Word of Salvation – Vol.47 No.23 – June 2002

 

The Shrewd Manager

 

Sermon by Rev J.W. Westendorp

on Luke 16:1-12

Scripture Readings: James 4:1-10, Luke 19:11-27; 16:1-12

Suggested Hymns: BoW 111; 470; 218; 485

 

Theme: The parable of the shrewd manager to teach us faithfulness with a view to eternal rewards.

 

Introd:  Jesus told some parables – teaching stories – that really clash with our common expectations.

They were radical stories – already for those who first heard them.

Imagine that story about the Jew travelling a lonely road… ambushed by terrorists.
Left for dead… two of his own countrymen pass by and leave him lying there.
In today’s context the hero of the story is a Palestinian… and a Muslim.
            And Jesus is telling that story to Jews.

In the previous chapter there’s the story about a son who wastes his Dad’s property.
He squanders it in wild living with his mates till it’s all gone.
In desperation he finally decides to go home and tell Dad that he’s sorry.
            And that Dad then throws a party.

In this present parable a man works as property manager for a rich boss.
But he embezzles him and rips him off.
And yet Jesus has that rich man commend that rogue for his cleverness.
In fact… this story isn’t really just about a rogue manager.
It’s about a whole bunch of rascals… nobody comes out with a clean slate.

 

A]        THE PROBLEMATIC PARABLE ABOUT A BUNCH OF RASCALS.

1.         The obvious rascal is certainly the manager.

This man has embezzled his boss.  He’s ripped him off… and his boss has caught him out.
We’re not given the details.
We’re just told that he was charged with wasting the boss’ possessions.

Maybe that happened the way it so often does today.
You inflate your expense account each month.
And you add a few grocery items to the petrol docket for the company car.
And stationary for the kids from K-Mart…?
Forget it… the stationary cupboard in the office has got plenty of that sort of stuff.

But now this man has done it once too often and he got caught.
So the boss calls him in and tells him to go and get the books audited.
Because he’s about to be dismissed.
He’s shown he can’t be trusted… so the boss is hiring a new manager.

It’s the end of the road for this man.
And as he sits there in his office he thinks through his options.
He’s not strong enough any more to go and work with a pick and shovel.
And he’s too embarrassed to live on handouts.

            So he sits there thinking and thinking about some way out of his troubles.
            Suddenly he has a brainwave.
            A way in which he’ll be looked after by others when he’s out of work.

This manager is not a nice guy… his ethics leave a lot to be desired.
He’s about to be sacked for his dishonesty.
But the scheme he’s cooked up is going to cost his boss even more.
He’s going to feather his own nest at his master’s expense.
No wonder he’s called a ‘dishonest manager’ – literally an unrighteous manager.

2.         But this manager is not the only rascal in the story.

Before this manager gets the books audited he calls in all the businessmen who owe the boss.

These debtors are called in one at a time… in an atmosphere of secrecy.
And they actually become conspirators with this crooked manager.
It’s impossible to think that they didn’t know what was going on.
Because their immense debts are dramatically reduced… at the expense of the boss.

The first one owes the boss almost a thousand litres of olive oil.
To repay that sort of debt this first debtor will need an orchard of some 150 trees.
And then he’d better pray too for a good season for olives.
To his surprise the manager tells him to quickly rewrite his bill for 500 litres of oil.
            And then the manager signs it.  That businessman can’t believe his good fortune.
            Half his debt has been wiped out at the stroke of a pen.

The second one owes the boss a thousand bushels of wheat.
To get that he’s going to have to plant about 100 acres of wheat.
And then he’s better pray for some good rain or he won’t get there.
To his surprise the manager tells him to quickly rewrite the bill for 800 bushels of wheat.
            And with a sigh of relief he watches the manager sign the new document.
            Twenty percent less than what he owed a few moments ago.

We can safely assume that this manager didn’t stop with these two customers.
We’re told that he called in each one of the master’s debtors.
All to put the manager in their good books… they now owe him a favour.
            And sadly no one… no one protests.  No one says: “Hang on a minute, this is not fair!”
            It was all done at the expense of the master to whom these debts were due.
            What a bunch of rascals!  And yet Jesus uses them to teach us a lesson.

3.         But let me go further because I have problems with the boss too.

How can he commend… or praise… this unrighteous servant?

Doesn’t it seem like he is endorsing this wrong behaviour… and then at his own expense?

Doesn’t that make him just as much a rascal as the rest of this crowd.

A parable… not of an unjust manager…. but a whole bunch of rascals and crooks.

