St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church

Luke 16:1-13

"And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Dirty hands.
It's the classic ethical problem of participating in human communities.
The same institutions that give us an identity, protect our creativity,
and give shape to our lives, are also the same institutions that harm others.

The big institutions of trade- coffee, sugar, tobacco, shrimp -
deliver products and tastes that give us immense joy,
and inspired other industries that raised the standard of living
of many,

rely on the degradation of other human beings and the environment.
Out of the cruelty we impose on others,
something delightful and delicious is created.
And without these objects of taste,
we'd be in a different sort of culture.

Dirty hands is often about relationships.

There are relationships within, and between institutions.
These institutions give shape to our identity.
We truly are the company you keep.

The gospel complicates the problem of dirty hands.
Because there is no institution, association, or identity
that is perfect.

Now I know we want things to be perfect.
We want to claim ourselves free of the messiness and sin
we render invisible.

The church describes the problem of "dirty hands"
our challenged engagement in each other's lives,
our lack of perspective and the ease with which we
support institutions that harm ourselves and others,
"original sin."

It is corporate, and it is inescapable,
for the same organizations that are imperfect,
allow us to do good work.

Institutions give us a sense of identity and integrity,
but also make it easy to hide our stuff.

The gospel answer to the problem of dirty hands
is not clean hands.

Yes - keep them clean. Wash them. Don't be a slob.

But you'll never get every microbe off your hands,
you want them clean enough
so that you can get the work done and don't hurt other people.

The gospel has a way of evading the question:
are your hands clean enough?
For to say he who is faithful in little is also faithful in much
is another way of saying, play to our strengths.
Build those strengths up.

Mitigate the bad, but encourage the good.

There are a couple mistakes we often make.

Because we want things to be perfect, clean, and controlled
we sometimes try to control other people.
We control our kids, control our spouses,
control our environments.

And sometimes control is justified.

But if someone tries to control you, even if its for a good reason,
sometimes you resist, and simply because you don't want to be controlled
you react in a different way -
that might even be contrary to your own interests.

Perhaps, instead of control - it is alright to have someone else learn
that their actions have consequences.

You don't need to be responsible for their mistakes.

This urge to control, sometimes makes our lives worse.
We control by trying to correct the negative,
by complaining, chastizing, nagging.

That's probably what the manager was doing before he got fired.
He was telling all his workers how incompetent they were,
and changed his mind after he got fired,
realizing then he needed to have some friends on his side.

What could he do?
encourage the faithful,
encourage the positive,
maintain a sense of hope and optimism,
even as he lost his job. He realized,
that it was his relationships that gave him meaning.

This manager -
he's networking.
What the manager is doing is
maintaining connections.
He is being shrewd.
He isn't judging the people who owe him money.
He is working with what he can.

He's encouraging the good,
and in itself, that is mitigating the bad.

We can do this by working within the institutions around us-
the church,
our political parties,
the corporate choices, the market choices we make.

We can also work outside the system, if we must.

Or we can just turn away.

Our options are wide: there is no judgment about what is best or most appropriate.
But the manager is maintaining connections with other people,
without any question about perfection
each other's clean hands.

The last quote: you cannot worship both God and wealth
is stating the obvious.

The wealthy often learn that people want one thing from them:
their money.
Of course I'm being a bit extreme here -
there isn't much different between the rich and the poor,
except for their wealth.
It makes it hard to keep connections based
on loyalty or friendship.
The bonds that hold people together,
are much more difficult when
they make value judgments
based simply upon money,
when that is what orients our connections.

Money is not evil.
It is a medium of communication, of making our lives easier.
But it is a fleeting and ephemeral basis for the connections that make us human.

And the manager knew this.
He let there be loose ends, a little imperfection,
a little forgiveness,
a little charity -
now this was still a system of exchange.

There was still some reciprocation going on,
but it was based on solidarity,
on friendship,
conducted with encouragement
playing to the strengths of his partners.

We want this world to be a better place.
But it won't be a perfect place.
trying to make the world perfect
might even get us into more trouble.

The world is full of revolutionaries,
who while trying to make the world perfect,
created immense amounts of misery.

Instead,
encourage what is good in people,
strengthen was is good about yourself,
keep what good connections you have with other people,
ignore what is bad.

Encourage what is good:
those associations that
give us a sense of identity,
focus on what makes people strong,
help people identify what is good.

What we can trust is that
the spirit works through that encouragement,
the slow edification of faith
that allows us to
balance the vicissitudes
that make up the challenges of our life here.

We'll always have some dirt on our hands.
And sometimes, that's not a bad thing,
for love sometimes calls us to be shrewd,
in this generation.
It is enough that we encourage each other
and stay connected.

Sometimes it requires forgiveness and charity that is nothing
short of miraculous,
but this is where the spirit works.

In our hands, clean or sometimes, dirty.