18th Sunday after Pentecost, 09/22/2013

Sermon on Luke 16:1-13, by Richard O. Johnson

16 Jesus also said to the disciples, "A certain rich man heard that his household manager was wasting his estate. ²He called the manager in and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give me a report of your administration because you can no longer serve as my manager.' ³"The household manager said to himself, What will I do now that my master is firing me as his manager? I'm not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. ⁴I know what I'll do so that, when I am removed from my management position, people will welcome me into their houses. ⁵"One by one, the manager sent for each person who owed his master money. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?' ⁶He said, ‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil.' The manager said to him, ‘Take your contract, sit down quickly, and write four hundred fifty gallons.' ⁷Then the manager said to another, ‘How much do you owe?' He said, ‘One thousand bushels of wheat.' He said, ‘Take your contract and write eight hundred.' ⁸"The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted cleverly. People who belong to this world are more clever in dealing with their peers than are people who belong to the light. ⁹I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves so that when it's gone, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes. ¹⁰"Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much, and the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much. ¹¹ If you haven't been faithful with worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² If you haven't been faithful with someone else's property, who will give you your own? ¹³ No household servant can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." Luke 16.1-13 [CEV]

"With parables and jokes both," Frederick Buechner writes, "if you've got to have it explained, don't bother." [Wishful Thinking, p. 67] Generally that's good advice, but maybe not for this morning's parable! It is, nearly everyone would agree, the most difficult of Jesus' parables to understand. We hear it, and we say, "What was that again? An incompetent and dishonest employee being commended by the boss who just fired him? What the heck does that mean?" Well, let's tackle it head on and see what sense we can make of it.

Part of the problem here is that there are several translation issues. Many times words in Greek-just as in English-can have different meanings or different nuances, and a translator has to decide what the word means. If the translator chooses the wrong meaning, it will skew the sense of the passage. Take a look at the lesson as printed on the bulletin cover, and let me point out where the problem lies. The biggest issue is verse 8, right at the place where you have to turn from one page to the next. There are three problems in the verse, and how we solve them will determine what the parable means.

Translation problems

First, this translation says "the master commended the dishonest manager." The Greek here literally says, "The Lord commended the dishonest manager." In Greek, the word for "lord" can also be translated "master." So we don't really know, in the Greek text, whether it is the employer in the parable who commends this guy, or whether it is the Lord Jesus who does so. The translator has decided it is the man in the parable, and he has added the word "his"-"his master"-to make that clear. But "his" doesn't appear in the Greek; it simply says, "the lord." So the simplest reading of it would be that it is Jesus who "commends the dishonest manager."

But the word "dishonest" is also a problem. The Greek word here most often means something like "unjust" or "unrighteous," and it usually refers to someone who violates the law of God. Keep that in mind, we'll come back to it shortly. But first let's also say that the word translated here as "shrewdly" literally means "wisely"-in the Greek, it is a much more positive word, without the shady connotation that "shrewd" carries in English.

A different cast

Now, let's add one more piece of information. The parable is directed at the Pharisees. The very next verse, after the end of this lesson, says, "The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him." This parable has touched a nerve with the Pharisees!

The reason has to do with the Jewish law regarding usury, or loaning money at extravagant interest rates. This was forbidden in the Old Testament, but the Pharisees were good at finding ways around it. One reason Pharisees were so unpopular with the people is that they very often loaned money to the poor at excessive interest rates. So when Jesus tells this parable about a man who is loaning money, they take it quite personally.

Now the story takes on a different cast, doesn't it? The employer has been charging an outrageous and illegal rate of interest. About to lose his job, the manager goes to each debtor and settles the debt by agreeing to accept just the principle, with no interest paid. He thereby is doing what is "right" according to Jewish law, even though it contrary to his employer's practice. So Jesus-not the employer-commends this manager for ceasing to do his employer's unrighteous bidding, and instead doing what is wise-wise because it follows God's commandment, rather than the employer's greed.

Making friends with worldly wealth

Well, at least that's one approach. Others would interpret it differently. But what is really important is to understand why Jesus tells the parable. And actually, Jesus, like any good preacher, makes three different points.

The first is in verses 8 and 9. "People who belong to this world are more clever in dealing with their peers than are people who belong to the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves so that when it's gone, you will be welcomed into the eternal homes." That's not quite crystal clear, but the point is that the manager, when faced with a crisis, has chosen to act righteously. What Jesus wants us to realize is that we, too, face a crisis, a time for decision. We can go on in our same old ways, or we can change our ways. And his point is especially that for many people, often for us, how we deal with money is one area where that decision must be faced.

