Dealing With Our Own Kind

Jeremiah 8.18 – 9.1; Luke 16.1-9

Russ Dean, September 23, 2001

On Thursday night of this week, the President addressed a nation that has been united by fear and uncertainty. He was poised. Powerful. Presidential. There is little doubt that the actions of September 11^th will define his legacy, and that his speech will be remembered for many years. But as I listened, I was torn by many emotions: the great pride of our democratic ideal, the great sadness of senseless tragedy, the great anxiety of personal fear, and by the great tension of a divided loyalty.

For as I listened to his words, I heard softly in the background a haunting whisper. It was the whisper of rattling sabers, the proud declaration of power. It was the whisper of tank tracks, rumbling through Kabul, Afghanistan. And through Charlotte, NC. It was the whisper of footfalls on the sidewalk. News of death, delivered in person. It was the sound of even more mothers, like sad Rachel of the scripture, weeping for her children “who are no more.”[i]

It was the sound of war. And it will not rest for me easily alongside the powerful words of scripture,

“In the days to come…the LORD’s house shall be established… all the nations shall stream to it… [God] shall judge between the nations… they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[ii]

As Amy and I discussed the President’s speech, I was thinking of today’s texts – of Jeremiah’s questions and of Jesus’ strange parable. His difficult words seem to contradict his usual teachings. They seem to applaud dishonest tactics, to imply that the end justifies even a dishonest means. Some will no doubt hear Jesus’ words today as a justification for a war against terrorism by “any means necessary.”

I think we must listen more carefully.

In this parable that turns everything upside-down, Jesus asks us to think, and to think carefully. The manager of a rich man’s property had been caught, red-handed, swindling his boss. The boss serves him “notice,” so in a last-ditch effort to ensure his future, he concocts one more sham. Going to each of the rich man’s debtors, he marks down each debt. The clients are ecstatic, they’ve gotten such a bargain, the rich man himself comes out to the good because all of his debtors think he is responsible for the generosity, and because of this shrewdness, the manager apparently does secure his future – if not saving his job with his original boss, by guaranteeing one with one of the impressed clients.

Jesus commends the dishonest manager and challenges his hearers, ”Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes” (vs.9). In this odd statement, he makes at least two points that we should hear today.

First, Jesus disavows any allegiance other than allegiance to God. The word for “dishonest wealth” is the word “mammon.” Jesus is the only person to use this word in all of scripture, and he always does so in a negative context. “Mammon” is derived from an Aramaic word meaning, “that in which one trusts.”[iii] And for Jesus, anything in which we trust, other than God – be it money, material possessions, or military might – are false security. Only God deserves our trust.

The second lesson is ironic: Jesus says that mammon – our “dishonest wealth,” our worldly wisdom is useful, but it can be redeemed only if it is used to pursue eternal ends. Jesus often challenged his followers to abandon worldly possessions or to give all to the poor in order to follow him. What he says here is really no different than that. Since mammon has no value to the Children of Light, since no wealth is our wealth, since no possessions are our possessions, since no security is truly our security – mammon should be used, freely and shrewdly.

To finally understand this parable, and to bring it to bear on the crisis at hand, we need to understand what Jesus means by “the eternal homes”? What is Jesus commending as “eternal”? – from his life and teachings we know that only that which lasts in this world and beyond are of value: truth, beauty, faith in one another and in God. If we use mammon shrewdly, God will be our wealth; God will be our security.

So today we must talk honestly about goals. What is the goal of “Operation Infinite Justice,” as originally named by the Pentagon? We have now committed much mammon, many lives, indeed our very future as a nation to this operation. Is the goal our peace or is it God’s peace? Is the goal temporal or “eternal”? Is the goal for God to “bless America” through military might, or is it for God, perhaps through us to truly bless all the nations of the world?

