Who Is Your Master?

Sermon for Sunday, September 23, 2007

1. Good Morning! Let’s Pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

2. Opening Comments: Well what does our Lord want to say to us this morning through His Holy Word? This is always the question I have when I read from God’s Word. There always something there just for me – the trick is to find it!

In my case I’m not only looking for me but also for us! This is sometimes easy but in this reading this morning it wasn’t! I must confess I had to really look for this one.

Oh, I found it but it’s full import came to me only as I was watching our son Lucas parading in full dress uniform with 149 other officer graduates of the Air Force Officer Training Corps before a Brigadier General who sat 3 rows in front of me. Yes, I was sitting in the General’s stand because I was one the parents of one of the distinguished graduates. Lucas won 2 awards for accomplishments – one for his athletic prowess and one for his academic prowess. So I was the very proud father of our son who was being commissioned as a First Lieutenant Chaplain in the United States Air Force.

The key to this sermon struck me as 150 graduates paraded in front of me in perfect formation! But I’ll get to that in a few minutes.

First I need to clean up a few misconceptions about the Gospel parable about the “Dishonest Manager.” I’m doing this because I don’t want to leave any of us with misconceptions about the central focus of this parable.

We’re going to be focusing on the Gospel reading but quite frankly most preachers avoid this one like the plague because at first glance it’s as if Jesus is commending the dishonest manager.

Now I knew what the primary focus of this parable was but it’s the parable itself that sometimes causes confusion in the minds of its readers.

Anyway in my efforts to get some clarification on this parable I went to the commentaries of the Early Church Fathers and do you know what I found?

I discovered that they had the same problem as me. O, make no mistake they knew the central message of the parable – it’s not difficult, but they revealed all sorts of takes on the confusing idea around the commendation of the dishonest manager. They were all good but often different signifying that there is a whole lot of room in this parable to make all sorts of interesting conclusions about this section of it.

Now it’s important that we all realize that parables are just that – short stories with a lesson attached to them. They’re not actual history. Because they are parables, interpretation can sometimes be a little challenging shall we say. This parable is a perfect example of this challenging aspect of parables.

Struggling with this parable can make you feel like Jacob when he wrestled all night long with he heavenly messenger on the banks of the river. But like Jacob, if we’re diligent and refuse to give up, there are blessings to be found.

3. Focusing on Scripture: So let me read the parable again and let’s find out what God really wants to say to us through this rather enigmatic parable:

Luke 16:1 ¶Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’ So the manager has just been fired but he apparently still have a few days before he has to leave. Listen to what he does:

3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg — 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’ 5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.’ 7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’ Now the challenging statement is about to be made – listen very carefully. . .

8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because of his dishonest dealings??? NO!!! Rather he commended him because - he had acted shrewdly. The manager was commended for his shrewdness – his astuteness, smartness, insightfulness, his worldly wisdom and even his cleverness. But let’s read on: For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

Now it’s in verse 13 that Jesus gives us the whole thrust of His sermon. Here it is:

13 “No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.”

We’ll come back to verse 13 soon but first let me clear up any misconceptions about what this parable is saying or perhaps more appropriates, what it’s “not saying.”

It’s important to grasp the fact that nowhere in this parable is the dishonesty of the manager lifted up for special acclamation. Nowhere is it suggested that deceitfulness and corruption are commendable courses of action. Nowhere is this fellow praised because he is too lazy or incompetent to change careers in mid-stream.

In its broadest sense what Jesus is commending to us here is to approach our lives with the same schrewdness – the same sagacity or good judgment, the same prudence, the same level-headedness and even the same wisdom as this man! He’s not commending to us the man’s moral character. He’s not encouraging us to be as clever as this man to avoid financial ruin as he clearly did. It’s not why he did it that being commended but what and how he did what he did! He had a problem and he approached it with cleverness and good judgment.

Just as a good businessman or woman focus on being as clever as they possibly can be as they conduct their business so too should we approach our lives as Christians with real cleverness and even shrewdness! (Tell story of Captain Dan Crash Forman – to end prayer “Out of respect for this good man and the Lord he sought to serve we offer this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ – Amen!”) Not smart to give platform to Ahmaddinejab – Columbia University on Friday!!

