Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
Jesus said: “No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money” (Luke 16:13).
Today, the one holy Christian and apostolic Church rejoices to celebrate the Festival of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.
As you may recall, St. Matthew was originally a tax collector by trade, so today’s parable seems appropriate. As a tax collector, Matthew would have been viewed by the Jewish populace as a traitor and a sell-out to the Romans. So, the calling of Matthew by Jesus was certainly a bold move. One day, the Lord saw Matthew sitting at the tax booth and He simply said to him, “Follow Me”(Matthew 9:9). The man who had devoted himself to acquiring money at the expense of his own people just got up and walked away from his table. He walked away from his money. He walked away from his old life. Matthew, a sinner, was called by Jesus, and became righteous through His shed blood. Matthew is a perfect example of Jesus’ words, “You cannot serve God and money.”
Some weeks ago, my Grandma Shaw asked me about today’s parable, the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. She asked me about how the master could commend, or better yet, praise this dishonest manager for all that he had done. So, I’d like to get into this parable and what exactly Jesus teaching us.
Firstly, I would like to admit, this parable can leave us scratching our heads in confusion. This parable is puzzling. But always keep in mind these words of God: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). There is something to these words of God.
So, Jesus tells us the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. This parable is framed by the interaction between the master and his manager, with the master calling his manager to render a concluding account of his management and then at the end commending him for his prudence.
In between all of this, the manager wrestles with the problem that he has been fired, is out of work, has no place to stay, and has no hope of future employment. He has hit rock bottom. He dismisses physical labor or begging, because he is incapable of either. But in the midst of this despair, he has come up with a solution to his problem. His solution is shrewd and effective: he will change his master’s accounts so that both he and the master will be commended by the community. So, he summons his master’s debtors one by one and lowers what they owe the master.
“He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty,’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty” (Luke 16:5b-7). He cancels about 18 months wages with each account. But did you notice that he has them change the amount? It happens in their handwriting, not his. This is an important detail, and the reason is this: the next thing the manager will do is take all these changed accounts back to the master. And when the master reads of his accounts, he will realize two things: first, these debts have been lowered, and second, the debtors know about it, since it’s in theirhandwriting. If it had been in the fired manager’s handwriting, he would have changed them all back and there would have been no harm, and nobody would have known. But the thing is, his debtors know.
It is this manager’s shrewdness that leads to both the praise of his master and of Jesus Himself.
But all the while, this manager was not the manager. He had been fired by his master. Nothing he did was legally binding, since he was no longer authorized to conduct any business in the name of his master. But the thing is, nobody else knew. They all assumed nothing had changed. They all assumed that this manager was the master’s manager.
If this were a secular story, the interpretation of this parable would be self-evident. Faced with a crisis, the manager is clever though dishonest in solving his problems. The apparent dilemma is that this is a parable of Jesus in which He seems to be commending dishonesty to his followers.
What are we to make of this? Are we to lie, cheat, and steal our way to prosperity? Is Jesus calling His disciples to make up get rich quick schemes? Afterall, it is Jesus who is the assumed master in this parable, who says, “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness” (Luke 16:8). What are we to make of this? This is often where most people get caught up. This is where most people get stuck.
But this is a false dilemma. This is only a dilemma if you continue dwelling on the manager and his dishonesty.
Now, if one considers this parable from the master’s perspective, then the focus of this parable is not on the dishonesty of the manager, but on the mercy of the master. This assumes that the master is an honorable man, which seems to be the pattern of the households in Jesus’ parables. The rich master’s mercy to the manager who squandered his estate is parallel to the father’s mercy to the prodigal son who squandered the father’s inheritance. So, the purpose of this parable is actually to reveal the master’s mercy.
You see, when the master discovers what the fired manager had done, he is in a bind with two possible options. First, he can reverse the manager’s decisions to properly adjust the accounts. But in doing so, he will receive anger and wrath from his renters and force them to reassess whether he is a “generous and merciful” master. Second, if he lets the adjustments stand, he has further secured the goodwill of his renters. What would be the better option? He chooses the second, which is the obvious choice, so that he would be consistent with his own character. In doing so, the master must commend, and praise, his fired manager for shrewdly managing his personal crisis since the manager trusted the character of his master and staked everything on the master’s mercy. And the manager was not disappointed.
It was this fact. Not the cheating. Not the embezzling. It was the fact that the manager trusted his master’s mercy. It was this that Jesus encourages us to imitate in this manager. You see, the manager, though fired, trusted the character of his master and he staked everything on his master’s mercy.
So, Jesus is not calling us steal from our boss. He isn’t calling us to play creative accounting games when you pay your taxes. He isn’t calling us to spend more than you make. But He is calling us to know who you serve. Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money” (Luke 16:13).
When Jesus poses these two stark alternatives, He is giving us wonderful advice. Advice that we must listen to and follow. We can’t have it both ways. No person can serve two lords. In this example, Jesus puts money versus God. Now, money itself is not evil. Money is a means to purchase needed goods and services. But money can become a false god, a false idol. And when money becomes the priority over the one true God, then one has a classic case of mismanagement. When money and possessions become the priority, it is often called “mammon.”
Now, “mammon” is not evil in itself, but it becomes evil when it becomes the object of one’s service, or when one worships mammon instead of God.
For this dishonest manager, he knew what to do. He knew to trust his master. He had faith in His master. Yes, what he did was shrewd. He was a crook. He was a scoundrel. But for what he had done knowing His master, his master commended him. He praised him.
When his life was falling apart, this dishonest manager knew where to turn. He turned to his master. So, when you don’t know what to do when your world appears to be falling in around you, turn to your Master. And your Master is not cruel and hard, but is rather unusually generous. And when you have been faithful in your use of His money or have been less than faithful by squandering it, or wasting it, or been greedy with it, your Master is still good to you. Your Master continues to love you and sees you through. We are all saved through the generosity of your Master.
And your Master is Jesus Christ, who loves and forgives sinners, just like you and me. He gives you more than just earthly wealth and goods. You and I have been bought with a price and not with perishable things, like silver or gold, but with His holy precious blood shed for you and me on the cross to save sinners. He saved us so that you and I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom.
So, when you are stuck and don’t know where to turn, if you are too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg, don’t defend yourself and try to get out of your mess on your own. Instead, trust in your Master. Have faith in your Master. Like St. Matthew, respond to His calling. Repent. Plead for forgiveness. Receive His absolution in His Means of Grace: Word and Sacrament. For your Master loves you! Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
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