“Let’s Start Over” (Luke 16:1-9), March 8, 2009

There are certain things in life that never satisfy because they only create thirst for more – power, leisure, sex, fitness, and money are perhaps the most common examples.  What they have in common is that none of them is intrinsically evil.  They are morally neutral.  When in their proper place, they are part of God’s design for how we live and function.  But we pursue them under the illusion that they will bring happiness, we find that each is like drinking salt water – the very act only creates a thirst for more.

A strange tale

The parable we read this morning from Luke 16 is notoriously difficult.  William Barclay says, “This is a difficult parable to interpret.”  G. Campbell Morgan says the story is about “the acumen and cleverness of a rogue.”   A member of my Tuesday morning Bible study group sent an e-mail later in the day saying, “I just didn’t get it today.”

Why all the negativity?  Let me retell the parable the way it reads on the surface.

Everyone in the story has issues.  There is a naïve property owner, who entrusts the care of his business interests to a dishonest manager.  Also in the story: deadbeat debtors who co-conspire with the dishonest manager.  Out of this cast of miserable characters, Jesus makes a few points about good stewardship.

As the story develops, the naïve owner uncovers the embezzlement of the dishonest manager.  We are not told what the misdeeds are or how they are uncovered.  But the naïve owner calls in the dishonest manager and says, “What’s going on?  You’re fired.  But first, I want a complete audit.”  Talk about naïveté!  Just walk the guy to the door, you know?

Well, the owner pays for his gullibility, again.  The manager considers his plight.  “I’m a white collar guy used to a comfortable lifestyles, and soon I’ll be doing manual labor or begging on the streets.  I’m going to need some friends.”

So in the process of completing his final audit, he alters the books.  He calls in the debtors and reduces one man’s obligation by 50% and another’s by 20%.  It’s arbitrary, but he cuts what everyone owes.  “Look, guys,” he says, “you and I know you’re behind on your bills and I’ve been looking the other way.  But I’m not going to be here much longer, so let’s make things a little better for the both of us.  My owner has never looked at the records, so he will never know.  We’ll just pretend you owe half as much.  Hey, no problem – let’s keep in touch.”

The owner finds out about it, and, once again, he’s naïve.  Instead of bringing criminal or even civil charges against his manager, he says, “Hey, you’re smarter than I thought you were.  Good work there, fella, looking out for yourself and all.”

When Jesus finishes the story, he adds, “Go and do likewise.  Use your street smarts and your money to make friends for the future, especially in heaven, because everybody needs friends.”

And most of us respond by putting a finger down our throat.  What’s he going to do next, use a prostitute to teach techniques for marital intimacy? 

Another look

Jesus often surprises me, and there are certainly passages in the gospels that are designed to “throw me off.”  So I don’t necessarily want to make it too simple.  But I think this story has been mostly misread.  So let’s start over.

Part of what motivates me to take a second look at the parable is Jesus’ application of the story in verses 8-15.  He makes three primary points, which I will only mention here and then return to in a moment –

First, rethink what money can do for you.

Second, integrity begins where you are right now.

Third, you can only have one ultimate loyalty.

Those are all timely messages for 2009, are they not?

But I would never get those applications from the way this story is usually understood.  So I think the parable deserves additional study.

Some background might help.  Sometimes we read these stories through our own cultural lenses.  I’m not sure that the listeners of Jesus’ day or the first readers of Luke’s gospel would have read the story the same way we do. 

This was not a society of banking institutions, cash transactions, and formal audits.  It was a bartering society.  The landowner gave to his manager the use of his fields and resources in return for a specific payment, agreed in advance.  The manager earned his money by arranging agreements with sharecroppers.  The owner really didn’t care or know how much the manager charged to the sharecroppers as long as the owner got his payment.

So what if the story really should be read this way….

A wealthy property owner needed to travel, so he promoted a sharecropper to manager over the entire estate.  But in the owner’s absence, the manager was overcome with greed, and rather quickly consumed with how rapidly he could grow his own wealth.

He discovered that he had been given a great deal of power, and he used that power to double and triple his profit margins.  He was dishonest with the sharecroppers about his own payments to the owner, and lined his own pockets with the excess.

When the manager returned, he rather quickly began to hear complaints about how much more his sharecroppers were paying than before he left, so he called in his manager.  “Look, I entrusted you with this responsibility, and I expected you to run this business with the same integrity and fairness that you observed in me.  As your responsibilities increased, so did your self-indulgence.  Now you’ve moved people under you from being hard-working producers to being borderline criminals because you’re charging them payments they cannot afford.  Write it all down for me and then head for the exit.”

In the process of making his account, the manager realized what a fool he had become.  He also realized that when he left this position, there would be no opportunities for him.  His reputation was ruined; his connections broken.  It was time to change his ways.

So he called together the sharecroppers and said to them, “Look, I’ve been dishonest.  I have overcharged you.  I’m paying for it with my job, but I want you to know my life has been changed.  Let’s start over.  Look at your bills.  Josiah, yours was doubled in my greed.  Cut it in half, because I’m knocking off my profit.  Matthias, I was a little softer on you, but it was still 20% too high.  Let’s knock that off.  If you’ll pay what you really owe, I’ll still give the owner what’s his and maybe you’ll think better of me.”

