Let's be Shrewd

Luke 16:1-13

Back when I was in school, we learned all about this thing called the Great Depression. You’ve probably heard of it before. But before there was the Great Depression, there was the Roaring 20’s. This was a time when everything seemed to be going well for just about everybody. World War 1 had just ended, Germany lost and the Allies had won. It was supposed to be the war that would end all wars, but we all know where that went. In the 20s, Americans had money like they never did before. They could afford to buy a personal car like the Model T to take them around town. They could go to the movies for the first time ever. People were able to buy new products that they never could before, like the radio and the refrigerator. Not to mention, this was the advent of the Jazz Age. I don’t know about you, but Jazz music has always seemed to me to be confusing, yet at the same time extremely beautiful. You never know where Jazz music will take you. The culture was changing. People were still shocked from the WW1, but people were also excited to see where life would lead them. They were called the Roaring 20s for a reason. They were awesome.

But that wasn’t all that was going on during the 20s. With this optimism about the future, people also had the opportunity to invest. Europe was war-torn, so American companies exporting to Europe made a fortune, sparking amazing growth. People were able to invest in this booming market, but it didn’t last. The problem was that people were buying on margin as they call it, meaning that they were only paying a fraction of the price that they should be. They would invest some money, and the rest they would borrow from a bank. It worked for a little while, but as Europe needed less resources as they were rebuilding, the market suddenly started to dry up. Add to this the fact that every country started applying taxes on everyone else’s imports, and you had a global disaster. This was bad news. The bubble had to pop. And when to popped, everyone would feel it. On October 24, 1929, the Great Depression hit, and it was terrible for everyone everywhere. The day became known as Black Thursday. The stock prices plummeted, and many people lost everything. But with this came other unintended side-effects. Business started to close, people became unemployed, and many people became homeless. Everyone felt the Depression in some way or another. So many people were out of a job now, and there was no way to make money in this market. The once great Roaring 20s were now gone. It would take over 10 years until the market would start to come back again, and at that point it wasn’t really even until World War Two that the market would be completely back. You see, the issue was that people were being allowed and even encouraged to buy with money that they didn’t have and to invest that. But that didn’t help make money, in the end that just made the market seem like it was better than it actually was. The American people became greedy and invested without really, actually investing in anything. What they were investing in mattered, and because they didn’t know what they were investing in, they didn’t realize that they were actually investing in hardly anything at all.

For us today, there’s some pressure that everyone should invest in something at some point in their lives. People are encouraged to invest in retirement funds and mutual funds. At the very least, people are expected to invest in social security. At most jobs they straight up make you pay into social security. But when you’re investing, you can’t just throw money around, just hoping to make some money. No, when you want to consider investing, you need to do research and make sure that what you’re investing in matters. You need to make sure that you aren’t investing in some shady stocks that are going to go up in smoke overnight. No, you need to invest in a great company that is sure to keep business booming for years. After the Great Depression, the federal government played a major part in making sure that a Great Depression would never happen again. They imposed all kinds of federal institutions and such to make sure that a depression would not happen again. The truth about investing is this: what you invest in matters for your future.

And yet, the most valuable resource that people have is not money of abilities or anything like that. The most valuable resource that people have is time. And every day, you have 24 hours that you can choose to use however you want. 24 hours that can be either invested or wasted. Of course, there are some things that are just for basic maintenance for you. You need to sleep, eat, and shower. And those hours are important, but it’s those hours in between that really make or break your day. Do you work your day away? Do you read and learn all day? Do you just relax? It’s probably a bit of all of these. But there are some things that are really worth your time investing in. I can think of two things that compound over time and keep getting better and better. It’s each of our relationship with God and our relationships with people. After all, Jesus does tell us that the greatest commandment, the greatest principle to live our lives by is to Love God and Love Others. Spending time investing in these relationships will transform our lives in the long run. It’s seeing the big picture, it’s an investment in something eternal, something that won’t ever fade away and something that each of us will never regret investing our time in. Do you have your eye on the big picture? Today, our Scripture will come from Luke 16:1-13. This passage is called the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. This is another one of Jesus’ parables, and I have to admit, it’s not as cut and dry as the Parable of the Lost Sheep from last week. I really struggled with this passage. But through this passage, God reveals to us something really awesome. Starting in Luke 16:1, Luke writes,

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 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 manager any longer.’

3 “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—4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6 “ ‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

7 “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.’

