Read Luke 16:1-13 here.
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A
man came home from a church meeting and walked into the house panting and
almost completely exhausted. “What happened, honey?” asked his wife.
“It’s
a great new idea I have to be a better steward of our resources,” he gasped. “I
ran all the way home from the stewardship committee meeting behind the bus and
saved $1.50.
“That
wasn’t very bright,” replied his flustered wife. “Why didn’t you run behind a
taxi and save $10?”[1]
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We
can imagine the husband’s response to this might have been, “oh, yeah….wait,
what?” Running behind a taxi sounds
logical until you think more about it.
Today’s parable from Luke 16 is kind of like that. Maybe the disciples as they were listening
to Jesus were nodding in agreement because this is Jesus talking…but then got
to thinking about what he was saying.
“Wait….Jesus, what?”
It’s
an odd story. A manager gets in trouble
for squandering his master’s resources, so then the manager does one last act
of creative bookkeeping, and then instead of getting mad, the master commends
the manager. Wait….what?
Actually,
what the manager is praised for is his cleverness, his shrewdness. It’s an interesting choice of words, because
shrewdness can be both good and bad.
Cleverness can be used for both good and evil. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is also
described as shrewd. Genesis 3:1 says
that the serpent was the shrewdest of all the animals!
Realizing
that cleverness or shrewdness can be used for both good and evil actually helps
us with the meaning of this parable.
Cleverness is just one of the many things that God has given us. We can use this gift for good or bad. Everything that that we have and everything
that we are can be used for selfish gain or for greater good. We are the stewards of our lives, and we get
to choose.
We
tend to think of stewardship in terms of money more than anything, and in this
parable we see money as well, but there are some clues here that this is about
much more than money. We already identified
one of those clues – the manager is praised specifically for his cleverness. Money is just the tool for his
cleverness.
Scholars
have long debated over whether there might be something going on in this
parable that we aren’t able to understand because we don’t live in the same
time and place as the people who originally heard these words from Jesus. That is always a challenge. We are hearing this story with 21st
century ears. We are no longer a
farm-based economy. We no longer
consider it a sin to charge someone interest.
We no longer accept payment in the form of jars of oil or baskets of
wheat. But I don’t think we need to get
too caught up in trying to justify the actions of the manager or the master. Jesus tells us in the beginning of the story
that something funny is going on. The
manager is getting fired. If everything
the manager was doing was good, he wouldn’t be getting fired. In this case, the story speaks for
itself. The manager is doing some
questionable accounting, but the story is about more than that. The manager is not commended for cooking the
books, he’s commended for using his head.
The
book of Proverbs is all about the importance of using our heads. Proverbs 1:4
says to “teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and
prudence to the young.”
Jesus,
in his first comment about this story explains that “the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own
generation than are the children of the light.” (v8) Here we begin to see that it’s about more
than money – it’s about how we deal with people.
Jesus
explains further. He says “Use your
worldly resources to benefit others.”
The manager used his remaining time as a manager to reduce the debts of
the master’s debtors. He used his
position to help people, and to make friends so that they would be willing to
help him when he needed help.
Proverbs
22:1 says, “A good name is to be chosen
rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” A good name, to be in someone’s good favor, is
more valuable than money. Our
reputations, our relationships with people, are more important than our money
or our stuff.
The
great philosopher Bob Marley said something similar: "The greatness of a man is not in
how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect
those around him positively"[2]
God has given us the honor of being our own managers. We get to decide how we use what we’ve been
given – our money, our health, our minds, our emotions, our positions, our time
– everything about our lives is given to us by God and we get to decide how to
use it.
”A father gave his little girl
two dollars and said, “You can do anything you want with one of the dollars,
but the other dollar belongs to God.”
With joy she ran to the candy store.
On the way she tripped and one dollar fell into the storm drain. She got up and
said, “Well Lord, there goes Your dollar.”[3]
That’s
one way to decide. Here’s another.
Back in the days before we all had cell
phones, a man was jogging with his son. They stopped for a rest
in a downtown park and began to talk about a pizza place in town
that had just opened and the more they talked the
better it sounded so they decided to
phone ahead and have the pizza delivered when
they got home.
As they were heading toward
the pay phone a beggar, a homeless man approached them
and asked if they could spare some change.
