The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the sixteenth chapter:
He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This text, out of all the texts of the Scriptures, scares pastors the most. I’m serious. We are afraid of preaching this, not because it’s hard to hear, but because it’s so hard to understand. The parable, itself, the story, is easy to follow. A rich man had a manager who was wasting the man’s stuff. So, the rich man told him he was fired and that he needed to turn over all the books. But, the manager knew that he would have nothing. Who would hire him as a manager after being accused of embezzling or wasteful use? So, he decided to get a bunch of people on his side, people who would take him in when he had nothing, vouch for his reputation, and he would do it in a super shady way. He would cut their bills that they owed the rich man by a ton; and he did it shrewdly, not just a blanket cut so that people would catch on, like 50% for everyone, but cutting it in a way that people would see he was thinking about it. Now, the rich master still fired the guy, but he had to give him props. He set himself up well, and, honestly, he did it legally, since he was the manager.
Now, we look at that and think that this guy is a jerk who deserved to be fired. That’s true. He did. He failed at his job and the rich man was well within his rights to protect his own stuff. And, even more so, if it were just a story, we’d also appreciate the manager’s foresight and think that he might be a jerk, but he’s a clever jerk. All of that makes sense to us. But, here’s the hard part: Jesus then says, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Alright, Jesus, what’s up with that?
Well, it’s easy for us to think about this parable from the perspective of the manager, but I’m going to ask you to think about the rich man. Luke actually, after calling him a rich man, keeps referring to the guy as a lord, or a master. So, think about this from the rich lord’s perspective: if you found out a guy was stealing from you, what would you do? You’d fire him. Then, if you found out that he stole even more for his own gain, what would you do? You’d take him to court, at the very least. But, what did the lord do? He commended the manager for his shrewdness. We have to assume that the lord’s word still stood, that the manager was still fired. But the lord showed the man extreme mercy to this man who squandered everything.
The lord had two choices here, either to erase what the manager did, which would only send wrath from all those debtors and would make them hate him, or let the adjustments stand and show his mercy to all the debtors and, by necessity, the manager. He obviously must choose the latter, because that’s the kind of man he is. But the reason he commends the manager is because the manager trusted in this lord’s character, that he would show mercy, and more than that, the manager laid everything, even his own life, on the lord’s reputation of mercy.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the lord approves of this dishonest way of taking from the manager, but that, at least, the manager understood who this lord was, and that’s always a good thing. So, when Jesus tells us to basically imitate the steward, He’s not encouraging us to be unrighteous or sinful, but to be prudent with what we’ve been given, which is trust that our Lord God will have mercy upon us. We are to trust that the Lord is merciful indeed. We don’t go out there like the sons of this world, thinking about how we are to get what we want, but we go out into the world, to the sons of the world, showing them the great mercy we have in Jesus Christ.
This is what we’re called to be faithful with, that we have been given grace upon grace. And yes, we are to use that grace to give to others, to show them the love of Jesus. We are to show them that we owe great debts to our Master, yet He has forgiven much because the steward of His graces, even Jesus Christ, has written them off completely, not even in part like the manager in the parable.
But what are we to do with the statement that you should make friends by unrighteous wealth so that they may receive you into the eternal dwellings? I mean, Jesus pulls us back from just thinking about His mercy and grace so that we also can think about real, actual money and possessions. Well, welcome to yet another reason pastors try to avoid this passage. Think about this for a moment: possessions and wealth tend to turn us away from God and toward ourselves, or even towards possessions and wealth as they stand. We don’t get the merciful Lord when we’re looking for security from things that fade away. It’s not that they’re always bad, but they can be. They can also be good. After all, if we use possessions like the unrighteous manager, to make friends, it may be that will serve us greatly. After all, to use possessions to give to others, well, you’re not running as much risk of them taking control over your life. It’s smart to use them to help others, to give to the poor, to aid those in need, to make sure that you’re not depending on the foundation of safety money gives you. That way, you can make sure those around you are taken care of, and, like most people, when you take care of them, they like you.
If you can do this with wealth, Jesus basically says you need to do this with mercy and grace and faith; you need to do this with Him. If you are faithful with little, specifically, money, then you will be faithful with the greatness of the riches of grace that will be granted to you by faith. And if you’ve been faithful, you will be entrusted with even more. It’s really a marvelous thought. If you, by faith, can be faithful with what God has given you in this world for this life, you absolutely then know how to be faithful with the gifts of faith. If you’re faithful with money and possessions, you are showing that they are not your masters. If you are then faithful with the gifts of grace, God Himself is your master.
So, what do we do with all of this? Very simply, Jesus tells us to trust that the Lord will show mercy, even to those we might find despicable. Jesus tells us to not let possessions rule over us, but to give them out to the world. Jesus tells us to be faithful to God by eschewing the power of riches. He tells us to turn from our wicked ways and turn to the Lord, for that which is holy is what He desires.
But we can’t, can we? It’s hard to always trust Him. It’s hard to always look to Him. It’s tempting to think that we can do this life on our own, just if we have enough money, enough time, enough stuff. We can’t do it. So, we must look to Him who gave up all things, even His own home, even His own pillow on which to rest His head. We look to Him who gave up His body. We look to Him who gave over His blood. We look to Him who gave up all things that He might win friends to Himself, that they might see the mercy of God in His tender brokenness. We see the dying, bleeding Jesus on the cross, and there we see the great mercy of the Lord, that we would not die under the wrath of God, but that we would be redeemed, saved, find r rest in eternal dwellings. We look to Him who gave up all things that we might gain all things. We follow the example of Him who did so, and give up all things for the sake of our beloved neighbor. In this, in the very fact that He has saved you, that He has redeemed you, that he has died for you to forgive you of all of your sins and you believe it, you will be commended because you chose to serve your Lord, the very Lord who has promised to be merciful to you. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment