That Time Jesus Told Us About the One Thing We Need to Get Right.
What is the most important perception your faith could ever help you have? Jesus tells us in the Parable of the Unjust Manager in Luke 16:1-8. He tells us the story of a manager who defrauds his master, not once, but twice. But what makes this a very strange story is that Jesus commends this dishonest employee by stating that he understands the character of God more than God's own people often do. He gets one thing right that they get wrong, and that one thing is the only thing that truly matters. He bets his entire future on the unchangeable truth that his master is a generously graceful man. He lives with the same freedom that Paul does when he declares in Romans 5:20 that "where sin abounds, grace abounds even more." And it is here that we unlock the freedom of self-forgiveness.
He gets one thing right that they get wrong, and that one thing is the only thing that truly matters. He bets his entire future on the unchangeable truth that his master is a generously graceful man.
Now this might sound like Jesus is enabling sin (which He isn't!). On the contrary, I think Jesus is inviting us into the freedom of accepting our imperfections by knowing that there will be sin, but where there is sin, God's rectifying grace will be there even more powerfully. God's heart for His people is that the peace they receive from His grace always drives out the fear they are burdened with from their sins (1 John 4:18). We see this in the way the parable is told. The ruse of the unjust manager goes something like this:
There is an unjust manager who works as a property manager for a wealthy and generous master.
He is caught mishandling the master's wealth and is rightfully condemned and fired on the spot (first offense!).
After being fired, the unjust manager realizes that he cannot live with the consequences of his actions.
Before anyone realizes he's been fired, he goes to everyone who owes his master anything and deceptively offers to forgive their debts on his master's behalf (second offense!).
This earns the unjust manager favor among the master's business partners throughout the town. However, this is a huge risk and he could be thrown into prison or sold into slavery to pay off the net loss he incurred for his master. This plan will only work if the master chooses one of two options in light of this employee's scheme.
The story concludes with this choice: the master can either inform all the debtors that the manager has been fired and that the forgiveness he offered them was not authorized by forcing them to pay up. Or he can absorb the cost of the unjust manager's salvation himself, and continue to live up to his own reputation as a generous man. The Compassionate Master chooses the latter.
The truth told to us by Jesus about the character of God in this story is the only thing powerful enough to set us free from our personal demons. As Kenneth Bailey writes in his cultural study of the gospels, the unjust manager is not endorsed for his actions, but he is "praised for his confidence in his master's gracious nature." In the end, it is this confidence alone that matters the most.
If we are to find any type of freedom for ourselves through forgiveness, then we must learn to have the same confidence in God's gracious nature that the unjust manager did. We must be willing to risk it all on this alone, just as he did. While the interpersonal dynamics and boundaries will be different for each of us as we learn to forgive ourselves, something wise counselors and friends can always help us navigate, the foundation is the same for each of us. As we process the past, as we take responsibility for our mistakes, as we accept our imperfections, we do it with great confidence in our Master's neverending mercy. Such confidence will always eventually take us to where we need to be, even if the journey is long and painful.
If we are to find any type of freedom for ourselves through forgiveness, then we must learn to have the same confidence in God's gracious nature that the unjust manager did. We must be willing to risk it all on this alone, just as he did.
The parable presses upon our sensibilities, and it is why some find this parable controversial. Many commentators want to avoid this controversy by making this a parable about money since there is a discussion around money that immediately follows it. However, I believe this parable is meant to be understood only in the light of the Parable of the Prodigal Son which precedes it. These two stories are meant to be told hand-in-hand. In the first, two rebellious children fail to understand the grace their Compassionate Father lavishes upon them. In the second, an unjust manager perceives that grace correctly, even if it is only to serve his own self-preservation, by throwing his whole life on the mercy of the compassionate nature of his master, just as the prodigal son eventually did with his own father. In both parables, we are meant to be a bit shocked by the waywardness of the underlings and entirely unprepared for the unconditional generosity of the Compassionate Overseer.
As we process the past, as we take responsibility for our mistakes, as we accept our imperfections, we do it with great confidence in our Master's neverending mercy. Such confidence will always eventually take us to where we need to be, even if the journey is long and painful.
If our hearts are to change because of grace, then we must surrender the right to judge even ourselves as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4. And we can only do that if we have confidence in God's character. We must be so confident that God's grace is the rectifying force that our hearts need, that the weight of our past is lifted by the hope that God will restore all of it in a way we never could. Our self-condemnation, our fear, our shame, and our regrets can only be driven from us if we set our hearts to always be prepared to be unprepared for the compassion God has towards us in Jesus. The unjust manager rightly perceives that the compassion of his master will outweigh anything else he does. Jesus wants us to have the same informed perception of God. If you get nothing else in your life right, if you get nothing else in your faith right, get this: your perception of God's mercy and living with the utmost confidence in that mercy is the only thing that matters.