The owner commended the manager for his wisdom under pressure.  As dishonest as he had been, the manager knew that his quick action in matters of finance would not only help him start over with the sharecroppers, it would impress the owner.  When it comes to money, people of this world know how to use it to accomplish their worldly goals.  

Now we’re ready for Jesus’ points of application, right?

Rethink what money can do for you (9)

If there is a right time to address this issue it is during the time when you have “less.”  And almost everyone has “less” right now. 

The funny thing is, we often think that the right time to ask the question about what money can do is when we have “more.”  But when we have “more,” it is only human nature to want even “more.”  So we set goals to achieve a certain level of income or assets.  And as long as we’re reaching those goals, it feels right.  We think what money is supposed to do is to provide security and maybe even purpose.  We hardly say that out loud, but we think it.

So let’s have a talk about what money can do when all of us have less.  Here’s how Jesus says it in verse 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.”

There are certain things in life that never satisfy because they only create thirst for more – power, leisure, sex, fitness, and money are perhaps the most common examples.  What they have in common is that none of them is intrinsically evil.  They are morally neutral.  When in their proper place, they are part of God’s design for how we live and function.  But we pursue them under the illusion that they will bring happiness, we find that each is like drinking salt water – the very act only creates a thirst for more.

So, negatively, what money cannot do is bring contentment.  Rethink what money can do.  According to Jesus, money can make eternal friends.

I read an account this week of someone who seems to understand that.  His name is Tim Mohns, and my brother sent me a link to his story.  Two years ago he was making a quarter million dollars a year as a 39-year-old financial advisor. 

Then Tim and his wife made the decision to cap their income at $125,000.  What would they do with the rest?  He would give it away.  According to Tim, “It’s not how much you make that defines financial freedom.  It’s how much you give away that defines financial freedom.”

I think that’s what Jesus was talking about.  I’m not suggesting that we don’t create enterprise or make money or even store up for the future.  I’m just asking, “How’s that working for you?” Now is the time to figure into your financial goals as the economy rebounds how you’ll use your growing income not to recreate a false sense of security but to make a difference in this world and prepare for the next.  I want people in heaven saying, “Welcome.  I’m so glad to see you.  I had bread in my stomach because of you.  You helped build me a house.  I heard the message of Jesus Christ because you gave.”  That’s something money can do.

You may not be able to relate to Tim Mohns’ level of income.  Maybe you’ll never $125,000 as long as you work.  Maybe you left that number in the dust decades ago.  The number isn’t the important thing.  The principle is.  How much is enough?  Now, when you have “less,” is a good time to ask that question.

Integrity begins where you are right now (10-12)

This leads us to Jesus’ second principle.  Integrity begins where you are right now.  It doesn’t begin when you reach the level where you have “enough,” and it can’t begin in the past.  You don’t get do-overs in life – on money or anything else.  You can’t be more responsible in your spending, saving, and giving for 2008.  Fill out your tax forms and move on.

But you can begin now.  Jesus says it this way in verses 10 and 12:  “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…And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?”

Fred Craddock said it this way,

Most of us will not this week christen a ship, write a book end a war, appoint a cabinet, dine with a queen, convert a nation, or be burned at the stake.  More likely the week will present no more than a chance to give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote for a county commissioner, teach a Sunday School class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor’s cat.[1]

So start where you are right now.  Where are you making excuses about integrity, faithfulness, and effort because you’re waiting for a greater sense of ownership or for more resources?  Today is the day to start over.

You can only have one ultimate loyalty (13-15)

When Jesus says in verse 13, “No servant can serve two masters,” his audience understood his meaning.  Nowadays it’s common for people to have two jobs or even three – or part-time work on the side.  Even employees in that situation, however, understand that one of those responsibilities is going to be primary.  But in Jesus’ day, a master demanded absolute loyalty from his slaves, 24-7.

When Jesus applied that principle to money, however, even the Pharisees of his own day snickered.  “You cannot serve God and money,” Jesus said, but they loved money and believed they loved God.  For them, twin loyalties were very possible.

How do you know if money has taken God’s place in your life?  The Bible has a word for something that takes God’s place – idolatry.  And someone sent me yesterday a list of questions to help us discern whether something – anything, but it certainly applies to money – has become an idol.  Here are some examples.  As I ask each question, just think about the multiple choice – is it God or money?

1.     What do you long for most passionately?

2.     Where do you run for comfort?

3.     What do you complain about most?

4.     What makes you happiest?

5.     How do you define yourself to people?

6.     What do you sacrifice for?

7.     If you change one thing in your life, what would it be?

8.     What comfort do you treasure the most?

Habitat for Humanity

This whole sermon is not about our Habitat project, but it worked out for us to have the presentation on Habitat at this point in the service.  I have been enthusiastic about this opportunity for several months, because I sensed from the very beginning that an economic downturn is exactly the right time to stretch ourselves by faith.

But it’s hard not to make the connection between this particular text and the chance to ask ourselves again, “What can money really do?  What can we do right now?  And how can we show that God, not Money, is our Master?”

Amen.

 (© 2009 by Robert M. Thompson.  Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures quoted are from The Holy Bible,
New International Version, Copyright 1978 by New York International Bible Society.)