234 The Meaning of Your Money

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text “The Meaning of Your Money”, originally shared on September 14, 2022. It was the 234^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   Have you ever been cheated out of something that was valuable to you? I’m guessing it didn’t happen twice.  “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me,” as they say.

   But can you imagine someone being cheated and then commending the cheater? Jesus told a story where that happened, and he used it to illustrate holy living. Today, we’re going to find out why.

   The story we’re going to look at is found in Luke 16:1-13. It’s been called The Parable of the Dishonest Manager, The Parable of The Shrewd Manager, The Parable of The Unjust Steward, and many other names, none of which are complementary. It’s going to teach us something about the meaning of our money.

   Jesus has been on the road teaching and doing miracles in the area just north of Jerusalem. He is popular with the people, and they are coming out by the thousands.

   But he will be headed to Jerusalem to die, and he wants his followers to know what’s coming. He wants to prepare them.

   It’s going to be hard.

   It’s not that easy now. We need to be prepared for what’s coming, and Jesus is doing that in this section of the Gospel of Luke.

   Today’s story is a parable. An earthly story with one specific meaning. It begins with Luke 16:1-2,

16  ¹Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ²So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

   It’s never fun firing people, even when the behavior of the employee makes it necessary. I’ve done it. You know that the life of the employee is going to take a turn for the worse, maybe even their future life. It’s never something to be done lightly.

   Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, once had a senior executive make a mistake that cost the company $1,000,000.00 in the 1950’s. Soon after, the employee came into Mr. Watson’s office and placed an envelope on his desk.

   Mr. Watson asked him what it was. The employee explained that it was his resignation. He wanted to resign before he was fired.

   “Fire you?” Mr. Watson responded. “I just spent $1,000.000.00 training you.

   But sometimes it has to happen. And, in this parable, it didn’t happen for the reason many people today would think.

   Jesus lived in an honor and shame culture. The rich man would not have cared as much for the loss of his property, as he would have cared for the loss of his honor and reputation. He had been fooled. He didn’t even know he had been robbed. Someone else had to bring the charges and, it sounds like there was convincing proof.

   The rich man told the manager to get the books in order and then to get out. Does that sound like a smart thing to do, to give the manager control of the books again? Well, he does. And we see what the dishonest manager does with them, in verses 3-8,

 ³Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ ⁷Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

   So now, The Dishonest Manager is The Shrewd Manager! That’s interesting.

   The most interesting thing about this parable, though, is the parable that we don’t see.

   One commentator points out that just before the parable of The Dishonest Steward is the better known and more beloved Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).

   That’s a parable about a family where a son clearly does wrong but his wrongs are dismissed, and he is restored to the family anyway. We are drawn to the love of the son’s father.

   The Parable of The Dishonest Steward is a similar story, but it is set in the business world. The manager clearly does wrong, but when his wrongs are dismissed, we are repulsed by the forgiveness of the manager’s employer.

   The rich man would have commended the manager for restoring the rich man’s honor and his relationship with the community, for restoring the funds he had stolen from their clients, and for doing what was needed in order to have a good life after his employer’s judgment. It is like the coming kingdom of God, only there, God restores the living relationship with the one true living God that we broke with our sin. God restores our relationship of faith in spite of our unfaithfulness.

   Certainly, the employer seems to be excusing the manager’s behavior, not forgiving it. But there’s a point there.

   What is it? What does this parable mean? Jesus says what in verse 9,

 ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

   When your life is collapsing, don’t lose heart. Do something. That is the wisdom of this age, and the people of God can do better because God has made us better.

   Why? Jesus tells his followers in verses 10-12,

 ¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

   We are all stewards of what we have. We are managers both in this world and in the Reign of God. We serve somebody or something.

   Whatever you put at the center of your life is your master. What master do you seek to please in your life today?

   How you live your life from your heart is who you are, not just what you believe in your head (that only sets us on the right path). Faith is what enables us to live on God’s way. In fact, followers of Jesus were known as followers of “The Way” long before they were known as “Christians”.

   So how does being faithful in that which God has entrusted to us prepare us for the challenges of being a follower of Jesus Christ? He concludes this parable with the answer, in verse 13,

 ¹³No 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.”

   So, in the end, the question Jesus wants us to ask is “Who are we going to serve”. We can’t serve God and wealth, or anything else that we put at the center of our lives other than God, and be faithful.

   Jesus is teaching those who think that they want to follow Jesus about the cost of discipleship. He’s teaching us the meaning of our money, and its meaning is that it’s not our money.

   We are managers of all that we have and all that we are. What kind of managers are we going to be? How does our management reflect our love of God?

   One of my seminary professors once said, “Don’t tell me what you believe. Show me your check book stubs.” OK, nobody would get much information about me from that today. I hardly ever write checks. But them, and my credit card statements, would tell you something significant about me. But not the most important thing.

   The most important thing, and the thing that I think that Jesus is teaching us, is why Sally and I spend our money the way we do. We would say that it is a tool for ministry. That’s it. “You cannot serve God and wealth.”

   We are all stewards, or managers, of all that we have. And we, like the manager in this parable, will one day come before God and be asked to open our accounts.

   We will face a different accounting, though, than that required by the rich man.

   To paraphrase the words of a distinguished Rabbi for my own context, when I come before God in judgement, God will not ask me, “Why weren’t you Rick Warren?” God’s going to ask me, “Why weren’t you David Berkedal”?

   And then God will not excuse me or commend me, but God will cover me with the love and the grace that has been earned for me by the blood of Jesus on the cross.

   The message of the cross gift is the most precious thing we have been given as managers, as stewards of God’s grace.

   One of the best sermons I ever heard had almost no words.

   I was in Marine Corps Boot Camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. All our days were full. Six days a week we were given 20 minutes of free time, during which we were restricted to our Quonset huts, but we could read letters from home and write them, and also polish our boots and our brass.

   But on Sunday mornings we got four hours of free time, during which we did those other things, and we could buy a Sunday paper and we could sleep.

   We could also go to church at the base chapel.

   The services there were led by a rotating group of local pastors who preached and brought their choirs. I went every Sunday, because that’s who I was. And also because it was the only time that we young men saw women all week.

   One Sunday, some prayers and Bible readings happened, and the choir sang, and then the pastor came out to preach his sermon.

   He looked out at we hundreds, maybe thousands, of Marines all dressed in our olive-green utility uniforms buttoned up to our necks, our heads nearly shaved. The war in Vietnam was in its final years. Half of us would be going and half would, like me, be staying in the U.S. Many of those who went, like many who had gone before them, would not be coming back.

   He stood silently at the pulpit for what seemed like a long time. And then he began, “My text for today…,” and he stopped.

   Then he started again, “My text for…,” and he stopped again.

   It was quiet. He was quiet. And then we heard the sound of his weeping. I think he said, “I’m sorry,” but he walked off the stage and someone else wrapped up the service, and we filed back to our areas.

   There were almost no words to that sermon. But I’ve never felt the love and compassion of God communicated so directly as in that moment. It was one of the best sermons I ever heard. And it had almost no words.

   I’ve sometimes wondered if that man thought he was a failure that day. He sure wasn’t to me. I thought that he embodied the real presence of God. He was a faithful steward to us of what God had given him.

   What would the people around you say is at the center of your life? God, or something else?

   Jesus calls us to make our wealth a servant, not a master, to fund our ministry, what we do as a congregation, what we do as a Church and what we do in our daily lives.

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t serve God and wealth.

   We seek to do what God has called, equipped, and sent us to do in response to what God has already done for us.

   Be a faithful manager of your money and everything that God has placed in your hands to proclaim the good news of the cross.