Luke 16:1-13
Wisdom in Wealth
What if you came to church one Sunday, and your pastor got up to give the sermon and said, “I don’t have a clue what this means!” Well, I’m pretty close to that with today’s passage. Maybe you could relate to that kind of pastor, since sometimes the Bible is just hard to understand. Truth be told, I chose this passage out of today’s Lectionary readings because I wanted to understand it better. Most parables make sense intuitively, even if they include some exaggeration for effect. We looked at three last week that talked about losing something of value, and then finding it, and all the joy of heaven that follows. The point: God loves lost people and will go to great cost to bring them home. That makes sense.
But today? What are we to make of a manager who has been accused of being dishonest, and then engages in shrewd business dealings that cost the owner, all to better his future prospects after he is let go? And then the absurd happens: The owner commends him for it?!? That is strange! The great reformer John Calvin described this parable as “hard and far-fetched.” And the more I looked at commentaries this week, the more confused I got. Apparently, a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what this parable means.
So thinking about our church, and thinking and praying through God’s word, as confusing as it sometimes is, and considering various ideas about what Jesus might have meant, here are some life lessons I’ve come up with. See what you think. First,
1. Use wealth to build relationships.
Read with me from your outline verse 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."
Does this mean buying friendships? Well, in a sense, yes. The shrewd manager bought some closer business relationships. And remember, we don’t know he was dishonest, merely that he was being accused of being dishonest. He could have been completely innocent of those first charges. But when he cut back on some of the debts owed to his master, even though he did so for his own self-preservation, that wasn’t necessarily “dishonest.” In fact, Jesus called it “shrewd.” In the Greek, it’s the same word interpreted elsewhere as “wise,” as in Jesus telling his disciples to be “wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove” (Matthew 10:16). The owner commended him for his actions. You see, in all likelihood, these debt cutbacks not only favored the manager; they also bought good will between the owner and those who owed him. This sale may have gone a long way to keep customers and generate future business. If you view it like that, no wonder the owner is impressed. Perhaps for the first time in a long while, this manager is managing wisely!
The NIV accurately translates the description of wealth in verse 9 as “worldly wealth,” unlike some translations that call it “dishonest wealth.” Jesus is saying you can use the kind of wealth this present world values to buy into things that God’s kingdom values. God loves people. So when you use money to bless people, you use your money wisely or shrewdly. Pastor Robb McCoy writes, “Jesus is reminding them that there are things in this world more important than wealth.”
Use wealth to bless people, building relationships with them. Then you build a bridge over which the gospel can cross. People can see more clearly the love of Jesus in your life when you buy them lunch! Be a blessing!
Last night we watched a documentary on Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. He and his wife Melinda, through their foundation, are seeking to eradicate polio and create safe sewer set-ups around the world. One of his largest outside contributors is Warren Buffet, who gave some $30 billion dollars to the effort. When asked why he gave so much, Buffet commented, “When you understand that every person on the globe matters as much as every other person, it changes your way of thinking about things.” Spread your worldly wealth in ways that impact the Kingdom! Give to good causes. Bless people. Build relationships. And then #2,
2. Manage whatever you have well
Listen again to verses 10-12: 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?”
Here Jesus draws a relationship between how faithful we are in small things and how faithful we will be in huge things. Many a church member has told me that when they win the lottery, they are going to tithe to the church. Truth be told, if they’re not tithing now, there’s little chance they would tithe then. When we manage what we have well, God gives us greater responsibilities, because our overall style of management does not change.
This shrewd manager--say what you will about him--he acted quickly and decisively to save his own hide and, in the process, even blessed the owner! I would call that a win-win solution!
We are managers of the gospel, so to speak. The gospel is the good news that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, all our sins can be forgiven. God brings us this awareness that we are sinners, and that we are all destined for death and eternal separation from the God who made us. But there is hope. We learn of a Savior who will cut down our bill. In fact, he is even more extreme than the shrewd manager. He doesn’t just cut it back; he eliminates our debt, so that we are completely sin free in the eyes of God. As John Heidgerd writes, “Perhaps we can see the scandal of forgiveness and grace portrayed through the steward (Jesus) who forgives, using different rules from those considered appropriate in society, even if it is to selfishly assure he will be welcomed into the homes of those whose debts he has forgiven.”
So we share this good news to others. We tell them they do not have to pay the debt they owe; that a Savior has already paid it for them, if they will but accept it. The debt is paid in full! When we are faithful in small opportunities with the gospel, God will give us more and more opportunity. I like the words added in comment by an unknown person to Lois Malcolm’s commentary. This person writes, “Perhaps the point for ‘children of light’ is that we’re supposed to be giving away recklessly what was never ours to begin with. Perhaps we’re supposed to be giving away what the ‘owner’ has entrusted us with - The grace and love of Jesus Christ. It was never ours to begin with....and perhaps if we were giving it away in scandalous ways, the ‘owner’ would commend us as well” [second comment under http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1783].
Use your wealth to build relationships. Manage whatever you have well. And through it all,
3. Keep God first in your life
In verse 13, Jesus emphatically states, 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.”
Jesus reminds us there is only room at the top for one primary affection. We can love our things, or we can love the One who gives us all things. We cannot have both in top priority. Wealth is temporary, a loan from God for this life. It’s just worldly wealth. Jesus calls us to be as shrewd as some of the world’s wisest managers--like the guy in this story. We need to spread around blessings and build relationships, friendships that may in fact change someone’s life forever. And in so doing, we give glory to the God who gives us everything we have. Let’s pray about it:
Thank you, Father, for money. It is a great blessing to us, and we remember today that it all comes from you. Help us to use our money to bless the people you put around us. Help us to build connections, to strengthen relationships, to watch for opportunities to spread your love to others, so that your gospel message may cross into other lives and bring people into your family. Help us to be good managers--shrewd, wise, and aware of what is truly important in your kingdom. In the name of Jesus our Master we pray, amen.
Luke 16:1-13
16 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[a] 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[b] 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.”
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For welcome time:
After years of scrimping and saving, a husband told his wife the good news, “Honey, we’ve finally saved enough money to buy what we started saving for in 1979!”
“You mean a brand-new Cadillac?” she asked eagerly.
“No,” said the husband, “a 1979 Cadillac!”
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The phone rang. It was a salesman from a mortgage refinance company. “Do you have a second mortgage on your home?”
“No,” the woman replied.
“Would you like to consolidate all your debts?”
“I really don’t have any,” she said.
“How about freeing up cash for home improvements?” he tried.
“I don’t need any. I just recently had some done and paid cash,” she parried.
There was a brief silence, and then he asked, “Are you looking for a husband?”
