Investing in the Future

Getting Even: The Steward’s Wisdom

Sometimes Jesus says things that make people squirm. We often laugh when the people squirming are safely inside the story. When Jesus makes the disciples, or the Sadducees, or Pharisees uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but making us uncomfortable is quite another thing. And the parable before us today is one that has, for a long time, made many Christians uncomfortable:

He said to the disciples, “There was a certain rich man who had a manager of his estate. The manager had charges brought against him to his boss, that the manager had been wasting all of the man’s possessions. So he summoned him and said, ‘What is this I’m hearing about you? Give back the things of your manager-ship, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

And the estate manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, because my Lord took the job away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do, so when I am fired from being estate manager, people will take me into their homes.’

So, calling each of his master’s debtors to himself, he said to the first one, ‘What do you owe to my Lord?” He said, ‘100 measures of olive oil.’ Then he said to him, ‘Take your papers, sit down quickly and write 50.’

I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I’ll do, so when I am fired from being estate manager, people will take me into their homes.’

To another one he said, ‘Now, how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘100 bushels of grain.’ So the man says to him, ‘Take your papers and write 80.’

And the Lord praised the unrighteous servant, because he acted wisely. Because the sons of this age are wiser to those among their own generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, Make friends for yourselves from unrighteous money, because when it is gone they will welcome you into the eternal tabernacles.

The one who is faithful in little is also faithful in much, and the one who is unrighteous in little is also unrighteous in much. Therefore, if you are not faithful with unrighteous money, Who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you are not faithful with another’s things, Who will will give your own things to you?

No slave can serve two Lords. For he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Did Jesus really just commend someone for cheating their way through life? Did Jesus really just tell us to be like this guy? What is going on here? The manager, knowing he was about to be fired, decided to get even with his boss while he could. Some interpreters have tried to downplay the story by suggesting that the manager was really only letting the debtors knock off his commission price, or maybe he was lowering the interest rates on their loans. That certainly would make this passage a lot easier to to take, but unfortunately that is reading too much into the text. There is no indication that the manager is just giving up his commission. There is no evidence that he was simply removing interest. These sums are too large to be a commission for an estate manager, and no one, even in that time, was paying 20%-50% interest on a loan.

These interpretations are ways of getting away with the uncomfortable reality that Jesus just commended the actions of a crook. But perhaps we should take Jesus at his word when he tells us, flat out, that this is an unrighteous person. Verse 8 says, “The Lord praised the unrighteous manager”. We should also note that there is no indication that the charges brought against the manager were false. He was, as far as we know, really being wasteful and deceptive with his boss’s money.

But those aren’t the actions Jesus is commending. He isn’t telling us to emulate the deceitfulness or dishonesty of this manager. He is simply commending the man’s wisdom and shrewdness. As we have seen all throughout scripture, from Abraham, to David, to this manager, we can learn important lessons even from imperfect people.

So what was so wise about what the man did? Didn’t he run the risk of his master throwing him in jail? Today, if someone tried to change a loan agreement who didn’t have the authority to, that would just be too bad for the debtor. The new agreement would be null and void, and the person who tried to pull one over on their boss would be thrown in jail. In Jesus’s day, however, shame and honor in the community were much more important. If the manager’s boss had tried to go back on the new agreements, he’d be seen as stingy, and his reputation would have suffered. So he had little choice, if he cared about his reputation, to accept the new agreements. The manager would also have gained favor in doing this, and that meant he’d have friends in high places to help him whenever he lost his job.

He knew his time as manager was quickly coming to a close, and the money he had control over would soon disappear. So he made use of it while he could, before it was all gone. It is that wisdom that Jesus commends.

Two Types of Children

Wisdom, which it seems, Jesus wishes more people would emulate! There are two types of children according to Jesus: children of this age, and children of light. The children of this age are the ones like the unrighteous manager. They always have their own best interest in mind. “Wisdom” for these people means doing what has the best outcome for me. When the manager gives people a discount on their loans it is not out of the goodness of his heart. He hopes to gain something from it!

