Sermon Notes/ September 23, 2007/ Luke 16:1-10

 

One of the more colorful characters in American History is the ambitious Joe Kennedy Sr.  He worked his way to Harvard as a son of a solon keeper, charmed his way into banking and Hollywood as he continued to reach his goal of being a millionaire before his 30^th birthday. Joe Kennedy was a guy that always thinking. He was always looking for opportunities to make money.  He never lost his ambition and risk taking drive and with his sophisticated expertise, was always ready to recognize and seize a profitable opportunity.  His business sense and his success record made one think that he had the Midas touch—that is everything he touched turned to gold. He was definitely a shrewd manager.

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells a parable about a manager of a rich man that cheats on his master.  The manager know that he is going to get fired, so he goes and settles up the master’s accounts in the favor of the clients, in the hopes of making some friends and obtaining possible employment. What is weird is verse 8 in the parable:  ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 

 

Frankly, it seems that the master is approving of the man’s dishonesty, do you get that feeling? Then after nothing else quite makes sense. When the sentence doesn’t seem to make sense, I go to the Greek. In this case the translation does get a little messy.

 

The word “adikias” is translated dishonest.  It somewhat means that but it more correctly means “unrighteous.”  I think this manager is called unrighteous for his initial cheating and his ungodly behavior that got him fired rather then his actions toward the master’s clients. The second word is “phronimos” which is translated shrewd or shrewdly.  While this is not a bad word for this situation, but a better and more accurate word is prudent.  This very word, phronimos is used in Matthew 7:14: "People…may be compared to a prudent man, who built his house upon the rock.” What I am doing in wordsmithing the translation is taking out the implied judgment about the actions of the manager.    

 

Let me read the sentence again: ⁸And his master commended the unrighteous manager because he had acted prudently; for the children of this age are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. So this verse becomes clearer.  The master is saying in so many words: The manager is much better at handling the affairs of this world and less capable at handling the affairs of his soul.

 

So that is why I started talking about Joe Kennedy.  Joe Kennedy was so much better at the affairs of the world and not so capable regarding the care of his soul. His personal life, as best we know, and the life of the Kennedy’s is well documented—was sadly broken and as we know, he bore much grief.

 

 

There are many examples of people being prudent in the world and less capable in the affairs of the soul. It is really difficult to be good at both.  In fact, Jesus tells us that they are mutually exclusive. That is you can’t have both—you can have one or the other. “You can not serve wealth and God.” He reminds us.

 

We are not millionaires.  We are not the Donald Trumps of this world.  But, we are not the Mother Theresa’s either.  We are trying to find the way to get what we can for ourselves and at the same time be responsible to our faith. We are trying to balance our life and our needs in this world and our life of the next world.  With this parable, Jesus leads us to evaluate ourselves how we are doing. Are we serving wealth or God? Or are we trying to serve both?  Maybe we are trying to serve both and by doing that find ourselves drifting too far to the side of worldly proficiency and less on the side of spiritual maturity.

 

As a pastor I enjoy talking about faith in Jesus Christ.  I enjoy challenging people with new thinking and new ideas.  I believe that our faith is alive—that we are constantly growing in awareness of God and faith in his presence and promise through Jesus Christ.

I do not believe that everything in the story of faith is completed and extracted.  That there are formulas or road map of certainty that must be followed.  I think that we all have more to find out. But I find too many of us have stopped.  We have heard it all.  We think we have enough faith training to get by.  And we don’t keep current.  The old joke is what did the pastor do have the bats in the belfry leave?  He confirmed them.

 

We think that there is nothing new for us.  Yet, when I talk to teachers of Bible studies, they constantly tell me that they have learned so much.  That they continue to learn new things from each lesson they prepare. It is not just about finding out something about Jesus and say, “Wow, that is nice.” It is about finding out something and saying, “Wow,” and thinking about that the rest of the day and the rest of the week. It is having the Gospel affect our attitudes and our decisions in our life.  It is about finding something in the Gospel that makes a difference for us.

 

Today’s lesson is a tough lesson to swallow.  Each one of us is probably better at our jobs then caring for our soul.  We are better at building a deck or selling products then we are at learning form the bible or sharing our faith with someone that needs to hear about Jesus. Our faith needs developing.  God sent Jesus Christ to us to teach us and live for us and die for us and rise for us and tell us of the promise of new life that he wants to share with us.  And what is our response: building and selling things or learning and teaching the Gospel? That is not an impractical question.

 

Today, we all have children or family members who are dormant in faith or have lost their faith. We all know of someone who is hurting or could use a little encouragement in faith—to let them know that God is with them. We all know someone who needs the seeds of faith planted.  Do we know how to do it? Do we know what to say?  Can we share the Gospel?  Today, think about our balance in life between being capable or proficient in this world and our abilities as we look to the world of God. Do we want to be commended for our worldly prudence or for our spiritual awareness? In what world do we have our feet and our heart firmly planted? May we all experience the peace and joy of a faith that is alive in Jesus Christ.