Useless to capitalism

 

Luke 16: 1-13
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
September 21, 2025

Photo of a very large city with tall buildings in a hazy background and colorful apartment buildings in various states of repair in the foreground.

Before his listeners can get comfortable, Jesus tells the parable of the dishonest manager right on the heels of the prodigal son—two stories of people who squandered the wealth of someone who entrusted it to them and were either forgiven or commended. Jesus used parables to not only teach but to provoke us to ask the necessary questions. How are we to live in community together? What really matters in this life? How do we live the way God wants us to live? Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine writes that Jesus doesn’t provide answers—instead he wants us to come to our own conclusions, ones that may betray our biases or holes in our theology.



Who is this dishonest manager? While it would be easy to think of a few contemporary examples, at the end of this passage, Jesus is addressing his listeners. Though they may have been eager to hear about the demise of both the rich man and his dishonest manager, instead they hear one commend the other for being shrewd and then Jesus puts the spotlight on his audience. It’s not only about how much or how little wealth we have—it’s about who or what we serve, what possesses our faithfulness. Another way to think about this is who or what is the main character in our story.



Western civilization, especially as it is lived out in the United States, asserts that the individual is the main character in the story—we are captain of our soul. Especially if we are White and privileged, that is exactly what it means to be privileged—to consider ourselves first, the center of the narrative, our feelings and thoughts, our point of view, our comfort are paramount.



Capitalism not only supports this but thrives on it. Capitalism and individualism are two sides of a coin. Under capitalism, wealth is the main character in the story, at the expense of human beings, community, the earth, and her creatures. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. Even more insidious is what’s mine is mine and what is yours is yours. I’m the main character in my story and you are the main character in your story, but my story has nothing to do with your story or vice versa. Which sounds nothing like Jesus.



Even Jesus was not the main character in his story—that’s what the Church and Christianity did to him and now Christian Nationalism wants to continue, world without end. What Christian Nationalists willfully ignore is that Jesus was always pointing away from himself to the poor, the hungry, those who mourn, the peacemakers, the oppressed and marginalized, the incarcerated, because if we really want to find God, that is where we will find Them.



The center cannot hold if all it contains is White, wealth-hoarding patriarchal power. Institutions, corporations, and governments cannot save us because they have put their survival in the center of the human story and right now they are scrambling to save themselves. White supremacists are horrified because White people are no longer the center of the story and thus are afraid they will be treated just as they treated other minorities. Christian nationalists are making power grabs because they are threatened, because Christianity is no longer the center of the story, which it never should have been. Every conflict we witness or experience stems from a refusal from those with power to vacate the center of the story, because to do so is equated with shame, failure, loss, pain, and suffering.



If White people say “Black lives matter” but get uncomfortable when Black people talk about reparations, we’re still in the center of the story. If we declare ourselves on the side of justice but get uncomfortable when activists link transgender justice with freedom for Palestine and Black liberation, we’re still in the center of the story. If we say we’re a transgender ally, but brutally scrutinize every vote of the first and only transgender member of Congress, we just might be occupying a space we have no idea what it’s like to live in. I’m not making excuses—I’m trying to get us to examine our own biases, our own commitment to a violent system, and our resistance to take ourselves out of the center of the story.



Putting ourselves in the center of the story is a coping mechanism for being neglected, for not receiving all the love and attention we needed when we were young, for not being regarded as worthy or important, to cope with the feelings of shame, failure, loss, and the pain and suffering that comes with them. It’s also one of the reasons we accumulate wealth and possessions, to fill that emptiness and to avoid dealing with those emotions. And from there it can be almost too easy to paint ourselves the victim whenever we are challenged.



Wealth comes in many forms, including privilege, and from Jesus’ perspective, all of it is dishonest wealth because it is withheld from the most vulnerable and thus stolen from them. The existence of money itself is the result of private ownership of resources when in truth all of this earth belongs to no one. Wealth and our service to it puts us and our needs in the center of the story rather than the earth and our neighbor. Why can’t it be both, we think. Why can’t I plan for my own comfort as well as my neighbor? But is our neighbor just as comfortable as we are? Make no mistake—our neighbor and God are the same thing.



Empire and capitalism only work if we are competing against one another rather than putting our neighbor and the earth in the center of the story. And fascism is all about protecting capitalism, those with wealth and those who serve wealth. Under capitalism, the poor are indebted to the wealthy, but in the kin-dom of God, the wealthy are indebted to the poor. Damon Garcia, who wrote the liturgy for today’s scripture, writes, “We are only as close to God as the economy we are faithful to will allow us to be.”



The dishonest manager was commended as shrewd because he used that dishonest wealth for someone else’s good rather than his own and made the rich man appear merciful. How can we use our dishonest wealth for someone else’s good and be merciful? How can we be useless to capitalism? We can help others without requiring anything in return. We can forgive someone’s debt to us. Put the needs of the vulnerable in the center of the story. We can divest ourselves of companies that kowtow to political hacks and silence free speech. Be generous with what we have. Barter and trade to meet some of our needs. Join a buy nothing group. Shop small and local this holiday season and buy second-hand goods whenever we can. Don’t exploit others or ourselves. Be curious, not judgmental. Slow down. Let go. Daydream. Take a nap.



To be a Bible-reading capitalist is an oxymoron. If we keep reading the Bible, if we keep following Jesus and take him seriously, we will cease to be capitalists, which is the last thing fascism wants. Instead, we will possess the true riches: clear-eyed, open-hearted compassion, not just for some but for everyone, citizens of the kin-dom of God. A new world starts here, with us, today and every day we choose it. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com

Sometimes the gospel is startlingly clear:
We cannot love what exploits our neighbors
and love God at the same time.
We cannot love what is killing life on the planet
and love God at the same time.
We go in grace,
seeking the treasures of heaven,
and the truth that sets us free.