Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, you have given us the riches of heaven through your sacrifice on the cross. Now that we possess the eternal dwelling place of heaven through faith in you, lift up our hearts to serve our neighbor with all we have and glorify your name! Through these efforts, create opportunities for us to also spread the saving Good News of the Savior to needy souls. Amen.

Luke 16:1-9,  Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 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 my manager any longer.” 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—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.”
            So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” “Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,” he replied. The manager told him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.” 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.” The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

To celebrate this presidential election year, let's take a poll! This poll is nothing fancy. It won’t take much time. In fact, it consists of but one question, with three possible answers. The question is this: "What makes your day-to-day life fulfilling?" And you can choose your answer from the following: A. Having money to spend as you see fit; B. Having freedom to live your life as you choose; C. Having responsibilities that are yours only to fulfill. To be sure, it is tempting to select answer A, which deals with spending money as we choose, or answer B, which deals with enjoying personal freedom. But my guess is that you didn't choose either of these, did you? My guess is that most of you would say that having responsibilities to fulfill in life is what makes life fulfilling. To put it another way, having responsibilities to fulfill each day is what gets us out of bed in the morning.

As a husband, a dad, and a pastor, these responsibilities certainly give my life meaning and focus. As husband, and dad, I am to care for my wife and kids through good and bad, protect them, provide for them and spiritually guide them. As your pastor, I do much the same. You have the similar responsibilities in your families. Responsibilities like these do tend to get us out of bed in the morning!

Today’s lesson focuses us on one area of responsibility we have in our lives—or more specifically—in our Christian lives.  Today, through the parable of the dishonest manager, Jesus teaches us about how we should use the material blessings he has given us to serve our neighbor. (Our neighbor being the members of our family, congregation, friends or even strangers, or anyone else who passes in and out of our lives.) What a responsibility this is! It is not easy to sacrifice our time, our wealth, our schedules to help others. But how important it is! When we help others, we not only help them in their physical needs, God often gives us chances to bring them spiritual help as well, by bringing them the message about the Savior. Yes, our willingness to serve our neighbor with worldly wealth often gives us a chance to bring them heavenly riches through God’s word!

You all know what worldly wealth is. It is the car which you drove to church. It is the array of clothing which bursts from your closet. It is the bacon and egg breakfast you enjoyed this morning. It is your bank account, your retirement investment, your house, your real estate. It is our church property. God has given us all these riches! He wants us to serve our neighbor with them. In this parable of the dishonest manager, Jesus teaches how we are to use them, as we will find out right now.

The parable itself describes a white-collar crime, common-place even in today’s business world. A rich man discovers that the manager he had hired to care for his wealth has been dishonest. The rich man then comes to the manager and fires him. After the dishonest manager weighs his options, ("Let's see, I'm not strong enough for manual labor. I'm too proud to beg…") he concocts a shrewd scheme, so that, as he says, “When I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses” (Luke 16,4).

The plan is this: The manager goes to the clients of his master and fudges their bills in their favor. For example, he goes to one client and asks: “How much do you owe my master?” The client replies, “Eight hundred gallons of olive oil.” The manager then tells the client, “Take your bill, and make it four hundred.” It was, of course, wrong for him to do this. After being exposed by his master as a thief, he should have repented and repaid his master. Instead, the manager steals even more from his master, so that when those who benefited from his scheme hear of his firing, they will have pity on him and take them into their homes.

 What is Jesus teaching us here? Jesus is not praising the man’s dishonesty; that is sure. And certainly, he is not telling us to be dishonest with worldly wealth either. Rather, Jesus is focusing on the manager’s shrewd use of wealth to gain friends for himself. Therefore, this is how Jesus wants us to use our wealth too. In the words of Jesus: “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16,8-9).

 On the surface, it might seem as if Jesus is telling us that we must earn a place for ourselves in heaven by shrewdly using worldly wealth to gain friends. As he says again, “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” But this is not at all what Jesus is suggesting. Remember: The Scriptures are clear. There is only one way to the eternal dwelling place, and that is by faith alone in Jesus as our Savior from sin! If we turn to John chapter 6, a dialog between Jesus and some Jews brings this out so clear. “What works must we do to do the work God requires” (John 6,28), the Jews asked him. And Jesus responds, leaving no doubt about the one way to heaven: “The work of God is this: to believe in the One he has sent” (John 6,29).

If our entrance into heaven really were dependent on how well we serve our neighbor with the riches God has given us, there isn’t anyone here today who would ever enjoy eternal dwellings. For instance, we are called to serve each other here in this congregation and to serve our neighbor in San Antonio. Yet we do neither as well as God demands, which to do this perfectly without a single grumble in our hearts. In this congregation, there are bills to pay, property to care for, classroom and outreach materials to purchase. In town, there are people who need our help, whether they live next door, on the next street, or across town, and no matter the social class or race. Yet where is the cartload of help we so quickly promise but often fail to deliver?

Sadly, we often manage the riches our heavenly master has given us like the dishonest manager in the parable. As St. Paul bluntly points out: “Everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ” (Phil 2,21). For example, how often does our monthly spending on pleasure items outdistance our Sunday morning thank-offerings to God? How often do the few meager bucks we pry from our wallet to help someone in need make us feel like we just cast our entire life savings to the wind! There is nothing shrewd about handling our worldly wealth this way; this is selfishness. It is the sinner—the unbeliever in us—that wants to hoard all we have like a dishonest manager. And our poor management of the Father's riches earns us nothing but an eternal pink slip of judgment from God, hell itself!

Thankfully salvation in the eternal dwelling place of heaven comes to us through someone else! He is Jesus our Savior, who as St. Paul says, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty we might become rich!” In other words, Christ who was rich in glory, power and wisdom, became poor servant of mankind for our sakes! –A servant conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a poor, unwed virgin named Mary! –A servant whose first crib was a feeding trough and his first home, a stable! –A servant who during his ministry never had a place to lay his head! –A servant who came and took that pink slip we deserved from the Father. When He took it, the Father cast Jesus out from his presence like the dishonest manager that you are and I am. This happened on the cross as Jesus cried out in anguish: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  But by being punished in your place, Christ’s sacrifice directed God’s wrath away from you and me. Instead, by His sacrifice, God has forgiven you! You are now rich! Each of you is an heir of heaven, and co-heir with Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord or Lords!

The fact that this dwelling place of heaven is ours already simply through our God-given faith in Christ, we know Jesus is not directing us to earn our salvation through our shrewd use of worldly wealth. Rather he is telling us this: since you already possess the riches of heaven, now spend what you have in this world in your neighbor’s behalf, and for My glory! And when your work on this earth is done, you have an eternal resting place waiting for you!

Now that we have heavenly riches, we can spend our worldly wealth to help our neighbor! I know this congregation already does give generously to the Lord’s work in this way. Praise God for this!  But by God's grace, may this only be a start for us. As the work of spreading the Gospel goes on here, God will lead us to thankfully give, give wisely, and give more and more! We will give to support this congregation, help in this community and spread the work of our synod! Through this service to our neighbor, who knows how God shall provide opportunities for us to bring them the greatest treasure of all: The Savior who feeds the spiritually poor with forgiveness and eternal life! Praise God! He has already given this greatest gift to you! Amen.

May the Peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

In His Service,

Pastor Matthew W. Crick
The Ninth Sunday of Trinity
20 August 2000