And the worst of it is that Jesus is saying this.
Is Jesus really applauding these crooked dealings?
And by implication also the way these businessmen get out of paying their debts?
            This becomes a special problem for those who claim that the boss represents God.
            God is that boss and we are the unjust managers who have squandered God’s goods.
            But does God then just overlook all this with a ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge!?
            Of course not!  It doesn’t work that way.  It took Jesus’ death to get us off the hook.

All sorts of attempts are made to get around the problems.  Let me mention just one.
In Israel landowners and businessmen were not allowed to charge interest.
            God had forbidden that in the law of Moses.
            So managers were hired who would be expected to charge interest for them.
            But then in such a way that it seemed as if no interest was being charged at all.
            It was just added to the original amount borrowed.
            In the case of Olive Oil – a high risk product – as much as fifty percent.
            With other products usually about twenty percent.

So it is argued that the manager merely deducted what was really the interest component.
That not only made him as manager look good… he was really also doing the boss a favour.
Because with the books about to be audited the boss will be regarded as a very godly citizen.
            Someone who kept the law of Moses and didn’t charge people high interest rates.
            No wonder the boss praised his ex-manager.

 

B]        SOME PERSPECTIVES TO HELP UNDERSTAND THE PARABLE.

1.         All of that is plausible but I have a problem with it.  There is no hint of that in the story Jesus told.

We are imposing that on the text.  It’s really a hypothetical.

Furthermore… this manager is called an unrighteous manager.
He is not acting in a godly way… that is reading something into the text.
So we need a different understanding of this parable.
There are three keys to help us to get a handle on what Jesus is saying.

First we should remember that Luke is greatly concerned about material things in the Christian life;
More so than the other gospel writers.
Next time you read through Luke keep in mind his focus on material things.

That emphasis on material things begins already with Luke’s account of John the Baptiser.
People come and ask John what they should do.  He tells them:
            The man with two tunics should share with him who has none
             and the one who has food should do the same.
He tells soldiers who come to him:
            Don’t extort money… be content with your pay.

In his version of the Beatitudes Luke doesn’t report Jesus as saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Rather, he simply says: Blessed are you who are poor..! and  Woe to you who are rich…!

Luke also has several parables that other gospel writers do not mention.
Parables that focus our attention on our relationship to material things.
There is the parable of The Rich Fool in chapter 12.
And in this same chapter Jesus is about to tell of The Rich Man And Lazarus.

Even in the preceding parable there is a great concern about material things.
            The Prodigal Son squandered his father’s possessions…!
            The older brother envied the younger one for the things he got from his father.
            So repeatedly in Luke there is a focus on material things.

2.         Secondly, it helpful to see that this particular story was spoken specifically to the disciples.

The previous parables, including that of the Prodigal Son, were spoken to the Pharisees.
The theme there was lostness… being away from the Father… and away from eternal life.
And Jesus was telling those Pharisees of their need to return to the father.

But here Jesus is now speaking especially to the Disciples.
Okay, the Pharisees were listening in – as vs.14 makes clear.
But their reaction reinforces our understanding of the parable.
Vs.14: The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.

Jesus is teaching his disciples something about the role of material things in the believer’s life.
Possessions… and property… and money…!
            What place ought these to have in the life of those who belong to Jesus?
            How do you live Christianly with your wealth?
            How do you make sure you are a good manager and not an unrighteous one?

Is it wrong for Christians to be rich?
Because after all, Jesus taught some other radical truths:
That it is hard for the rich to get into the Kingdom of heaven.
That it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle that for the rich to be saved.
            Followers of Jesus need clarity on these matters.
            And here in this story Jesus gives us some good angles on wealth.

3.         Thirdly, we ought to understand that the master’s compliment concerns shrewdness.

And shrewdness is not the same as faithfulness… nor is shrewdness the same as true wisdom.

Shrewdness is a sort of cunning cleverness… a craftiness.
It is not the manager’s sin that is applauded;
Just the wit and cleverness that got him out of a spot of bother.
Almost as if this boss grudgingly admits…
            that although this man is an embezzler nevertheless he’s got his wits about him.

Robert Deffinbaugh tells a story that bring home this praise of cleverness.
He tells of a teacher who for the first time taught in a New York high school.
It was a really tough neighbourhood and that was reflected in the school.
            Police patrolled the corridors of the school.

When this teacher entered the classroom the whole class seemed attentive and quiet.
But at a predetermined moment they all got up and moved to the back of the classroom.
There in a large circle they began a game for money and would not resume their seats.

After class the teacher noted that the clear section at the back had a metal floor.
He wired the metal plate onto a low voltage charge.
The next morning the class again went through their routine and as they did he flicked a switch.

