Jack Hardaway
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My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a Manhattan businessman who dressed and played the part with style.
The hay day of his business was in the 1970’s and 80’s, advising companies on how to claim as many tax credits as possible. I remember him talking about how so much of his business revolved around appearances, looking successful, looking clever and smart.
He was a trickster at heart. Sometimes if he didn’t know what to say he’d smoke his pipe in a certain way that made him look very wise convincing clients and the competition that he knew what he was doing. A charming trickster making his way in Manhattan, playing the game, playing and being played, and loving every minute.
The character of the trickster is a common theme in the story telling of most cultures.
The African fables of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox were transferred and retold here in the American South. Brer Rabbit tricking Brer Fox into throwing him in to the briar patch.
Bugs Bunny carried on the tradition of the Trickster after that, always one step ahead of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam.
Tom Sawyer, another great American trickster. Pay me a dollar and I’ll let you paint this fence. The movie and musical, Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story of a runaway teenager conning his way into millions of dollars from Airlines, the court system, and the medical system. Eventually he gets hired by the secret service to catch other crooks, hire a crook to catch a crook.
The trickster.
Scripture has tricksters too. More than most people realize. Joseph. Daniel. Ruth. Jael. The midwives in Exodus Shiphrah and Puah, not to mention Moses’ mother Jochebed, and his sister Miriam, just to name a few.
But Jacob was the foremost, tricking his brother for his inheritance, his father for his blessing, and he out cons his father in law out of both his daughters. The Lord swears by the pride of Jacob in today’s reading from the prophet Amos.
Eventually Jacob ends up on the run from pretty much the whole world, caught between two armies and there he meets God and they wrestle in the night. God loved every minute of it.
The trickster is always motivated by survival in a world where the odds are stacked against them. They are the victims who refuse to be defined by their circumstances. They aren’t so much game changers as they are the ones who change the rules to their advantage.
They are hyper aware of everyone and everything around them, how things work, and how to use that awareness to their advantage. They are decisive and quick, because their survival depends on it.
That… and they just plain enjoy the ride, laughing at death, daring death to catch them if it can. They know they will get caught eventually, but until then, it’s just fun. They are shrewd and wide open.
God’s people were always being caught up in the schemes of the powerful empires of the world. So, they learned how to game the system. Much of the biblical narrative is about how to outsmart the powerful who try to control the world.
Jesus tells us a parable today about a trickster, a corrupt manager who gets caught by his boss. Before he loses his job, he acts quickly and decisively to secure his future by reducing the debts of several of his boss’s business clients, so that he will be owed favors and a livelihood now that he is losing his current favor and livelihood.
The world is full of people who know how to do what it takes to survive at all costs. It is part of natural selection. Jesus calls them the Children of this Age.
And this is where the parable gets interesting. You can tell Jesus admires the shrewd character of the trickster, but he doesn’t go so far as to commend their behavior.
Rather what he does is to say that the Children of Light, the followers and worshipers of God, are to emulate the decisive and shrewd behavior of the Children of this Age, not for getting by in the world and playing the system, but rather to secure their place in eternity.
Out trick the powerful and the empires of this world into giving to the poor and forgotten.
Just as the shrewd trickster acts decisively, no matter what, to survive, so the Children of Light should be just as shrewd, decisive and committed for surviving in eternity, every action and thought directed toward that goal.
To put it simply salvation is a matter of life and death, it’s everything. It isn’t an occasional hobby or a convenient pursuit.
And Jesus puts the question to us, all that God has entrusted to us, will we use it in such a way as to pursue eternity? Will we out rick the selfish games of this world?
In Luke’s Gospel the evidence of this pursuit of eternity is made visible by how we live with money and possessions. Do we share? Especially with the poor?
That is the difference between the Children of this Age and the Children of Light. Do we use wealth to secure survival or to secure eternity?
There is nothing light weight, flowery, or froufrou about choosing to live a life of gratitude and generosity in a world governed by natural selection.
It is rather an act of rebellion.
The world is enslaved to the idol and demon of Mammon, of wealth. That is how Luke speaks of money, with a capital “M”, money. The Aramaic word for it is Mammon.
Mammon owns the world, and we have to be shrewd tricksters playing the system against itself to pursue generosity and thanksgiving. Our lives depend on it.
Jesus is the great trickster, playing “catch me if you can” with King Mammon. Mammon thought he caught him for 30 pieces of silver and that Judas kiss.
But Jesus, he played the system.
Throwing Jesus up on that Cross was like throwing ole Brer Rabbit into the briar patch.
It was supposed to be murder. But Jesus turned it into an act of giving, of generosity and thanksgiving, an offering rather than a collection.
He out played Mammon and he outplayed Death securing eternity for all.
We live in a world of Mammon, of tricksters, of the Children of this Age, of natural selection. It is an all-consuming affair.
But Jesus in his parable tells us that the game is even bigger than that, that the stakes are even higher. Where we really live is in a world of super natural selection, where the Children of Light out con King Mammon in the game of eternity.
God is the great trickster, gaming the system to turn our hearts and actions away from our fear and anger, turning us toward each other, toward the pain in the world, turning us outward.
Gratitude, generosity, giving to the poor.
To make this work we have to be shrewd, we have to be tricky.
It’s a matter of life and death. A desperate game with eternity in the balance. Love the game, love every minute of it.
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