SCRIPTURE READING | Luke 16:1-13 (NIV)
Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ 3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ 5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’ 7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ 8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? 13 “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.”
TO BOLDLY GO – WORLD SMART |
Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
We continue our sermon series titled, To Boldly Go! as we look at parables which help us to live boldly into our faith. Today we’re looking at probably one of the most confusing parables Jesus teaches us. But first, let’s practice our memory verse:
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV)
I’m going to start by adding to your bank of embarrassing stories about the pastor. In case you can’t tell, I’m an incredibly awkward person at times–especially when I was younger. When I turned 18, I was starting to get ready for college and my mom decided that it was time for me to start handling my own important papers like my birth certificate, social security card – all of that stuff. I know where you think this is going, and I’m happy to surprise you that it’s not as bad as all that.
I went to Walmart and among all the other things I needed to get for my dorm room, I wanted to get a fireproof safe to keep my documents in. I found one by the office supplies and once I had gotten all of the other stuff I needed, I checked out. Now, I’m a Gen Z person and just like our Millennial brothers and sisters, I am not a fan of doing things in person – or at least I wasn’t at this point. So, I was going to go to self-check out. But I saw that one of the cash registers didn’t have anyone in line, so I thought, “Fine, I’ll go talk to another human.”
She was an elderly lady who clearly was tired of retirement and was happy to be working – but the Walmart systems were complex and sometimes hard to understand, so she was struggling to ring up all of my stuff. Somehow, by the end of it, my total was $30 more than I was expecting. But I didn’t really want to investigate, mainly because I already knew what the problem was. The nice old lady, who was struggling to work the Walmart cash register had charged me twice for that expensive fireproof safe. Remember, I was 18 so $30 was A LOT of money.
But instead of correcting the situation and asking her to take the second safe off, I just paid for it and left. You see, there are two kinds of people in the world when there’s a problem with the bill. The first is the kind to just pay it and move on. There’s obviously a problem, but I’m too shy or embarrassed to say anything about it. And then there are the people who will go all the way to the CEO of Walmart if they have to in order to make the bill what it should be.
Growing up, my mom was the second person. My parents are both pastors and, when I was little, they still had all the debt from going to seminary. So, there wasn’t any money to spare on mistakes by the cashier. I can remember many times when something wasn’t going right and my mom would say her infamous phrase, “Well, I think…” If my sisters and I heard this, we knew that a storm was coming. Something had gone wrong and my mom was not happy.
Believe it or not, shopping actually has a lot to do with the parable we’re looking at today. This parable is hard to understand because at first glance, it seems that a money manager is about to be fired so he calls everybody in that owes his boss anything and tells them to half it. This way, people will like him so much that when he doesn’t have a job anymore, they’ll take care of him and maybe even give him a job.
To our ears, this is a slimy move and it’s far from honest. Yet, Jesus commends the dishonest man because he is shrewd. Again, this isn’t a word with good connotations nowadays. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge, the shrewd old man who would throw anybody out of their home for a penny or two. This really is an odd parable until we listen to Jesus’ commentary on it at the end.
He says, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
Jesus is saying that the people of this world are not going to let you oversell them something for even a penny. So, don’t be idiots with your money and with your resources. Be careful with what you spend your money and resources on, so that you are only using them to bring people to Christ. Really, this whole parable is a lesson on budgeting!
In fact, Jesus is calling us out! He’s saying don’t let the world get away with getting your money for nothing. When the nice old lady over charges you, ask her to fix the problem! Because I don’t want you wasting your money. I want you using your money to be faithful to God. Jesus says, ““Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?”
In other words, God has given us everything we have – including our money and all of our resources. But we get to choose how we spend and use it. Jesus is calling us to be more concerned with our resources than we might instinctively. He’s calling us to good stewardship – to taking care of what we have and using it as God would use it. Because when we don’t spend it all on groceries we don’t need, or cars we don’t need, or fire-proof safes we never bought, then we can use our resources to build the Kingdom of God.
This is our ultimate goal with everything we do, to use everything we have to build the kingdom and live into the will of our Father in heaven. Now, this isn’t easy because we’re talking about money. Often times, people aren’t very happy for religion and money to mix. In fact, you hear people say that one of the reasons they don’t go to church is that the church is always asking for money. And on the surface, if you never really looked at it, it would seem that way. We do that every week before we take the offering! And when members join, they promise to give money to the church! But the reality is that being generous and using your resources – your time, connections, abilities, gifts, and money – for the building of the kingdom is what Jesus is calling us to as His followers.
It takes guts to live this way – to be so careful with what you spend so you save money only to give it away and use it for others. But that is the boldness which Jesus is calling us to in this parable. He says that when we prove ourselves to be trustworthy in this way, then we prove ourselves to be trustworthy in so many other ways.
Finally, Jesus addresses the problem head-on. He says, “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.” In other words, it is tempting to say that my resources are my resources. They’re mine. No church, no pastor get’s to tell me how I use what I have.
But Jesus is saying if you live your life that way, then you can’t serve God too because those two things are in complete conflict with each other. God’s way is all about others – our resources, love, His actions are all for others. So God is challenging us to live differently. He’s challenging us to be bold with our resources. To not spend where we don’t need to. To be shrewd so that we can better use the resources we do have to build the kingdom of God. It’s a big task, but thankfully we have a big God which is helping us accomplish it by being with us every day. Amen? Amen.