us in this parable is that there is yet always good to be done. There are always yet opportunities to be good stewards of everything God has given us, even if some of our screwed-up motives and priorities try to get in the way.

I mean, if we wait for our economic systems to clean up, if we wait for our government to get its act together, if we wait until our financial and spiritual wealth are all purely attained before we turn our focus to those in need, then we'll never get off the ground. If we wait for welfare systems and affordable health insurance systems to run perfectly and efficiently before we are willing to be generous to those in the gaps, we'll never get around to it. If we wait until people are responsible or deserving before we help them, then we’ll never actually offer any assistance.

I was talking to two leaders of our food pantry earlier this week, and they told me that there is this one regular visitor who always, always, rips them off. They know that he’s taking advantage of them. And so they could manage the pantry differently, and impose more checks and balances on clients, and do more rigorous registrations, which would mean taking more time and turning more people away. But they choose to keep things open and free, even if they take small losses along the way, so that more people can be helped more quickly.

There is the urgency in today's gospel reading. Whether in little or much, whether purely attained or ill-gotten, Jesus calls each of us to be faithful with what we have been given. We do not have to be perfect to be faithful.

We simply need to do those two things: Ease the burden of those who are oppressed. Reflect the generosity and compassion of God our master.

This is the heart not only of charity but of stewardship. For everything we have, at the very root, comes from God the creator. Every gift that we share gives glory back to God, and reminds us of the gifts of forgiveness, grace, and life that God in Christ gives to us with each new day.

May God empower us to be generous, to lift up the oppressed, and to live each day ready to share the gifts of his bounty with all creation.