Trinity 9

Text: “13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13).

The parable that Jesus tells here in Luke 16 has perplexed many people throughout the years. A servant cheats his master and Jesus commends him for it? You’re used to a Jesus who says, “Yes, I know that you know it’s wrong to murder. But don’t you realize that hating your neighbor makes you guilty of murder?” You’re used to a Jesus who is raising the bar; who is demanding more; not one who sounds like He’s saying, “Ehh, just go ahead. It’s alright.” So what’s going on here?

I think it’s helpful to start at the end here and work our way back to the parable. Rather than try to understand the parable, then make it work with, “No servant can serve two masters…,” Let’s start there and work backwards.

The bottom line in this passage is, “13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13). That is what this whole passage is about. You cannot serve both God and money.

Or, let’s use the “TLH word”: You cannot serve both God and mammon. Jesus did not actually say ‘money’. He did not say ‘gold’ or ‘silver’. He is talking about ‘wealth’. Money, goods, property, all of it. Let’s face it, if any generation of Christians ever needed to hear Jesus’ warning about wealth, it’s us, isn’t it?

That is the starting point for the parable. You can not love both God and mammon. You will end up loving one and hating the other. You will end up devoted to one and despising the other.

So we have to ask the question: Which one is more intrinsically part of your life? Which one could you do without?

For most of the 2,000 years since our Lord walked the earth, there has been a segment of Christians who gave up everything and went to live by themselves in the wilderness. They were known as aescetics. Think John the Baptist. He lived in the wilderness, wore a garment of camel’s hair, and ate what he could gather and forage around him. In some cases, these were Christians who had been born into great wealth. They gave it up to go live in a cave. Now, there are some problems there. The idea that that is a ‘holier’ Christian life is wrong. But the fact that that sort of lifestyle is so completely foreign to our faith should give pause.

Because you cannot serve both God and mammon.

Those are pretty crude ways of measuring, but they get to the point fairly well: who do you and I serve?

Well, would it be easier to give up your Bible or your iPad? Would it be easier to go without Holy Communion or to stop going out for brunch after church? Who do you and I truly love— God or our your wealth? Is serving and volunteering here at church a distraction from your life or is it simply part of it?

Who are you really devoted to? Who do you really love? And who do you hate?

That is the starting point for understanding this parable.

That steward got very generous. But it was for purely selfish reasons. He wasn’t strong enough to dig ditches for a living. He was too proud to beg. So he gave away the master’s money by canceling debts. He tried to win friends for himself that way, hoping the master wouldn’t notice.

He was shrewd. He gave to others because he was lazy and arrogant. If he had reason to be generous, don’t you have even more?

You and I live in a culture that understands that it is good to be generous. Not too long ago, it became very popular to “pay it forward.” You’re in line at the coffee shop or at the drive through window at the burger place and you pay for the person behind you. There is some part of us that knows generosity is a virtue. And if the unbelievers in our culture have reason to be generous so that they can post it on social media and show everyone how generous they are, don’t you have even more?

That is what Jesus is commending. That shrewd manager did a good thing for the wrong reasons. Our culture does a good thing for the wrong reasons. And they show that they are more shrewd in dealing with each other than you and I, who are God’s children.

If they had reason to be generous for selfish reasons, don’t you have far, far more?

The manager was hoping that the master wouldn’t notice—at least until he found another job. He was taking a tremendous risk. He hoped that somehow his generosity would secure his future.

You don’t have to hope.

You know your Master’s heart.

You know what kind of Master you have.

You have a Master who did not merely cancel a hundred measures of oil or twenty measures of wheat. He canceled a debt that you could never repay. Every selfish choice. Every time you loved comfort more than Christ. Every time you served mammon instead of God. Every sin that stood against you was laid upon His own Son.

Your Master did not become poor because someone cheated Him. He became poor willingly. “Though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich.”

That is the difference.

The steward gave away someone else’s wealth to secure his own future.

Christ gave away His own life to secure yours.

Your future is no longer uncertain. Your inheritance is no longer in doubt. Your Father has already given you the kingdom.

So what is all this wealth for now?

Not to buy your security. Christ has already done that.

Not to prove your worth. Christ has already declared you righteous.

Not even merely to make your life more comfortable.

Your Father has entrusted these things to you so that, through you, His generosity may overflow to others.

Now your home becomes a place of hospitality. Your table becomes a place where others are welcomed. Your money becomes a way to care for those in need. Your time becomes an opportunity to serve. Your possessions become tools for loving your neighbor. They are no longer your master. They have become your servant.

And that is precisely what Jesus is commending.

If a dishonest manager could use wealth so freely for selfish reasons, how much more should the children of God use it freely because they already possess every treasure in Christ?

You cannot serve both God and mammon.

But when God is your Master, mammon no longer is.

It becomes another gift from your Father’s hand—a gift to receive with thanksgiving, a gift to hold with open hands, and a gift to use in love until the day when all the riches of this world have passed away, and only the riches of Christ remain.