The first book I opened this week as I began preparing for
the message today, started by saying…
“Luke 16:1-8 contains probably
the most difficult parable in Luke”
Great …Not really the words you want to read right after a
holiday. I like to ease back into things but this was…SPLASH! Straight in the
deep end… right! It’s not a well-known parable, I can’t remember hearing a
sermon on it, it’s not an easy parable to understand and it’s never easy when
Jesus talks about finances, and on the surface, it sounds like Jesus is
commending sharp financial practises. We don’t like the stark way Jesus
generalises this parable…how he applies it and pushes it home…” you can’t serve
two masters, you cannot serve both God and Money”. It may be a hard parable,
but I believe this passage has a lot to say to us as a church and individually
as we face this new year. It speaks to us about how we manage the lavish over
the top grace that we have been given through Jesus Christ, through forgiveness
how we use our resources and caring for those in need.
We’ve been working our way through Jesus journey to
Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel. A journey
that takes up the central third of the gospel. The narrative of which focuses
on Jesus teaching about what it means to follow him. It’s a journey that will
lead Jesus to the cross. For us it is a journey that will lead to the cross as
well; as we will be on this journey till Easter and, more importantly, because
Jesus invites us to take up our cross daily and follow him. To die to ourselves
and come alive in Christ.
Before we had a break for Christmas we had been looking at
three of Jesus most familiar and well-loved parables. The lost sheep, the lostcoin and the lost son. They are parables that Jesus told to explain to the
religious leaders of his day why he was willing to sit down and share meals
with the people they viewed as sinners and outcasts. They are great pictures of
God’s great grace his willingness to go and seek and save the lost, to welcome
people back into fellowship with him and God. They finish with a challenge to
Jesus listeners about whether they will come in and join the celebration of
rejoicing that people turn back to God, and welcoming them in as well. Over
Christmas of course we have remembered and celebrated the coming of Jesus Christ,
that saving grace coming into the world on that mission to seek and save: That we
can be forgiven, reconciled and welcomed in.
In this passage, we are looking at today, Jesus now directs
his teaching to his disciples. He had answered his critics about his welcoming
repentant sinners to table fellowship and while this seems like a new section
of teaching Jesus is pointing out how they, his disciples which includes us
should act in response to God’s great grace, and of course when Luke talks
about that we see that the depth of how much we have been changed by God’s love
and grace is shown very practically in how deep it reaches into our pockets,
wallets and purses, bank accounts, assets and priorities. AS the book of James puts it what good is it
to say “God Bless you” and send your brother and sister away in need…
Jesus tells the parable of a rich man whose manager was
accused of wasting his possessions. The rich man calls the manager to give an
account of what he has done. It’s implied that there is some wrong doing here
and that the consequence of this audit is that the manager will be fired. In
the face of this crisis what is the manager to do. The manager may have been a
slave or simply an employee, we need to realise that in his culture his status
and prosperity even his life is based on his relationship with the rich man as
a patron, he is part of his household. We don’t know what the manager had been
doing, the word used here about his wasting his master’s possessions is the
same used in the parable of the prodigal son for the younger son wasting his
inheritance on lose and lavish living. the morning I started work one of the
top stories on my laptop’s news feed was that one of singer Alana Morrissett’s
managers had admitted to embezzling millions of dollars to feed his lavish
lifestyle and gambling addiction.
The manager in the parable now must respond to this crisis.
Like the prodigal son he sees his prospects are very dark. He will be dismissed
from his master’s household, and not only will he lose his home his job he
would loss his ability to make a living. Financial advisers or managers who
have a reputation for misusing funds don’t find it easy to find another job. He
is not physically strong enough to make a living as a labourer and he’d die of
shame having to beg.
He comes up with an interesting plan. He calls in the master’s
debtors one by one and negotiates a reduction in the amount of money they owe. One
owed three thousand litres of olive oil… and the manager cuts this down to
fifteen hundred. You may have bought a litre bottle of olive oil at the
supermarket recently and so are doing some maths in your heard about how much
this is. Scholars suggest that this amount of olive oil was three years’
production off an above average sized farm. The man who owed this much was a
wealthy man as well and was now indebted to the manager. Likewise, another owed
thirty tons of wheat and the manager negotiated it down to twenty-four. Again,
it was a large amount of wheat and showed the one who owed it was also a big
landowner.
Opinion varies on what was happening here. NT Wright
surmises that the rich man himself was breaking Jewish law about not charging
interest on loans. This was often gotten around by, by asking for produce like
olive oil and wheat as interest. The manger was being shrewd by endearing
himself to those whose debt he forgave by dealing with the illegal interest.
The Rich man couldn’t then accuse him of any misdoing without having to
acknowledge his own unjust financial dealings. Others suggest that this was the
manager writing off his own margins on the amounts loaned, he is dealing with
his own corrupt financial practises or he is simply writing off debt. But in
each case, he has made sure he has people to whom he can look to for
hospitality and friendship, people who are obliged to take him in and care for
him. In Greco-roman society status and friendship were based on the idea of
patronage and reciprocity, you were obliged to look after someone if you were
in their debt or they did you a favour. The manager is relying on those
relationships to keep him if he is indeed fired. Now maybe his actions meant the rich man will
get paid back quicker, but the emphasis of Jesus parable is on finding a home
to go to. The Rich man commends him for this as he sees that he is indeed a
clever manager. We don’t know what the rich man does to the manager, again its
left unfinished, unresolved… It allows
Jesus to put his own disciples into the story.
