Luke 16: 1-13
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
Offered to the First Presbyterian Church of Franklin, NJ on September 9, 2022
This is a difficult parable to understand. I think more than just a few of us scratch our heads and wonder, “What is Jesus telling us here? What does he mean by the “children of this generation are more shrewd than the children of light?” What is Jesus asking us to do?” I can envision Peter going up to Jesus and saying, “Hey, J. What does this story mean? Are you telling us that we should be as unscrupulous as the steward in your story? Are you telling us that we should cheat and lie to make friends and get ahead? I don’t get it. J man, help me out here.”
I see Peter going to Jesus with these questions because that’s exactly my reaction when I read this passage and I suspect, you’re scratching your heads with similar questions.
And what might Jesus’ response to Peter and us be? I can see Jesus looking at Peter with a wry smile saying, “Well no, but kind of, yeah.” Then Jesus smiles at Peter and tells him, “Peter, if you are focusing only on the Steward in my story, you are looking in the wrong place.”
OK. That’s a start. So, let’s go there so that we can understand what about the Steward is and is not the point of the story. At the beginning of his story Jesus says the Steward is accused by the Master of “squandering his property”. He is not accused of fraud or some illegal action. He is accused only of allowing some of the master’s wealth to slip through the cracks. Someone has alerted the Master that this Steward may be squandering his property through mismanagement and perhaps the master is not earning as much as he should be. For that reason, the Master tells the Steward that he is being dismissed. Now the wheels go into motion.
The Steward frets, what am I to do? Then he comes up with a plan to protect and provide for his future prospects after he is dismissed. Now remember this. This is important.
The Steward calls his master’s debtors and begins to negotiate with them a “rebalancing”, if you will, of their accounts. Now, it would be advantageous for us to understand that the master was probably an absentee landowner, and the Steward was his manager. The debtors were probably people who worked that land, and their rent was to pay the Landowner a portion of their harvest. What do you owe, the Steward asks them? Change the records of what your harvest was and reduce what you owe. The debtors being as unscrupulous as the Steward go along with the scheme. They are as wicked as the Steward. Now, someone spills the beans and the Master finds out about what is happening. Perhaps, the person who originally alerted the Master in the first place or one of the debtors had a pang of conscience and told him what was going on. But now comes the curve ball.
Instead of reprimanding the Steward, the Master congratulates him on his shrewd handling of the accounts and his circumstances. You see, the Master, being as unscrupulous as any of the characters in Jesus’ story, appreciates that the Steward may finally be coming around to doing business the way the Master wanted and expected of him in the first place. And here, the message Jesus intends in his parable starts to become clearer.
Jesus isn’t applauding the lying and the cheating that the Master in the story appreciates. Jesus is pointing out to the disciples the shrewdness of how the Steward uses the tools at his disposal to provide for his future prospects.
In verse 8, Jesus points out that the “children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of the light.” What does Jesus mean by this? It is that “the children of this world” are wiser and more astute in setting up their accounts in this world, their business opportunities, their bank balances, their IRAs and 401ks, their retirement security than we, “the children of the light”, are storing up our riches in heaven. That is why Jesus would have us take an example from the Steward. He doesn’t want us to lie and cheat. But He does want us to be as committed to storing up and securing a place in God’s kingdom as they are committed to storing up the riches of this world.
The Steward has reached out to his master’s debtors and made for himself friends that will help him on the day he is turned out. He has secured this in part by their gratitude for his reducing their debt but more so by the fact that he can blackmail them for their complicity in his illegal actions if they are not welcoming to him when he is ultimately turned out by his Master. What Jesus is holding up for us to see is the Steward’s commitment, his arduous determination to store up for himself a safe haven for after his service is terminated and he is kicked out on the street.
In the next verse, Jesus says, “And I tell you, make for yourselves FRIENDS by means of your material possessions… so that when your money is gone, they will receive you into a dwelling that lasts forever.”
