The Shepherd’s Voice

Readings for Sunday, September 19^th
Amos 8:4–7
Psalm 113
1 Timothy 2:1–7
Luke 16:1–13

Faithful With Little from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on Vimeo. Download the sermon.

It happened in a typical church. A “nice” church. A “respectable” church. One Sunday, or maybe at the Saturday night service a man walked into the sanctuary, but he just didn’t seem to belong. He was scruffy in appearance and his clothes were ragged. He smelled of beer (which, judging from his lurching walk, he had consumed in great quantity the night before).
An usher acknowledged the man with a halfhearted nod and motioned him toward an out-of-the-way pew. Ignoring the usher’s suggestion, the visitor staggered down the center aisle to the front pew, and planted himself there.
So far, so good, thought the usher … that is, until the pastor began his sermon.
“Hallelujah!” shouted the newcomer.
The pastor gave him a stern look, and continued on. Not a moment later, the visitor interrupted him again. “Praise the Lord!” he proclaimed.
The usher came over and whispered to him, as nicely as he could, “Sir, we don’t do that here!”
“But I’ve got religion!” the man objected.
“Yes,” said the usher, “I’m sure you do. But you didn’t get it here!”
What are we learning about religion here? How do we understand life in community, our life together as God’s people? Are we accepting of one another, or not so much? Are we all wealthy, or not so much? Are we all faithful in supporting God’s mission with our money or not so much?

Some people have little in life to be joyous about, while others have a lot. In our gospel story today a manager is about to lose his job so he becomes very creative with the bosses money, debts owed the boss are cut in half so that he may have friends after he leaves that position. The text says he acted shrewdly with his own generation. “sons of this age”

As I mentioned last week, parables are tricky things to understand, they ebb and flow in various ways that are sometimes out of our reach to fully comprehend. At times they can be even more illusive than the last episode of Lost.

In his book, How to Preach a Parable, Eugene Lowry says that in order to understand a parable we must look for the itch before we can feel the scratch. We must sense the tension before we can receive relief from the tension. We must place ourselves in the puzzling setting before we can see the resolution to the puzzle. Lowry calls this “finding the focus of the story.”

So what about this story has an itch factor or where do you see the tension in the story? There certainly is tension between the owner and the manager, however, we must keep in context and Jesus seems to make it clear that both of these people are NOT, “the children of light.” They are people of the world, “their own generation” he calls them.

The ‘Master,’ a rich man commends the dishonest servant. Maybe we should use a term here like honor among thieves to describe what happened, maybe that would put these actions into perspective. Or if this were part of the HBO show “The Sopranos,” maybe Tony Soprano is bragging about one of his bagmen who acted wisely in shaking down more money from a construction boss than he was supposed to or expected to get.

In the world, in business, I have seen bosses who commend others for acting shrewdly even when they knew the situation was a bit shady. I hated it! Jesus is not saying that dishonesty is a good thing or that as followers of Christ we should act dishonestly. That’s not the focus of this parable. Honesty matters…..

Jesus does emphasize and points out that church people, Christian people, children of light don’t always act wisely when it comes to money. He said, “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Is that where the itch is for you?

Maybe we as a church need to teach about the wise use of money? Maybe we need to talk about budgeting, about how to best use, invest, and save money so we can be better stewards of God’s resources, after all we don’t really own anything we just manage it for God.

Parents, caretakers, grandparents, I have given your children 10 dimes during the children’s story. You have a challenge this week to help your children understand that this was a gift of grace, a gift from God. How they use it will be a teaching opportunity for you.

Back to our parable – so is that the itch for you? That’s not it for me, especially with I look at verse 9 it says, “9And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

This is a hard verse to understand. The literal Greek here for dishonest wealth is mammon of unrighteousness, which makes the sentence so much more clear, right?

By the mammon of unrighteousness (ἐκ του μαμωνα της ἀδικιας [ek tou mamōnā tēs adikias]). This term is that for money, it can be money gained in a dishonest way, but primarily its money.

Luke 16:13. Jesus knows the evil power in money, but servants of God have to use it for the kingdom of God. They should use it discreetly and it is proper to make friends by the use of it by sharing money for a dinner, giving to the needy, etc. However, when it fails (and it will fail there’s nothing left) (ὁταν ἐκλιπῃ [hotan eklipēi]). This is the purpose of Jesus in giving the advice about their making friends by the use of money. It does not mean in any way that money, wealth, good deeds, being good has anything to do with earning your way into heaven. That would be a major distortion!

Jesus is saying it’s ok to make friends using money, but don’t rely on it because it will fail. Remember we’ve talked about Jesus prior directives to us about laying up treasures in heaven that can’t fail, these treasures are ones that moths can’t eat away.

Ok, so where is the real tension in our story for this week. For me I get tense when anyone starts to question how I spend my money. Should I have bought that 32” TV for my office or should I have given it to someone in need.

Look at our gospel text verse 10, the next thing Jesus says is, “10Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” This certainly matches the earlier part of the parable. Is the manager being unfaithful with a little just like the rich master may have been unfaithful with much? We don’t know, but this seems to be implied, it’s a plausible idea.

The sharp point of this parable is that the master commends the use of money for people, instead of for pride, power, position, and possessions. In other words, the value of money and possession comes to a dead end when we die. The sharp point of this parable is that money and possessions must be used wisely while we are here and will do us no good when we arrive at eternity and face the judgment of God.

Being faithful with little in the end is really not about a rich man or a dishonest manager or us for that matter. When we come here to worship we are reminded that God has called us to this place and that’s being faithful with little.

God has something in mind that we can learn from this parable. When we are faithful with little God is teaching us a lesson about how we live our lives. Look at the last verse, “ 13No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Some of us try to, don’t we? Some of us live as though what goes on in our lives, what goes on in our checkbooks has nothing to do with God, but it does. From this parable, and from all of scripture God teaches us that we cannot serve two masters in our life. We cannot honor God with our lips when our heart is far from God. Be faithful with what God has given you!

Why, because God is faithful and his love endures forever. That’s the bigger picture in all this talk about being faithful. Neither of these men in the parable was transformed or changed in any way. When their wealth ended that was it, it was the end, it was over.

God wants us to be faithful in coming here because he has a gift for each of us. No it’s not about giving everyone money, that would just be a transient thing, it would NOT last. The gift God give us is the gift of grace, forgiveness, wholeness. Accept it, relish in it.

God’s grace, Christ’s love, our hands. Imagine you sitting with good company at a fine restaurant, allow those words to roll off you tongue like a good wine. If you don’t like wine, imagine something else, like a savory sauce from an excellent Louisiana restaurant. They make some very good food in New Orleans.

Say it with me God’s grace, Christ’s love, our hands, slowly. God saw us, the mess we made of the world and sent his only Son into the world to show us a new way. You cannot serve God and wealth. Jesus came so that we might have new life, abundant life. God fills our cup to overflowing if we just accept His grace. We’re here to acknowledge that, we’re sing praises to God, to feast at God’s table and once again and be energized for a new week.

God’s grace, Christ’s love, our hands, be faithful with a little, God is faithful in much.

Amen

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