These illustrations are based on Luke 16:1-13
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Sermon Opener - Increasing Our Standard of Giving - Luke 16:1-13
Before John Wesley became the founder of the Methodist Church he was a teacher at Oxford University back in the 1700’s. When he began his career he was paid 30 pounds per year - in those days a lot of money. His living expenses were 28 pounds - so he gave 2 pounds away.
The next year his income doubled - but he still managed to live on 28 pounds - so he gave away 32 pounds. The third year he earned 90 pounds - lived on 28 - and gave away 62. The fourth year he earned 120 pounds - lived on 28 - and gave away 92. One year his income was a little over 1,400 pounds - he lived on 30 and gave away nearly all of the 1,400 pounds.
Wesley felt that with increasing income, what should rise is not the Christian’s standard of living but the standard of giving. Increasing our standard of giving. What a great Christian man and what a great lesson he taught us. It is the same lesson found in the parable for today. Let’s take a look. The Pharisees are standing off to the side watching Jesus as was their custom. Jesus’ disciples are listening intently as he tells his story. Probably on this occasion there were more than just the 12. A large number of followers are gathered around. He tells them about a steward who handled all the business affairs of a wealthy man. But the steward has squandered his master’s money; he was reckless and wasteful…
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A Shrewd Christian? - Luke 16:1-13
For many the term “shrewd Christian” is an oxymoron as these two terms just seem to be so opposite in their minds. But in the parable of the unjust steward Jesus calls on his disciples to become as shrewd in doing good as others are in doing evil. According to Webster’s dictionary shrewd means “keen-witted, clever, or sharp in practical matters.” We have often used the word in its secondary sense of cunning and in a context where one has used their intellect to take advantage of a person or a situation in an unethical way. Jesus calls us to be as shrewd in ethical ways as others are in unethical ways.
The manager in Jesus’ story is a shrewd fellow in the worst sense of the word. He has misused his master’s resources. We don’t know the exact nature of the crime but he has obviously been converting his master’s resources for his own use. He has been placed in charge of wealth to manage it for the owner and, instead, has been skimming for himself. When he gets caught he does not repent or change his ways. Instead, he ups the ante and goes all out on the course he has begun.
Calling those who were in debt to his master he proposed to change their bills so that they would owe less. In this way he hoped to make friends of these folks so that he could be taken care of after he was dismissed. As he himself noted he was too weak to dig and too proud to beg. He also entangled them in his dishonesty so that he could use their complicity in his dishonesty against them to make sure they would take care of him.
The folks who are in debt were very shrewd in a dishonest sense as well….
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God’s Grace
The grace of God is like the man who went into the clothing store to buy a suit and was shown a blue one. "No," the customer said, "That won't do. I want a green suit." So the clerk called out to his partner, "Turn on the green light, Joe, the man wants a green suit!" It is not that things are changed. But we see them differently. In Christ we are given spectacles which give us a kingdom perspective. We see ourselves in a heavenly light; through God's eyes. We see how things really are. We need no longer suffer from the stigma that "sinner" - forgiven or otherwise - denotes. We can see ourselves as "heirs" with Christ of the Divine inheritance. The world is not changed, but we see it and ourselves in a new light; a kingdom light.
Robert McClelland, Fire in the Hole, CSS Publishing Company
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A Shrewd Example
First-century culture was organized and orchestrated by strict social rules. The rules of reciprocal hospitality were in no way optional. Rather they were the supporting ligaments that bound together status and honor, safeguarding roles and responsibilities through right relationships. The dishonest manager has no doubts that he will be able to collect on the favors owed him when the time comes. He will get by, despite his looming unemployment, because he knows how to work the system, or in the more contemporary terms of network, because he knows how to make the net work.
Jesus doesn't admire the thorns that bar the manager's dubious situation. Neither does Jesus concern himself with the man's self-serving character. What Jesus focuses on is the fruit that results from the manager's shrewdness (machinations?). Jesus sees a man unafraid to push the accepted limits in order to bring about a needed change. And he sees in this shrewdness something that his disciples might well learn from.
Leonard Sweet, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Living As If There is No Future
A man bought a parrot. He taught that bird to say one word. That word was, "Today." When he got up in the morning and when he came home at night it was beaten into his eardrums: "Today." There was no procrastination around that bird. "Today, today, today," he screamed.
About six months later the man bought another parrot. He taught that bird to say one word. That word was "Tomorrow." He said, "I have been living as if there were no future. Today is all there is, and I’ve found it isn’t so." The two birds together helped him keep his mind on the realities of life: today and tomorrow. Would that the steward could have heard both voices. Tomorrow is God’s judgment on today.
