Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. - PDF document

Hein 1 Shrewdness? Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. I have to admit that the Parable of the Dishonest Manager has alway s had me a little bit stumped. I have read through it numerous times trying to figure out exactly what Jesus is trying to say because it seems so contradictory; so opposite to what he has said in other parables and teachings. How is it that Jesus can make it clear that the manager in the parable is dishonest and self - serving, yet commends this same man lat er for acting in a shrewd manner after cheating his master out of even more money in an attempt to selfishly secure his own future? These are the types of passages that we tend to want to overlook, aren’t they? They’re tough. For Jesus to be impressed by such a deceitful act is somewhat puzzling to say the least. Surely Jesus would never condone such behavior. After - all, he spent the better part of his ministry here on earth teaching and demonstrating the Godly life, and as I recall, his training packag e did not include lessons on how to shrewdly embezzle your employer. And because this seems so out of character for Jesus – so foreign to his moral and ethical teachings that we read of in the Gospels – we must conclude that there is something else going on here; something that we have to meditate on a little bit longer in order to extract his true message . First of all, w e need to approach this passage in the context of the situation Jesus was in at the time. He is at the height of his ministry. He is t raveling with his disciples, preaching and teaching; all the while being closely monitored by a group of Pharisees. As we know, the Pharisees have long since regarded Jesus as a threat to their power and authority and were looking for any opportunity to d iscredit him in public. So, any chance they got, these religious leaders would attempt to trap him using cleverly devised questions. T he parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin (or the caring shepherd and the dil igent Hein 2 woman, as they were so renamed last Sunday) - and the prodigal son - w ere Jesus’ response to the charges that these Pharisees were leveling at him . Their understanding of the Law led them to conclude that by spending his time with the dregs of society - the tax collectors and sinners – Jesus was somehow doing something contrary to the Law. So, we understand the gist of these three parables: Through them, Jesus teaches us that God's greatest pleasure is in rescuing the lost soul - no matter what we may have done in the past. But, the s tory does not end there because, once we understand that we have inherited eternal life through the body and blood of Jesus Christ and through no effort of our own, we then need to ask the question: What have we been rescued for? Are we to simply rest on the treasure of the Gospel and hoard it until Jesus returns, or is there more? It is not just a coincidence that the parable of the Dishonest Manager follows on the heels of these other three parables. At first blush, the parable of the Dishonest Manager seems to be encouraging us to act in shrewd and dishonest ways. “Behave in a shrewdly dishonest manner and you will gain wealth and friends ”, appears to be the overarching message. A closer look at this text, however, reveals that Jesus was saying nothi ng of the sort: He never actually commends the dishonesty of the manager, nor did he advocate the pursuit of self - serving rewards. Jesus is simply expressing his admiration for the shrewdness of the manager. He was pointing to this character as an examp le of how smart and quick - witted we humans can be when we find ourselves in a situation where our lives may take a dramatic turn for the worse. The manager in this story saw his own situation quite clearly: he knew he had cheated his master, he knew that he was busted, and he knew that he was about to get sacked for it. In response, he quickly concocts a scheme designed to win him friends using his master's resources. The plan was so brilliant and so sharp that it impressed even the master himself. Hein 3 Usu ally employers are not at all impressed when they discover a trusted employee has been stealing from them. But, maybe in this case we can imagine that this manager's master was impressed by his actions , even though he still had every intention of relievin g him of his duties; in other words, it may have been just a grudging admiration. Or, perhaps the master saw this scheme as an opportunity to collect his payments much sooner than he expected , and so decided that maybe it would be wiser to hang on to some one this cunning – he may prove useful in the future . This is significant because most of Jesus’ parables draw a comparison between God and the authority figure in the story: The prodigal son’s father, the owner of the vineyard, the shepherd, and so on. But, as we read through this passage, we have a much more difficult time equating God to the master; there does not seem to be a solid connection between the two . The master’s positive response to his manager’s dishonesty does not seem to match how we w ould imagine God would respond. By expressing admiration for the manager’s actions, it would appear that the master and manager share common worldly values. However, the shrewdness that the master recogn izes in the manager is the sort of s hrewdness that G od does not recognize in us when it comes to our handling of spiritual matters. Through this parable, Jesus is really asking the question: “Why ar e my people so clever and so shrewd at handling worldly affairs, and yet when it comes to sharing the Gospel , they check their brilliance at the door?” Why indeed? And by this, Jesu s is not implying that we should be sneaky or deceitful in order to get the message of the Gospel across to our brothers and sisters. On the contrary, the Gospel really does not ne ed chicanery to make the power of its presence felt. In fact, f or us to be shrewd with the Gospel does not require any devious scheming or mental gymnastics on our part in order to acquire friends. God has given to us all the resources Hein 4 we need to win friends absolutely free. We have no need to trick or embezzle this gift from God, because it is a gift . There is nothing we have done, nor anything we can do to earn it – it is ours already. And not only is it a free gift to us, but God d esires and demands of us that we share it with others. The friends whom God wishes us to cultivate already exist. We do not need to bribe or purchase them like the manager did in order to create a financial safety - net for himself, God has already won fri ends for us; we need only go out and meet them where they are. We at Resurrection Lutheran have been blessed with many gifts from God. Even though I have only been here a short time, I have felt God’s spirit of mission among the members of this congregati on. I have already sat in on several meetings held by various ministries in this church and have been duly impressed by the level of caring that the people here have – for not only the people of this church – but for all our friends we have yet to encount er out there in the communities of Saskatoo n and beyond. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this congregation has decided that we will make an effort to meet our new friends and make disciples of them . We have decided not to just hunker down in o ur holy bunker and simply maintain what we have, but rather to venture outside our own sphere and trust that God is shrewd enough to guide us back to what was once the primary mission of the church. That is : to “Go and make disciples of all nations – baptizi ng them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Let us pray, Heavenly Father, you give us what we need to carry out your work here on earth. Please help us to recognize our gifts, help us recognize the power of the Gospel, an d help us to trust in your guidance as we witness to the world . In the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.