Grace, Mercy and Peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
There has been a lot going on in our nation lately. I’ve been processing it. You’ve been processing it. The murder of Charlie Kirk and the aftermath has shocked and shaken us. And of course there’s been a lot of analysis. Everyone is trying to tell us what all this means.
Well, frankly, I don’t know what it means politically or what it means about our nation. I don’t even know what it means in particular about our daily lives as citizens in this country. I don’t know.
But I do know this: None of this is surprising. From the days of Adam and Eve, when they sinned against God in the garden, mankind has proven our willingness to resist God and to lash out against our neighbor. Eve against Adam, Adam against Eve. And then their children…The first son of our human family, the firstborn of Adam and Even, Cain, became a murderer, when he despised and killed his brother, Abel.
And from that day forward, we have been in the long downward spiral toward destruction. Those who say otherwise, deceive themselves. And even that self-deception is part of our sinful condition. As the prophet Jeremiah writes: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.(Jeremiah 17:9a)
In other words, we are as we have confessed this day, poor miserable sinners…all of us. And so it is no wonder that our world is full of all manner of evil.
But we are not without hope. My fear for you and for our society as whole …is that we are searching for hope in all the wrong places…and then when we can’t find it, we turn to despair.
But it should not be this way with you dear people of God. You should see that troubling events and evil deeds confirm what you already know about our human family. But all this only serves to reinforce your need for Christ and the hope that He alone provides, to you. And your prayer with John and all the saints in Revelation is this…, come Lord Jesus. Come quickly. Return and our an end to this wickedness and chaos.
In fact, that’s what our Gospel reading for today is all about. For the next several weeks, the lectionary has us in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus teaches us about the hypocrisy that lives in our hearts. And his big point that he makes here and we’ll see again and again in the next few weeks is this: You Can’t Serve Two Masters
You can’t serve two masters. Because, as we know, we are to have no other gods. We are to fear, love and trust in God above all things. He alone is our master.
Today’s parable is sometimes called “the most difficult of all Jesus’ parables.” The reason this parable is so difficult is that Jesus uses the behavior of a DISHONEST MANAGER as an example for how you and I should live. So as we look at this parable we have to carefully discern what God IS saying to us and what He is NOT saying to us.
Jesus is telling us a story about a corrupt manager. His boss – the master– is most likely a landowner who rents out his land to be farmed. The rental price is a portion of the crop. And this DISHONEST MANAGER is the one who oversees the whole process of renting out the land, determining the price, recording and collecting the debts.
In other words, the DISHONEST MANAGER is a man who sees a lot of wealth pass through his hands, and apparently this wealth tempted him to the point that he began to steal it and use it for his own lavish desires.
The behavior of the DISHONEST MANAGER here in Luke 16, parallels the behavior of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In that story, the son took half of His father’s property as an early inheritance and then went to a far off country and “squandered the property in reckless living,” spending his inheritance on prostitutes, among other things.
But although the son dishonored his father and squandered his inheritance, the father still welcomes the son back with open arms. The father is gracious and merciful toward his repentant son.
But in the parable of the DISHONEST MANAGER, the emphasis is different. Here we have a man who has squandered his master’s property and we have every reason to believe that he will continue to do so. He has not repented. Repentance is not on his radar…until His master makes a demand: Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager!
The day of reckoning has come. All of the DISHONEST MANAGER’S theft will be found out when the MASTER reviews the account books. No sin will be left hidden. No wicked deed left unexposed. All of his honor will be turned to shame in a moment.
What a frightening thought— to be completely exposed! And yet this is what the DISHONEST MANAGER can expect, and this is exactly what God’s Law does to each of us. For the prodigal son, the Law came to him when his evil deeds left him at rock bottom…hopeless…that hopelessness pushed him toward repentance as he remembered the kindness of his father. But that’s not yet the case for the dishonest manager. He is happily enjoying the fruits of His sin, perhaps even believing that His master doesn’t know or won’t do anything about it.
But he’s wrong. And what does he need to show him his error? He needs the Law.
God, you see, is merciful to those who repent. But what leads us to repentance? The Law. The Law shows us our sin and reminds us that there is a day of reckoning…a day of judgment yet to come. And all of our deeds will be exposed on that day when our master says to us, “Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.”
Are you ready for that day of reckoning? Are you ready for that day when the Living God calls you to stand before His throne and explain yourself…to explain every thought, word and deed? Everything you did and everything you failed to do? Are you ready for that moment when God says to you, “Now, turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager?”
For me, when I hear those words, I think about the way that I use my time, my talent and my treasures. And I’m convicted. I think about whether I have faithfully and perfectly fulfilled my duty as a son, a husband, a father, and a pastor. And I’m convicted. I think about the 10 commandments. And I’m convicted. Because the reality is that you and I can never live up to God’s perfect standard of holiness. It’s a frightening and convicting thought — to stand before God and given an account!
