What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon on the Dishonest Manager

19/09/2016

Here’s what I made of yesterday’s dreadful gospel reading…

Why am I preaching on this terrible gospel reading?

Why do bad things happen to good Provosts?

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

I ranted and I raved. I roared and roamed about the Cathedral office like a prowling lion seeking whom I might devour whom resist steadfast in the faith.

“Why” I cried. “Why am I on the preaching rota scheduled to preach on the parable of the dishonest manager?”

What’s the point of having a Vice Provost if you end up preaching on the most difficult of gospel readings yourself?

How come, I shrieked – how come I’m preaching on this? Who was it put me down to preach this week.

Members of the cathedral staff in the office looked at me in a bemused way and reminded me that against their better judgement it is me, the same very provost who was complaining who compiles the preaching rota. It was me who had scheduled myself to preach on this wretched story.

Wretched?

Difficult?

Impossible?

Why so?

Well, how on earth do you preach the good news when the gospel reading is all about seeing the good side of a dishonest manager?

Really, what on earth was Jesus on about?

And so I grumbled and moaned and sulked.

My joy is gone. Grief is upon me. My heart is sick, I opined channelling the very spirit of the prophet Jeremiah at his gloomiest.

Why do bad things happen to good provosts?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Who hasn’t asked that question at one time or another?

When you are merely cynical you ask why bad things happen to good people.

When you graduate to being both cynical and bitter you ask why good things happen to bad people too.

Those questions come up in Scripture. There are answers to those questions too – different contradictory answers which indicate that asking questions like that is part of the human condition. We’ve recently been reading the book of Job at morning prayer and it is page after page of people trying to find answers to those questions.

I have no idea how you cope with a story in which a dishonest manager is the central figure.

Is the dishonest manager being likened to God?

Are we really being encouraged to behave like dishonest managers and with what are we being expected to be dishonest.

This is one of those bible stories which make me wonder whether they even heard Jesus correctly when they were trying to remember all that he said.

The sudden blast of wisdom that we get at the end “That you cannot serve two masters, you can’t serve God and money” is brilliant, instantly memorable and both true and profound. Yet it goes no way at all to answering the question of whether Jesus is promoting dishonesty or what we should make of it if he is.

It seems to me though, on reflection that there’s a nougat of glory stashed away in this parable that might make us forget for a moment at least about that question.

Isn’t it amazing that a dishonest manager might remind us of God?

And isn’t that truth something that we might need reminding of.

We are so ready to divide the world into the good and the bad (most of us presuming that we fall into the good category automatically).

The thing is, problem with the very question “why do bad things happen to good people” is not the answer but the very question itself.

In telling a story about a dishonest manager that someway is a way of passing on something about God and goodness, Jesus is reminding us that everyone bears the image and likeness of God.

If we are going to ask pertinent questions, we might well ask why it is that bad people can sometimes be good.

Why might a murderer be kind to an animal? Why might someone who is known in one context to be kind be cruel in another?

The trouble is, we are complex creatures.

For a long time I used to think that no-one was intrinsically evil.

I have to admit that this was challenged when I became an ordinand and found that original sin was the only way I could really understand the cruelty of some of those who were trying to shape me and form me as a priest.

But do I believe that people are utterly, intrinsically wicked and by nature separate from God?

Plenty of bits of the Christian faith teach that this is so. Indeed I grew up having to sign up to the believe that and I quote: “all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.”

I don’t think that now.

I don’t think that because I believe people are more complex than that. And I don’t believe it because I think God’s love is more simple than that.

I don’t think that now because I don’t believe in a God who is in the business of wrath. And I believe that human beings are generally more complex than simply being bad and depraved and then suddenly saved into being good.

God’s love is either for everyone or God isn’t a God worth dealing with.

And part of my justification for that is the existence of this story of the dishonest manager.

All kinds of people are heaven bound – dishonest managers amongst them.

All kinds of people reflect the essence and nature of God. And not the people who would come at the top of our lists.

For in this kingdom we are heading for things are not quite what you expect anyway.

From time to time I ask people for suggestions for the badge stall at the back of the church. One of the surprising good sellers is a badge that simply says, “make no assumptions”.

And we must make no assumptions about the bad and the good.

For all are made in the image and likeness of God and all are loved anyway.

All are loved anyway.

