In this day of Haliburton and Enron, this morning’s Gospel lesson almost feels like a reprise of the headlines in the Business Section of the Times: more dishonest corporate business practices by another pocket-lining CEO, and an example of a first century "golden parachute."

But then I look deeper, past my knee-jerk judgmental response, and I’m aware of something more – indeed, something painful, a level of fear and distress – "What am I to do?!" – that certainly isn’t in the news accounting of some of the corporate looting we’ve been hearing about: after all, they are the rich getting richer. Here we seem to have a basic threat to one’s life and livelihood, and we can feel the rising panic in this manager: rightly or wrongly, he is about to find himself without a job, a source of income; he is about to be "thrown away" with no unemployment insurance, no savings, no second income from his spouse, and possibly with dependent children – or parents – and a set of debts of his own.

"Manager" is the person whose job has just been "outsourced" to India.

"Manager" is the 35 year employee who has just discovered his retirement plan has gone belly-up.

"Manager" is the single mom whose day care expenses consume the greater part of her paycheck – and whose health benefits have been cut.

"Manager" is the 53 year old man, laid off before he qualifies for retirement.

Fast food restaurants hire only part time; minimum wage isn’t enough to live on!

I’m getting older – I don’t have the energy I used to have…

Who will hire someone my age?

It’s something we can all identify with: the tenuousness of existence in a global economy, where job security is only as good as "the bottom line."

So yes, panic: What am I to do?

And a choice:

Our hearing of this lesson is colored by judgment: Most of us have a hard time seeing beyond the adjective "dishonest" as it describes the manager to find the essential meaning in this story. Our focus on "dishonest" distances us from the manager’s panic, and from his creative problem solving.

Certainly, commentators have generated a great deal of exegetical conversation trying to discern Jesus’ message – most of it focusing on the "honesty" piece of the story.

Interestingly, neither Jesus nor the manager’s employer seem to focus on the dishonesty or to reflect our same degree of judgment. Indeed, what they both do is to praise the manager’s ingenuity.

I think we might learn a lot if we can shake ourselves free of the "dishonest" lens, and, like Jesus and the employer, look at the fact that the manager is doing something.

I don’t think Jesus’ was commending the dishonesty; I think he was commending the initiative.

Possibly Jesus recognized

"Wait!" Jesus tells us. "You have something to learn from this real-world example of survival in the face of danger or threat."

"Radical dependency" on God – or on the rich master – does not mean passivity. It does not mean we check our brains or our initiative at the door.

Radical dependency means that we know whose we are and whom we serve – and that we act accordingly.

The Suffi tell a similar story: "What three things," asks the Sage, "do you need in the desert?" The response: "You need: a needle and thread, in case your tunic splits and your backside is exposed; a bucket; and a coil of rope. You need the bucket and rope because God will provide water – but not necessarily on the surface."

The Kingdom of God will come, is here – but it isn’t going to drop on us! It needs our participation.

Jesus does give us one significant parameter. "You cannot serve God and wealth," he concludes his lesson, reminding us once again that our lives and our efforts must always be organized around whose we are, and whom we serve.

Go, do what you need to do.

Earn the money you need.

But don’t allow it to become your master.

It is serving wealth as master that will render us dishonest.

Jesus does not say that money is bad. He recognizes the responsibilities we have to care for our selves and our families, to feed and clothe and house ourselves. Yes, God does clothe the lilies, but our raiment isn’t going to drop from the heavens!

But Jesus also recognizes how seductive money can be, how it can take on a life of its own, becoming, not simply a means to an end, an instrument of providing for our this-world needs, but becoming an end in its own right.

Jesus recognizes the power of wealth to become the organizing principle of our lives, to become a false God demanding ever greater amounts of our time, our attention, our service.

I would guess that the more insecure we are – the more tenuous we experience our existence, the greater the threat we feel to ourselves and our families – the more easily we lose sight of God as our strength, our shelter, and the powerful money can become as an object of misplaced trust.

In this morning’s lesson, the greatest risk to the dishonest manager is the elevation of money from preliminary concern to ultimacy; from the means to an end to the end itself; from tool to idol.

What am I to do?

It is the plaintive cry of us all, at one time or another in our lives.

Jesus answers us this morning:

We are to engage this world actively, creatively, in such a way that our service to God is clear, for in this is the kingdom of God.

Amen.