Carveth Mitchell, The Sign in the Subway, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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When Shrewdness Wins the Day
Dan Miller in his book No More Dreaded Mondays tells a delightful story about a farmer many years ago in a village in India who had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to the village moneylender. The old and ugly moneylender fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter, so he proposed a bargain. He would forgive the farmer’s debt if he could marry the farmer’s daughter.
Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal, but the cunning moneylender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. The girl would have to reach in and pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail until the debt was paid.
They were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. The sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble. Now, imagine that you were the girl standing in the field. What would you have done? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?
Careful analysis would produce three possibilities: (1) the girl could refuse to take a pebble--but her father would then be thrown in jail. (2) The girl could pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from debt and imprisonment. Or (3) the girl could pull out both black pebbles in the bag, expose the moneylender as a cheat, and likely incite his immediate revenge.
Here is what the girl did.
She put her hand into the money bag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path, where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles. “Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.” Since the remaining pebble was black, it would have to be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the moneylender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl would have changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.
Don’t we all love stories where the good guy uses his or her wit and cunning to defeat a villain? It may disturb us when a villain uses that same wit and cunning. And yet Jesus once told his disciples a parable about a dishonest man who did just that.
Dan Miller, No More Dreaded Mondays, Broadway Books, 2008. Adapted by King Duncan
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I Have Never Told the Half of It!
Sometimes people tease me about speaking about God’s love and grace so much and when they do, I think of Marco Polo. In the 14th century, when he came back to Venice from his travels in Cathay, Marco Polo described the incredible wonders he had seen there. People didn’t believe him and for the rest of his life (and even on his death bed) they tried to get him to confess that he had lied and exaggerated about the wonders he had described. His last answer was: “I never told the half of it!”
That’s the way I feel about God’s love and grace – “I have never told the half of it!”
James W. Moore,www.Sermons.com
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Humor: You Took Me In
Henry Ford was known for both his frugality and his philanthropy. He was visiting his family's ancestral village in Ireland when two trustees of the local hospital found out he was there, and they managed to get in to see him.
They talked him into giving the hospital $5,000 dollars (this was the 1930's, so $5,000 dollars was a great deal of money). The next morning, at breakfast, he opened his newspaper to read the banner headline: "American Millionaire Gives Fifty Thousand to Local Hospital."
Ford wasted no time in summoning the two hospital trustees. He waved the newspaper in their faces. "What does this mean?" he demanded. The trustees apologized profusely. "Dreadful error," they said. They promised to get the editor to print a retraction the very next day, stating that the great Henry Ford hadn't given $50,000, but only $5,000. Well, hearing that, Ford offered them the other $45,000, under one condition: that the trustees erect a marble arch at the entrance of the new hospital, with a plaque that read, "I walked among you and you took me in."
Billy D. Strayhorn, Let's Make a Deal
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Looking Past Oneself
An enormously rich man complained to a psychiatrist that despite his great wealth which enabled him to have whatever he wanted, he still felt miserable. The psychiatrist took the man to the window overlooking the street and asked, "What do you see?" The man replied, "I see men, women, and children."
The psychiatrist then took the man to stand in front of mirror and asked, "Now what do you see?"
The man said, "I see only myself."
The psychiatrist then said, "In the window there is a glass and in the mirror there is glass, and when you look through the glass of the window, you see others, but when you look into the glass of the mirror you see only yourself. The reason for this, "said the psychiatrist, "is that behind the glass in the mirror is a layer of silver. When silver is added, you cease to see others. You only see yourself."
Whenever your devotion to money and material things causes you to be self-centered, you in essence deny God's intention for your life. It is also a denial of the Christ, for Jesus came into the world so that we might be in union with God.
Maxie Dunnam, Turn in an Account of Your Stewardship
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When the Tigers Circle
A Zen story characterizes life as a Buddhist monk fleeing from a hungry tiger. The monk comes to the edge of a cliff cutting off any hope of escape from the pursuing tiger. Fortunately for the monk, a vine happens to be growing over the edge. He grabs hold of it and begins to climb down the cliff, out of the tiger's reach, who is by now glaring at him from above. But alas, as the monk is climbing down, he spies another tiger waiting for him below; circling impatiently at the bottom of the cliff. To make matters worse, out of the corner of his eye he notices a mouse on a ledge above him already beginning to gnaw through the vine. Then out of the corner of his other eye the monk sees a strawberry growing from the rock. So he picks the strawberry and eats it.
Faith in God is not believing that the Holy One will intervene to "save" us. It is knowing what time it is. We live with the reality of sin and death encoded within us, yet we are to live with joy here and now, sinners and scoundrels, because the kingdom is at hand. We are not to demand evidence of its presence. Rather we are to believe it and act accordingly. The claim that we are invited to entertain is that our Savior has overcome the guilt of living and the embarrassment of dying. No longer do we need to apologize for the bumps and warts which inevitably result from living the risk that we call "life." We are not as those who live under sentence of death, but as those who possess the promise of life.