Jesus uses this somewhat odd and negative example to invite
his disciples to see how they use their resources in light of eternity and a
relationship with God, do they squander it on keeping status, and perusing
luxury in this world keeping themselves in the lifestyle they would like to
become accustomed to, or use it in a way that reflects the Kingdom of God.
On one level the idea of forgiveness of debt in the parable
has a spiritual connotation. Financial illustrations and forgiving others
because we have been forgiven go together in the gospel narrative. In response
to Peter’s question how often must I forgive my brother? Jesus talks of the
servant who was forgiven a great amount then not returning that by forgiving a
fellow servant a small amounts as a negative example of not forgiving a person.
In the Lord’s prayer, we pray, ‘forgive us our debts as we forgive the debts of
others’, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’
But Jesus stops it just being able to be spiritualised like
that by tying his parable down to some very concrete teaching on Finances which
are challenging and helpful for us.
We need to Plan a head. Financial planners are always asking
people to think ahead, to look beyond the here and now. To go beyond the
addictive nature of our consumer society and the pull of instant gratification.
The government asks us to save for our retirement. In Jesus parable his
disciples are also asked to look beyond the here and now to eternity, to make
that the future planning that directs the priorities for life and their
resources. In the sermon on the mount in Matthew’s gospel Jesus set those same
priorities by inviting us put first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these other things will be added unto you’. It’s not a prosperity
gospel it’s not the keep to getting rich, it’s a providence gospel where we
rely on God’s grace and mercy. Jesus however is not saying we should not care
about finances and resources, it’s not that they should be squandered but
rather we need to have good financial management in our lives and churches, but
with the priority of investing in the Kingdom of God.
The second thing we need to view what we have been given as
God’s provision. Jesus says that what we have is not our own but rather we have
been given it by God. When we think of things in light of God’s providence how
we use them becomes important. Right back to Genesis we see we are given
stewardship over creation, our abilities to earn money are using God given
talents, if we believe that God leads and guides us where we work and what we
do and what we earn are blessings from God, along with which go responsibility:
‘If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust
you with true wealth?’ we have been intrusted with the wondrous Gospel of Jesus
Christ, the good news of God’s salvation or new and abundant life for all in
Christ, sadly down through the ages it is amazing how much the churches and
Christians attitude to wealth and possessions have got in the way of making
that great liberating truth known and a reality in the world.
Lastly Jesus puts it in terms that we are not fully
comfortable with. The relationship between a servant and a master, it is the
key relationship in the parable and here Jesus applies it to our relationship
with God. You can’t serve two masters you will end up loving one and despising
the other, you can’t serve both God and money. It is easy to find yourself
being dictated to by finances, weather you have a lot and even more when you
struggling to make ends meet. It can compete for our focus and priorities with
our relationship with Jesus… as a parent one of the issues that concerns me is
the escalating price of housing in Auckland. I remember the mayor of Auckland
speaking at the Epsom Girls Grammar prize giving two years ago and talking
about the great public transport system and how the girls sitting there today
will benefit from this in the future and I remember thinking I wonder how many
of these young people will afford to live in this city. Futurist and Christian
Author Tom Sine says that many Christian young people today are going to have
to make decisions about the future. If they want to buy the kind of House they
grew up in it is going to consume great amounts of their income and time, it is
going to cut down the options for them in terms of different avenues of serving
God. It is going to take some good and very clever financial thinking to
envision a different future for our children. We need a fresh vision of the
kingdom of God that will compete with the crumbling western world’s vision that
I heard articulated many times at University… get a good education so I can get
a good job and can get the good life… Bingo! That is what life is about?
Like I said at the beginning… this parable is one of the
most difficult in Luke. To understand it we needed to explore its cultural
context more than usual. I’m not sure I’ve done a great job in unpacking this
morning. It’s difficult because it reaches into our priorities in life and how
they are lived out in our finances. It challenges our business practises, it
challenges how as a church we view money… the in way of looking at that is it’s
a call to move from a maintenance budget, about just keeping going, to a
missional budget, how can what we have be best used for the furthering of God’s
kingdom. As we will see next week when we look at the parable of Lazarus and
the rich man that it challenges how we respond to poverty about us. But at the
start of the New Year it is a call to once again choose to follow Jesus. Yes
aware of his great over the top lavish grace but also aware of the call that it
has on all aspects of our lives, to with all we are and all we have been given
to serve him as well.
Lets Pray...
Inviting people to Respond: By the way I dew the Illustartion we've been using as the focus for this mornings service on the carpark. I used this wonderful new product called washable pavement chalk... great for parents, it measn that they can wash off their kids chalk drawings. I had intended to invite people as you left to respond to todays message by standing fora moment and then choosing to walk one way or the other... it was intended as a way of connecting with the Kinethetic learners amoungst us... But it rained.. alot over friday and saturday night... and the thing about washable chalk is that it washeds off... and it did... but lets respond to what we have heard today by standing and singing " I have decided to follow Jesus'
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