Sermon Pentecost 18 2013

Sermon:

Text: Luke 16:1-13

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who asks us to use our gifts.

            We are smack dab in the middle of a large section of parables from Luke, and here in the middle we find the one often referred to as the most difficult of Jesus’ parables. Often referred to as the dishonest manager, or the shrewd manager we hear Jesus tell a tale that at first seems be different from how we view Jesus’ regular viewpoints. The finale of the parable says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth.”

            So, everybody, go out and launder money from your work and use that money to buy friendship.

            Somehow I don’t think that is what Jesus is telling us to do.

            This man’s job is to be an asset manager for the rich man, he works as a middle man between the rich man and other people. He gives loans and other duties to these other people and then collects the money for the rich man. He earns his living by adding on a little more to the bill, and sometimes a lot more. Somehow he has squandered the rich man’s property. By the way, the word here for squandered is the same word used to talk about the prodigal son squandering his inheritance in that parable. And because of this squandering the rich man comes to the asset manager and tells him, “You’ve been accused of wrongdoing. I want a full and accurate accounting of all your financial transactions because you are really close to being fired.” Now, that’s enough for anyone to freak out, but this man has bigger problems, all he is fit for is what he currently does. He’s not strong enough to dig ditches or do any manual work, and he just can’t get himself to beg. So, he loses this job, he’s dead, and sooner rather than later.

            So, he decides to do something, he takes what he has, money, and uses it to prepare himself for his possible future. He finds a few debtors and talks to them, You, take that 100 barrels of olive oil that you owe, and make it 50 instead. You, take those 100 bales of wheat that you owe, and make it 80 instead.

            Now, normally you would assume that a boss who is already angry at an employee for squandering wealth would be even more upset at this scenario. You squandered my money and now you are wasting even more of it by forgive part of the debts owed to me. But, instead the rich man praises the asset manager, he commends him for acting shrewdly. Jesus closes the parable by saying, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” … “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

            Now, I’m not saying that this man is a perfect Christian, and I don’t think that Jesus is even saying he’s a good man, or that he is even following Jesus command. I think he’s still serving wealth over God, he’s using wealth to look out for himself. I don’t think Jesus is telling us to behave like him in serving wealth for the purpose of saving ourselves. I think though that Jesus is telling us to act like him in a way. Acting shrewdly with what God has given us.

I want to read another translation of verse 9. “Learn some lessons from this crooked but clever asset manager. Realize that the purpose of money is to strengthen friendships, to provide opportunities for being generous and kind. Eventually money will be useless to you—but if you use it generously to serve others, you will be welcomed joyfully into your eternal destination.”

            God has given us the gift of wealth and money, but much too often it becomes an idol, we focus our lives on it rather than on God, and when this is brought to our attention we think, oh, well, I better get rid of it so it’s no longer an idol. But, that never works does it? We just return to our idolization of money. What if we listened to what Jesus is saying here? Let’s not take the reaction of giving all our money away, but instead lets use it to serve not wealth, but to serve God. Let’s use it to help those in need, let’s use it to give to the poor, to provide clothes for the naked, food for the hungry. If the world says do whatever is necessary to get money, let's do, with reason of course, whatever is necessary to serve God. And if the means we do that is through shrewd business, that seems to be what Jesus saying.

            I was talking to my sister about this earlier this week and she brought up a story that I had glanced at, but forgotten. A pizza place in Greenville, New Hampshire was offering a special for local high school students. Afternoons during the week if students wanted to do their homework at the pizza place, they could get 35c slices of pizza, and if they finish a assignment a free root beer float. If you get A’s on a report card it’s a free slice for each, and straight A’s mean a free large pizza and 2 liter of pop.

            Is it the best of investment? Probably not, but it’s using something you have to better this world. Or a church in Seattle I know about that offered a pay as much as you can coffee bar in its basement so that people could come in off the street. Or any number of food kitchens offering free food. Isn’t that what Christ is talking about? Using our gifts shrewdly to help those in need?

            Maybe we can be like this manager and find a way to get huge profits to help others, or maybe we can just do a little bit. But, through Christ we have all been given gifts to continue to be active participants in God’s world. So, this week go out and be shrewdly active in the world, serving not money, but God.