W. Robert McClelland, Fire in the Hole, CSS Publishing Company
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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Be Shrewd - Luke 16:1-13
Have you heard of the carnival barker who kept yelling “Alive! Alive! Here! Here! Did you ever see a two-headed baby? Come in! Come in!” The gaff is that they don’t have a two-headed baby inside the tent. They only asked if you ever saw one.
This is the kind of shrewdness being celebrated in today’s Scripture reading.
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), the Mexican novelist and playwright whom some called “the soul of Mexico,” gave a long interview about his writing shortly after he turned 50 and began to contemplate his mortality. “I used to write to live,” he said. “Now I write not to die. I’ll live as long as I have another story to tell.”
Jesus was the greatest storyteller who ever lived. But I’ll wager a guess that there’s one Jesus story on which you’ve seldom if ever heard a sermon. It’s our lectionary text for today. And it’s one of the strangest and, for some, the most repugnant story Jesus ever told. There are so many features of this story that deserve our attention, and today’s exegesis probes some of them. In this morning’s sermon we only have time to highlight one of them.
This story provides primary evidence that Jesus wasn't just about telling stories of people who were "better" than we are, good and moral people we should try to imitate in some tradition of Aesop’s fables. The servant in this parable is bad to the bone. Yet he still has a message to bring that we can learn from. Jesus shows how even the worst have something of the best to teach us if we will be willing to receive wisdom from a tainted source, just as the servant received tainted wealth from a tainted world…
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Play It Safe or Take a Risk
Rev. Mark Trotter tells of a mission in Mexico, sponsored by Mercy Hospital, in San Diego, and by Rotary International. Thirteen doctors from San Diego, and twice that number of nurses and other support staff, total of about fifty-five persons, paid their own way to go down as a surgical team to minister to poor children in Tehuacan, in the southern part of Mexico. He says,
“The call went out through the Rotary Club in that city for all those who do not have the means for medical attention to bring children with birth defects and crippling diseases to the clinic.
It was amazing. They came by the hundreds, mostly the very, very poor, carrying their children. Some teenagers, as well, some of whom have spent their life with their hand held over their face because they were ashamed of the way they looked. Some had been hidden by their parents because they did not want their neighbors to see what they believed was a curse upon their family. After an hour, or less, in surgery their appearance was changed, and they received new hope and a new life.
If you are hard-headed, you might conclude that the thousands of dollars that were spent last week in Tehuacan was just a drop in the bucket. It's not going to make any difference. I mean, the enormous suffering in this world, just wave after wave. It's not going to make any difference.
I talked to one of those Rotarians in Tehuacan who spent two years setting up this project. It's a complex business establishing this kind of a clinic in Mexico. I said, "Why did you do it?" He said, "We believe that we can change the world, and we are going to start right here."
It sounds naive. It is naive, when you compare it with the problems that exist, even the problems in his own state. But you are confronted with a choice in this life. That's the point of these parables. You are confronted with a choice. You can do nothing, and play it safe. Or, you can take a risk.”
Adapted from Mark Trotter, The Model of Success
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Making Choices
In our society thousands of people are losing their homes because of foreclosures. They can’t pay their mortgage rates which are higher now than when they first obtained a loan. Some banks show no mercy while others are going out of their way to help people keep their homes. The last thing a bank wants to have is to have thousands of empty houses with no buyers. They rely on those monthly mortgage payments to underwrite their investments.
I believe this story is about making choices. The manager had to decide whether or not to make it easier for debtors to pay their bills and risk losing his job, or resign and do nothing. Remember that this story follows the story of the elder brother of the prodigal son who didn’t want to go to his “forgiveness party.” He was choosing to stay away because, “right was right.” He didn’t want to have any part in a celebration where incompetent behavior was rewarded with mercy.
Here, the master showed mercy for his manager. The manager was incompetent but at least he acted. He made a decision and he was merciful to the debtors. Whether or not he got to keep his job we don’t know. Neither do we know if the debtors actually paid their bills. What we do know is that Jesus used this story to confront the stingy behavior of the Pharisees.
Notice that in the following verses it says that “The Pharisees were lovers of money…and God knows what is in their hearts.”
Keith Wagner, Living With our Choices
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The End of the Value of Money
In his book, How to Preach a Parable, Eugene Lowry says that in order to understand a parable we must look for the itch before we can feel the scratch. We must sense the tension before we can receive relief from the tension. We must place ourselves in the puzzling setting before we can see the resolution to the puzzle. Lowry calls this "finding the focus of the story."
