Luke 16:1-13
“There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’”
And so begins one of our Lord’s more unusual parables, as recorded in today’s Gospel from St. Luke.
The steward was in charge of managing and maintaining the rich man’s wealth and property, but he was not doing a very good job. Jesus tells us that he was accused of wasting the master’s goods.
The English word “wasting” translates the Greek word “diaskorpizó,” which means more literally to disperse or to scatter. When we see how the steward sought to repair the situation by collecting at least a portion of what various people owed his master – even though not all of the debt was collected – we get the impression that the problem was that the steward was allowing the master’s property to be scattered around among the master’s various debtors, without being collected and brought into the possession of the master, who was the rightful owner of all that was owed to him.
Once he learned that his job was on the line, the steward, in his shrewdness, told the various debtors that their accounts would be settled if they paid a designated portion of what they owed. This discount then prompted them to pay the new amount, whereas previously they were not paying anything.
Now, the rich man had previously become aware of the fact that, due at least in part to the negligence of his steward, he did not have in his possession 100 measures of oil and 100 measures of wheat that rightly belonged to him. But after the steward scrambled to collect most of his master’s property from the people among whom it was dispersed – even if not all of it – now, at least, the master did have in his possession 50 measures of oil and 80 measures of wheat.
That was certainly better than zero measures of oil and zero measures of wheat, which is what he had before. And so, as Jesus tells us,
“The master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”
The Greek word translated as “shrewdly” could also be translated as prudently or wisely. It was indeed prudent and wise for the steward to figure out a way for his master to have something rather than nothing.
And in the process, because of the reduction in the debt that he had given to his master’s creditors, he was hoping that they would now be kindly disposed toward him, and think of him as a friend who had done them a big financial favor. The steward was thinking that if he gave them this kind of break – while he was still authorized to do so, as the rich man’s steward – that they would therefore receive him into their houses, after he had been fired from his stewardship job.
Jesus is telling this parable about how “sons of this world” act. He would likely not want Christians to imitate the steward in everything he did.
But he does teach that we should imitate the shrewdness, prudence, and wisdom of the steward: in how he figured out the best way to get most if not all of the master’s property into his possession, so that it could be used according to the master’s wishes. And as Christians function as steward’s of God’s possessions – as “sons of light” – Jesus also wants us to hear and ponder these words:
“And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Unrighteous mammon is not unrighteous because it is evil. Money and things of material value are not evil in themselves. But money and things of material value are not righteous in themselves, either.
It is not a virtue simply to accumulate wealth for its own sake. Wealth as such is morally neutral, and is a tool or instrument for either righteousness or evil, depending on how we use it, and depending on the kind of relationship we have with it.
In a passage that is often misquoted, St. Paul says elsewhere that
“The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Money in itself is not a root of all kinds of evil, but the love of money is. Our heart’s capacity for love is actually to be directed in two other basic directions, as Jesus tells us in St. Mark’s Gospel:
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The Ten Commandments unfold and apply these two great commandments of love. And notice that loving money is not included.
We love the Lord our God in more than one way. We love him by believing that what he says is true: what he says about our sin and our pressing need for his mercy; and what he says about his freely-offered grace and forgiveness in Christ.
We love him by humbly trying, with his help, to live in a way that honors him and his moral law. We love him by showing respect for his house, for his worship, and for his church.
And, we show love for our neighbor in more than one way, according to our various callings, and according to the various relationships into which God has placed us.
Your closest neighbors are usually your spouse, your children, and your parents. You have a special love for them.
And even when your family members put barriers up between themselves and you – perhaps by rejecting you, in whole or in part, because you won’t reject Christ or your confession of faith – you still love them as you pray for them: wishing and hoping that God will change their hearts.
Again, money and material goods are not ever to be an object of the love that we actually owe to God and man. But, money and material goods are to be a tool in how we love, and demonstrate love, for God and man.
We don’t use money simply in order to make more money. We use money to make friends – living, human friends – and to serve and help those friends.
We don’t continually invest and reinvest money in itself. We invest money into people: wisely and with purpose, to be sure. But what Jesus tells us today is clear:
“I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
What is also clear is that temporal wealth, for a Christian, is to be used in a way that will result in eternal blessings for those friends – and for himself.
Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father, “for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” In the person of Jesus, God entered into our world, where he lived, died, and rose again, so that his gospel in Word and Sacrament could lift the sons and daughters of this fallen world into a heavenly hope.
Even now, through his Spirit, Jesus uses the things of this world to lift people up in heart and mind, beyond this world, and to prepare them for the world to come. St. Paul writes to the Colossians, and to us:
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”
In order for the gospel to be preached to this purpose in its full truth and purity, and in order for the sacraments to be administered with this goal in mind, according to the Lord’s institution, there must be properly-trained and properly-called preachers and ministers.
And so, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul reminds us that “the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.” And in his First Epistle to Timothy he adds this thought about the elders or pastors of a congregation:
“Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer is worthy of his wages.’”
What is said about the needs of local pastors, applies also to the needs of missionaries, and of others who deliver the means of grace to people in specialized settings, and in ways that may not benefit us personally, but that contribute overall toward the fulfilling of the great commission.
