Lord of light - shine upon us. God of love fill our hearts with your wisdom. Holy Spirit, bring yourself closer to us in my words and how we hear them, in our thoughts and how we think them. Use this time - and use us to accomplish your good will. Amen
There are rascals, rogues, and scallywags aplenty in the scriptures, and today's gospel reading features one of them most prominently - a manager or steward of an estate who is so poor at what he does that eventually, when he is called to account by his master, he cooks the books.
You have to picture this now - this chap - knowing that he has done a poor job and that he is going to get canned changes the bottom line on all the debts that are owed to his master. Some he drops by 20%, some by as much as 50% - his theory being that the debtors of his master will be so happy to get a discount that they will gladly welcome him into their homes and feed him and care for him after he is fired.
Pretty far out reasoning, with maybe just a grain of truth to it.
I imagine if the manager of the HSBC called me up and told me that she was going to reduce my debts by 50% with a stroke of her pen that I might welcome her into my home after she got fired - but still - I would be a little uneasy about it - wouldn't you?
Uneasy because the police likely wouldn't be far behind her - and with good reason...
Yet what happens in the parable when the master finally hears the story and calls the manager before him....
Well - you know...the master commends his manager because he had acted shrewdly, because he had showed some intelligence in doing what he had done.
Pretty far out eh?...Where does one begin with this story? What in the world is Jesus trying to tell us?
First of all - let us not imagine that Jesus is commending the dishonesty of the manager.
It is quite clear that he is not commending the fact that he was a bad manager, one quite willing to cheat his master, but rather that he is commending the shrewdness - the forethought of the manager in looking after himself - in doing good to those who in turn may be expected to do good to him.
Jesus often uses people who are scoundrels to illustrate what God is like and what we should be like: - think of the judge who would only give a poor widow her due after she bothered him over and over again, - or the example of the person who would not budge from his bed to help welcome a stranger until his door was beaten on repeatedly, - or the example of the fellow who found a treasure in someone's field and went out and bought it so that he could get the profit.
Each of these examples tells us something important about how we should live our faith and something important about God - but none of them tell us that God is unjust, or that he is annoyed when we call upon him late at night, or that we should cheat someone on a business deal.
Rather we are meant to understand, in a humorous and interesting way that if the reluctant judge can still give justice to widow - or the grumpy person can still get up and share his bread in the middle of the night, then how much more will God help us when we appeal to his mercy?
And if a man will expend every effort - if he will even cheat - just to obtain a treasure which he has found in someone else's field, then how much more ought we expend every effort to enter the Kingdom of God?
The life issue in today's parable has nothing to do with the manager's honesty or dishonesty - rather the issue is: "just how shrewd, clever, and committed are the children of light when it comes to their faith?"
Do we really look after ourselves? Do we really use what we have at hand, - in whatever proportion we have it to the best advantage?
Are we as anxious to ensure our future with God as the dishonest manager was to ensure his future in this world? - are we willing to change the bottom line so that when the time of reckoning comes there will be a place that welcomes us?
Indeed, the issue at the very root of the parable of dishonest manager is: are we, as Christians, as people who profess belief in the living God, really committed to Him and his way?
Are we?? Are we, who sit together here today, really committed, really full of faith?? Really committed to God and God's purpose for our lives and the life of the world?
Well -how can a person tell if we are committed??
What signs help to prove the case one way or another??
What shows us whether we serve God or Mammon?
Today I am going to share with you a couple of signs that helps us answer this question.
The first sign is quite simply - how we feel about and what we do with money.
Perhaps you haven't thought of it before - but did you realize that over 1/3 of Jesus' parables and sayings concern the relationship between faithfulness and money?
Jesus talks so much about money because ,when push comes to shove, loyalties are revealed by what people do with their money and how they
feel about it..
Recall the rich young ruler - who left Jesus because he was rich? Recall Levi - who left everything and followed Jesus? Recall the sermon on the mount - and the lilies of the field which do not spin or toil? Recall the camel and the eye of the needle? And the Widow who gave everything she had to the Temple Treasury?
Stories about loyalty and about what is important to people and what they seek - God or Mammon.
Jesus ends the parable of the dishonest manager with these words:
"the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.. And 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."