All this talk about participation and finding the focus notwithstanding, what do we do with the steward who is a rascal, making deals with shady debtors and a master who commends the shrewdness of his steward for the deals he makes? What's the sharp point Jesus is trying to make?
The sharp point of this parable is that the master commends the use of money for people, instead of for pride, power, position, and possessions. In other words, the value of money and possession comes to a dead end when we die. The sharp point of this parable is that money and possessions will do us no good when we arrive at eternity and face the judgment of God.
Ron Lavin, Sermons for Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third): Only the Lonely, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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Like Running a Business
There was an interesting legal question posed in The Saturday Evening Post recently. It seems that one lovely Sunday when the sermon was overlong, the congregation rushed, as usual, from its pews on the first syllable of "Amen!" Faithful Abigail, the only worshiper held entranced by the sermon, moved slowly and was trampled. She sued the church and its officials for damages.
"Those in charge of the church knew that most of the congregation stampedes after long sermons," Abigail argued. "They should have recognized the danger in the situation. Not being prepared to cope with it, they were negligent."
The church's attorney argued like this in response: "A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. No one has a right to expect it to be run with the smart efficiency of a business concern. Abigail, therefore, has no real claim."
If you were the judge, asks the writer, would you award damages to Abigail?
What I found interesting in this hypothetical situation was the characterization of the church. "A church is a nonprofit organization manned for the most part by volunteers. . . No one has a right to expect it to be run with the smart efficiency of a business. . . ."
Why not? What if we were as good at what we do as McDonald's is at what they do, or Coca Cola or Microsoft? What if we were as committed to spreading the good news of the kingdom of God as American business is to winning new customers? This is the point Jesus is trying to make. He wants people who bear his name to not only be nice people but to be people who make a difference in the world.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons,www.eSermons.com
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Shrewdness in Business
There was once a young businessman in Germany named Neckerman who had a burning ambition to build his small retail store into a large chain of department stores. His problem was that no one knew his name. He couldn't attract customers. He had only limited capital.
This was shortly after World War II. As you might imagine there were shortages in Germany of almost everything. Thus, the existing big department stores saw no reason to cut prices. They sold whatever they could get at healthy margins. Neckerman saw this as an opportunity. If only he could position his store as the low-cost, high-value leader, he could build the enterprise of his dreams.
As it happened, Neckerman managed to acquire a large shipment of spools of thread. Thread was in great demand in those days. Clothes also were in short supply. Women were constantly repairing their families' old garments. The obvious step for Neckerman would have been to sell these spools of thread in his own store. It would undoubtedly attract more business.
Instead he offered the whole shipment of thread to the buyer for the largest department store chain in Germany at only a slight profit. The buyer for this chain jumped at the opportunity and in only a few weeks had sold all the thread at a much more substantial profit.
It usually takes several months to use up a whole spool of thread. Thus, the whole transaction was forgotten by the time the executives of this large chain started to notice crowds of people shopping at Neckerman's. Soon the reason became apparent. It was the spools of thread the large chain had purchased so eagerly from this young upstart. As German housewives finished their spools of thread, a piece of paper that had been wrapped about the spool under the thread fluttered out. It read like this: IF YOU HAD BOUGHT THIS THREAD AT NECKERMAN'S, IT WOULD HAVE LASTED TWICE AS LONG. Overnight, everyone knew the name Neckerman. From then on, the firm had no trouble attracting customers.
Shrewd. Even a little sneaky. Sometimes in business the line between ethical and unethical, shrewd and outright dishonest, is a little blurred. And nice guys, or gals, don't always finish first.
Peter Engel, The Exceptional Individual (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), pp. 63-64, adapted by King Duncan
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Back in 15 Minutes
Where we used to live in Missouri, in rural St. Charles County, we had the smallest, stand-alone, full service post office in the country, with it's very own full-time postmaster. It was something the citizens of our area were very proud of, because it had grown out of years of previous postmasters trying to juggle both their small business and their job as postmaster.
A lot of stories were told about the difficulty of trying to run a business and trying to serve the people of that area and their postal needs. One of them that I especially liked was about a gas station owner, who was also the community's postmaster.
This man had no helper at his service station, so when he had to leave his store to meet the mail truck, he was consumed by thoughts of people stopping for gas, or soft drinks, or candy, but finding him gone and his store closed. So, one day he hit upon a very shrewd solution. He printed a sign in bold letters that solved his problem during those required absences. The sign read: Back in 15 minutes--Already been gone 10.
Tom Rietveld, Shrewd Managers
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Subprime Stewards?