8 “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 kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

10 “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. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

All right, first off, what in the world does the word shrewd even mean? I think that we often mean something negative by the word shrewd. In reality, the word shrewd just means sharp, clever, or cunning. The parable is about a shrewd manager, or a clever manager. Jesus is telling this parable right after the parable of the prodigal son. One of Jesus best parables right next to one of his most confusing. What in the world is going on in this passage? Certainly, Jesus isn’t encouraging us to be like the shrewd manager! Why does Jesus even bother using this guy? Jesus sometimes uses sinful people, like the shrewd manager, to explain the purpose of his parable. The manager was cunning and clever, but he was also dishonest and a weasel. It's not the dishonesty that Jesus wants us to imitate, but the cleverness and cunning of the manager. Let’s break down the passage and understand what’s going on here.

A rich man had a manager to take care of his possessions. The manager was caught misusing master’s funds. So, the rich man did what any reasonable guy would do: he fires him. He tells him to put his things in order and get out, because he had no place in his business. It would have been one thing if the master just decided to kick out his manager for no reason, but he kicked him out because he was not using his funds properly. Okay, that’s fair. Makes sense. It’s terrible that the manager had to lose his job, but the guy deserved it. He’s lucky that the master didn’t throw him in jail. So, the manager is told to finish things up, pack his bags, and leave.

This manager get fired, and what’s the first thing he does? He doesn’t find a new job, he gets crafty. He starts to think about what he should do next, how he can salvage as much as he can from his job. He’s not strong enough to dig and he’s too ashamed to beg. Back in Jesus day, digging was an extremely tough job. I know what it’s like, trust me. In the summers, I work with my dad in his masonry business, and sometimes I have to dig, and let me tell you, it is not a fun time. Digging is back-breaking, tiring work. It is definitely not for everyone. And we also see that the shrewd manager is too ashamed to beg. That’s understandable too. No one who begs should ever really choose begging to be their go-to option. That should be an absolute last resort option for him. But he’s not at his last resort yet. He comes up with an idea on what to do. He comes to his senses, and he decides that while he still has his position as manager, he will leverage his position to make friends for himself, so that when he loses his job, he will have people who will welcome him into their homes. The man was still required to put things in order, so he could mess with his master’s records and probably get away with it. Not to mention, if he got other people involved in his plot, he could imply that they were his accomplices. He could use blackmail against them if all else went wrong. We see that right after this manager gets caught in the act of squandering his master’s money, he goes right back into squandering it some more. What is wrong with this guy? He’s into some really shady business practices here. I don’t know much about financial laws, but I do know that this is the type of stuff that the IRS looks for! He calls the first debtor in and cuts his bill in half. He calls in the second one and took twenty percent off. He does this with all the debtors, making for himself a wide base of friends. Certainly now, after he left the rich man’s property, he would have someone who would help him get back on his feet again. Now, we don’t know what happened to the man. After all, this is only a parable, Jesus used it to explain to people what was going on. But we can assume that in the end, those people were willing to help the shrewd manager because he helped them.

And then we get an even more bizarre thing going on. The master isn’t mad at his manager, apparently, he is impressed that the manager was so shrewd. We read this, and we are waiting on the edge of our seats, ready for the manager to get caught again and finally get what he deserves. The master finds out and we expect him to punish the manager, but that’s not what ends up happening. Yeah, the master just lost a lot of money from his debtors and there was nothing he could do about it now. Nothing would stand up in any court. But it was impressive how fast and quickly the man acted to save his own skin. The man should be on the street begging by now, or at least in a new job somewhere else. But instead, he used his resources available to him and did something even better than getting back his old job: he gained friends. The manager wasn’t commended for his dishonesty and shrewdness, he was commended for his foresight of what really mattered for him: making friends. He realized that for him to be where he wanted to be in the future, what he did right now mattered. This is what impressed the rich man so much, that a man so dishonest was also able to be so clever with his terrible situation.

Jesus ends the parable by saying to his disciples that this shrewd manager understands that he needed to keep his eye on the big picture. But often times, we as disciples do not understand this. Jesus says that people who are trustworthy with little are trustworthy with much, while people who are dishonest with a little are also dishonest with much. I once heard a story about a man who was a teacher. He was a teacher for middle or high school students, I can’t remember. One day, he was walking down the hall and there was a piece of paper on the ground. So he picked it up and threw it away. After all, that was the normal, right thing to do, right? But someone asked him why he would do that. After all, they had a janitor whose job was to clean. The teacher responded that if God can’t trust him to pick up a piece of paper, then how can God trust him to do bigger things? The same is true for us. For us, what we do matters. Is there anything too small or insignificant for us? Jesus says that even offering a cup of water in his name does not go unnoticed. Where do we draw the line? What is too small for God to work through it? As Paul says whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all for the glory of God. It’s like compound interest. Even investing a little when you are young multiplies into much in the long run. God multiplies investing yourself into even the smallest things.

