Sunday, September 18, 2022  Pentecost 15

                           Luke 16: 1-13

Luke 16:1-13

1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property   2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.'

3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.  4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'

5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'  6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.'  7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.'

8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; 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.  10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.

11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

13 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."

 

"Cheating your way to Heaven"   Gordon McPhee

While preparing for this service I found it interesting that amongst the commentators there were so many divergent opinions concerning the meaning and thrust of this story in Luke. In fact, the great majority seemed so distressed, that Jesus appears to be commending the dishonest steward, that there were no limits to the contortions and hoops they would not put the exegesis of this passage through to arrive at a palatable modern evangelical theme. Simply told, the story is this.

A dishonest manager is about to lose his job because he has misspent his employer’s assets. Because he doesn’t want to do manual labor or receive charity, he goes around to all the people who owe his employer money and reduces their debts. He does this so that they will be charitable to him after he loses his job. To our surprise, the employer commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.

The problem arises when we apply this to ourselves as Jesus telling us we should be shrewd and dishonest in business and life, cheating on our taxes, shortchanging our friends, loved ones, and business associates to gain favour for ourselves for the future. Hardly the message we normally wish to convey in context of our association together and in the church. This is not the Jesus we have been taught.

To address this some have suggested that the dishonest manager was not stealing, but simply reducing the clients’ invoices by the amount of his commission. Doing the math provided in the text, his commissions would have been in the range of 20-50% for this to be so. Not a very likely scenario, I think. Others have felt the rich man is only commending the manager’s shrewdness, a word that can be translated equally as prudent or wise, not his overall actions. An explanation about as weak as suggesting the rich man was just being ironic. In the text itself, however; we have four passages that enlighten our understanding of what this uncharacteristic commendation may mean.

The first, in verse 8, suggests we could learn something from “the children of this age” about acting prudently; “the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light;” we being the “children of light”, as also used in John 12:36 “Believe in the light … that you may become children of light.” A suggestion I find, for my own Christian experience in business and life, counter intuitive.

The second, from verse 9, tries to redeem the first, specifying they should make “friends for themselves” by means of “dishonest wealth” so that those new friends might “welcome them into the eternal homes”. The suggestion being that its Ok to use dishonest wealth as long as it isn’t to exploit others, but as a means to enrich others and establish relationships that lead to salvation. I think we have enough examples in our day and age of where that kind of thinking leads.

Third is the idea of being trusted with true eternal riches only if you prove yourself worthy with temporal wealth; an idea coming from verses 10 to 12. How you deal with “dishonest wealth” and “what belongs to another” says much about how you will handle “true riches” and “what is your own”. In other words, how we use the resources at our disposal in this life matters, even though our “true riches” can only be found in that place where, as it says in Luke 12:33, “no thief can draw near and no moth destroys.” This is a far more sanguine practical theology than the first two, but I truly feel Luke is using this only as a highlighter, a springboard if you will, to bring us to the Fourth in-text interpretation; the climax of what he wants to convey.

“No slave can serve two masters … you cannot serve both God and wealth”; verse 13. Commentators, however; still manage to surround this story with the practical applications of using our earthly wealth wisely and with good stewardship, venturing no further than speaking of overturning old hierarchies and establishing new friendships with those who may welcome us, “not only in their homes in this life, but even in the ‘eternal homes’.” As desirable as that seems, I think Luke intended more.

Luke sandwiches this story between the parable of the Prodigal Son, in which the young man squanders all that is entrusted to him but is subsequently redeemed by his father, and the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, in which the theology of wealth and reward is starkly demonstrated and which, notably, commences with the same words as today’s reading, “There was a rich man …”. Clearly, these are not separate vignettes to be understood in isolation, but teachings of Jesus, from the early church, that Luke has grouped together so that, as a whole, they convey Jesus’ meaning and intent. The former parable is a story of God’s faithfulness and redemptive power and the latter is a statement of God’s justice and judgement, that there will be a day when, once and for all, all will be made right. So what do we see here, sandwiched in the middle?

Simply put, the steward, who was about to lose his position, had used his position and his master’s possessions in such a way as to “make friends” and thus to prepare for his own future. First let us understand who the players in this story are. In so many parables we think of the ‘King’ or ‘Master’ as being God, and the ‘steward’ or ‘servant’ as ourselves, the sinner who would be redeemed or lost. In this story, the ‘rich man’, as in the next parable of Lazarus, is one of those known as the “sons of this age,” of his “own kind”, the steward, and the debtors. The debtors could not have been ignorant of what the steward was doing, and we would assume the rich man was content with his steward’s dishonesty as long as it did not impinge on his profits. Are we simply being encouraged to be shrewd, more like the world, handling our resources? Was Jesus praising the steward for his shrewdness? Absolutely not! The lessons that we draw from this and the surrounding parables lead us to something much better.

First, from the story of Lazarus we see that we are given custody of certain resources in this world, by God, for a certain time, and that the Lord’s return, or our death, is at hand, and these resources cannot accompany us. From the story of the prodigal son we know that God has a place for us, that He will never relinquish our sonship, our place in his kingdom, if we will but come to Him, and though we come to Him with nothing, he will put the finest robe on us, sandals on our feet and a ring on our finger and welcome us into the feast.

It was in realizing that his days were numbered, that his end was near, that the steward was motivated to give up his selfish squandering ways and begin to be shrewd, for he knew he could not take his masters possessions with him, he was going to be held to account. Just as we will be held to account one day.

Returning to where we began, do we cheat on our taxes, shortchange our creditors, cook the books and use the proceeds to support church and charities alike, cheating our way into heaven? Because we are doing these things for good purposes, eternal concerns, and using only temporal, filthy money to achieve the glorious end, is it justified? We know it is not!

Yet, in so many softer, subtler ways, we, like the steward, squander what resources God has put at our disposal, hoarding up treasures for ourselves on this earth, comforts and joys we look to keep us in our retirement and our days ahead. And when these treasures, hopes and dreams, are eaten into by demands of time and responsibility, the moths and rust of this world corrupt, we become embittered and tend to hang on more tightly. Would that we could be like that shrewd steward and realize that these things are not ours, but the world’s. That our time is short, that what we miss out on in this world is nothing; nothing compared to that immeasurable weight of glory that awaits us in God’s kingdom. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).”

Jesus is not calling us, in this parable, to asceticism, abject self-denial that can somehow win God’s attention and favour. As are his teachings, Jesus is the light and shedding the light of truth on the realities of this world. Truth that this world is absolutely temporal and limited in time and scope. There is an eternal home reserved for you. A place where nothing of value will be withheld. All you hold precious and dear now, that you desire here, will either fade away as an unremembered dream or be fulfilled more fully than you can, in your limited human capacity, possibly imagine. The shrewd steward spent that wealth, that was not his, with the hopeful unwavering faith that there was provision for a wonderful future awaiting him. Jesus is commending to us that same joyous abandon that would put all our hopes and dreams on His glorious kingdom, trusting to Him for all our temporal needs here in this world, and seeking first, with all our being and resources, the kingdom of God.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money (Luke 16:13).”

Amen