Recently, the news of trouble in the housing sector has been unavoidable. The media has been reporting a new facet of the housing sectors financial problems daily. The stock market doesn’t know what to think, swinging several percent up and down on a daily roller coaster. Mortgage lenders have finally been caught holding the bag, literally, as lower quality loans are revealed for what they are – risky investments.
No doubt this is affecting some of you, either with higher mortgage payments as that fabulous ‘adjustable interest rate’ starts to bump up or those of you who are suddenly questioning the value of your home as prices start to ‘adjust.’ The problems are widespread and that is exactly what everyone is so worried about. Who is to blame? It would seem everyone involved in the process may share some of the blame…but perhaps the biggest flaw is the breakdown of relationships that make smart mortgages.
Perhaps I am naïve, but I would hope that if the relationship between the homeowner and the mortgage broker was an honest one, the homeowner would end up with the best possible loan to meet their needs – not one that creates problems and heartbreak for the homeowner in the future. Perhaps the abstraction of the human relationships involved in this contract making is what we should really blame when we look at the big picture of this housing market.
How does the manager in this text save himself from an uncertain future? He maximizes his relationships with the people with whom he is doing business. At first glance, he does this at the expense of his employer, but his employer’s reputation is greatly enhanced and his own business relationships are strengthened. When push comes to shove in business, it is often the relationships that are forged over time that are the most important asset a company can have. The stewardship of relationships is often the key to true success.
Staff,www.eSermons.com
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Stewards
There's a story from World War II. It seems there was wine steward who was responsible for caring for the finest collection of wine in all of Europe, the wine cellar at the Chateau of Monaco. At that time in history, the chateau was well known for its vintage, rare wines. But the Nazis had overrun the city and now lived and dined in the chateau, expecting and
wanting to drink the world's finest vintage wines.
The wine steward resented those "slimy Nazis" and cleverly and carefully hid all the rarest wines deep in the cellar, serving his enemy only the cheapest and youngest wines, pretending that those wines were the best.
Stewards are people who care for precious property that is not their own, often times preserving it from disaster.
Billy D. Strayhorn, Let's Make a Deal
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The Purpose of Wealth
New York is a city filled with landmarks. There’s Broadway, Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, just to name a few. But nearly two weeks ago, when terrorists turned their hijacked planes toward Gotham, their target was clear. They had set their sights on the two gleaming towers of the World Trade Center. And they did so because those towers were symbols of America’s economic power. To destroy them was—in the minds of the hijackers—a blow to America’s economic systems.
And they were right. In the last week, we have witnessed the financial fallout from the attack.
• Hundreds of companies housed in the World Trade Center and the surrounding buildings have lost not only millions of dollars in business but also the people at the core of their success.
• Insurers are now preparing to pay as much as $35 billion in attack-related claims.
• The airline industry—already fragile—is reeling. More than 120,000 airline employees have been or will be laid off.
• Restaurants dependent of convention business are suffering. Taxi drivers who serve airports are reporting a lack of fares. Cruise lines are struggling because last week’s grounding of airplanes kept passengers away. Even five shows on Broadway have announced plans to cancel because of the lack of attendance.
• The Dow Jones Stock Exchange has fallen dramatically, hovering now near 8,200.
• A recession, which was already likely, appears inescapable.
• And now we are preparing for war, creating even more financial anxiety.
Those who attacked the World Trade Center have succeeded in striking a blow to our economic well being. And it is scary. It is scary because it affects our future. As one stock market guru put it, "If you were planning on your airline stocks for retirement, you best not quit your job anytime soon." And he’s right. Money that many of us thought we would have may no longer be there. The job that many people were counting on may no longer exist. Our confidence in the future has been shaken. And that is scary.
But this crisis also presents us with an opportunity. It invites us to reflect on the purpose of the wealth we have created and counted on.
Jesus told the story of a man who faced just such a crisis.
Donald M. Tuttle
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A Place for Money
Jesus seems to be saying there is a place for money in our lives. It would be foolish to imagine that we could get by without money in a society like ours. As we have noted before, there are some things only money can do.
Pay for health care, for example. Many people in our society are facing a crisis because they either can’t get or can’t afford decent health insurance. Fifty years old? Diabetic? Laid off from your job? Just try to find a health insurer who will cover you . . . at any price! I guarantee you that even if you can find it, you can’t afford it. There are some things only money can do.
Put a roof on our heads, put food in our tummies, fill up our car with gas. Try to do it without money. Impossible. There is a place for money in our lives. Jesus knew that. He was a most practical man. He knew that there are some things only money can do.
Jesus is saying, however, that we are in deep trouble if money has first place in our lives. Money is a nice servant but a terrible master.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Wiser Than the Children of Light
This text seems like it is one which could be ripped out of our own newspapers. Dishonest managers try to gain friends by cooking the books. How could such a thing happen? And perhaps even more importantly, why in the world does it seem like the master in the story commends this unjust steward, as he is usually called, for his dishonestly? Jesus doesn’t even call it dishonesty. He calls it shrewdness.