Must make that into a badge.

dishonest manager

8 responses to “More sermons”

ryan

25/07/2008

Listened to one of the sermons (the wife for Isaac one) and it struck me that the one thing all proper episcopal preachers that I’ve heard have in common is an attractive voice. Is this taught at theological college, or are prospective ordinands vetted, Simon Cowell on X Factor style?

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kelvin

25/07/2008

You are too kind Ryan. And the idea that people at theological college should be taught anything to do with preaching is delightfully charming.

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morag

25/07/2008

just read the kingfisher sermon,you really do have a beautiful way with words and imagery.I believe God is with us every day.I was walking with my dog in Kelvingrove park the other night and in the pond standing quite still and majestic was a large heron.He looked magnificent but nobody else seemed to notice they just walked on by.God is definitely in my local park,Victoria.There is a sort of semi wild section of large yellow Peace roses there and their scent is truly heaven “scent”I love to sit theredrinking it in and have quiet thoughts with God.This web page you have is truly unique and it is wonderful to come across someone in the church who so obviously has a living ,loving relationship with God

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David |daveed|

26/07/2008

And the idea that people at theological college should be taught anything to do with preaching is delightfully charming.

May I beg to differ, at least for this side of the pond.

Both of the seminaries which I attended in the USA, had a department with professors dedicated to teaching homiletics & worship. At Perkins School of Theology, SMU, we took two required semesters, which included writing weekly sermons to be delivered in class for critique by both professors and classmates. Each semester we also had three sermons which were videotaped at staggered points in the class for us to be able to witness and have record of our own improvements.

I was even asked to preach one of my three in my native Spanish and was critiqued by the hispanic community, staff & students at Perkins.

Preaching and Worship are pretty standard fare at seminaries in the USA & Canada.

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kelvin

26/07/2008

My apologies, David. I’d forgotten that we had gone global.

I would say that I learned a lot about liturgy and worship during my training, much of it from other students. I don’t think there was much more than 15 minutes devoted to homiletics in all my training.

I think that the theory was that this would be done whilst on placements in congregations. Although one can learn a lot in such placements, I think that preaching is something that everyone can always learn to do a bit better and that the church should not be shy of trying to teach.

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ryan

26/07/2008

I’m always curious as to whether preachers write out a full script of a sermon, actor giving a reading style, or if there is an element of improvisation. A 60 minute sermon,at average speaking speed, works out at 6,000 words which is surely a lot to write out in full each week.And what happens if there are pastoral crises that prevent completing the writing of a sermon? Do you guys have a folder of back-up material for such occasions? Are you allowed to plagiarise or is that a big a vice as it is in academia?

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kelvin

26/07/2008

Thanks Ryan. Those are good questions.

First of all, no-one in their right mind preaches for 60 minutes in the UK, do they? I think you will find on listening to mine that you get about 12 minutes. I think that if you are a regular preacher and you can’t say what you want to say in St Mary’s in 15 minutes you’ve probably started to preach next week’s sermon a week early. My recent one about dating strategies was just over 10, and there was a lot packed in!

The readings that we use come round in a three year cycle so quite often one may have as a starting point what was said three years ago or six years ago. Using a common lectionary also means that a lot of people are preaching on the same thing at the same time and there are a lot of websites with emergency resources and other people’s ideas.

I’d say that most preachers use other people’s ideas. Often it is nice to acknowledge them. Since putting all mine online, I’d say that I use other people’s material much less. I do sometimes use things that I’ve used before and in other contexts. If it was worth saying once, it might be worth saying again. Again, however, putting it online makes that kind of thing more risky now. They might have heard the jokes before.

In a good week, I will have been thinking about the lectionary readings all through the week even through the pastoral events that come along. They feed into it somehow.

Lots of my influences come from people I encountered when I was reading Divinity at St Andrew’s University. At the time I learned a lot from a prominent feminist theologian and have since learnt the importance of the Liberation Theologians that people were trying to get me to appreciate. At the time, it bored me silly. Now it is the stuff of life.

They key is to develop a range of ways of reading the Bible. A repertoire of styles.

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David |daveed|

27/07/2008

Ryan, there are many styles, and we all have to find which of them is a best fit for us personally. I know a few who preach from the barest of notes on a 3 x 5 card. Others who read verbatim from a type written manuscript. I think the majority of us type a manuscript and refer to it, however, certainly not slavishly, leaving room to expand or alter “as the Spirit moves.”

The axiom I was taught by both John Holbert and Marjorie Procter-Smith was that if you preach more than 15 minutes, you do not know what you are talking about.

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