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Luke 16:1-15 · The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
A Puzzling Parable with a Sharp Point
Luke 16:1-13
Sermon
by Ron Lavin
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A young boy used to describe foods like spinach by saying, "I hate it." His wise mother responded, "Don't say you hate it. Just say, ‘I'm not very fond of it.' " She also taught her son that when he really liked some food to say, "I'm really fond of this." The boy said, he was "really fond" of cookies, candy, and cake. His mother told him, "Too many cookies, too much candy, and cake can be bad for you. You can be very fond of the wrong things."

Something like that is going on underneath the story of the shrewd manager. The topic is not food, but money. This parable is a puzzle. It is a mystery in many respects. How could a shrewd manager who cheats his master be held up as an example?

One of the first clues to unraveling the mystery of the dishonest money manager is found in verse 14, "The Pharisees who were lovers of money, heard all this and ridiculed him" (NRSV). The King James Version describes the Pharisees this way: "They were covetous." The Phillips translation (a paraphrase) describes the situation like this: "Now the Pharisees, who were very fond of money, heard all this with a sneer."

Here we have a clue to help us unravel the mystery of this parable. The wise mother's advice to her son was: "You can be very fond of the wrong things." The Pharisees were very fond of money. The parable about the inordinate love of money disturbed the Pharisees because they were very fond of the wrong thing. No wonder they sneered.

The sneer of the Pharisees is a clue to getting at the heart of this parable. The sneer comes because the Pharisees try to justify themselves before the eyes of men, forgetting that God knows what is in the heart (Luke 16:15). Jesus' parable is about money. The Pharisees loved money too much. Mammon was their god. By focusing on money, they had missed the real focus of life which is God himself. "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" (Luke 16:13).

That statement is the one that gave rise to sneers and ridicule. In trying to interpret a puzzling parable, sometimes we should look for a clue at the end of the story. At the end of this parable Jesus shows that money can be a distracting attraction in life, causing us to miss the meaning of life. The meaning of life is to be found in our relationship with God. It's not money that is the problem, but an inordinate focus on money that can be our undoing. "... What is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15b). Elsewhere the Bible puts it this way: "... the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). Not money, but being overly fond of money, is the root of the problem of the Pharisees in our story and the root of the problem many people have today.

What we have here is a reversal of values. What is highly valued among people is possessions, land, honor, and money. What is highly valued in the kingdom of God? A relationship with God and relationships with people that include gracious acts toward them, faith in them, love for them, and forgiveness of them when they offend us — these are the things Jesus says have real value. Money is not meant to give us superiority over people, but is to be used to help people. Using one's possessions for people is called good stewardship. Understanding the biblical concept of stewardship is a big clue in solving the mystery of this puzzling parable.

When we think about stewardship, it is always helpful to think of the heroes and heroines of the faith who set good examples by the way they used money and possessions to meet the needs of people. Saint Francis of Assisi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta come to mind. There is also a little old lady in Lebanon, Indiana, who is worthy of our consideration.

Ada Gleb was a widow who lived in a run-down house on the south side of town ("the other side of the tracks"). Her clothes were clean, but certainly not fancy. She drove an old car. She never talked much about stewardship, but her actions spoke louder than words. She put faith into action by using money for God's work and for other people.

When her new pastor, right out of seminary, arrived in Lebanon, he was faced with a task of trying to build up a very small congregation that worshiped in a run-down garage. Most of the members were not rich by the standards of the world. Ada Gleb was one of the poorest of the poor, but she was one of the top givers in the congregation. When her pastor asked her about her giving, she humbly said that as a little girl she had learned to tithe, to give ten percent of her income to the Lord through the church off the top, before bills were paid. She didn't have much income now, she said, mostly Social Security money, but she was glad to share it with her church.

Her pastor, who had a very small salary, decided that if Ada could tithe on her little income, so could he. The seminary had taught him very little about personal stewardship. "Professor" Ada Gleb was his teacher.

The church grew and held a building fund drive for a new church building. Ada's pledge was one of the largest in the congregation. "How can you do that?" her pastor asked. "No problem," Ada responded, "I'll just take the money out of my savings account each month. Don't be so surprised, pastor. Maybe you've never heard the principle I learned as a child: ‘You can never out-give God.' " "Professor" Ada taught the pastor a great principle about Christian stewardship. He raised his giving from ten percent to eighteen percent that year.

After several years, the pastor moved to another church. When Ada died, she left him $1,000 from her small estate. He still had a small salary and was tempted to use the money for his family's needs, but something else seemed more in harmony with Ada's lifestyle. A recent high school graduate from his church had just been thrown out of her home by her father and had come to live with the pastor, his wife, and their three small daughters. The student had no money for college. In Ada's name, the family gave the money to the young woman who went away to college and eventually earned a doctor's degree in biology.

"Professor" Ada was fond of the right things. She was fond of God and his church. She was fond of people who needed the gospel and who had physical needs. She helped people with money. That is a clue to unravel the mystery of the parable of the shrewd manager.

Jesus said, "... I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into eternal homes" (Luke 16:9). In heaven, should God ever ask for testimony on behalf of Ada Gleb, there will be a pastor's family, a woman with a doctor's degree, and many others who will gladly speak up.

