That’s where we are, at the beginning of Chapter 16 of Luke’s Gospel. We are eavesdropping on a conversation around a meal table. Jesus is there with a leader of the Pharisees (Chapter 14, verse 1). You remember the Pharisees: they are the ones who, if it was a pantomime, we’d all be going ‘Boo! Hiss!’ when they walked on. We don’t like Pharisees, OK. Yes, it’s all a bit stereotypical and they are painted somewhat darker than dark, somewhat like Lord Voldemort, but that’s who they are. We don’t like the Pharisees. Oh, and this is on the Sabbath Day as well, just you remember that.

So it’s one of those meals where by the time you get to the pudding course you feel like you’ve been a few rounds with, well take your pick: Mervin King with that committee in the House of Commons or Adam Applegarth with the media, or OJ Simpson, or maybe not, or Mike Tyson generally. By the time the meal has come to coffee and chocolates we are all feeling rather punch drunk. Because Jesus was on good form that day. As I said, it was on the Sabbath and the man who had dropsy had been cured (Chapter 14), and he moves on from there to talk about who should sit where – remember the lines: ‘Give this person your place’ or ‘Move up higher, friend’. After that he tells his host that he really shouldn’t have invited those he invited because he only invited those who can invite him back and thus he gets paid back. He should have invited those who couldn’t invite him back. And then he goes on to someone who says, ‘Well said Jesus, rock on fella! None of those sitting round this table are going to eat with me in Paradise’ and then for the followers there’s a drop of good news, well no not really, as he says ‘Pick up your cross and follow me if you can.’

So life is going quite well and that’s only the end of Chapter 14. Chapter 15, to this high and mighty crowd, the friends of the Pharisees, the great and the good, those who think of themselves at the heart of the hub of society, he drops in the parables about importance. The importance of not being in the in-crowd, the importance of being the outcast and the lost. So we have the Lost Coin, Lost Sheep, the Lost (the Prodigal) Son. That’s quite a long story, The Prodigal Son, and that takes us right up to the end of Chapter 15, which is quite useful really, because we’re not even at the beginning of Chapter 16 yet.

So Chapter 16 begins, actually just as an aside you have to remember that these chapter divisions are a right pain in the butt, because they make us think that this is they way that Luke wanted it. He wanted a chunk called Chapter 14 over here, and then a chunk called Chapter15 - he didn’t write it like that. He didn’t sit down and go:
      ‘16, Verse 1. Then Jesus said...’
These are utterly arbitrary intrusions into the complete story that Luke has written and this bit of the story is one meal table, one meal, all constructed from hors d’oevres to the, erm, stuff at the end, and we’ve broken it up. That’s a kind of by the by.

Chapter16 begins. Well let’s just résumé what has happened so far. By the time Chapter16 begins, Jesus has, well as near as damn it, broken one of the major commandments in healing someone on the Sabbath, he has insulted his host, his guests and one of his own cheer-leaders, he has isolated the crowds in his weird ridicule anyone who happened to have built a tower and not had enough money to finish it – remember that story - and any King, or President, who might have chosen to go to war with an army of ten thousand against an army of twenty thousand, and realised that actually this is not going to work very well, but that’s Jesus talking 2,000 years ago, let’s just put that on one side.

But that’s where we are at the beginning of Chapter16; clearly this is a party going with a swing. Everyone’s having a great time; well Jesus is loving it, not quite sure how Jesus’ spin doctors would have coped with everything he has hurled at the people around the table so far. Then Chapter 16, verse1, then Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them a story. We have to remember, yet again, this is a story, about a rich man. It couldn’t possibly be a reference to his host, ooh no, that would be outrageous, a slur on the character and reputation of his rich host. ‘Oh no it’s not about you sir at all its just about any old rich man who happened to have a manager.’ Its seem very confusing to us as we read, it as it would appear that Jesus is commending bad behaviour, that whole action of the manager cutting the payments due to his master would seem to be commended by Jesus; this shrewd activity seems to be being affirmed.

But that there are a couple of points that need to be born in mind. Jesus is telling a story and it is through the voice of the master that Jesus gives these words. It is not Jesus commending this shrewd behaviour it is the master commending the shrew behaviour of his manager. And why? Why is the master pointing out this good, shrewd behaviour of his manager? Because the manager has just shafted the rich man. He’s absolutely scuppered him. And I’ll tell you what: Jesus is talking to Pharisees, well he’s telling a story to his disciples within earshot of all the Pharisees and high and mighty, and all of them know the Jewish law. They know it is not permissible to lend money at interest. It is not permissible to lend 50 and expect 100% interest, therefore getting 100 back. And the shrewd masters though, they know their ways round this. They know how they can lend money and make money without breaking that commandment. What they do is they don’t charge interest, they say: ‘Here have it, but when you repay me, give me some oil. So I’ll lend you enough so you can have 50 units of oil but when you give it me back I’d like to have 100 units of oil please to sell. So on the invoice that goes alongside the loan, it’s not the basic loan and the interested and the total due, it is just the total sum due in kind, not in money. Thus there is not interest paid on the loan.

So what the manager does is go to the people who owe his master things and say, ‘What was the original amount for? How much was the original loan?’ 100 jugs of oil – go back to the original 50. 100 containers of wheat - revert to the original 80. Clearly for some reason in first century Palestine there was a higher rate of interest on oil than on wheat, and we don’t know why, just the way it was. When the master finds out what happened on his invoices, on this book that he wanted to see, he’s scuppered. He’s had it and he knows it. He’s banged to rights. His shrew manager has got him totally. There is nothing he can do about getting the loans back at the rate of interest that he was expecting. As soon as he makes any public complaint about what his manager has done, he is admitted that he is breaking the law. All he can do is admire just how well his manager had acted, just how shrewd his manager had been, and probably take a little bit of pride that he’d learnt it all from himself.

So what does it do for us? Where does that leave us in the 21st Century? This is not a letter to Mervin King. It’s not a letter to Adam Applegarth about prudence in the financial sector. It’s much more personal than that. I think what Jesus is really saying is: if that’s the way you want to live your life, if you want to live your life being shrewd, being cunning, being clever, then make sure you curry favours amongst people with power and influence because it’s a jungle out there folks. The lies, the deceits, the petty corruptions, the sleaze, the bribery, its all there. So if that’s the way you want to live your life, be the best. If that’s the way you want to live your life, if that’s where you want to find your meaning and your purpose; if that is how you are going to judge your value and your worth; if that is the true measure of your personality and character; if that is what gets you up out of bed in the morning, gives you hope throughout the day and sends you to bed content, dreaming of a brighter future. If that’s the way you want to be, be the best.