Luke 16:1-15
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 “‘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.’
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 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.”
14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”
The True Value of Worldly Wealth
That Gospel Lesson for today was a doozy, wasn’t it? Jesus tells a story about a manager who was really bad at his job. The first thing we find out about him was that he was “accused of wasting his possessions.”[1] That’s not exactly the quality you want in the guy you’re asking to take care of your stuff, is it?
If I had a second house that I rented out and hired a landlord to manage the property, and I gave him $200/month to take care of it, but I came to find out that he didn’t spend it on the house – instead, he spent it on booze – I’d say the same thing to my landlord that the master does to his manager in Jesus’ parable:
“What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.”[2]
And then, as if the squandering, the wasteful wickedness of the past, weren’t already bad enough, this dishonest manager deprives his master of even more income by slashing the prices of what his master’s debtors owe him, just so that he, i.e. this despicably dishonest manager, would have a better chance of finding another job after he got fired for being really bad at his current job.
Now, we get that. We see that in life. We see people who are wasteful, who squander wealth, who steal from their employers, who manipulate and deceive their clients, and who do it all in their own self-interest.
What we’re not used to seeing is Jesus praising people like that. But he does! To wrap up this parable, Jesus says, “The master commended the dishonest manager.”[3] How?? Why? What part of this horribly selfish person’s life is worth praising?
Only one thing:
“Because he had acted shrewdly.”[4]
That’s what God wants you to be. He doesn’t want you to be dishonest. He doesn’t want you to be wasteful or to squander the gifts God gives you. He doesn’t want you to be manipulative or deceitful or self-serving. He wants you to be shrewd. He wants you to see the true value of what he gives you and to use the things that he has given you wisely. He wants you to use the wealth he’s given you, but for a specific purpose and with a specific perspective.
Unfortunately, all too often we think like the dishonest manager from Jesus’ parable who was accused of “wasting his possessions.”
I’m a grammar nerd. Pronouns and their antecedents are my jam. So, when I read a sentence like this, I want to know whose possessions “his” refers to. Are they the master’s possessions or are they manager’s possessions? Grammatically, in Greek, it’s a little hazy. I think it was a little hazy in the manager’s mind too. That was his problem! He lost sight of whose possessions he was using.
We do the same thing. All the time. We like to imagine that we’re the masters of our own domains. I’m the king in my castle and I get to do with my stuff whatever I want because the sole reason it exists is to serve my every whim.
That’s a problem, because the reality is that none of the things you have in your life belong to you. They all belong to God. Even the things you worked hard to earn don’t truly belong to you, because you earned them on company time, so to speak. Or, to put it the way Moses did:
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.[5]
We are managers of literally everything that is in our possession. They all belong to God, from the clothes on our backs, to the electronics in your pockets, to the cars in the parking lot. They all belong to God. He is your master; you are managing everything you have for him.
And just like with the dishonest manager from Jesus’ parable, a time will come when God will demand that you give an account of what he’s given you. What will he see? Will you be accused of wasting your possessions?
And this is the thing today – wasting your possessions doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re careless with your money. We can even waste God’s gifts by investing them in a low-risk, high-yield mutual fund, if we do it because we’re afraid God won’t provide for us without it, or if we’ve become accustomed to a certain quality of life.
It’s all about purpose and perspective. Why are you doing what you’re doing with the gifts that belong to God? What value do you place in the possessions God has given you? Are they there to serve you and whatever selfish, petty, fearful ambitions you might have? Or have they been given to you by God for a higher purpose?
Jesus answers that question for us. He says:
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”[6]
It may sound self-serving at first – “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves,” – but Jesus is just making a reference back to the dishonest manager. He used what little time he had left to make friends for himself so that when he was fired, he’d be welcomed into their homes. Jesus wants you to have a similar perspective, in these 3 ways:
Your time is limited. God only knows how long you have left on this earth, or with the things that he has given you now. Find some urgency in your management of what God has given you.
There is value to what God has given you – to make friends, to make connections. The question is, “Why?” So that you can have someone to talk to, hang out with? No! And this is the key –
So that you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Allow me to phrase it another way. Use your worldly wealth to make connections with people so that through you and the gifts God gives you, they can find out about Jesus, so that when you die, you will see your friends in heaven.
God wants you to be shrewd. He wants you to see that the things he’s given you have value far beyond cushioning your bank accounts. He wants you see that the gifts you manage for him have a purpose more noble than giving you pleasure. God wants you to be shrewd so that you can use what he has given you to bring salvation to the souls of those around you.
That means that even though it may be wise for you from a worldly point of view to work on Sunday mornings so that you can accomplish your financial goals and save for an early retirement (there’s nothing inherently sinful with saving or an early retirement, by the way), it may mean that you are squandering the time God has given to grow closer to him yourself.
That means that even though it is wise for you to invest in your children, you may be wasting that time by sending them to practices, games, sleepovers instead of giving up those good things for an infinitely better thing like Sunday School where they can be prepared to enter heaven with you.
That means that even though it can be wise to save up for a car, a house, a boat, a holiday, you can still squander the wealth God has given you by spending it all on yourself and not setting some aside for making friends you’ll someday see in heaven.
I could go on, but the point of Jesus’ parable is this:
Everything you have, truly belongs to God; you’re just managing it for him.
You have a limited amount of time, so make the most of it.
What God has given you is valuable, when you understand his purpose for it – to bring others closer to him, so that you can all welcome each other to heaven.
And this is the last thing I want to say. Jesus doesn’t tell you to do these things because he wants you to do his dirty work for him. He was willing to do all of this for you. He left his throne in heaven, gave up the greater glory, to become a poor carpenter and later on a wandering preacher. He could have spent his time on earth earning and saving, living in the moment or being a first century financial savant.
But he didn’t. Instead, he was willing to live a lower quality of life so that you could have eternal life. He didn’t own his own home. Oftentimes he didn’t even know where his next meal would come from, but that was OK, because Jesus was willing to use everything at his disposal to forgive you. He even gave up his life on a cross, to pay for all of your sins.
In short, Jesus wanted to be your friend and he spent everything he had to do that, so that when you die, the first friend who welcomes you to heaven will be Jesus. Use your worldly wealth so that when your friends die, the second friend they see in heaven is you.
God bless you and your wealth. Amen.
[1] Luke 16:1
[2] Luke 16:2
[3] Luke 16:8
[4] Ibid
[5] Deuteronomy 8:17,18
[6] Luke 16:9