The Essenes were a community of Jews who had left Jerusalem to form their own walled in community in the dessert. They believed that the

The Bible often makes a distinction between this kind of “worldly wisdom” and “true wisdom”. For example, the serpent in the garden is called “wise”, and even the Pharaoh in Exodus is said to be “wise”. This kind of wisdom is actually very short-sighted. The things gained by people like this manager, the serpent, or the Pharaoh may be nice now, but they all fade away after death. Even more than that, this kind of short sighted “worldly wisdom” often leaves to chaos even in the our own lifetimes.

Sons of light are Essenes: Money stays in community

“True wisdom”, on the other hand, has the long term in mind. This is the wisdom that comes when we imitate God, and it has long term effects. It may not have all of the quick effects of “worldly wisdom”, but true wisdom always wins in the end.

Money should go to poor

And yet, Jesus tells us that people like this unrighteous manager are often wiser than the “children of light”. Why? Most likely, Jesus had a group of people called the Essenes in mind as he told this parable. The Essenes were a group of Jews during Jesus’s time that had moved out of Jerusalem into the dessert. They believed the temple, with all of the Sadduccees running it, had become corrupt. They felt it was better to be a holy community all by themselves out in the wilderness than to participate in this corrupt temple. They would often refer to themselves as the “sons of light”, and they railed against the people in Jerusalem who were tied to “unrighteous money”. It’s easy to see that Jesus had them in mind.

Compare with Rich man and Lazarus

But there was an important difference between the Essenes and Jesus. The Essenes had become isolationists. When someone wanted to join the Essene community, the Essenes would take all of their money and forbid anyone from doing business with anyone outside the community. They hoarded money and only cared about those inside their community. Unlike the unrighteous manager, the Essenes would have refused to have any dealings at all with the rich man’s debtors. In contrast, Jesus urges us to use the dishonest wealth. He tells us it is wiser to make friends with “unrighteous money” than it is to hoard it all.

This is why the “children of this age” are wiser than the “children of light”. The children of this age, at the very least, have worldly wisdom. Their gains may only be temporary, but at least they gain something. The children of light, however, know that an accounting is coming. They know that they won’t always have the money, and yet they hold onto it as if their life depended on it! They berate others for their ties to “unrighteous money”, and yet they seem so tied to their own wealth. In other words, the “children of light” have neither worldly wisdom nor true wisdom on their side.

Investing in Your Future

So this parable is really a call to make wise investments. If we, like the Essenes, know that an accounting is coming, and that what we have won’t really be ours for long, the truly wise thing to do is to invest it in eternity. The Essenes thought that the use of “unrighteous money” was foolish and wrong. Even more foolish, says Jesus, is not to use all of our resources, including our finances, to prepare for the day of Judgement.

The children of this age are very wise when it comes to his kind of investing. They know the payoffs and the consequences of certain actions. The unrighteous manage knew that his master wouldn’t punish him, for example, because he would lose face in the community. Likewise, children of this age know how to game the system to ensure the stability of their financial future. They make plans for themselves and their families, for retirement and even beyond.

The children of light, on the other hand, do not measure up in wisdom compared to the children of this age. Though they supposedly know the rewards and consequences for their actions, they don’t seem to take advantage of this knowledge. Though they supposedly know that they are in a crisis situation with the day of judgement fast approaching, they don’t seem to take this reality at all seriously. They don’t have worldly wisdom, and decry people who are attached to “unrighteous money”, and yet they also lack heavenly wisdom, as they choose not to use their own unrighteous money in a righteous way.