The father reached his hand in his pocket, and pulled out all
that he had.
“Here take what you need.”
The man couldn’t believe his good
fortune. “Can I have it all? The beggar asked.
“Sure,” said the father and the homeless
man reached down and scooped the coins into his own hands,
and went on his way.
It only took a second for
the father to realize that he now had no
change for the phone.
"Pardon me," he called out to the homeless
man. "I need to make a call. Can
you spare some change?"
The homeless man turned back and held out the two handfuls
of coins.
"Here," he said. "Take
what you need."[4]
Jesus
is telling us to use our resources to make friends and help people. He’s also telling us to think beyond today. How will
our actions and choices affect the future?
It’s easy to miss this part of the story because the clues here are
subtle. Jesus says to “make friends for
yourselves . . . so that they may receive you into an everlasting home.” Jesus says, “If you have not been faithful in
the use of worldly wealth, how will you be trusted with the true riches?”
Our
choices have consequences, both for today and for eternity. Everything we have and everything we are is a
gift from God. We can use it any way we
choose. As we are making these choices,
we need to consider our impact on the people around us, our impact on the world
around us, and our impact on eternity.
What kind of legacy will we leave?
Will people be glad to see us in heaven?
Or will we look back seeing missed opportunities to help build the
kingdom of God? And how can we use what
we have to make friends, to help others, to impact eternity?
We
are stewards. All that we have and all
that we are is a gift to us from God.
All of it is God’s, and he’s given us the freedom to make choices about
how we use all that we’ve been given. We
are stewards of our lives, our health, our stuff, our abilities, our time, our
environment, our children, our pets – what else? What am I forgetting?
Maybe
our greatest responsibility is to be stewards of the faith that we’ve been
given. It is our relationship with God
that sustains us, that has the greatest impact on the people around us, and
that we will carry with us into eternity.
In verse 8 of our parable, Jesus is encouraging us to put as much effort
into being stewards of our faith as those without faith put into worldly
things. He says, “for the children of this age are more
shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”
I
spend time every Thursday at St. Vincent’s House – answering phones, doing
whatever is needed. They have lots of
encouraging words on their walls. One of
them says this:
[5]Remember the gap –
·
When
you are in a rut
·
When
it seems too hard
·
When
you feel like you are at the end of your rope
·
When
you have fallen and you can’t get up
Remember the GAP – God Always Provides[6]
How
do we remember? We remember by writing
it down, to document our faith.[7]
We
are told in Deuteronomy 6 to do this as well.
"4 Hear, O
Israel: The Lord is our
God, the Lord alone.[a] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your might. 6 Keep
these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are
at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem[b] on your
forehead, 9 and write
them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
I
found a website this week called “divinewalls.com” that makes scriptures into
giant stickers to put on walls. This
first one I found when I was looking for a picture for the front of today’s
bulletin.
Here’s
another one that’s probably familiar:
Putting
scriptures on our walls is one way for us to document our faith so that we will
remember and so that future generations can know the same blessings we have
known from our faith.
Thinking
about the future helps us to make better choices.
When Queen Victoria was a child,
she didn't know she was in line for the throne of England. Her teachers, trying
to prepare her for the future, were frustrated because they couldn't motivate
her. She just didn't take her studies seriously. Finally, her teachers decided
to tell her that one day she would become the queen of England. Upon hearing
this, Victoria quietly said, "Then I will be good." The realization
that she had inherited this high calling gave her a sense of responsibility
that profoundly affected her conduct from then on.[8]
We
too have a high calling – to pass on the faith that we have been given. This is just one of the ways we are
responsible stewards of all that we have been given.
Be responsible.
Sometimes
I think we get caught in the middle – living halfway between doing things the
worldly way and the Godly way. Jesus encourages
us at the end of this parable to go all the way. He says, “You cannot serve two masters.” We have to choose whether the bottom line for
us will be about stuff or about God.
Paul helps us think about this another way:
Whatever
your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your
masters, since you know that from the Lord you will
receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24
Thankfully,
Jesus bore for us the ultimate responsibility.
He took responsibility for all our sins and failures so that we might be
forgiven and receive God’s grace.
Let
us be faithful and thankful and pass it on.