It certainly is a strange text, and one that is worth our consideration. What is it about the children of this world which make them wiser than the children of light? Why is it that they get farther, do well, and generally seem like they understand how things work better than the Christians? That is really the question. But in order for us to understand it, let’s look at the contemporary situation for a moment.
In both the Enron scandal and the WorldCom scandal, we have companies and their accountants cooking the books in order to appear to be better off than they really are: hiding losses as equity, moving numbers around so that things are not what they appear, trying to impress their stockholders while lying underneath. Why did they do it? Well I guess the answer to that, ultimately, is pretty easy. They did all of this to make money. Or at least to keep the money they had. Money is a great motivator in our day and long ago for a lot of things.
Todd A. Peperkorn, One Thing’s Needful
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Then They Came For Me
With the Second World War behind him, the German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemoeller, wrote his now famous confession called "I Didn't Speak Up," and it is apropos: In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.
Richard W. Patt, All Stirred Up, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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God Is the Only Capitalist
A man in California plunged into his burning house and threw out his securities, but did not escape himself. He sacrificed his security for his securities, and he lost them both. God is the only capitalist, the ultimate owner. In everything we are overseers of his wealth. The wealth this rascal wrongfully used was not his own, but his master’s. The things we use, rightly or wrongfully - time, talent and possessions - are not our own, but God’s. In everything we are stewards, not owners.
Carveth Mitchell, The Sign in the Subway, CSS Publishing Company
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Finding Financial Freedom
Some of you may have read a remarkable short story sometime during your school years by D. H. Lawrence titled, “The Rocking‑Horse Winner.” I wonder if you remember how the story begins?
It is a haunting tale about a family living above its means. The mother is considered by friends and neighbors to be the perfect mother, in spite of the fact that deep down she knows she has difficulty loving her three children. It’s important to the husband to keep up the pretense of success--the large house, staffed with servants--but they are living on the edge, just like many families today. Listen as D. H. Lawrence describes this family’s life situation:
“And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it aloud. They heard it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart doll’s house, a voice would start whispering: ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’ And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other’s eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. ‘There must be more money! There must be more money!’
“It came whispering from the springs of the still-swaying rocking-horse, and even the horse, bending his wooden, champing head, heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly, and seemed to be smirking all the more self-consciously because of it. The foolish puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy-bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other reason but that he heard the secret whisper all over the house: ‘There must be more money!’”
That’s the family backdrop to the story of “The Rocking‑Horse Winner.” Quite an extraordinary picture: “There must be more money! There must be more money!”
I wonder if there are any homes in our community today that are haunted in that same way: “There must be more money!”
Let’s talk about financial freedom. Jesus said on one occasion: “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Here is the challenge for today: We want to break the grip money has on our lives. We want to affirm that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our god, and our only god. We want to affirm that the God who manifested Himself in Jesus of Nazareth is our god. This is who we are. That is why we are here in this room at this time. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” We want God to be our god, not material possessions.
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Growing through the Challenge of the Gospel
Have you ever seen the "Jefferson Bible?" Thomas Jefferson excised those parts of scripture that he felt were superfluous, ambiguous or flew in the face of reason. It was his goal to create a seamless, solid narrative about Jesus, without including supernatural or questionable content that
could get in the way or raise doubts.
It sounds silly, but don't most of us approach scripture a little like this? We often stick with safe, familiar passages that build us up or reassure us. And when faced with hard texts, like this week's, it's tempting to rush past them into more comforting territory.
Yet sometimes when the Bible challenges or stretches us, we grow the most in faith. It can be a struggle to figure out what God is saying. But, as Christians, we believe that - even when it's difficult - God's word is a living word, and that God speaks through it still today.
Shelley Cunningham
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Good and Evil Live Side by Side
When I was a youth, I went to the movies, and I always came away from the theater knowing who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. The good guys usually wore fine clothing, rode white horses, used better English, had wholesome faces, and were nicer to their animals. Their saddles were often studded with jeweled stones. Many signs were given to help me understand who was good and who was bad.
Now as an adult, things are not nearly as clear and simplistic. I went to see a movie recently, and it was so complicated that it was several hours before I realized who was good and who was bad. And still I have some doubts about my conclusions.
In this parable, Jesus is telling us that evil is very cunning and shrewd. It is camouflaged so perfectly that we sometimes have difficulty recognizing it. It's not just a matter of knowing who are the good guys and the bad guys on the movie screen, but it is also difficult to differentiate between good and evil in our own lives. Good and evil live side by side and sometimes appear to be identical twins.
