A parable on how we should use our money?

 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13

There is a lot happening in our readings today. They are hard to ignore, and they are going in such different directions.

First, we have the reading from Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, crying out over the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. This is seen as an act of judgement, and as a consequence of turning away from God. The Psalm laments over the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and the death of the people in the wake of this destruction. 

So, with these first readings we could look at the theme of judgement. It is an uncomfortable topic. We don’t like thinking about God in terms of judgement, but if God is concerned with justice, then judgement will be a part of that picture. We don’t like thinking about being judged, but if we are a victim of a tyrant, we probably hope there is judgement for them. 

We can’t entirely escape this uncomfortable topic by retreating to the New Testament either. Jesus, too, talks about judgement. It is a strong theme in the Bible that we dare not avoid, but also requires deep reflection. Is judgement about punishment? Is it about the redirection of a community to avoid something worse? Is it about painful transformation, like surgery, where cutting is a necessary part of healing? What lessons are we to bring from this? Do whole societies receive judgement like this? How would we recognize it? How would we avoid it?



In our reading from 1 Timothy 2 we read about praying, especially for those in authority, so that we might be able to live in peace and pursue godliness. We could look here at the place of Christians in a Pagan world- living in an often-hostile empire. What does it mean to pray for authorities that dislike you? What does it mean to exist in a society that celebrates things that the church calls sin? How are Christians to act in an environment where they are to pursue peace with the authorities, and also to serve a God who desires everyone to “come to knowledge of the truth” about Christ in a pluralistic environment? That is a worthy topic to pursue in a society that is increasingly pluralistic.




I would like to look at our Gospel reading in particular today. It is one of Jesus’ more obscure parables. 

There are parts we don’t like about this parable. The ‘hero’ is a manager that mismanages his master’s money and then gets fired for it. When he finds out he’s fired, before he has to leave his position, he makes some shifty deals that result in his boss losing even more money. But, the end result is that, because the manager makes these deals, people owe him favors. When he is tossed out of his master’s house, he will have people who owe him a favor and who will open their door to him. Then, confusingly, the master praises the manager. Jesus then tells us “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.” When we first read these teachings it’s hard to know what to do with them.

What Jesus seems to be teaching us is not that we should be dishonest and corrupt when dealing with other people’s money. Rather, Jesus is teaching us to think about the goal and use of money. Money helps us reach a goal. You can’t eat money, obviously, but you can use it to obtain food. Money won’t give you shelter, but you can use it to buy shelter. So, money is useful towards a certain goal. Even a corrupt manager knows this. The manager is about to be fired for misusing his master’s money and he cuts some deals with people who owe his master. One man owes him nine hundred gallons of olive oil and he makes a deal and cuts his bill in half. The second man owes one thousand bushels of wheat. The manager makes another deal by cutting 200 bushels off the bill. Effectively he has just put two people into his debt by giving them good deals on what they owe. He has used the resources he was responsible for to build relationships, so that when he no longer had any resources to manage, he would have created social relationships he can rely on. The heart of the lesson is this- Jesus says 

“…use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Jesus is showing us that even corrupt managers sometimes understand something about wealth that we miss. Even a corrupt manager (under the right conditions) knows to use wealth to build relationships. How much more should the children of God understand this? If the corrupt understand this principle, then shouldn’t the followers of God? Shouldn’t we also manage our wealth in such a way that we develop friendships with our neighbors and with God? If even a scoundrel who is just trying to save his own skin understands this, shouldn’t the followers of Jesus? This manager understood how the wealth he was entrusted with could build relationships. We, too, should see our wealth through this perspective.

The way we use our wealth effects relationships. We can use our wealth to build relationships, or we can use our wealth to separate us from others. Later, in Luke 16, (which we will read next week) Jesus uses another parable to explain this. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus teaches us that there are consequences when we use our wealth to separate us from others rather than build relationships as the manager did. If we use our wealth to build gates rather than bridges, we may find that we get what we want- We may find that we are separated from those we gated out of our lives, but we may find that we are on the wrong side of the chasm.

From a Biblical perspective, while there is much suspicion cast on the wealthy, and there are many warnings about the temptations of wealth, but having money is not inherently wrong. Private property is assumed in the Bible. The Ten Commandments condemn stealing and coveting, and Israel is encouraged to be generous. So, it is not wrong to have 'things'. It is assumed that we will have property and goods to be generous with.

While we do have rights to our property, we are also taught that all that we own really belongs to God. We are managers of the resources that have been given to us by God. This can be challenging in our society that is full of advertising that drives us to constantly strive for more luxury, telling us that we deserve it, and we should reward ourselves. It is hard to re-center our thinking about money around God. Jesus proposes that money is a rival god, and I think that is an especially important thing for us to meditate on. Do we ever feel like we are serving money, in contradiction to God? … Most of us probably have a hard time believing that our bank account, or house, or car, belongs to God. We tend to think that God would be stealing if God drove off in our car. But Deuteronomy 10:14 reminds us, 

"To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it."

 And Deuteronomy 8 teaches us, 

“Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth” (Deut 8:17-18).

We are managers of what God has given us, and we have a responsibility to use it wisely and under the direction of the true Owner. According to the Bible, our rights to use the property that we have been entrusted with is somewhat overtaken when we are confronted with the need to care for the poor. … This would have been easier, in some ways, in the ancient world, since your sphere of responsibility would have been your village, many of whom you probably would have been related to. People tended to stay put, as well. They would live in the same village for generations. You would know these people’s names and stories and their families. You would have grown up with them, or watched them grow up with your children. Villages were not massive places. Estimates of the population of Nazareth at Jesus’ time place the population at under 500.

This is a bit more complicated for us. We get news from all over the world. The disasters and pain of the world are constantly thrust into our vision. Every day on the news we are confronted with war, and famine, and flood, and earthquakes, and almost all of these situations have organizations that are trying to help and are asking for money. These are only the disasters that make the news. Our emails and mailboxes are often sprinkled with requests for help, sometime our phones ring for similar reasons- maybe they are looking for donations to support research to cure a disease. …

We have the amazing ability to communicate and send money all over the world. … But, we also don’t have relationships with these people. We know that sometimes there are scams that exploit the kind-hearted and generous. We know that warlords can interfere in the distribution of aid. All this makes helping very complicated. Even when we are trying to help people in our own city, we rarely know the person who is asking for help. … These aren’t reasons to not help. They are reasons why helping is complicated in our world.

And yet, we have an obligation to be people who help hurting people. The Bible teaches that when the people harvest, they should not try to harvest too efficiently so that the poor can come and harvest some as well. … Some of these laws are a bit alien from our world. Most of us don't harvest, and most of our poor are in the inner city, and so they don’t harvest either. But, the essence of the message still speaks to us. In some way, our own rights to private property must give way to our obligation to help the poor. To be religious without any concern the poor is to live a lie. If we can reject the poor, or ignore the poor, then we cannot embrace God. This is because God chooses to align himself with the poor and oppressed.

Our wealth is to be used to build relationships. We, like the manager in the parable, are to use our wealth to build relationships so that when the day comes, we have built relationships with our neighbors and ultimately with our Lord, and so will be welcomed into eternal homes. … If we use our wealth to separate us from others, we may find that the gate we have built has become an impassible chasm, and that we are on the wrong side of the divide. Wealth is a resource to be used, rather than a god to be served, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” AMEN