Accountable

Accountability is one of those things we like to talk about … for others. Let religious leaders or politicians get into some kind of trouble and you will hear calls to hold them accountable. Rightly so.

Yet we don’t always want to talk about accountability for ourselves. Accountability is inconvenient and difficult. It restricts our freedom and makes us less able to keep secrets. But because at the tree in the garden we inherited the inclination to make consumer choices instead of the correct moral ones it is necessary, even if we don’t like it. Whether we are young, single, and courting; in a position of leadership and trust; or managing a business for someone else; we need reliable structures of accountability to reduce the temptation of forbidden fruit. There will always be a tree in our garden. We will always struggle with choices. We will always be tempted to turn moral choices into consumer ones.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time liked to hold others accountable. They had strict standards of conduct, and when people didn’t measure up the Pharisees quickly labeled them “sinners.” More than once they measured Jesus against their code. Jesus grew weary and disgusted with their flawed rules about hanging out with “sinners” and turned the tables on them with a series of rabbinic stories to let them know just what he thought of them. First he told them God loves and pursues those people the Pharisees loved to hate. 

Then Jesus held the Pharisees accountable. In today’s Lectionary text  Jesus told a story about a manager, with a trusted position and responsibility to run the estate, who abused his stewardship. He wasted the boss’s goods on himself. Apparently there was no accountability structure, but someone told the boss about the manager’s mis-management. Immediately the boss called the embezzler in and told him to hand over the books and get out.

Put off by the prospect of manual labor or begging, and realizing that no one would hire him for his preferred type of employment with this on his resume, the disgraced CEO hatched a scheme to manipulate others into hiring him once he left the master’s employ. To pull it off he had to rely on the master’s good nature.

He urgently called for the master’s chief tenants, the farmers in town who leased land from the master and paid rent with a portion of the harvest. After confirming previously agreed-upon rents, he offered to cut each bill in half.

Here is how the manipulation worked: Each farmer called to the steward’s office would be able to sense something was up. It was very uncommon for rents to be adjusted downward in the middle of a growing season. They knew a shady deal was being offered. However, if they asked no questions they could reap the benefit of lower rent and greater profits from the yielded crop. That is, the consumer choice (lower rent, higher profit) overshadowed the moral choice (doing the right thing). There was no accountability and they couldn’t resist.

Publicly they would be able to say what a generous landowner the master was, lowering rents that way. In the honor-based society the master would not come back and complain. He would honor the changed contracts, take the hit, and enjoy his enhanced reputation for being so generous. Privately, because the farmers knew they were in on a shady deal, they would hire the manager to keep him quiet, and put his manipulative skills to work for them. Of course, in the new situation, they would hold him accountable to keep him from embezzling from them.

The cheated master said, “I have to hand it to you …”

Jesus finished the story by implying that the Pharisees were just as unaccountable but not as smart. “The children of this world,” he said, “are more shrewd in their generation than the children of light.” He went on to emphasize the Pharisees’ unfaithfulness and disloyalty to the God who set them in place as managers of the kingdom and stewards of his word. In other words, he held them accountable. Their conflict of interest hindered their stewardship, which was being pulled from them. The discredited Pharisees sneered at Jesus, knowing they were caught. But unlike the “unjust steward” they didn’t have sense enough to use their position to win favor with those who might receive them.

Together, as the Church, we have the stewardship of God’s kingdom. That stewardship entails a significant responsibility to manage the grace of God on behalf of the kingdom. That is, we join God in the chase for them and we stand ready to receive them when they return. 

The resources at our disposal are not for us to spend on ourselves, or to waste in pointless efforts. These would be consumer choices, measuring benefits to ourselves. Rather, our resources are for increasing the work of the kingdom. The Discipline of The United Methodist Church describes our mission as “making disciples for the transformation of the world.” We may dream of more people in our worship services and classes, but like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ time, we are accountable to the mission to transform the lives of “sinners” by the love of Jesus Christ. That is what Jesus will hold us accountable to.

What if we were to ask about every proposed activity or program, “How will this transform hearts and lives?” What if we were to hold ourselves accountable to benchmarks that actually measure the level of transformation of lives? What if we were to hold ourselves accountable to higher authorities? Wouldn’t that influence the type of things we do at church?

Because I am aware of the constant presence of that menacing tree in the garden, with its tempting fruit of self-benefit and good feelings, I am pleased to have accountability structures in my life: as a husband and father, and as a pastor. Are you accountable? Do you have someone to help you avoid the deceitful tree?

I am pleased to be part of an ecclesiastical body like The United Methodist Church which, in the Wesleyan spirit, holds us accountable for ministry and outcomes. Members of our congregation today will go to an annual accountability group called a charge conference where we will hold ourselves accountable for our work. We will be reminded of ways we can do our work better, to transform more lives for God’s kingdom.

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)

Luke 16:1-14 (Proper 20 C)