Sept. 22 2013, 18th Sunday After Pentecost

Luke 16:1-13

  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[a] 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[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 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."

“Shrewdly Graceful”

The master praised the dishonest servant
“because he acted shrewdly”

“sharp-witted, perceptive, smart, wise, savvy, clever, canny”

This is the bite of the story!  But because I fear you are still caught in the
seeming inconsistency of the story coming from Jesus lips let’s try guess what might be behind the story - had it actually happened.  And perhaps it did.

It is possible the master was just as dishonest a man as the servant.
It is also possible that what the servant did was cut out his commission from the amount owed to the master so the master really didn’t loose much.

It is also possible these were dead beat accounts and the master was glad to get what ever he could, and perhaps this was the start of the problem - the servant had allowed these accounts to get out of control or were not good accounts to start with.

We can only surmise what might be behind the scene in the story to try make sense of it. But when all is said and done -  as interesting as it may be - it will never come out right until we see it as a call to live shrewdly graceful.

What Jesus is dramatically laying before us is that we are to be as shrewd and cunning as those who don’t care - and we are to do it as those who do care, because we have a God who cares.  As those who live by grace and know it is the only way we can make it - in this life or the life to come.

As children of the light we are to work hard at being  shrewdly graceful - in how we live to forgive.  In how we live with the priorities of God’s Kingdom deeply imbedded in our heart, soul, mind and being. How we live with faith as “a power and passion in authority among the powers and passions of life.”  A power and passion born of grace which means we live not to get even but to forgive;  not to judge and condemn but to be compassionate as our God is compassionate!

“The point of the parable is not to approve what the steward did wrong, but to applaud how rightly he did it.  We are to do rightly what is right, even as he did rightly what was wrong.”
 

“Money:  Idol or Servant”

“This is the most difficult of all parables and no interpretation is wholly satisfactory.”

To discover its meaning we have to risk being wrong.  Or at best only partially right, as we do the best we can.  The key is not the man who is  a negative moral example.
The key is money - which plays such an important part in our lives.  Does it use us or do we use it?  The first clear point of the parable is that money is to be used!  Used to make friends!  That is what it is really for; to be used in ways which bind us together and deepen our trust and friendship.

This is not to say we can buy friendship;  it is to say that money can create genuine friendship, deepen relationships, and strengthen love and trust.

Money is a powerful tool to be creatively used to build life’s relationships.
There are times when I can’t afford to not spend it.  (How’s that for a double negative.)
I can use it to draw people to me and I even have to risk using it to help when the results
are not sure.

“Our pocket books can have more to do with heaven and also with hell, then our hymn books.”  Helmet Thielkie

“If a purely materialistic child of the world like the dishonest steward can manage on his level to compel money to serve his own ends and thus give it its relative importance, how much more - and at the same time, how differently - should the children of light do this on their level.”  Thielkie, “The Waiting Father”  p. 101