But fear not, the parable goes on! The DISHONEST MANAGER recognizes his problem. He recognizes the depth of his trouble. And he says, I’m too weak to dig, too ashamed to beg. Weakness. Shame. The Law has exposed him and shown him his sin, leaving him without hope.
And this is really where the parable gets interesting. The DISHONEST MANAGER calls together some of his master’s debtors…people who owe his master some great amount of grain or oil…and he, in his office as manager, reduces their debt. Why?
Well, you see this DISHONEST MANAGER realizes that he has nothing. No hope. No future. But the master has given him one thing: time. He has time to to seek mercy.
That’s what God’s Law does. When God, in His Law, shows us our sin, He also directs us to seek mercy by fleeing into the arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is gracious and merciful and who forgives our sins.
I mean, go back to the beginning. God told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. That’s the Law. And when they ate it was in effect. They were under a death sentence. But God was patient. There’s a gap between the proclamation of the Law and the punishment it demands. And that gap is where the mercy of God lives.
Peter says this very thing in 2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
In patient kindness and love, God proclaims the Law to you and to me. He shows us our sins. And then He proclaims the Gospel, showing us our Savior, Jesus Christ.
So, when we consider this difficult to understand parable, let’s just ask the obvious question:
Since Jesus commends the behavior of the dishonest manager, how are you and I meant to follow his example?
First, we should recognize the coming judgment promised by His Law.
And second, we should entrust ourselves by faith into the mercy of God who forgives sin through the cross of Christ.
The day of reckoning is coming. And the only prudent thing to do…the only shrewd action… is to entrust ourselves into the hands of a merciful God. When all our thoughts, words and deeds are held under a microscope and evaluated against the standard of perfection, we will come up short. And our only hope is in God who has sent His Son for us, to pay the price for our sin on the cross…Salvation is not found within ourselves, but outside of us…in the mercy of Jesus Christ.
And finally, you and I, as God’s forgiven people, should learn to understand all of our lives and all of our possessions…EVERYTHING we are and EVERYTHING we have been entrusted with…we should understand EVERYTHING in this life in the light of eternity…and we should use the things of this world for the sake of eternity.
Jesus puts it this way:
make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”
What does this mean?
Well, the things of this world are fleeting. They are temporary. They fade away and you can’t take them with you into eternity. Money, power, possessions, status…none of it will last forever…all of it will fail. And when it does, what will be left? Only God’s eternal kingdom which is our eternal dwelling place.
So use the things of this world…money, power, influence, status, possessions, and even the most basic time, talent and treasure…use them not for selfish pleasure, but for God’s purpose. Be generous with your money and your possessions because God has been generous toward you. And show mercy to your neighbors because God has been merciful to you. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Let your life be about His Kingdom and His Righteousness and trust Him for all the other things that you need in life.
And in so doing, you will follow the example of the DISHONEST MANAGER, who rightly understands that he is about to lose everything.
One commentator writes of this man that, “He wins out by giving away what he has while he still has it. Thus the disciples are to imitate, not the dishonesty but the prudence. They are to know that they are stewards, whose property is entrusted to them for a short time by (God); that they are to work with that property while they can, giving away deliberately and recklessly with an eye to the future and its eternal habitations.
(Roehrs, W. H., & Franzmann, M. H. (1998). Concordia self-study commentary (electronic ed., Vol. 2, p. 74). St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.)
I love that! All that we have and all that we are has been given to us…entrusted to us…for a short time by God. And we are to give it all away, deliberately, sometimes even recklessly for the sake of the Gospel. The Cross of Christ, the empty tomb, the good news of forgiveness, life and salvation …this is worth our very lives…and yet we, so often spend ourselves on things that are worth far less…we so often fail to rightly understand life in light of eternity. We so often have another master. But friends you cannot serve two masters.
And that’s why our mission here at Faith Lutheran Church is connecting people to Jesus. He is the master. The only master. He is the one who has our life and our future in His hands. He is the one who has proclaimed the Law to show us our sins. And He Himself is the Gospel. The Good News that our sins are forgiven. And not just ours, but the sins of the whole world. So we say come Lord Jesus, come quickly to end
Let’s pray: Lord God, Heavenly Father, you have given us the example of a Shrewd but Dishonest manager. As that manager threw himself on the mercy of others, may we, as children of light, learn to always seek your mercy, knowing that you are rich in forgiveness, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And may we also learn to be shrewd and wise as we live our lives, not for selfish gain or pleasure, but for the sake of the Gospel, that our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers would know the Good News of your love and be connected with Jesus. In all these things we need your power and wisdom, which we ask for in the name of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
And now the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in the one true faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.