Pentecost 15C
September 18, 2022
Luke 16:1-13
INTRODUCTION
The section of Luke we hear from today and next week are both concerned with how we manage our money. Amos addresses it, too – the prophet rails against those who can’t wait to get past the sabbath so they can start making money again, and not just making money, but doing so in a way that takes advantage of the poor by messing with the standard currencies. Amos warns us that the Lord will not forget this deceitfulness!
But Luke will give us a different view, in one of Jesus’ more challenging but incredibly gracious parables: the dishonest, or shrewd, manager. In this parable, the manager of a rich man’s property will squander that property, and then try to salvage his reputation by dishonest means… only to then be commended by the rich man! The difference in Amos and Luke is that in one, the poor are taken advantage of, and in the other, they are helped.
One more comment about our readings, about Timothy. You have probably noticed that we often pray aloud in the prayers of intercession for our president. Though I won’t be preaching on it, the passage we will hear today from Timothy is the reason we do that. I’m happy to talk more about that if you’d like.
Ok, as you listen: both Amos and Luke deal with the messiness of human relationships and emotions, especially in relation to wealth, so as you listen, think about your own relationship with money, and how that affects your relationships with people, those you know and those you don’t know. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The parable Jesus tells today is a real prickly one. It seems to bring up more questions than answers. The last sentence is clear enough – “you cannot worship both God and wealth” – but it’s less clear how the parable supports it! Who’s supposed to be the good guy in this story? Why would Jesus be lifting up an anti-hero to teach us something about God and faith? Why is he commending dishonesty? Is he asking us to be dishonest in how we engage with others? And how on earth are we supposed to relate this to our lives in a positive, faithful way?
Or maybe a better version of that last question is: what does God have to say, about how we manage or use our money and resources? If we are looking for a way that biblical witness meets our day-to-day challenges, there is hardly a bigger challenge than that of our relationship to money. Money is one of those taboo topics – we do not talk about it, especially not in the church. Yet every single day we make important decisions about money – and then, in many cases, experience the impact of these decisions on our relationships. So knowing what our faith has to say about it might be pretty important! So let’s dig in.
But before we get into this parable specifically, let’s talk more generally about what the Bible says about money. There are a couple of scriptural themes regarding money, that come up in today’s readings. One is that wealth is fleeting. Look at this manager – one day he is doing great, with a good job, making lots of money. The next, he is out everything. Careful as we may be with money, no one is immune to this – think how many people lost everything during the 2008 recession! The same can be true about privilege, power, popularity, or any number of other idols we look to in our lives: turns out, all these idols are fickle and fleeting, but God and God’s Word stand strong and stable. God makes for a much better master than wealth, prestige, power, or popularity.
Another scriptural theme about money is that wealth is both a blessing and a responsibility, and our faith is expressed not in how much wealth we have, but in how we use that wealth. In today’s text from Amos, Amos begins, “Hear this, you that trample the needy and bring to ruin the poor of the land!” It would seem God is pretty unimpressed by those who use their wealth not only to serve themselves before others, but to actually oppress others by their wealth! Now, this may seem far removed from us. While we can accept that, on a global scale at least, we are among the richest in the world, we would never trample the poor, intentionally oppressing them! But… what about when we buy single-use items, or housewares that we don’t really need? Or drive when we could have walked? Or update our wardrobes each season, tossing the old stuff in the trash? Where do all the resources come from to live our first world lifestyle, to make all our new stuff, and the single-use packaging it comes in? Who is making them? How might making these goods be affecting those people’s health? The people who bear the brunt of our buying habits are some of the poorest in the world, who work in unsafe conditions, whose homes become dumping grounds for our garbage, whose land is destroyed to make more factories. Hm, suddenly Amos’s words aren’t so far removed after all! Even if we don’t do it consciously, our first world lifestyle does indeed trample the poor. Yet God is pretty clear that we are to use our wealth not to trample others, but to help and serve them.
Said another way, God grants us wealth and resources not to serve ourselves first, as in a vacuum apart from anyone else, but rather, as a means to be in relationship with one another. Which brings us to the dishonest steward. He had a good job and made lots of money, but when he suddenly loses everything, he is distressed about his future. You see, his true tragedy is not that he has lost his job, but that when crisis hits, he has no one to turn to. He has no friends, no family to take him in. He is desperate, afraid and ashamed he will have to resort to begging. But, shrewd as he is, he quickly recognizes that the solution to his predicament is that he needs to form some relationships. And so he uses the last of his resources, his last days in his job, to make himself some friends. Dishonest or not, he finally uses his resources not to make money, but to form relationships with others.
And this, I think, is something we can really sink our teeth into. I know there are some among us who make enough money to be very generous in their giving, and are. There are others among us who barely scrape by, and are as generous as they are able to be. But regardless of your particular income and expenses, what is true for all of us is that we have been entrusted with many resources: financial, physical, personal, relational, and more. And these resources, while they are often enjoyed by the one who possesses them, are to be used primarily in the effort to form, build, and strengthen relationships with one another, to serve one another, to love one another. Maybe your greatest resource is money, and you can give it away. Maybe your greatest resource is time, and you use it to serve and volunteer. Maybe your greatest resource is eloquence, and you use it to speak out against injustice. Maybe your greatest resource is compassion, and you use it to reach out to those in pain, and offer healing. What resources has God entrusted to you?
Of course, this is true on an institutional level as well. What resources has God entrusted to our congregation, that would allow us to serve and build relationship with our community? Could our financial and human resources serve refugees in the area, who have lost almost everything, even their homes (which we’ll hear more about after worship)? Could we better use our beautiful building, recently paid off? Could our well-educated congregation use our intellectual resources to help at-risk kids better their education? Could our wonderful music program, kicking off again today, make our broader community better? How can we best use what God has entrusted to us?
God looked down upon a broken humanity and saw that the only thing that would save them was to give what was most precious to him: God’s own son. And so he did. God gave his son, so that we would not perish, but have eternal life, so that we would be freed from sin and freed for service and love toward each other. So that we would know what love and grace and forgiveness look and feel like. So that we could offer that gift to one another. How, then, will we use the wealth of resources that are entrusted to us to build and strengthen the community in which we have been placed?
Let us pray… Giving God, this world is such a complicated one, and as we try to find our way in it, try to find YOUR way in it, we are grateful for the gift of your living Word. Guide us by that word, and help us to see how we might use the resources you have entrusted to us to love and serve one another. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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