You should not think of your contributions to your own congregation in the way you might think of membership dues in a club or organization to which you belong, where you have the idea that you are simply paying for the benefits that you personally receive through that membership. Instead, you want to help keep your church going, also so that you can “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Certainly you do want to be able to receive, continuously, the forgiveness, life, and salvation, that Jesus distributes to his people in his Word and Sacraments. It is a great blessing to have a church to go to, where the truth of Holy Scripture in all its parts is honored and taught, and where God is worshiped acceptably with reverence and awe.
But we want this for other people as well, and not only for ourselves.
We keep this ministry going, through the way we use unrighteous mammon to pay the bills, so that as many people as possible in our community can have a place to come to – and where we may in fact bring them ourselves as our guests – where they too can receive from God the full remission of all their sins; can be regenerated and born spiritually into his eternal family; and can go to heaven when they die.
If the people whom we have helped to hear the gospel believe it when they hear it, and if they die before we do, then they will be waiting for us in the mansions that Jesus has prepared for them and for us. They will welcome us and receive us into that eternal home with God that we will share with them always.
Regarding the various resources that we possess in this life, we do need to remember that we possess these resources as stewards, and that we possess them only for the time that we live in this world.
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.”
With our minds we all accept these words of St. Paul as obviously true. But with our hearts we often have a hard time accepting them as true.
We hold onto things as if we could take them with us. But what that really means is that these things are holding onto us. Unrighteous mammon becomes our master, rather than a tool and instrument that we use under God, to make friends for ourselves for eternity.
But, our possession of material wealth is indeed only temporary. And our possession of material wealth does indeed take place as a trust from God, the true owner of all things. If every beast of the forest is his, and the cattle on a thousand hills, then the money in our bank account or in our pocket is also his.
We are therefore accountable for the prudence, wisdom, and shrewdness with which we use those resources: to meet the needs of our family, and others for whom we are responsible; to fulfill our obligations to individuals with whom we have an economic relationship; to comply with the requirements of law regarding matters of civil taxation and government fees; and to support the work of God’s church in our community and in the world.
That fourth item was last on the list that I just set forth, but it should not be the last obligation that we ever think about, when we think about how we spend our money – or rather God’s money – and where our priorities are to be.
We should not waste the material goods that God owns, and over which we are called to exercise a proper stewardship. That is, we should not allow the things of monetary value for which we are accountable to remain dispersed and scattered in other places, being used only for other things, without at least some of them being brought into God’s direct use for the practical expenses related to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the worship and mission of the church.
A point of great thankfulness that motivates us to remember what God calls us to in this respect, and to keep our eyes open to the opportunities that God places before us, is the fact that God, in his providence, made sure that there were people who were willing to do what was necessary so that we could be brought to faith and be nurtured in that faith, in the waters of Holy Baptism, and in the instruction from God’s Word that has been given to us.
For many if not most of us, we were first embraced by Jesus’ love, and were delivered by him from sin, death, and the devil, in infancy, before we had any idea what was going on around us, or who in God’s name was providing these blessings to us and to our parents in those earlier years. The way that the means of grace work, is that human beings who are authorized by God through his church, act within his church and on God’s behalf, in applying water and speaking the baptismal words; in blessing and distributing bread and wine according to the Word and command of Christ; and in teaching and preaching – in season and out of season – to young and old alike.
The liturgical gatherings of the church, in safe and clean places like this house of worship, give us a warm and welcoming space within which these wonderful gifts of God are offered and received.
All of this was done for you, and is continually being done for you, as an expression of God’s love for you.
God shows his love for you in the promises of the gospel itself, which his Spirit supernaturally energizes so that the gospel is, for you, the power of God for salvation. God shows his love for you by inspiring other people to love their neighbor as themselves, with a willing and joyful generosity.
You are the neighbor they love, as they provide, for you, this space, and the marvelous things that happen in this space for you. They are using the unrighteous mammon that God has entrusted to them, as his stewards, to make you to be their friend – and to be their brother or sister in Christ – in time and in eternity.
St. Paul comforts us in his Epistle to the Romans with divinely-inspired words that can apply to all of us in so many different ways, when he writes that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
God is the one who causes all things to work together, according to his ultimate plans, so that his will is indeed ultimately accomplished: even when the alluring and idolatrous world, the selfish and stingy flesh, and the lying and thieving devil, would do what they may to thwart God’s will.
But God’s plans – his good plans for you – have been fulfilled, in spite of all this. God has seen to it that his saving Word was brought to you – and remains with you even now – so that you can know with unswerving certainty that your sins have been removed from you by your Savior, and that the righteousness of your Savior has been placed upon you in their place.
God has made sure that there were people there for you – people who were sons of light in his church – to make provision for all that needed to be done, so that his call to you would reach you and get to you, would take hold of you, and would carry your forward in a life of faith and loving service, compassion and generosity, under his protection and guidance. We close with this prayer to the Lord, our great benefactor:
The wealth of earth, of sky, of sea, the gold, the silver, sparkling gem,
The waving corn, the bending tree, are Thine; to us Thou lendest them.
We, Lord, would lay, at Thy behest the costliest off’rings on Thy shrine;
But when we give, and give our best, we give Thee only what is Thine. Amen.