And to drive his point home - Jesus goes on with what is perhaps one of his most famous sayings concerning faithfulness and money - he says:
"No 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."
The children of this world are more shrewd than us at times - like the dishonest manager, the children of this world will do all that is required to look after themselves - they will use all their money and all their power to get more money and more power.
Better yet, - if they can - they will use other people's money and other people's power to get these things, to ensure their future, to change their own bottom lines.
Yes - the children of this world show a savoy that the children of light often lack - and it seems to me that they seem to have this savoy not because they are any smarter than you or I, but because they are more committed - they are only serving one master - their efforts are not divided, not confused, not lost in the gap that always exists between two masters.
We in the church often do things badly - we do them poorly - because we attempt to serve two masters - to serve both God and mammon - God and wealth.
I think this is one of the big reasons why so many people in the church hate hearing about the problems the church has in raising money, getting volunteers, and doing work that, on the face of it, only benefits others.
They hate to hear it because it guilts them out - it reminds them of their own torn loyalties, of their attempt to have their cake and eat it too.
So often we Christians - we who speak of life as God intended it, we who talk about the quality of life and the depth and breadth and power of love, and of how each person can live well, with truth and beauty and peace, so often we settle for the most mediocre things within our sanctuary, our Sunday School, and our practice of Christian mission.
Many churches are full of elders who never exercise their office, of stewards who give far less than the widows mite, of teachers who use antiquated texts or fill in the blank techniques, and all because the rest of us, and indeed they themselves, do not expect any better and are not willing to pay for any better.
We do not make friends with others with the wealth that has come to us - instead we are stingy in how we use it - we horde it and protect it for ourselves and our families rather than being generous with it and serving our Lord and Saviour with it
Mediocrity and friendlessness are the results.
Indeed it is still true, no matter how you interpret the message of God's grace, that we reap what we sow; and if we sow sparingly, then the harvest is a sparse one.
Switch for a second.
I'm sure you have all heard that expression that a person ought to give until it hurts....
Well - it strikes me that if one is supposed to give until it hurts then the "average" Christian has a very low pain threshold!
Low, because we regard the wealth we have as our own rather as a trust from God - a trust given to us by which we might make friends for ourselves and for the Kingdom which we are supposed to be serving..
I said I would give you a couple of signs that indicate where our loyalty and commitment really lie - quite briefly lets deal with the second sign - that of time and energy - briefly because it has, already been dealt with in much of what has gone before.
A Lutheran minister says this of today's gospel lesson:
I am always amused at how seriously some church members take their politics around election time. Gung ho, they can devote hundreds of hours ringing doorbells or making phone calls for their political party and its candidates. Yet they wouldn't walk next door to invite a neighbour to attend church with them. Yes, Jesus was correct. The children are wiser in worldly matters than they are in churchly matters."
Much the same can be said for the zeal we bring to sport's activities or to our involvement in the fine arts, or to our own personal recreation times.
Where do we put our efforts?
What do we do with our time, energy, and our money?
Who or what are we really serving?
Think of those who promise to help out with the work we do together to witness to God's love and do so, but only after everything else they have in their life is taken care of. - Of the board members who always arrive late to meetings, Of the teachers who prepare their lessons at the last moment, of the singers who can't be bothered with a full practice, of the worshippers who never pray for others and themselves as they prepare to worship that God may be present to them, of the volunteers who must be begged for an hour of their time, of the members who never give an hour at all to the work of God.
If you are wondering why things are not working out as well as they ought to be, why so many churches seem lack lustre in their work and witness, maybe it is because they haven't been making any friends lately that their members have been unwilling to use the resources that God has given them to make themselves more welcome guests in the world out-there.
Maybe you yourself are not serving God, or at least not serving God with the all the shrewdness and effort and resources that you put into other things in your life.
Let me end by saying that a manger who is finally approved by the master is the one who is unafraid to invest time, energy, emotion, and money so that the work that he or she is entrusted with succeeds, the one who is unafraid to change the bottom line in the way that God intends for us to change it.
God has told us the way in which we should go - make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon so that when it is gone you may be welcomed into the eternal homes.
And if Jesus has said that with regard to money, then how much more will God welcome us when we make friends with the world by showering upon it the love and the care that he has entrusted to us for that very purpose.
Blessed be God, day by day. AMEN
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