August 22, 2007 - First Century Parable: Twenty-First Century Crimes - Hayward Fong

Luke 16:1-12

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read or hear about some crime being committed through manipulations with the computer and how the computer and internet have facilitated what we call white collar crimes.

It is an almost daily event for counterfeit DVDs of first run movies to be on the streets of Asian cities the day after the shows premier in the Western cities.

Nefarious off shore banks have been created on the computer, accumulating billions of dollars in deposits with pie-in-the sky interest promises. The deposits were transferred to various secret locations leaving the institutions bankrupt and the founders disappearing to obscure countries that have no extradition agreements. Thousands of people, mostly Americans, have lost their savings, with no hope of recovering one penny.

Numerous corporations with doctored financial reports that concealed their real net worth have gone bankrupt wiping out the 401(k) investments by their employees in the corporations and thus their retirement nest eggs. These are not fly-by-night entities, but major corporations, major players on Wall Street whose names no longer exist.

Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, October 11, 2005, Business, Wall St. Roundup
CEO Secretly Shifted Assets
Refco’s chief executive is placed on leave after it is discovered that he had secretly transferred $430 million of the company’s assets to a firm he controlled. The news sent Refco shares plunging $12.96, or 45%, to $15.60.

8 Brokerages Are Fined for Taking Kickbacks
NASD said it fined eight brokerages,…, almost $7.8 million for taking kickbacks from mutual funds…..steered clients into preferred funds in return for payments….In return, the fund firms sent their trading business to the brokerages,…”We continue to pursue conduct which puts the interests of firms ahead of the interest of customers.”….NASD has brought 20 actions for similar violations, including a June case against 15 brokerages that were fined $34 million for pushing certain funds.

Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2007, Business Section.
“Dell reveals it manipulated its books”
The scandal tinged PC maker says it has fired some workers and tightened controls. Dell Inc. said Thursday that it fired and reassigned some employees, instituted stricter controls and planned to restate past financial results by as much as $150 million after an internal investigation found the computer maker had manipulated numbers to its performance targets.

The scandal has dogged Dell…ever since it was disclosed last year that the Security and Exchange Commission was investigating its accounting practices.

“IBM, Pricewaterhouse settle U.S. claims”
IBM Corp. and PricewaterhouseCoopers have agreed to paid nearly $5.3 million combined to settle allegations that they made improper payments on government technology contracts, the Justice Department said Thursday. “The payment of kickbacks or illegal inducements undermine the government procurement process,” said assistant attorney general Peter D. Keisler.


White collar crimes are not limited to corporations but we hear of them also being committed by individuals and small groups.

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear of peoples checking accounts being raided after a purchase was made at a convenience store with a bank debit card. The raids were made on weekends when people do not normally check on their bank balances. These debits were in small amounts, 30, 40, 50 cents which “flew” under the security radar warning system that has been set up by the banking industry, but cumulatively added up in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. The debits were credited to exotic locations and accounts on the other side of the world.

Several years ago, a teenager was arrested for manipulating the stock market via the internet. He would buy blocks of penny stocks, hyped them on financial message boards and then dump them after the price rose. In some instances, he would place an order just before the market closed to sell at a specified price, which is known as a limit order. He would do this so he wouldn’t miss an anticipated price hike in the stock while he was in school the next day. The Securities and Exchange Commission monitored these activities and was dismayed that the perpetrator was a 14 year old. In a six-month period, this boy made a quarter million dollars through his nefarious activities. When confronted, he agreed to settle for $285,000 and to refrain from similar behavior in the future.

In our reading this morning, we have a rich man with a manager who took total charge of his business, which was a common practice in those days. Though the master was wealthy, he probably couldn’t read or write and had to entrust the management of his estate to this person. From reading the nature of the transactions, the master was probably a money lender and as such loans were often paid in kind as well as in cash.

