Most of Jesus’ listeners lack money and resources. It seems odd then that Jesus tells them a parable this Sunday about their careful use of them. The parable begins with a wealthy landowner who will be letting his manager go because he is wasteful. The manager obviously wants a comfortable next position. He decides to secure it by starting to make careful use of money and resources – but for his own gain. Jesus commends the manager’s initiative but marks it as a selfish concern over a “little thing,” money, with which wasteful people “cannot be trusted,” because they use it for their private gain. We are encouraged toward communal initiative and being “trustworthy,” by taking care of a “little thing’ like money in that context.
The initiative of the communal includes securing all people’s needs, specifically life’s basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. Cooperatives take such initiative thereby creating democratic relations, economic equality, and generative ethics. History is filled with great adventures in cooperatives; house churches, the Beguines, Vincent de Paul Societies, and trade unions. The first official cooperative was formed in 1844 in Rochdale, England consisting of poor weavers working in local textile mills. Another important cooperative was the 1864 Raiffeisen Credit Union for farmers. Like the weavers, the farmers sought freedom from selfish capitalists with excessive care toward money who were untrustworthy, and used money for private gain. The farmers’ initiative led to the modern day credit union. These communities or cooperatives live on, as do so many others; Koinonia Farm, Catholic Worker Communities, Apple Farm, and Holy Wisdom Monastery. They are all an extension of the community or cooperative that is our origin – family and friends; people taking care of each other. They all give witness to the appropriate care of money, being trustworthy with it, and using it for community.
People who lack communal sensibilities about money and resources and act instead like the privatizing manager in Jesus’ parable, sometimes gravitate toward government. In the U.S. they deny government the ability to be a communal or cooperative endeavor. They strive to privatize, and are often, ironically so, self-titled Christians. As a result, we who live in a supposedly Christian nation are subject to a specifically non-Christian and worldly initiative toward money and resources. As such, we fear old age, disability, or infirmity because managers repeatedly communicate to us that money is great but we are little and that privatizing it is good but communalizing it is bad. Let us work on freeing ourselves from the capitalist privatizers and thus free ourselves for courageous community.
Prayer: Spirit of Freedom, fill us with the courage to create community.
Question: How do I lean toward selfishness and inhibit community?
September 18, 2016 Gospel Luke 16:1-13 Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time