The
Church Season of Pentecost
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland,
MI (August 5, 2012)
Readings: Psalm 51:1-12
2 Samuel 22:26-34
1 Corinthians 10:6-13
Luke 16:1-13
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from
the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the New Testament Lesson from 16th
chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verse:
Luke 16:1-13 (NIV)
1 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 “‘Eight hundred
gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit
down quickly, and make it four hundred.’ 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 servant can serve two masters.
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 both God and Money.”
In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
We focus on the words of Jesus, “And
the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the
children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of
light.”
Scripture is timeless, the Words of
Christ ring true to us in the very world in Dishonest managers try to gain
friends by cooking the books. How could such a thing happen? And the hardest
thing to understand is why in the world does it seem like the master in the
story commends this unjust steward, as he is usually called, for his
dishonestly? Jesus doesn’t even call it dishonesty. He calls it shrewdness.
It certainly is a strange text. What
is it about the children of this world which make them wiser than the children
of light? Why is it that they get farther, do well, and generally seem like
they understand how things work better than the Christians? That’ss really the
question. .
In the great company scandals in the
past decade the companies cooked the books in order to appear to be better off
than they really are, they hid losses,
moved numbers around, and things were not what they appeared. They tried to impress their stockholders, but
why did they do it? Well I guess one answer was to make money. Money has always
been a great motivator.
And the unjust steward? He is the
manager of the master’s house. He is taking care of things that are not his. He is simply watching over what the master has
given him to watch over. But the master discovers that this unjust steward was wasting his goods. In other words, the
unjust steward is not caring for things as he ought to be doing. He’s spending
too much here, and not enough there. He’s sloppy, he’s lazy, he’s not doing his
job, and as a result, all of the work that the master has put into his property
is going down the tubes.
So what does the master do? If you
or I were the master, what would you do? You’d fire him on the spot! Don’t give
him any opportunity to mess things up any more than they already were. Get rid
of him while you still can.
But that’s not what the master does.
He gives this unjust steward one more chance to make the books right, to give a
proper accounting of his stewardship. From a business point of view, you don’t
give a person another chance to cook the books. You don’t let someone run the
shop that has another goal in mind. What is this steward’s goal? His goal is
not to serve the master; his goal is to save his own skin, to make money and
save his life.
And that’s just what he does. He
thinks through what is the one thing that he has to offer that will get him
into the good graces of the people with money. Well, the one thing he has is
his master’s books, his accounting. So he goes and starts forgiving debts left
and right. It’s a fire sale on loans! He is lavish, generous to a fault; really
he’s quite ridiculous with his master’s debts. Slash. Cut. They’re gone. A
hundred measures of oil become fifty, a hundred measures of wheat become
eighty. All the sudden, the unjust steward has more friends than he knows what
to do with. He has turned a bad situation and, because he was dishonest, made
it so that it works out for his benefit.
And what does this master do? With the knowledge that his unjust steward has
misused his position, abused it for his own gain given away money like it is
candy…what does the master do? He commends him for acting shrewdly. Oh, he
acted shrewdly, alright. He made sure that he got the one thing needful. His
future was taken care of, no matter what the cost. This master, even if it
seems he runs things kind of strangely, well, he just can’t help but take note
of the fact that this steward understood what finally was important for him. As
Jesus said, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the
sons of light.”
The world understands this point.
Focus on what’s important. Put your energies there. Other things may go by the
wayside, but keep your eye on the ball. Do whatever you have to do to get to
that great goal, whatever it may be. That is what the master commends the
unjust steward for doing.
Still don’t understand the parable?
What is your treasure? What is the most important thing in your life? What do
you live life for, and what are you willing to go through in order to get it?
For the Christian, the one thing needful is none other than Jesus Christ. This
is your treasure; this is your life and your lifeblood. This is who you live
for, and by being connected to him, you inherit the treasure of eternal life
with Him. In the fact of this, nothing else matters. I think we can understand
that.
God gives you this treasure to care
for and take care of and to pass on, to give away, as it were, when and where
God wills it. For this treasure, the Gospel, you may only keep by giving away.
But you blow it. You toss this treasure, this Jesus, aside. A thousand things
become more important to you: home, vacation, work, pet and a host of sins that
you love so much. Even your family may become more important than this one,
this great treasure. So what do you do? You waste the treasure. You hide it. You don’t share it, You throw it away. And is
so doing you don’t give it away to the ones God has entrusted to your care,
namely, your family and your children. You waste it.
What should you do? You have been
given the gift; you have the treasure beyond all treasures. You know you have
blown it, and that you have squandered the master’s gift. You don’t deserve to
receive the gift. You know begging will get you no where. And you know that you
can’t work your way out of this. You’re stuck.
We’ve all been there, dear friends.
You can look back at your life and wonder why you wasted so much time, so much
money, so much everything on things that don’t last. We all can. The feeling of
“should of” is the Law speaking to you. Your stewardship of what God has given
you in Christ stinks.
But remember this master is not like
other masters. This master is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
This master will pick you up. This master forgives you and draws you into His
presence. You may not be shrewd like the sons of this world. But you aren’t
a son of this world. You are a son of light. You are baptized. You have the
inheritance of eternal life in Jesus Christ. You have the one thing needful.
That is the generosity of the
master. But it goes even farther than that. Jesus love and forgiveness goes out
just like this unjust steward. It’s reckless. It doesn’t make sense. He
forgives debts that have no business being forgiven! But that is the Love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He wipes away your debt. To the eyes of the
world, it is crazy. His love and forgiveness should get Him in big trouble. But
it doesn’t. In fact, our heavenly Father commends Jesus for forgiving our
debts. I guess this just goes to show that when it comes to forgiveness and
God’s love for you, you can’t finally understand it. But it is true. His love for you knows no bounds. Believe it,
for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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