The setting is a manager in absolute control of a wealthy, but uneducated master’s affairs, who used his position to carry out a program of embezzlement. When the master caught wind of this, he immediately called the manger to account for the money. The manager had no defense. Though he had a position of trust and responsibility, he was in fact a slave and dismissal would be a quick and final disposition. He would be left without a job and it is highly improbable that anyone would hire someone who had stolen from his master. He was staring starvation in the face.

So the manager set out to plan for his welfare after the inevitable firing. He went to the several debtors and had the accounts altered in their favor. By doing this he figured that he would win the gratitude of these debtors. He may well have intended to prevent their testimony against him by involving them in his own dishonesty. Also he could see the prospect of some blackmail after he was fired. The master caught wind of this, and recognizing this fast move, cynically congratulated the manager for being so astute.

What is the first lesson our Lord teaches us in this parable?

Verse 8, “Yes, worldly people are smarter with their own kind than spiritual people are.” Note that this parable deals with the scheming and conniving of people with larceny in their hearts. The manager had embezzled from his master’s business and is now engaged in escaping the full consequences of his misdemeanors by involving others in a set of criminal conspiracies. These debtors were obviously willing to go along with the manager altering the loan agreements in their favor. I’m sure that both the manager and debtors were wholehearted in favor of this arrangement. The manager was bending every effort to maintain his comfort after he’s fired, and the debtors were jumping at the chance to cancel a portion of their debts.

So, what Jesus was telling his disciples and us is, if Christians were as keen on their Christianity as these men were on their nefarious business it would be a greatly different world. We might ask ourselves, how much time do we give to things of Christianity in comparison to our other activities. How much time do we devote to prayer and meditation, in the study of God’s work? Jesus is saying, “Look at the way these worldly persons work for the things they value; if you would work at your Christianity with the same enthusiasm, what a difference you and the world would be.”

Verse 9 gives rise to another lesson. “I tell you, make friends for yourselves using worldly riches so that when those riches are gone, you will be welcomed in those homes that continue forever.”

Saying it another way, “Use your material possessions to make friends for yourself so that in the day of trouble you may reap the benefit of those friendships, just as the manager used his control o money to make friends for himself.”

The question is, “How should we deal with our material possessions?” People and how they treat material possessions generally fall in three basic groupings.

First, there are those who regard money as an enemy and refuse to have anything to do with it. They depend on the charity of others; obviously if all were like them there would be no one to give charity. Jesus’ life refutes this approach. He worked as a carpenter, serving the public and made a living for his family. He would never have dismissed material things as things which man must have nothing to do with.

The second group includes those who regard money as a master, people who are slaves to money. This is the case of the miser or one who desires to make money and does not care how it is made. These people may make it by methods which are dishonest or ruin other people. I think the principals in my introductory news articles are marquee actors of this group.

The third group includes those who regard money as a friend. These people use money wisely and unselfishly, thereby doing good to themselves and others. If we use material things properly we will neither worship nor despise them, but use them to bring strength, beauty and comfort to our lives and the lives of others.

Dr. Frank Boreham, one of the foremost preachers and writers of the early 20th century tells of a meeting at which Christian people were describing their religious experiences. One woman sat silent. She was asked to speak but she refused. From the look on her face it was easy to see that something was badly wrong. When asked what the matter was she answered that more than one of the people who had just made glowing testimonies to Christ owed her money-and her family was near to starving. There could be no sincerity in testimonies like that. If we use material things rightly, we will neither worship them nor despise them, but use them to bring strength, beauty and comfort to our own lives and the lives of others.

Finally, Luke sets forth a final lesson in verse 10-12. The essence is in the first phrase, “Whoever can be trusted with a little can also be trusted with a lot…” If this is to be a lesson of the parable, then the meaning is that if we show ourselves untrustworthy, as the manager did, no one will trust us. There is no greater virtue than that of fidelity and no fault which so condemns a person as untrustworthiness.

God needs people of fidelity and trustworthiness to serve Him and his creation. If there is one motto that should always stand before us, it is “Character counts.”