Is it possible for us to be so eager to live in relationship with Jesus as it is for people of the world to be so eager to gain money, resources, and what not? Sometimes we get so caught up in money that we seem to forget about the true riches upon riches that we already have in Jesus! Jesus ends the parable talking about loving God versus loving money. Money is not bad. It’s the love of money that can be bad. It is so easy for us to find our security, our well-being in money. But when we get to that point, we lose God as our sense of security. Nothing else can come before God. God is not a part-time job, God requires our full attention and nothing else can come between us and him as our top priority. I dream of God becoming so necessary for each one of us that he becomes as essential for us as the air we breathe. It’s about relationship, and that relationship with our Creator is like wine. It keeps getting better and better the longer it ferments. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told anyway. I’m still 20 so I’m under the drinking age. Not that I plan on drinking anyway. But is your eye on the big picture with God?

The shrewd manager thought that he could weasel his way into forcing people to become his friends. For us, we don’t need to force our way into a home. Using what we have been given wisely, Jesus welcomes us into eternal homes, an eternal dwelling. This man was dishonest, yet he knew how to use what was entrusted to him to serve a bigger purpose. How much more must we see what we are entrusted with to serve a larger purpose? What if we start using our resources not as merely resources to hoard, but as responsibilities to use to advance the kingdom of God? Can we see the big picture not just in our relationship with God, but also in our relationships with other people. James gets it. He writes in James 2:14-26,

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” a and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

James realized that as God’s people, we are justified by faith through grace. It’s never us who gets ourselves saved. But he also realized that we needed to become good stewards with our resources, what we’ve been entrusted with. It’s not enough simply to have faith, we have to do something about it. This faith is the faith that radically changes our lives. It shapes us from the inside out, it transforms how we live life. What I’m saying is to be good steward, a good manager with what God has given us, we have to be shrewd also! I mean that we have to get crafty with what God’s given us! The shrewd manager was crafty and cunning so that he could gain something personal for him, let’s be cunning and crafty with what we’ve been given so that we can help others gain something! We’ve each been given the ability to live in relationship with God, and we can share that with others. This is the big picture that we need to have for people! God has radically changed our lives, and he can change more too! My pastor always used to say that in the end, all that will matter is two things: who did you love and who loved you. The eternal riches that we take to heaven are not just some material things like money or skills or abilities. The true treasure that we bring with us to heaven is people. Who are you going to spend eternity with? Last week I was talking about what it was like to be a lost sheep. And you know what? There are other sheep out there too! There are still others who can meet Jesus! They are the true reward that we will have in heaven. We can each play a part in bringing people to Jesus, showing them that they can become a part of the eternal dwelling also. We’re looking at investing. So we need the big picture. See the big picture with God and the big picture with people. Invest in something that truly matters.

As the children of God, we sometimes lose perspective on what really matters. It is so easy to become wrapped up into the things of this world, to only see the next few days ahead of us. We become so worried by bills, by where we will eat next, by who we will spend time with these next few days. But let us remember the bigger picture also. Let’s broaden our horizons. Just a few months ago, we celebrated on Easter that Jesus was alive! Jesus didn’t just die, Jesus was raised to life, showing that not even death could hold him back. There is so much amazement and wonder when we say the words He is Risen! But do we sometimes lose this wonder and joy? Let’s remember today what it means for us that Jesus truly is risen from the dead, that he is alive! Let’s become aware of what we’re investing our time and resources into. During the Great Depression, the people didn’t know what they were investing in. They were throwing their resources at an invisible bubble that was going to pop sooner or later. They were blindly flushing money down the drain. We need to become aware of how we spend our most valuable resource, our time. What we do, everything we do, matters. No matter how large or small, even a cup of water or a paper picked up off the floor is noticed by God. And we have a responsibility to do great things with this great news that we have. Let’s get crafty, let’s get cunning, let’s get shrewd. Let’s figure out new ways to share the gospel story that Jesus is alive! Let’s keep our eyes on the biggest picture, our relationships with God and our relationships with people. Let’s be aware that it’s important for us to act with what we have! James tells us that faith without deeds is dead. I invite God today to resurrect our faith today, to make our faith not a dead faith, but an alive faith, a faith that embodies Jesus in everything we do, a faith that refreshes our souls and shows others that Jesus can quench their thirst for something real, something tangible. Let’s invest in something worthwhile. Let’s go do something great with what we’ve been given, bringing others into this great story and following God every step of the way.