Wisdom always has a mind toward the future. For children of this age, that means saving for retirements,

Sell all that You Have

But what does it mean to use “unrighteous money” in a way that is pleasing to God? Clearly this does not mean, as the Essenes thought it did, to hoard all of our money in one place and refuse to do business with “worldly” people. Instead, Jesus urges us to use our finances to make friends. It is safe to assume, given the context, that by “friends”, Jesus had in mind people like Lazarus. If you haven’t noticed it yet, these past three parables we’ve looked at all happen right next to one another in Luke’s gospel. Jesus, eating with sinners and inviting the poor and sick to dinner, is confronted by the Pharisees, who don’t seem to agree with Jesus. First, he tells them the parable of the prodigal son, to show that God’s love is great enough not only for the “righteous” like them, but also for the “sinners” that he is serving. Then he tells them this parable, to show that true wisdom comes from using all of our resources, even “unrighteous money”, to serve God. Finally, he tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in order to show the Pharisees what serving God means: namely to help the poor, which they ridiculed him for doing!

A- Getting even: the Steward’s Wisdom

[and]

B- Two Types of Children

As Jesus pointed out, the scriptures talk a great deal about God’s love for the poor. The Pharisees, however, didn’t seem to get it. Yet, isn’t the same true for us? We read words like this, “You cannot serve God and Money,” and squirm our way out of the clear meaning of the text. We get terribly uncomfortable when the Lord says to a certain wealthy gentleman, “Sell all that you have and give it to the poor. Then follow me.” We sweat profusely as Jesus commands his followers, “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

[therefore]

C- Investing in Your Future

[but]

It is really very impressive the numerous ways Christians throughout the years have tried to avoid the plain meaning of Jesus’s words here. Just like the Pharisees and the Essenes, we’ll do anything to avoid being confronted by God’s Word. Soren Kierkegaard has some wisdom to offer here. He says,

D- Sell all that you have

The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?

F-

So, Jesus, do you really want us to sell everything and give to the poor? What are we to take away from this parable of the unrighteous manager? If we get very uncomfortable at the thought that God may actually want us to give up everything for the poor, then perhaps we need to sit a little longer with Jesus’s words. “You cannot serve God and money.” More than that, we should perhaps sit with the idea that Jesus calls all money, “unrighteous.” Why? Because none of the things we have are really ours at all. God has given us this whole world. This whole world belongs to him. “Your” money, “your” house, “your” car, all of it belong to God. And if we are not faithful with what belongs to another, who will ever give us anything to call our own?

We have been given so much that isn’t really ours, and God expects us to be faithful with that “unrighteous wealth”. To be faithful to him, to use these worldly things to care for God’s people, and especially for the poor.

“But do I have to sell everything? Does Jesus really mean that?” Yes and no. It should be noted that the Greek word for “possessions” here typically doesn’t include the things you need to live, like your food, your house, etc. It’s all the extra that you don’t need. And, common sense would tell us, that people like Paul, Peter, and James had to have enough to eat, and a place to sleep. Though we know that the early church in Acts sold their possessions and gave to the poor, we also know that they still had houses and had enough to feed themselves and any visitors that may show up. So selling everything and using “unrighteous money” to make friends may not be quite as extreme as a literal reading might imply.

But it is certainly more extreme than we would like it to be. If we cannot serve God and money, then how we use our money must say a lot about the state of our discipleship to Jesus. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I have to think Jesus really meant those words. So maybe “sell all your possessions and give to the poor” doesn’t mean “sell your only car that you have to have to get to work,” or “sell the only house you have,” or even “sell all your blue jeans.”

But it does mean, “sell that extra TV you have and give the money to the poor.” It does mean “take that extra winter jacket you’ve got and give it to someone who doesn’t have even one winter coat.” It means that when I think about buying a second car, maybe I should ask, “who doesn’t have even one car?” It might not mean “don’t have a car, period,” but perhaps Jesus does mean, “you don’t need a new car, the old one you have works just fine. Take that money, and give it to the poor.”

Our society is obsessed with luxury and comfort. The world would suggest that these things are the ultimate goal in life. But we know that isn’t true. We know that these worldly things will soon pass away, but that treasures stored up in heaven are eternal. Perhaps it is time we really acted like it.

And if all of this makes you squirm in your seat, and feel very uncomfortable, that’s good. We should all feel uncomfortable. That is precisely what Jesus intended.