Proper 20 year C

September 23, 2007

Luke 16:1-13

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And 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. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Let the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

This morning we have a difficult parable about a dishonest manager that steals from his master and then gets a pat on the back from that same master for being "shrewd." Maybe this is where the story of Robin Hood came from—the idea of stealing from the rich and giving the ill-gotten gain to the poor so that poor will love you. This isn’t a real bad idea. After all, there are a lot more poor people than there are rich people. If the goal is to be a hero to the most people, then the Robin Hood approach is well worth considering.

The confusing part for me is that, if we continue the Robin Hood analogy, in Jesus’ parable it would be as if Robin Hood’s rich victims sent the Sheriff of Nottingham not to arrest Robin Hood, but to tell him how clever he was in his thievery. Is Jesus telling us to be clever thieves? Is he telling us to steal from the rich and give to the poor? The people that the dishonest manager ingratiated himself to weren’t poor. They seemed to be businessmen that were not accustomed to receiving charity. It was the dishonest manager that was looking for charity.

We have to skip down to the last half of the Gospel lesson to look for clarification. "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?" This quote is from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible—the translation that we typically use for reading the lessons during worship services. During Bible study this week John had a New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible. He commented that the word "faithful" was translated in his version as "trustworthy." "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. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?" (NIV)

I see several things here in this comparison of translations. One is the "dishonest" wealth is equated to "worldly" wealth. What also causes me to pause is what are the "true riches"? And why do the true riches require God’s trust? But, what really sticks out for me is the equating of faithfulness to trustworthiness. Apparently faith equals trust. And this formula relates to God and money. Do I have faith in God, or do I have faith in money? Do I trust God, or do I trust money?

Let me share with you a bit of my own experience. When I was growing up there was period during the late 70s, early 80s where interest rates were well into the double digits. Commercial fishermen were paying the highest rates of all. Coupled with outrageous boat payments was an ocean down cycle caused by an El Nino. Many fishermen had their boats repossessed. My family was never in any danger of that, but we did seem to be halfway poverty stricken. When I went away to college I vowed to make it big, make lots of money from climbing the corporate ladder. I never once imagined returning to the fishing business.

The problem that I encountered when I did get a job with a big corporation was that climbing the corporate ladder looked to be a long, boring task. And, as it turned out, I missed fishing. In the back of my mind I figured that I could still make it big either by eventually owning a fleet of boats or by vertically integrating into the industry. I plotted and I schemed and I thought up ideas for inventions.

But then God started to intervene in my life and eventually got the call for ordained ministry. The call actually caused me a bit of financial anxiety. We were in another fishing down cycle. Really small quotas meant that I only worked about 8 days a month. I had the time to pursue theological training, but I didn’t see how I would have the financial means. Over the next 12 months God blessed me financially in ways that I could never have imagined. In fact, I had over a million dollars filter through my checking account during those 12 months. At the end of the 12 months Paige and I owned four houses, had no mortgages or debt of any kind, and even had money in the bank. And the blessings didn’t stop because we had three incredible crab seasons in a row. I can see now that I was being prepared for our year in Virginia, even though I had no idea at the time that was what was in store for us.

Now, how is it that I know that these financial blessings came directly from God and not from my own doing? First of all I know because it didn’t happen until I had given up and worldly wealth and told God in a prayer that I trusted him to provide. I remember when it happened. I was in my white F250 leaving the boat basin parking lot when I prayed something like, "God, I’m putting this whole money thing in your hands. Please take away my fears and help me to be a blessing to others." It was a surrender prayer. And I’ve said a similar surrender prayer many times since.

Today I don’t worry about income. God has provided us with good renters that deposit about $2100 directly into our bank account each month. It isn’t the incoming that I worry about—it is the outgoing. God gives us enough, but we have to spend it wisely. During our last few months in Virginia I started to get weird about how much money we were spending. I was scared that we would use up our entire buffer that I had imagined that we would need once we got home. I started second-guessing how Paige spent money—second-guessing to point of causing her a lot of misery. See, I trusted God for the incoming, but I didn’t trust Paige for the outgoing. In April or May I had to let go of what Paige calls "double-headed management." Paige was in charge of our household budget, but I constantly tried to undermine her decisions. I had to trust my wife absolutely without checking up on her, or else I was going to continue to drive a wedge deeper and deeper into our relationship. Looking back on it now I’m embarrassed. Obviously Paige is smart and competent. But I was stuck in fear mode.

God is looking for us to be trustworthy. But the paradox is that we become trustworthy by trusting in God and by trusting in our spouse and other people (like our renters). Look at the word "trustworthy". The word "worth" is in there. I used to tie my self worth to my ability to earn money and be financially successful. As I started to trust God, my notion of self worth changed. A biology teacher planted the seed while I was still in high school. During a class lecture one day he said that for most living creatures success is defined as the continuation of the species through procreation. At the age of 17 I had the idea that success could have alternative definitions. Two decades later I started to see that true success comes from furthering the Kingdom of God. This success is not measured in material wealth, but in spiritual well being, which could be called contentment. This success might be measured not with money, but in the amount of joyful tears we cry.

Amen