The first word that we need to focus on from this verse is “And”. “And” isn’t just a word to suggest something will follow when we think of it. You know we do it all the time. We might be telling a story and we pause and say … “And…” while we’re trying to figure out what to say next. That is not what is happening here. “And” is a connector linking the commitment Jesus is describing in the previous verse: how the Steward deals shrewdly with his resources and the act of making Friends who will support him when the time comes. These two verses are linked with one another. Jesus tells us that we need to be as committed as the shrewd Steward in using the resources at our disposal AND to make the kinds of friends that will secure for us a dwelling place in God’s eternal kingdom.
What are the resources that Jesus is telling his disciples to use. Use wealth if you have it at your disposal, yes. But also, there are other gifts that God has given us that are also at our disposal. They are but are not limited to healing, hospitality, compassion and justice.
Now, the second important thing to be aware of is that Jesus is not talking about the types of friends the Steward is storing up.
The Steward is making friends with likeminded reprobates who are as dishonest as he is that will provide for him a sanctuary and comfort of sorts when he is turned out on the street in this earthly realm.
Who are the friends Jesus is talking about? The friends that Jesus is talking about are not the rich and powerful people that the Steward goes to. No. Jesus would not have us go there. That is not where Jesus would have us commit our resources. Rather it is to those who would benefit most by our faith in the Christ, that is the poor and needy. The greedy businessman hordes up his riches on this world only for it to come to naught because he dies before he has a chance to enjoy them. That is another of Jesus’ parables that you all have heard. You all know that parable. No, those kinds of friends are of no use to us as Christians because they can do nothing for us if our goal is eternal life in God’s kingdom. No, Jesus is looking at the poor and needy, those people who, if we use our resources wisely and aid them in this world, will help prepare a place for us and welcome us to that eternal dwelling place in God’s kingdom.
Jesus uses the example of how the shrewd Steward acts to show us how much he wants us to be committed to his kingdom, that safe haven of eternal life and how to use our resources to attain it.
Jesus tells us something about how we should use our gifts in this world. If we are faithful in little, then it follows that we will be faithful with larger gifts. If we squander the little gifts we have here in this world, how can we be trusted with the greater gifts of the kingdom. The greater gifts are referring to stewardship and responsibility in God’s kingdom. In other words, Jesus is telling us how we manage our wealth, and the gifts God has given us in this world is a proving ground for what will be given us in the kingdom.
Jesus closes by telling us, “We cannot serve two masters.” We cannot be dedicated to hoarding up riches in this world for our own wellbeing and ignore the need of those around us. Now, I am not going to suggest to you that being rich, well-off, or comfortable in this life is a negative that saddens the heart of God. I’m not going there, because if nothing else, that would be hanging myself out to dry. I am telling you, that how you use those riches, your wealth, your healing love, the hospitality that you can offer, your compassion and your sense of fairness and justice; how you steward those resources (that are solely gifts from God) will either put a smile or a frown on God’s face.
So, we have to first determine which master we will dedicate our lives to. Will we store up riches in this world for our sole pleasure and enjoyment? Or will we allow God to guide our actions? Will we be good stewards of God’s kingdom riches being faithful with the little things Jesus speaks of and sharing them along with the Good News or will we be unscrupulous and lookout for what will only benefit us in this realm?
My friends, this is a difficult place to end a message. But that is the question Jesus presents us with. We have been given “little things” by God. Some of that may be material wealth. We may have some wealth. But we have also been given compassion, a sense of justice, we have the ability to be hospitable, we have the opportunity to bring healing to Franklin, to New Jersey and to the world. How we use all of those little things will determine what we will be entrusted with in God’s Kingdom. So, use all those gifts shrewdly.
CHARGE: My friends, my charge to you this week is a simple one, be shrewd. Use the gifts and resources that God has blessed you with wisely. Use them to bless those in need around you as if you were action on behalf of the God that loves and blesses you and them. BY your actions make friends who will receive and bless you into God’s eternal Kingdom.