In other words, there’s nothing wrong with being “streetwise” but the naïve “Pollyannaish” approach is not acceptable. Wide-eyed naiveté just doesn’t “cut it” and quite frankly it never really ever did! The idea that the good pastor is some sort of native doddering old softie is a homey and even “nice” image but this is not the sort of person who is going to take the Kingdom for our Lord. God needs warriors – cleaver, shrewd with absolute tough-minded determination to take ground for their Lord!

But this is just a secondary point the really critical point to the whole parable is in verse 13 and in an unusual way Jesus actually explained what the parable meant. Just to make sure that no one missed his point he summarized it in verse 13.

4. Focusing on Key to the Parable. Let’s listen just one more time to verse 13:

13 “No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.”

As I noted at the beginning of this reflection - it wasn’t until I was watching Lucas and his fellow Officer Graduates parading in front of me in perfect symmetry that it “fully” hit me what our Lord was wanting to reveal to me.

Now before I proceed I need to teach us a new term that I would like you to be able to repeat after I have given you this reflection. After the swearing in ceremony the head chaplain invited Lucas and me to lunch.

I thought here was a perfect opportunity to lobby him for liturgy and the sacraments and as it turned out he was even as a Nazarene Pastor wide open to it. But for the purposes of this point I want to reflect on something he kept saying at the end of a particularly interesting point to him that I may have made in our conversation.

He kept saying rather softly the word “Hooowa!” At first I thought he might be getting ready to cough or sneeze but instead he leaned closer in to listen more intently.

Finally I asked him to explain what this word meant. He explained that “hoowa” can be both a question and an answer or just a stand alone acknowledgment. Does anyone here know what it means???

It means “heard, understood and acknowledged.”

At the end of this reflection I’m going to ask y’all “Hooowa” and your response should be “hooooowa” if you understand – OK – here we go!

As I watched the perfect parading of the newly trained officers I noticed the perfection of their precision. They all moved as one person. It was if they were a body moving in perfect coordination and then the whole point of this reflection hit me.

It’s all captured on one fundamental statement: “No servant can serve two masters.” If each of those 150 people hadn’t surrendered their individual rights to the one issuing the commands it would have turned into a “Chinese fire drill” very very quickly. But because they had all gone through the same training they were in perfect harmony. It was as if they were one being.

Now they were still individuals but they were surrendering this for the common good!

It’s this unity that Christ is calling for in His body the Church and it’s the absolute opposite of this that He is preaching against!

A perfect example of this is the great offense of multidenominationalism. It’s the unfortunate habit of some of us to rail against another Christian group because they’re not like us. It’s that unfortunate habit of making another Christian group out to be our enemy. It’s Protestantism versus Catholicism and so on! Oh, please don’t interpret from what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t come against heresy. That is not what I’m saying but I am saying that too many of us – all too often – get a rush out of just coming against another Christian. It’s that argumentative disposition that is always and ever finding something to argue with as opposed to the disposition that is looking for God’s fingerprints in another Christian brother who may not express his faith exactly as I would like. It’s that disposition that is always loving and forgiving and always willing to extend to the stranger an olive branch. Ever seeking to find common ground.

But we need to go even deeper. At an more visceral level it comes down to this question – “Who is your Master?” Is it God Himself or is it someone or something else? Is it God AND someone or something else but not God alone!

Yes, can anybody hear a recurring theme over the last few weeks.

Is God almighty your and my God or is someone or something else getting in the way?

If God is not your ultimate security then you will fret over your retirement years and wonder if what you have stashed away in your retirement account will be enough. If, on the other hand, your God is God himself and not your retirement nest egg or your belief in your faith in your prudence or the prudence of your financial advisor.

Listen no next egg is big enough if your trust isn’t in God. You will always need more!

But when Jesus is your Lord and your entire trust is in Him then you can relax. O sure you could have saved more and oh sure you weren’t as good a steward of your funds as you should have been but remember the God of this universe isn’t a prissy banker but rather He is a compassionate who is going to let the likes of me into his heaven. Heck I wouldn’t let me in – it would depress the value of the real estate too much!