Last Thursday evening Rutgers Church's mission study steering committee met. Its task is to guide the process of preparing to elect a pulpit nominating committee for calling the next installed pastor of Rutgers Presbyterian Church. The committee reviewed all of the comments and questions that surfaced during the several small group discussions most of you participated in over the last two months. A question asked by a small number of people was why we read from the Bible in all our Sunday morning worship services. Only two or three people asked it, but it's worth answering because it has broad implications about who Rutgers Presbyterian Church is.
We are a Christian congregation, and within that broad category we are a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Within that denomination we are a liberal, progressive, inclusive congregation—unapologetically so. There is strong consensus about that last part of our identity—liberal, progressive, inclusive. I am confident that Rutgers' session (local governing body) would only have called an interim pastor who could self-identify as liberal, progressive, and inclusive—especially as that last word refers to the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in all aspects of the church's life.
What I am saying is that there is probably more agreement about the liberal, progressive, inclusive part of our identity than about the Christian and Presbyterian part of our identity. That is my impression. I haven't tested it in any systematic manner.
Clearly there is a major struggle going on in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) about some aspects of who we are as a denomination, what we believe, and what we do. The main focus of the struggle is human sexuality, especially sexual orientation, and what that means for Christian faith. There are other aspects of the struggle—the relationship between faith and politics, for one example, and the tension between order and freedom in corporate worship, for another example.
But there doesn't seem to be any struggle about whether Presbyterians take the Bible seriously. Certainly there is wide disagreement about how we read and interpret the Bible, but there is no significant voice, if any voice at all, saying we don't need to take the Bible seriously.
When Presbyterians elect and ordain elders, deacons, and pastors, those people are asked and required to respond affirmatively to the question "Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God's Word to you?" The language is significant. There is nothing about inerrancy or infallibility in the question. The operative words are "unique and authoritative." Ministers, elders, and deacons have wide latitude in interpreting the Old Testament and the New Testament. But they are not free to ignore them.
For me personally, the more I get to know the Bible, and it has been an almost life-long process, the more I appreciate the power of its witness to a God of love and mercy, whom we can never fully comprehend, but who is a Spirit that permeates existence and without whom life is incomplete.
All of that is a long introduction to a parable that Luke felt was part of Jesus' teaching. The early church apparently agreed that it was consistent with what Jesus said and did. And so we hear the parable and ask what it has to teach us.
The story or parable of "the dishonest steward" has been something of a problem for the Christian Church for centuries. The Roman emperor Julian, a nephew of Constantine I, was not sympathetic to the new faith his uncle had embraced and that was emerging all around him, in the fourth century of the Common Era. He used the story as evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than a flawed teacher. Biblical scholars have questioned why Luke included it in his Gospel, and commentators have offered widely variant theories to explain its central message.
Jesus told it as a parable, not as an allegory. The difference is that a parable makes a central point while an allegory assigns an identity to each of its several parts or characters. In other words, in the parable of the dishonest steward, the land owner or master does not represent God, and the manager or steward does not represent the church or humanity. That could be the case if the story were an allegory. But reading it as a parable, we look for the story's central point.
Note that it is the landowner or master in the story who commends the dishonest steward—not Jesus. My take on this reading from Luke chapter 16 is that Jesus told the story and said in effect, "People in the secular world are very clever. They know how to accomplish what they set out to do. The 'children of light,' which is or should be the Church, can learn from their secular counterparts and become wise in accomplishing their mission."
Half a century ago George Buttrick, pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City commented on this morning's parable. He wrote that "Worldlings thoroughly care for their senses while followers of Christ become casual about their souls. Golfers take lessons and read books, while religious people forget to pray. Salespeople become evangelists for gadgets, while disciples of Jesus rarely mention his name." (The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 8, p. 281, adapted) Dr. Buttrick knew human nature. He knew first-hand how easy it can be for spiritually sensitive people to be casual about their priorities and undisciplined in attaining goals.
I wonder what Dr. Buttrick would say about an organization like Move-On, which I would group with "the children of light." What were they thinking when then took a full-page ad in the New York Times talking about "General Betray-us"? Were they so eager to be catchy that they couldn't foresee the backlash against their cause? Cheap shots at individuals rarely accomplish positive purposes. Move-On says the ad has brought in lots of money, but I doubt that it has changed any minds about ending the war, and that's what has to happen. I think the parable of the dishonest steward is about thinking long-term instead of short-term, being as focused in what we do as the dishonest steward was in providing income for himself after becoming unemployed.
The message of the parable has implications for those of us who want to end the terrible war in Iraq. There needs to be a specific, carefully thought-out plan for a withdrawal that will not be as precipitous as George Bush's invasion was. There must be concern for minimizing the chaos that will follow the departure of American troops, concern for stabilizing an area that has been fragmented for generations.
The parable has implications for Rutgers Presbyterian Church. If we really believe that God is love (and I do), if we experience inclusive love in our life together as a congregation (and I believe we do), we need to be wise in the ways we communicate our good news to our community, our city, and our world. If we really believe that peaceful non-violent resistance is God's way of bringing about a more just society (and I do), lets see how we can get that topic on the agenda for our major political candidates.
Rutgers Presbyterian Church and its congregation are doing a lot of good things. This morning's parable challenges us not to be complacent, but to look for new ways of sharing God's love and being God's people in 2007 and beyond.
As usual with my sermons, I invite you to take what you like, and leave the rest.
Thanks be to God.