What We Can Learn from Scalawags

Pentecost 17
September 23, 2007

Luke 16:1-13
By Pastor Tom Kadel

 A Mafia Godfather finds out that his bookkeeper has stolen 10 million bucks from him. The bookkeeper is deaf. It was the reason he got the job in the first place, since it was assumed that a deaf bookkeeper would not be able to hear anything that he’d ever have to testify about in court. When the Godfather goes to shakedown the bookkeeper about his missing 10 million bucks, he brings along his attorney, who knows sign language. The Godfather asks the bookkeeper, “Where is the 10 million bucks you embezzled from me?”  The attorney, using sign language, asks the bookkeeper where the 10 million bucks is hidden.  The bookkeeper signs back, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”  The attorney tells the Godfather: “He says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about.” That’s when the Godfather pulls out a gun, puts it to the bookkeeper’s temple, cocks it, and says, “Ask him again!”  The attorney signs to the deaf bookkeeper, “He’ll kill you for sure if you don’t tell him!”  The bookkeeper, knowing his life depends on giving the correct answer, signs back, “Okay! You win! The money is in a brown briefcase, buried behind the shed in my cousin Enzo’s backyard in Queens!”  The Godfather asks the attorney, “Well, what’d he say?”  The attorney replies, “He says you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger.”

Good morning, brothers and sisters.  That Mafia story doesn’t have any good people in it, does it?  There’s the boss, who will kill the bookkeeper if he doesn’t tell where the $10 million is.  There’s the bookkeeper who stole the $10 million.  Then there’s the attorney who learns where the money is hidden and twists things so that he will be the only one who knows!  They are a bunch of scalawags!  A scalawag is a ne'er-do-well, a rascal, and a good-for-nothing troublemaker.  I think that pretty well describes those guys.

And I think scalawag pretty well describes the two guys in today’s gospel text – a story that Jesus told.  You remember the story, don’t you?

A manager gets caught embezzling from his master and knows he’s going to lose his job.  He is in a quandary until an idea hits him.  He calls in everyone who owes the master a debt and one by one radically reduces the debt.  Here’s what he figures.  He can win some allies from among those debtors who will have his back when he gets fired.  But the twist is that when the master learns what the man has done, he praises the crook.

Surely the manager was a scalawag.  He’d been embezzling!  But the master was a scalawag, too, wasn’t he?  When he saw how shrewd the manager was, he praised the guy, probably figuring that a guy like that could use that shrewdness to make him even more millions. 

What’s a story about scalawags doing in the Bible?  Are they being held up as guys to imitate?  It almost looks that way when Jesus goes on to say in The Message translation, “Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens.  They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits.  I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right…”  No, Jesus wasn’t holding up those two scalawags as examples of how to live.  But he was saying that their streetsmarts should be our streetsmarts, too.

I think there are four characteristics about scalawags.  First, they read the signs and they know what they want and they know what others want, too.  Second, they are inventive in delivering to people what they want.  Thirdly, they seek to win people over.  And fourthly, they do all these things to benefit themselves.  Scalawags are streetsmart people who know how to get what they want for themselves.  Disciples of Jesus are called to be streetsmart people who know how to get what God wants for the world.  There’s the difference! 

There’s a Greek New Testament word I think we can learn more about this from.  It is the word dikaios.  Most of the time – 75 times in the New Testament – that word is translated “righteousness.”  But do you know what?  That isn’t the best translation because at its core, dikaios actually means “justice.” 

Let me illustrate by lifting up some things Jesus said, but using “justice” rather than “righteousness.”  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled.”  And, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  And, “For I tell you, unless your justice exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  And, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will be given to you as well.” 

Kinda transforms things, doesn’t it?  Instead of a fuzzy word, righteousness, which suggests we should live as nice people, justice suggests that we work for something that God wants.  Remember what I said, “Disciples of Jesus are called to be streetsmart people who know how to get what God wants for the world.”  And God, according to Jesus, wants justice. 

And justice simply – or not so simply – can be defined as the meeting point of mercy, compassion, fairness, and the Golden Rule in workclothes.  Looked at this way, it takes us way beyond wondering if criminals get their proper punishment, doesn’t it?  It takes us into looking into the cracks and crevices of the world where the world has tossed the poor, the weak, most of the sick and all of the outsiders.  In fact, it takes us into looking at the world itself and the slow death of its air, its waters and its climates.

Now, it’s easy for us to feel a bit overwhelmed by what’s in those cracks and crevices.  The problems of securing mercy, compassion, fairness, and the Golden Rule in workclothes for those in the cracks seem so huge and so overwhelming that we’re pretty well tempted to do nothing.  What can you and I do about poverty?  What can you and I do about the AIDS pandemic – especially on the African continent?  What can you and I do about air pollution and global warming?  What can you and I do about using war to solve international problems?  What can you and I do about the millions upon millions of adults and children – here in the U.S. and around the world who have no access to healthcare? 

But, disciples of Jesus are called to be streetsmart people who know how to get what God wants for the world and what God wants for the world is justice – good old mercy, compassion, fairness, and the Golden Rule in workclothes for the earth and her people.  We can learn from the scalawags of the world, that a kind of clever perseverance can find a way through things that look unsolvable. 

Two weeks ago in the children’s sermon, I told a story about starfish.  Maybe that is the answer for those who would be disciples of Jesus.  A man happens upon a boy throwing starfish back into the ocean after a storm.  Thousands and thousands of starfish line miles and miles of beaches.  The man asks the boy what he is doing and the boy says he is saving the starfish.  The man says, “But there are so many starfish!  You might as well give up.  You’ll never make a difference.”  The boy reaches down, picks up a starfish and throws it back into the ocean.  Then he looks at the man and says, “It made a difference to that one.”

Perhaps the beginning of streetsmart for disciples of Jesus is to simply make a difference somewhere in something.  Turn off a light.  Support the World Hunger Appeal.  Go to the Gulf Coast.  Write a letter.  Consume less, love more.  You can come up with your own list, but do stuff, get in on God’s justice-making.  Throw some starfish back into some ocean. 

I’m certainly not asking you to become a scalawag, but I am asking you to be streetsmart in showing mercy, acting in compassion, working for fairness, and living the Golden Rule as if it were your job.  Because, actually, it is.

Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.