Thomas C. Short, Good News for the Multitudes, CSS Publishing Company
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When It Isn’t So Simple
Shortly after a new United States President was elected, a broker called a friend of mine to suggest that he buy a certain stock. My friend questioned that broker about the stock. What made it so attractive at this time? Why the hot tip? In the conversation the broker revealed that he was recommending this stock because it was going to increase in value as a result of the president's emphasis on military build-up. This stock was going to increase in value as we escalated our military strength.
What should my friend have done? Should he have invested to make money for himself and his family? After all, his small investment would not have encouraged the military build-up. In fact, the build-up would have happened whether or not he invested. What should he have done? What was right? The battle raged in his mind. The "players" in the "game" became blurred. Sometimes it is difficult to know what it right.
Jesus gives us this parable to help us understand our world and the attractiveness of evil. Listen to the message. At the end of the story, everyone was happy and enthusiastic although wrong had prevailed throughout. In many circles this would be seen as a success story. The end would have justified the means.
Thomas C. Short, Good News for the Multitudes, CSS Publishing Company
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How’s Your Spiritual Bank?
A church member came to his pastor’s study one day. The pastor could see that the man looked deeply troubled. The man said, “Pastor, I need to talk. I feel so empty, so dried up inside, I’m scared.” His voice began to quiver just a bit. He said “Pastor, I have just come from the doctor’s office, and he told me that I have only six months at best to live. After I left the office, I realized that I have no spiritual resources, no inner strength to cope with this. There is nothing to fall back on, to lean against. Many people would be surprised to hear me say that, for I have made lots of money, and people think I am a success not only at making money, but at being a strong, powerful person.”
He then fell quiet, and the pastor waited in silence for him to go on. Finally the man said, “You know I’m poor in the things that count the most. I see it now. I’ve put my faith in the wrong things, and the truth is I am destitute, spiritually destitute. I could pick up the phone and call any bank in Houston and borrow any amount of money to do whatever I wanted to. Just on my name, Reverend, just on my name! Do you understand? I could borrow it on my name only.”
The man then leaned forward and put his head in his hands, and said softly through tears, “I guess there are some things you can’t buy or borrow.”
This man’s material bank was full to overflowing, but his spiritual bank was empty. Is that your situation? Then you are serving mammon and not God.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Earn, Save, and Give
Eighteenth century evangelist John Wesley understood the spiritual struggle many people have with the place of money in their lives. Here was the irony of his ministry. The Wesleyan revivals were turning people, many of whom had serious drinking problems, into sober-minded, hardworking, responsible individuals. In fact, some of Wesley’s converts became so successful that they began letting their commitment to Christ slide. They had allowed their success, their affluence, to become their god, and in reality, they were as lost as they were when Christ first touched their lives.
Wesley’s solution? He saw only one: That they should EARN all they could, SAVE all they could and then GIVE all they could. Let me put his formula in the present tense, for it is a good one: Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can. Many people today can do the first two, but they have difficulty with the third. Why? Because money has taken over first place in their lives.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons,www.Sermons.com
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Beyond Skin Deep
Twentieth century novelist James Joyce declared "modern man has an epidermis rather than a soul." Post-modern culture goes Joyce even one step further. The skin we long for isn't even our own; it's cut and stitched, sculpted, tightened, tanned, lightened, suctioned, all according to whatever celebrity trademark, whatever perfect look we hope to emulate of our cultural gods and goddesses.
Jesus' parables challenge us to get beyond our skin deep preoccupation. The gospel is more concerned with our souls than with our skins. Jesus looks at the eternal, not the epidermis. Life is not what you make it. Life is what you let God make it.
Leonard Sweet, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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What Did You Do With What I Gave You?
There is a minister in Columbus, Ohio. He has a friend who works downtown. The friend is something of an enigma to the minister, because he grows hot and cold about the Church and religion. But they are good friends. They have a good relationship. They get together often, have lunch together.
On this occasion he went to his office to meet him for lunch. He sat down to talk before they went out. The man looked out his office window, and said, "Barry, I think I've got it figured out now. The big guy is going to ask two questions when we get up to the gate. I'm serious now. I'm not kidding. I really mean this. The first question will be, 'What did you do with what I gave you?' Then he is going to ask, 'Who did you do it for?'"
Mark Trotter, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Rooting for the Bad Guys?
