Dishonest to Shrewd (2)

Pastoral Greeting

Communion

Pastoral Prayer

God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I start my prayer today we the words that we normally this prayer time with. “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever”. Lord we just remember that we participate in your kingdom and not the other way around. We are in awe of your power and not our power, and help us to give you glory, rather than keeping glory for ourselves. O God comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable among us that all might get a glimpse of your kingdom, your power, and your glory. We confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have mismanaged your love and we have rebelled against your love, Forgive us, we pray. Free for joyful obedience through your son Jesus Christ.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

O God we pray for those of us that are celebrating today. Whether we are celebrating the weather, or some type of milestones, or we are just celebrating being able to gather together with others. God we just give you thanks and praise in the midst of the moments that are bringing us joy right now.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

We pray for those of us lamenting and grieving. Grieving the death of a loved one, grieving opportunities that were lost, and grieving loss of connection with others and with you.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

Lord we lift the young people in our church and in our life. I lift up specifically those young people in Sunday school at our church this morning, the group of confirmands that were confirmed last week in our church, and I lift up those that are connected to our youth here. God I pray that your spirit might equip, encourage, and empower our young people. In all of their may they not only find knowledge but also wisdom (applied knowledge).

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

Lord we pray for those that are ill, and injured. So often we are reminder of our own mortal bodies. We pray for health care workers that are caring for the sick. Lord God we remember the many people in our community still battling covid 19. We pray for healing for physical healing, and also for spiritual healing.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

God as we remember your upside down kingdom I am reminder of the kingdoms and powers that we are a part of. I pray for the leaders of our city, state, and national government offices. God whether they are the candidates we like or the ones that we don’t like God would they be led by you. Would they be led by your spirit of compassion, and by your grace that is freely offered. We also raise to you the delegations and leaders within our church, our church conference, our bishops, and our general conference. Lord God would we be obedient to your kingdom and not our own.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

God I pray for us as a church that we might be drawn together in unity. That the thing that identifies the churches in our community might be a love of you and a love of neighbor. Remind us of that when we fall astray. Challenge us to think about who our neighbors are when we get too comfortable, and lead by your sprit and for your kingdom into the next chapter of our Church’s life.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

Lord God we pray ahead of time for the feast, the meal, the celebration of communion that we will have later in this service. God we pray that we might be more and more aware of your grace each day of our lives.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

PRAYING SILENTLY FOR OUR OWN STUFF

Lord in your mercy; Hear our Prayer

O good Jesus, hear us. Within your wounds, hide us. Suffer us not to be separated from you. From the malicious enemy, defend us. At the hour of our death, call us and bid us come unto thee that with thy saints we may praise thee for ever and ever. As we join the saints that have gone before us in praying the prayer which you have taught us either from memory or from reading off the screens as we say.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

Transition Piece

Celebration

21 high school freshmen and sophomores

Offering

In the upside down kingdom money gets flipped around

Time and time again people in the Bible start with an attitude of obligation, to an attitude of thankfulness. I think you will see that in the parable for todays scripture as well that in continuing the theme from last week that the Upside Down kingdom changes how we understand riches.

Sermon Intro

Recap

Thus far in the series we have gotten part way through the Gospel of Luke and we have seen this theme of reversals of what we would expect

Blessed are the poor and woe to you who are rich

Last week pastor Angie talked a little bit more about the ways that the kingdom of God has turned riches upside down

This theme of reversals is so key to our understanding of Luke

It is in the reversals that Luke is trying to make a point.

Pray

Intro to Scripture

Scripture

What is the strangest part of this scripture for you?

Luke 16:1–9 NRSV

1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

Recap of Scripture

Owner, manager, debtors

Owner - wants to be happy, he thinks that he can do that by making money for himself

Manager - wants to manage the Owner’s money in such a way that he too makes money.He wants to do a good job, because who doesn't, but he is also paid on commission.

Debtors - want to be debt free, or at the very least they want to be financially on top of their debt

Those things can’t all happen -

Or can they?

This manager is put in an interesting position - he is a steward which is the same word for manager, this is quite literally where we get the word stewardship from

He is a manager

Stewardship means that you are handling someone else’s resources

Shrewdness is different than dishonesty

shrewd means prudent, wise, sensible, practical, pragmatic, sensibly

Tricksters are a type of character that uses their wits to overcome someone else. The Bible is full of Tricksters

David defeats Goliath a totally unforeseen victory but it is because he is able to use the resources that he has really well.

Jacob is able to trick Isaac in to giving him the birthright that was owed to his brother

These are all people who manage to use the resources that they have to stand against a power that is much greater than them.

In essence they are not knivers. They are not shady people. They use their resources to overcome incredible odds.

Stories of tricksters like this teach us to stand against the systems and powers that be in creative ways.

Bart Simpson

Tom Sawyer

Jack Sparrow

Stories of tricksters like this teach us to stand against the systems and powers that be in creative ways.

Tricksters are wise and they break the rules because they understand the rules

They are shrewd they are not dishonest

clever steward - how clever is it that you saved your self by saving others

When we are shrewd clever, practical, we are not being dishonest

dishonest is only in connection with wealth

Whenever the person is dishonest it is dishonest with wealth, not with his relationships

So this manager is not dishonest they are incredibly wise

They are not a bad steward or perhaps they started out the story as a bad steward, but they certainly don’t end the story as a bad steward.

Instead of just accepting things the way that they were, the steward decides that he is in a desperate situation with limited resources to take a risk.

He find a way to accomplish every goal without disappointing any of them

The owner is happy and celebrates the managers work. And the owner has restored the relationship with the debtors.

The Manager who wants to please both the owner and the debtors finds a way to do that.

The debtors the people that are most on the margins in this story the outsiders the one’s that don’t talk about enough, are freed from their debt

Think about how cool that is. I wonder if they went on from their to forgive others of their debts. I wonder if that changed them in some way

All the people “won” from this generosity

Everybody wins with generosity

This is in fact on of the most upside down passages. A rich person is happy with having less, a person who should be punished is commended. A lot of people who should be in debt are not. And all of that because of one person’s generosity.

Now before I dive too much into this I want to explore the opposite of this

Selfishness is beneficial only to some

If the manager had solved the problem and gotten the money that was owed he wouldn’t have solved many of the problems.

There is a sense in which I am giving something up to be a Christian....

There is a sense in which I am volunteering my time to the church

There is a sense that I am giving up my financial resources to

But the fact of the matter is we aren’t giving up anything. We are participating in something that is so much bigger than us.

It is not an either or

either we are happy and get to enjoy the things of this world

or we are disciplined and obey God and do the boring church thing

The kingdom of God is a both/and

Where both the giver and the receiver are blessed

Old hierarchies are overturned and surprising friendships are established.

Either we have money and hapiness, we are a good parent or we are a good disciple, we have a lot of money or we don't, either black lives matter to us or all lives matter to us, but truly the upside down kingdom invites us to thread the needle as delicately and intensly as the manager does.

And then maybe the things that took me aback the most is the last sentence of this scripture

Luke 16:9 NRSV

9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

The passage was about money but it wasn’t just about money

One of Pastor Angie’s sermon points last week was the Money is always about more than money” and in this parable we know that is true

This is about God’s grace - once we grasp the economy of money God is talking about we can continue to grasp the economy of Grace that Jesus is talking about

Prevenient

Justifying

Sanctifying

How do you manage God’s Grace?

THE GREAT THANKSGIVING

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

(Pastor speaks.) And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. Amen.

Description of how to partake

Prayer after communion

Having partaken in the body and blood of Christ may we be the body of Christ redeemed by his blood. Amen.

Benediction