These are not easy questions for Children of Light to answer. They call for honesty from a nation and its citizens. They call for honesty in accountability and responsibility. Are we in some ways reaping the seeds of a past, sown in power?[iv] Are terrorist missions a response to a long-term foreign policy of “peace through strength”? What if we had practiced a foreign policy all these years that was called “peace through justice” instead?

For many people in this country, the goal of this “war without end,” whether they can admit it or not, is revenge, pure and simple. And if revenge is our aim, then war is the right path. But even if it is “justified,” it is a path with no end. We may “smoke” Osama Ben Laden “out of his hole,” we may “bring our enemies to justice,” we may claim victory and relish in peace, but it will be only our justice, our peace, and it will be only for a time. The proverb says, “If you seek revenge, dig two graves.” Afghanistan has already announced its resolve to retaliate if we attack. They sacrificed 2 million citizens in war against Russia and their leader says they are ready to sacrifice 2 million more.[v] Ben Laden himself boasts that a billion Muslims around the world will respond to a call for “Jihad” – holy war.[vi] If “holy war” is “the only way” against terrorists, God help us.

But if our goal is peace… if our goal is God’s peace, we must seek another way. I disagree with the President that last Tuesday’s evil is a “new evil” in the world. I believe that sadly the evil is the same as that darkness which caused Cain to dash in his brother’s skull with a stone.[vii] But regardless, dealing with evil with the strategy that has failed since time began will fail again – especially since the stones we cast today, and the rhetoric we use are more deadly than ever. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “The end is preexistent in the mean[s].” He meant, “When we fail to recognize the close connection between our goals and the ways in which we seek to reach them, we are in danger of losing these goals.”[viii]

“Nothing comes from violence. Nothing ever could.”[ix]

Walter Cronkite appeared on the David Letterman show this week and spoke of justified retribution, but he said we ought also to have a “second thought.” “The economic status of these people,” he said, “has prompted much of this violence. And we are partly responsible for this. This is part of the solution.” Letterman pressed him, “Have we ever sought economic relief for our enemies as a response to violence?” Cronkite responded soberly, “I can’t say that we have.” But he spoke of the powerful work of the small, limited bands of “Peace Corps” volunteers around the world. Cronkite said that where we have Peace Corps volunteers, we do not have terrorist enemies.[x]

If peace is truly our goal, we must have a second thought, we must use all of the resources of creativity and cunning and conniving, all of the shrewd “dishonesty” that this world can teach us – but we must apply it for eternal reward.

We are at a potentially defining moment in human history. I am not dreaming of a utopian end of all wars, but of a nation that could use disastrous opportunity to practice a calculated peace that the world has never known. If we as the most just, most free, most powerful, most advanced, most resourceful nation the world has ever known cannot act more shrewdly – even in worldly terms – we will prove that we are simply “Dealing With Our Own Kind.” And we will miss an opportunity that perhaps comes along only once in history.

Are we “Dealing With Our Own Kind?”

The prophet Jeremiah speaks to us, today, even as to his own people who were also torn by national disaster. In his words we hear God’s own lament. The questions are rhetorical, perhaps even with a sarcastic barb: Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?

The region of Gilead was well-known throughout the Middle East for a plentiful herb that grew there, producing a healing, medicinal salve. What God has been saying for thousands of years is this: There is healing. It is abundant. It is in your midst. There is salvation when the summer is past. There is hope. There is peace.

Will you pray for it, today? Will you work for it? Will you use your every resource? Will you have a “second thought” and call on wisdom from above as well as the most shrewd wisdom of earthly mammon – to pursue eternal peace?

It must begin in our own hearts. We must believe in that balm. We must trust that only God’s peace is true peace. We must practice forgiveness in our own lives. We must love God with all of our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength. We must love our neighbors – and our enemies – as ourselves.

The final word is this. Jesus applauds a dishonest steward and commends to us his shrewdness. But he then turns the tables and reminds us, subtly, “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light.”

Did you hear it? You… are Children of Light. Think twice.

You are Children of Light. Think. Twice.

Amen!