Movie producer William Castle was known in the 1950s for his low-quality horror films. In 1961, Castle did something totally unique in movie history: he let the audience choose the ending to his movie. Castle's movie, Mr. Sardonicus, was about a crazed, reclusive killer. Near the end of the film, ushers stopped the film and allowed audiences to vote on whether the killer should live or die. Then, the ushers ran the ending that the audience chose. The audience always chose death for the bad guy. It's a good thing human nature is so predictable. William Castle was counting on it. You see, he only filmed one ending to his movie, not two. He was so sure that the audience would vote to kill the bad guy that he only filmed that ending to save money. This quirky little story provides us a window into human nature: We have a yearning for justice.
Take professional wrestling. [Pause.] Please. [Pause.] One of the staples of this well-choreographed sport is that there are good guys and there are villains. Each match is a morality play. Will virtue triumph? I imagine that depends on the script for the day.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed this universal desire of human beings to see justice accomplished pointed the way to God. He called it "a universal sense of oughtness." The Hero's Adventure is what it is sometimes called in storytelling. It is the classic formula of popular fiction. A virtuous person is called on to face overwhelming odds. He or she nearly loses possibly at the risk of his or her own life. Eventually, however, our hero is victorious. And vicariously we celebrate alongside the hero. We share in the pain of his challenge and near defeat, and we feel a sense of elation when our hero finally triumphs. It is rare, however, that an audience will celebrate an unhappy ending. It's such a downer. And rarely will an audience celebrate victory by a villain. Why, then, did Jesus allow a dirty, rotten scoundrel to triumph in one of his stories? You know which story I'm talking about. Jesus told his disciples a story about a rich man whose manager was wasting his possessions. So the rich man called his manager in and asked him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer."
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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Humor: The Art of the Con Man
There’s an old story that many of you may know about a young man in Montana who bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. However when the next day arrived, the farmer reneged on his promise.
“I’m afraid the horse has died,” he explained.
The young man said, “Well, then give me my money back.”
The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I spent it already.”
The young man thought for a moment and said, “Ok, then, just bring me the dead horse.”
The farmer asked, “What you going to do with a dead horse?”
The young man said, “I’m going to raffle it off.”
The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead horse!”
The young man said, “Sure I can. Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”
A month later, the farmer met up with the young man and asked, “What happened with that dead horse?”
The young man said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $998 . . .”
The farmer said, “Didn’t anyone complain?”
The young man said, “Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.”
Now there’s an enterprising young man. We might even call him something of a con man. There’s something about a con man that captures the imagination. There have been several successful weekly television shows through the years in which the hero is a former con man now using his creative skills for the greater good.
Jesus once told a parable about a man with that kind of wily disposition. He, too, was something of a con man. Most of you know the story quite well.
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The Crooked Accountant
There was a rich bookie who had an accountant who was accused of mismanaging his business affairs. And the bookie called in the accountant and said, "Hey, man, what's this I hear about you? Turn in the books, you're fired!" The accountant thought, "What shall I do? I won't qualify for unemployment and I am too proud to go on welfare. I know what I'll do, I'll make sure that enough people owe me that I won't have to worry when I start looking for another job." He called in all of the bookie's clients, one by one. "How did you do on your last bet?" he asked the first. "I lost $3,000," the man told him. "Let me check that on the computer," the accountant said. "That's what I thought, there was a mistake in the point spread on that game. You only owe $1,500." The next man was in arrears on several losing bets. "How much do you owe all together?" the accountant asked him. "Ten thousand dollars," came the reply. The accountant smiled at him and said, "Pay me 80 cents on the dollar and the slate is clean." And so it went, until the accountant had enough people in his debt that he could be certain of landing another job. When the rich bookie found out what his former employee had done, he bought him a drink and congratulated him on his shrewdness.
John E. Sumwalt, Lectionary Stories
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Parable of Giants and Pygmies
The writer of "Gulliver's Travels" was able to criticize the pettiness of the king's court by making himself a giant on the shores of a little kingdom.
The Lilliputians were able to capture the sleeping giant by putting thousands of threads as their cables that pegged him down to earth.
As the giant he was able to see the selfishness and ridiculous behavior of petty people in big places.
Perhaps the writer was unaware of the parallel of truth found in the fact that a giant may be pegged down to earth and made prisoner by thousands of little habits which imprison great men.
God has made everyone of His children with tremendous possibilities, but so many of us let our lives be imprisoned by countless time-consuming activities that are of no consequence.
We are meant to serve Almighty God and the heavenly kingdom, but we often are expended in ways of social security.
The measure of a Christian man is not how large he may be physically or socially, but whether he is able to be big about his daily life. Qualities of a great spirit are the ability to forgive, the ability to be generous and the ability to be helpful.
The youth in their scouting days learn laws of greatness but as we move toward adulthood many are caught in the tiny threads of social fallacy. The ways of man and of God can be vastly different.
Can you forgive your neighbor? Can you love your enemy? Have you room for new ideas? Are you a spiritual giant or a pygmy?
"No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
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