The results were predictable and a very subdued class resumed their seats.
But one large guy came forward, looked the teacher in the eye and said:
            Nice touch professor, nice touch…!

Deffinbaugh says: I can tell you that this fellow was not showing appreciation for being zapped.
But he couldn’t help expressing admiration for the firm way the teacher handled the situation.
            This boss is not commending his manager for his sin of embezzlement.
            But he is expressing a reluctant admiration for his cleverness.
            It’s as if he’s saying: Nice touch, Mr manager, nice touch!

 

C]        THREE LESSONS JESUS DRAWS FROM IT FOR HIS DISCIPLES.

1.         With all this firmly at the back of our minds we notice three lessons Jesus now draws from the story.

First he says in vs.8 that Christians can learn something from non-Christians.

The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

And that’s sad but it’s true…. because what Jesus means is this:
Just look at all the ‘wheeling and dealing’ that goes on around you… just to make a buck.
You probably notice it in your office: the scheming and plotting to get ahead is unreal (Js.4).

Hardly surprising!  These people don’t know about eternal life through Jesus Christ.
For them the material things in life are the most important.  That’s priority no.1.
            So you grab what you can while you can.
            And often an incredible shrewdness is shown by people who want to get ahead.
                        They’ll scheme for any extra financial benefits.
                        And go to extraordinary lengths to climb the corporate ladder.
            Sometimes in such clever ways that we want to say: Nice touch, mate!  Nice touch!

So it seems to me that Jesus is saying in the second part of vs. 8:
If only Christians would put the same shrewdness to work for the things of God.
If only we would spend as much energy and effort and creativity to get ahead spiritually.
If we only we were as clever in finding new ways of building relationships in the church.
That unrighteous manager put in all that effort just to make sure he had some friends.
            But in the church we so often just take each other for granted.
            Jesus would have us be creatively clever for the sake of others and the Kingdom.

2.         Our Lord takes that a step further with a second lesson in vs.9.

He says that material goods should be used to cement friendships.

Here he directly applies the heart of the parable.
That unjust manager wanted friends… friends he could count on when unemployed.
Of course it was at the expense of his boss.

And now Jesus says:  But there is a principle there.
                        Use your worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves.

In some ways that seems a shocking thing to say.
Isn’t that like buying someone’s friendship…?
Isn’t that exactly what the Prodigal Son did?
He splashed money around… and while the money lasted he had plenty of friends.
But the day his money ran out, so too did the last of his friends.
Isn’t this idea of “using worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself” a risky business?
To say nothing of the risk of being seen to be buying someone’s friendship?

Some have suggested that what is meant is that we help the underprivileged.
That we support charities and help the needy.
That we use our money to make life more pleasant for other people.
So we’re not buying friends… we’re helping people… and in the process making friends.

But there is more to it than that because Jesus adds:
So that when the money is gone they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.
That unjust manager planned for the day after his last paycheque.
            That’s when he wanted to be welcomed by other people.
            So Jesus has eternity in view… being welcomed by friends into eternal dwellings.

Surely there is no better way for us to use our worldly wealth than for the conversion of others.
Where do material things fit in your life… if you belong to Jesus?
You can put it to no better purpose than to make it possible for others to hear the gospel.
Wonderful when we use our money, our wealth to tell others of the saving work of Jesus.
            Then we are making friends … not just for this life… but for all eternity.

3.         That brings us to the heart of the issue and Jesus’ third lesson: faithfulness.

Being trustworthy!  That is mentioned some half a dozen times in verses 10-12.

We are managers… God has entrusted to us whatever wealth we have.
But the issue is not so much shrewdness as faithfulness.
Okay, we should be much smarter when it comes to the things of God, but are we faithful?
If that unrighteous manager had been faithful he would not have had to be shrewd.

Jesus says that if you’re not faithful in small things you won’t be trusted with big things.

If you can’t be trusted with worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true wealth of the life to come.

And if we’re not faithful with someone else’s property who will give us property of our own.

When it comes to material things then it is as if we who belong to Jesus are on probation.
God wants to see how well you handle what He entrusts to you.  How are you using it?
What you will be given in the life to come is related to how well you do it here and now.

Your faithful management of wealth proves your fitness for handling bigger responsibilities in eternity.
Who knows what the Lord will yet entrust to you in the life to come?
The things you manage here and now are not really yours.
But in heaven you will be given what is eternally yours.
A reward for the way you managed what God entrusted to you in this life.
Let’s be creative and shrewd then in using our wealth and possessions for the glory of Jesus.
And then especially so that others might come to know Him as Saviour and Lord. 

Amen