Verse 9 is especially tricky. What does he mean by "use worldly wealth to make friends for yourself"? Perhaps the simplest interpretation is to notice that these friends, whoever they are, are in a position to welcome us "into the eternal homes." But what friend is that, if not God himself? So the idea is that in our stewardship of what is given us to manage -money, property, time and talent-we are called to make friends with God. There are, we might say, ways to use our material goods that arise out of our friendship with God, and ways that arise out of our friendship with the world. So the parable teaches us that how we handle our possessions, our money, our resources, is very much part of what it means to have a friendship with God.

Faithful in a little

The second application is in verse 10: Whoever is faithful with little is also faithful with much, and the one who is dishonest with little is also dishonest with much."

The Council of a church in a small community had ordered new drapes for a Sunday School classroom. When the order arrived, it was discovered that an extra pair had been included in the shipment. The extra pair fit perfectly on a previously undraped window. The issue before the Council was whether to inform the store that they had received this extra pair by mistake, and then offer to return them or pay for them. One person suggested that since it was purchased from a store that was part of a large chain, and not locally owned, there was no harm done by not reporting it. Another argued that it was the company's fault, and the church had no responsibility. A third stated that trying to get it straightened out with this large retailer would be so complicated that it wasn't worth the trouble to the church or to the store. Finally one person said quietly, "If the church can't be trusted with little things, who will trust us with important things?"

It's true, isn't it, not just for churches, but for us as individuals. "Life," Fred Craddock remarks, "consists of a series of seemingly small opportunities. Most of us will not this week christen a ship, write a book, end a war, appoint a cabinet, dine with the queen, convert a nation, or be burned at the stake. More likely the week will present no more than a chance to give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote for a county commissioner, teach a Sunday School class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor's cat." But in the economy of God, you see, faithfulness has to do with little things of here and now. The faithful steward is not the one who dreams about what good he can do if he wins the lottery or if his stock portfolio does well; the faithful steward looks for ways to do good with his ordinary, everyday paycheck, no matter how meager or tight. Faithfulness in our stewardship has to do with the little things-the here and now, not the maybe someday.

No slave can serve two masters

Then Jesus' third lesson is in verse 13: "No household servant can serve two masters." The reference to the parable is clear. The manager has been serving his earthly master; when he stops breaking the law on behalf of his master, he is transferring his loyalty to God. And so, Jesus says, it is with us. We cannot serve both God and money.

Where do our loyalties lie? Where is our service? The parable, with all its difficulties, takes us right to the bottom line: Whom do we serve? What is so often difficult for us to understand is that God wants us so exclusively. He isn't content with the temporary worker; he wants our full-time service, our undivided attention. That's not easy for us. We want other things. Oh, we want God-but on our terms, and one of our terms is that we'd just as soon he keep out of our financial affairs. Maybe we're even willing to work for God, but we'll set the hours and the conditions, thank you very much. We'll do it only if we want to do it; if God asks us to do something uncomfortable, or something we don't care to do-well, Lord, find somebody else. I'm busy right now.

"Howdy, Pogo," said the duck as he swam past Pogo, who was sitting in a boat, fishing. "Is you seen my cousin? He's migratin' north by kiddie car." "A duck migratin' by kiddie car?" asks Pogo. "Yep," the duck replies. "He's afraid to fly high; he gets afeared he might fall off." "Why doesn't he swim?" asks Pogo. "He gets seasick," comes the answer. "Well," says Pogo, "all I can say is that when he decided to be a duck, he picked the wrong business!"

Stewards of God

That's how it is with us, you see. We are the servants of God, the stewards of God, the slaves of God. We belong to him, body and soul, in life and in death. He is a generous master, but he demands total commitment. He asks that we use what he gives us wisely, and for his purposes. If we're afraid to fly high, afraid we may fall off, afraid of what might happen, so afraid that we must cling to his gifts and hold them tightly-well, maybe we picked the wrong business. But if we are wise-if we learn to serve him completely, in little things and big things, in every moment, with every decision; if we learn to fly high without fear of falling, and to swim without fear of what might become of us; well then we, like the servant in the parable, will hear the Lord commend us; and we'll know what it means to be a friend of God.

The Rev. Richard O. Johnson
Grass Valley, CA, USA
E-Mail: roj@nccn.net

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