Revisiting your stewardship as children of the light

Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

It’s a common thing in the world of politics to be generous with other people’s money. It’s one of the chief principles of socialism. Why do politicians like to be so generous with other people’s money? And why do people often support it? It’s theft, after all, according to God’s commandments. Well, it’s done out of greed for personal gain, usually to purchase the favor (and often the votes) of those who receive the money, but if nothing else, it’s because it makes people feel good about themselves to help other people, while not having to sacrifice anything of their own in order to do it.

That’s unjust, unrighteous. As I said, it’s a form of stealing in God’s sight, whether or not it’s legal according to human laws. But, in a very worldly sort of way, it’s rather shrewd of politicians to do it, because it works. It doesn’t make the world a better place. It isn’t morally right. But it does tend to keep that person in power, to keep that person with a job in politics. Politicians do it time and time again, because, time and time again, it works!

The parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel is pretty similar to that scenario, actually. He tells of an unjust steward who had done a terrible, sloppy job managing his master’s wealth, but who then decided, in a moment of personal crisis, that it was in his best interests to be generous with his master’s money, essentially to rob from his master in order to purchase the favor of the people who owed money to his master. And his plan paid off! Not only were the debtors now indebted to him, but even his master commended him for his shrewdness. Finally this steward wasn’t just haphazardly spending money and keeping the books. He used his master’s wealth to gain something for himself by helping others.

Now, Jesus does not want His disciples to be unjust. He doesn’t want us to be like that unjust steward in mismanaging our Master’s wealth, nor does He want us to rob from the rich to give to the poor. He doesn’t want us to be generous with other people’s money. To be sure, He doesn’t want us to do anything for self-serving reasons. But He makes His point clear at the end of today’s Gospel. The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. In other words, Jesus wants us, as the children of the light, to learn a lesson from the unjust children of this age—yes, a lesson from unbelievers, because they often act more deliberately with their wealth for earthly gain than Christians do for heavenly gain. So He wants us to learn this one lesson from how unrighteous unbelievers behave, to think about and plan carefully how we use the wealth God has lent to us, and to realize that God wants us to use it for the benefit of others, especially other Christians, which will also benefit us in the end.

Let’s make some comparisons between the unjust steward’s situation and our own so that we can reevaluate our stewardship as children of the light.

The steward in the parable worked for a rich man. He had no wealth of his own; his job was to be a good steward, to manage the rich man’s wealth diligently, honestly, and faithfully, for the benefit of the rich man’s business.

You and I should recognize that we also work for Someone. We have no wealth of our own. I think you all know that, but it’s worth reminding ourselves, because it’s not at all how the world thinks. We acknowledge God to be both the Creator and the Owner of all things. Even the things we’ve earned with our hard work still belong to God. As the Psalm says, The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness. We are stewards, managers of the things God has given us or granted us to have, whether much or little. He expects us to manage His wealth wisely, diligently, thoughtfully, deliberately.

But the steward in the parable wasn’t diligent at all. He squandered the rich man’s wealth in a way that helped no one. Can that be said about you? Does your household budget reflect God’s priorities? Do you even have a budget? Or do the bills just dictate where most of the dollars go, while the rest just sort of trickle away on unimportant things?

Well, that haphazard, lazy, purposeless stewardship got the steward in the parable in big trouble with his boss. He was about to lose his job, but he was given a little time to get the records straight and present an accounting of his management. So finally, when his life depended on it, he started to take the management of his master’s wealth seriously, not to benefit his lord’s business, but entirely for his own benefit, not by stealing the money for himself, but by lessening the financial burden of his master’s debtors, so that they might help him out and take him in after he lost his job, so that they might welcome him into their homes after that mean rich man fired him.

Except that he wasn’t fired in the end. His lord finally saw some skill in that unjust steward, some shrewdness, some thoughtfulness, some purpose. And he actually commended the steward for it. Maybe he could be an asset to the rich man’s business after all.

Now, this is a rather unique parable, isn’t it? Why does Jesus want us to study the bad example of the steward to learn from it? Well, it isn’t that uncommon in Scripture, actually. Today’s epistle made that clear. St. Paul pointed the Corinthians Christians to several bad examples from Israel’s history in order warn Christians not to become complacent, not to take God’s grace for granted, not to become so assured of your salvation that you stop listening to God’s direction. That went very badly for the Israelites. But God uses that bad example for the good purpose of keeping His children humble and penitent and focused on His Word.

Again, Jesus words at the end of the parable make it clear why He uses the bad example of the unjust steward: The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. He’s talking to His own disciples here. He’s talking to Christians. He’s talking to those who believe in Him and who are counted among the sons of the light, whose sins have been forgiven, who are beloved children of God, on the path to spending eternity with Him in Paradise. But He knows that we have not been perfected yet. In fact, that won’t happen until we slough off this sinful flesh. And He knows that our sinful flesh is always turned inward, not toward serving God and not toward helping our neighbor. And He also knows that wealth and earthly possessions are one of the biggest temptations and pitfalls for His people, so that even penitent and believing Christians often forget that we are stewards of God’s possessions. We often forget that God has priorities for the wealth He’s placed into our hands—even the wealth that is our time, by the way—and that one of His top priorities is helping other people through this life, especially our fellow Christians. And, yes, we should be convicted by His words for not even being as shrewd as unbelievers are in being generous with other people’s money. We have been called to be generous, not with other people’s wealth, but with God’s wealth, with all the wealth God has put into our hands, to think carefully about how we might use it to “make friends for ourselves.”

I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

Mammon—worldly wealth—is not evil, but it’s often used for evil, unrighteous purposes. Hear the Lord Jesus today teaching you, His disciples, to direct the wealth He’s put into your hands for the benefit of others, because you can’t take it with you when you go. But the Christians who have been helped by you will remember that help even after this life, as you will remember those who have helped you. They won’t be the gatekeepers letting you into heaven—the only way to be saved and to enter God’s kingdom is by faith in Christ and His righteousness, and His death on the cross for your sins, and the free forgiveness He extends to all who trust in Him. But the citizens of heaven who received God’s help by your hand will not be ungrateful in the heavenly mansions, even if their gratitude wasn’t perceived here on earth. Your use of God’s wealth will solidify those friendships for eternity. Isn’t that incentive enough to be intentional and deliberate and generous with the wealth you’ve been given to manage, knowing that it not only fosters eternal friendships, but that it pleases God, whose wealth you manage and whose child you are? Because God sees you as people who might yet be an asset to His heavenly business. Amen.