How Much Can God Trust You?
Now, I want to warn you up front that today’s scripture… is a parable Jesus told his followers. This alone doesn’t warrant a warning… but I want you to listen very closely to these words, because this is quite possibly… the strangest parable Jesus ever told.
Luke 16:1-13
Jesus told his disciples: “there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 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.’ 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 – I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’
So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ‘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.’
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.’
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 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.
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?
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.
INTRODUCTION
Today, we have one of the most unusual parables Jesus ever uttered. We could call it the parable of the Crooked Manager. It’s a story about an employee who “cooked the books” for his employer. He used dishonest methods to give an accounting of his company’s assets. It reads much like a deposition from the Enron or WorldCom hearings… and Jesus lifted it up… as a good example!
When my friend Pastor Ferguson and I were downstairs planning our 6 month worship plan together, we looked at the text for this week and said… “Man… we can’t preach that.” And yet… there was something there…. something that urged us to take the chance and preach the text. Most pastors skip over it or ignore it, but brothers and sisters… here we go… one of the hardest parables Jesus ever uttered.
Now… to make just a little MORE fun… the topic is money. Money is always a tough subject. It’s something people just don’t talk about. The subject of money comes up in a conversation… and the room will go deadly quiet. So, I invite you to let your guard down just a little, and hear the message that Jesus was trying to get through to his followers.
Since this is an unusual parable… I’m going to do something a little unusual too… I’m going to start… with the end. The key to understanding the parable is found at the end when we get to the “moral of the story.” It is found in verse 8, the reason Jesus is uplifting the manager… the reason “the master commended the dishonest manager… [was] because he had acted shrewdly.”
You see… the manager was a cunning, conniving, dishonest rascal – but you can’t help but smile at how shrewd he was. You can’t help but admit this is a clever little idea… if… however… terrible… morally… apprehensible.
When he learned he was about to lose his job (because he was dishonest and wasteful), he decided to cover his assets. He went to the best customers and gave them deep discounts on what they owed his boss. Why? Obviously, after he was kicked out of his company for mismanagement, he would go to one of those customers who “owed him a favor” and hopefully they would remember his action and give him a job. When it came time to be fired, even his boss said, “I’ve got to hand it to you, you are cunning, devious, despicable fellow… I applaud you… now get out of my sight!”
That’s how business is done. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Now, I want to make it clear that Jesus isn’t suggesting we use dishonest business practices, but He is suggesting we can learn something from the shrewd manager.
Now before we get two deep, there is a very important distinction to be made. Jesus sets some boundaries to the lesson, and they are boundaries that we need to remember. He divides the entire human race into two groups. Some are what He called, “people of this world” and the others are what He called “people of the light.”
Millions of people live their lives as if this world was all there will ever be. They devote their entire lives to getting ahead in this world and accumulating all the toys that will make them feel comfortable. They are “people of this world.”
On the other hand, there are those of us who are “people of the light”… who have a personal relationship with God. We may be living in this world, but we know this world is not all there is. We live for another world… we work towards a different goal… we receive benefits that this world could never weigh and measure.
However, Jesus tells us that there is a valuable lesson to be learned by looking at how the “people of this world” operate. The key is right there in verse 8, “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” But why is this a good thing?
To help really make sense of this… I need to bring in a supporting text. To help make sense of a really hard passage like this one… I’m going to steal a play from the playbook of John Calvin and use another scripture to help understand it. Now, the reason Jesus used the manager for an example was because he was “shrewd.”
It just so happens, that Jesus has upheld the quality of being “shrewd” more than once. Matthew 10:16… Jesus tells his followers “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”
Both instances… we have the Greek word öñïíéìïò (which can be translated several ways, insight and wisdom, sensible, thoughtful, prudent, wise, or shrewd.)
Both instances… it is considered a valuable trait by Jesus.
With the Matthew text by our side… the boundaries that Jesus set within the parable become clear… “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” And Jesus encourages us to take a lesson from “the people of the world.” However built within this challenge… is another challenge… steal some of their tricks… but remain “people of the light.”
The crooked manager in the parable was as shrewd as a snake, but he was as guilty as sin. Now Jesus challenges us to be as shrewd as a snake… however unlike the dishonest manager… the challenge is to remain as innocent as a dove.
You know, in his own awkward… backwards… messed up sort of way… the shrewd manager was able to do some amazing good. Look at what he was able to do with someone else’s money. Before his time was up… he was able to relieve the debt of a few of his master’s debtors. Imagine what a huge gift that would be. You know that credit card of yours… how much do you owe. If you are on par with the national average… you owe somewhere around $10,000 dollars. Tell you what… sit down… make it $5,000 instead. Now… his intentions were all wrong… but the outcome was pretty much right on target.
Perhaps, this shrewd manager isn’t such an outcast the more I look at him. You think about someone… who has been given great responsibility for the master’s resources… and they haven’t done all they could… haven’t done all they should, and I think… you and I are not all that different. The shrewd manager… you… and I… are all pretty much the same. You see… in many ways we are managers of God’s great gift to mankind. We are managers of God’s mission and ministry… and we are managers of all that God has given to us personally too. How would you and I look… if we were held accountable for our management. How would our management evaluation look if they looked at all God has given us and then asked the question… what have we done with it? Have we done all we can… have we given all we could? The shrewd manager was accused of wasting the master’s possessions. Who of us could not be accused of the s
same?
You know the manager turns out to be a pretty decent example to be followed. Look what he was able to do with the resources available to him when given the shot. He was able to do some amazing things. Well… brothers and sisters… we have gobs and gobs of resources… we have gifts that God has given every single one of us… we have talents he has bestowed upon us… we have the time he has given us… and of course we have the money that God has seen fit to bless us with. Imagine… all the good we could do… if we only took the chance… and started acting like shrewd managers.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