It's possible to be "really fond" of the right things in life. It's also possible to be "really fond" of the wrong things. That brings us to another clue to solving the mystery of the puzzling parable with a sharp point. A good question to ask about all the parables is, "What is Jesus trying to do here?"

In many of his parables, Jesus is trying to upset the equilibrium of his hearers. That's certainly true with this parable. Jesus is trying to work a reversal, upsetting his hearers with a big kingdom surprise. He is trying to pop preconceptions that will only get his hearers into trouble. He's doing it on purpose. He wants to help his hearers think about their value systems. People have trouble making changes in their lives, especially big changes. Change isn't easy. One man described change like this: "I don't have any problems making changes in my life as long as I don't have to act differently." Ugh.

The nature of Jesus' parables is to serve as wake-up calls to people who are missing the purpose of life. The parables of Jesus are like a bucket of cold water thrown in our faces to wake us up to what life is really about.

The parables of Jesus are not moral example stories. If this parable of the shrewd manager was a moral example story, we'd be in real trouble. The hero of this parable is an unjust rascal who is trying to save his own neck by working a compromise settlement with his master's debtors. Where is the integrity in his actions? Where is the moral example for our young people? Why should we hold up a man who is "cooking the books" and then wiggles out of his troubles by compromised settlements? What is Jesus' point?

Jesus tells the story of the shrewd steward who "cooked the account books" not because the man is a good moral example, but because he wants to tell us about real vales in the kingdom of God compared to the false values of this world. In a parable, the thing to look for is the point of tension to which the parable is addressed.

Here, that point of tension is a distorted view of money and possessions. We are stewards, not owners. If we think of ourselves as owners, our possessions will possess us. "You cannot serve God and mammon," Jesus says.

In addition to the point of tension in the Pharisees' lives 2,000 years ago, the parable is aimed at points of tension in our lives today. The parables of Jesus are stories to remember. If we let them do their job, they will come rushing out of the past and wake us up today. If we really listen to what Jesus is saying, we actualize the past and experience the power and presence of the Lord today. In order to understand this parable we need to "stand under" the lordship of the storyteller and hear the words as if we are hearing them addressed to us today. To hear a parable of Jesus in the right way, we must hear it from the inside, as participants.

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."2

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.

Helmut Thielicke, puts it this way:

It is made perfectly clear to us that one day every one of us will be left destitute. The day will come when we shall stand naked before God, unable to answer him once in a thousand times. We shall be stripped of all things in which we put our confidence here below. We shall stand before the throne of God without title, without money, without home, without reputation — in utter poverty.3 It is made perfectly clear to us that one day every one of us will be left destitute. The day will come when we shall stand naked before God, unable to answer him once in a thousand times. We shall be stripped of all things in which we put our confidence here below. We shall stand before the throne of God without title, without money, without home, without reputation — in utter

That's the sharp point of this powerful parable. One day we will have to face God. We can't fool God. He knows our motives and our actions. God knows our hearts (Luke 16:15). He also knows all about our checkbooks. He knows whether we have used money to help people or for self-aggrandizement and power over people.

The Bible tells us two things about this judgment. First and foremost, God is very fond of us. He desires to save us, not send us to hell. "God ... wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).

Second, the Bible tells us that God is not mocked. What a man sows, he shall reap. God isn't fooled.

One day we shall all stand before the throne of God in utter poverty. In that place where money is neither received nor spent, where all values have been turned upside down, and the importance of relationships with God and people will be clear, will there be someone who will come forward and say for you, "He (She) is very fond of you Lord. Out of gratefulness for grace, he (she) used the resources of this world to glorify your name and help people."

The parable of the bad man's good example is about a steward who is a rascal in many respects, but does one thing right. He is a servant who is left in charge of the estate of the absentee landlord. Guilty of embezzlement, he is hardly a hero. Yet, he did one thing right. He used money for people. Jesus is not urging us to be like this bad man, but to be wise in this one way. Using our money and possessions for people can make an eternal difference.

This parable about judgment day is a warning and an invitation. The warning comes in the words of the wise mother quoted at the beginning of this sermon, "You can get into big trouble if you are really fond of the wrong things." The warning is that whether or not we acknowledge Jesus as Lord in this life, we will have to face the fact of judgment in the next life. The warning is that whether or not we see Jesus' lordship extending to the use of all things in this life — including money — we will have to face the facts on judgment day.

The invitation is to come into the wide-open arms of Jesus and place our faith in him as Lord and Savior. The invitation is to connect faith and life, to make faith active in love. The invitation is by the power of the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus' example of selfless service to people. If we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and put our faith into action in all areas, including the use of money, on judgment day we can hear his greeting, "I'm very fond of you. I died rather than give you up. Enter into the joy of your Master."

1. This sermon, in a slightly different form, was previously published in the book, Stories To Remember, by Ron Lavin, CSS Publishing Company, Lima, Ohio, 2002, pp. 115-124.

2. Eugene Lowry, How to Preach a Parable (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p. 33.

3. Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 102.

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Sermons for Sundays After Pentecost (Middle Third): Only the Lonely, by Ron Lavin