Sermon: Trinity 9 - 2019

18 August 2019

Text: Luke 16:1-13

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Our Lord’s story of the Dishonest Manager is sometimes difficult for people to understand.  For why would Jesus seem to be praising a crook, a dishonest manager who is ripping off his employer to save his own skin?

Well, that doesn’t seem right!

But, of course, Jesus is not praising dishonesty or shoddy management.  He is praising the idea of “shrewdness.”  To be shrewd is to be wise, to think outside the box.  In our story, the dishonest manager is a deal-maker, a negotiator.  He understands his clients; he knows their psychology.  He quickly sizes up what makes them tick.

Now, the manager could have been using his brilliance as a negotiator to faithfully serve his master all along, but instead he was wasteful with what the master trusted him with.  He was probably lazy in his work.  Serving his master just wasn’t a priority.  He was not motivated to do the best job that he could do.  And perhaps this slack attitude led to his downfall.  Maybe he thought too highly of himself to even think that his boss would dare fire him.

But this is just what happened.  He found out that he was being laid off.  “Turn in the account of your management,” says the master, “for you can no longer be manager.”  

This is a very serious matter.  He was looking at financial ruin.  “What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me?  I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.”

And so now that the chips are down, the manager suddenly finds his motivation and energy.  He becomes a wheeling and dealing superman, offering incentives to his clients to get them to close the deals and put money in the master’s account.

The manager isn’t suddenly honest, but he is suddenly acting in his own self-interest instead of simply squandering his gifts and talents.  And even though he is ripping off the business owner, the boss is amazed. Our Lord’s listener can practically see the master shaking his head in disbelief at the sheer audacity of his employee.

For the dishonest manager took the initiative to renegotiate a flurry of contracts with his master’s debtors.  And in so doing, the dishonest manager believed that he was making valuable business contacts so that when he did get laid off, he could lean on his new friends, and hopefully everything would turn out right.  Maybe one of his new friends would give him a job.

He is brash and bold, and the boss watching this play out in amazement.

Of course, had our dishonest manager just been honest all along, had he been diligent and hard-working in the first place, had he not taken his job for granted, had he not been wasteful - he may not have been in this desperate situation at all.

Indeed, the best solution to getting fired is to not get fired in the first place.  And while the master commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness, he could have been still more shrewd by combining his talents with integrity.  And in making his boss a lot of money, he would have made a good living, and made himself indispensable in the process.

This is indeed a great lesson.  But our Lord is not giving work tips or life-skills advice.  This parable is not a crash-course in marketing or business administration or negotiation.  

Think about when you are the most spiritually motivated, dear brothers and sisters.  When are you eager to pray, to come to church to hear God’s Word, to receive the holy sacraments?  Is it when things are going well, or when the chips are down?  Are you serving your Lord and your neighbor in times of prosperity, or are you rather on your knees in prayer when you are worried, or afraid, or when you have gotten bad news.

We are all like the dishonest manager because we are motivated best when we are in some kind of danger.  And sometimes the Lord gets our attention, not to scare us, but rather to draw us closer to Him.  It is our sinful nature to take the Gospel for granted, to squander what the Lord gives us, to be poor stewards of what we have been entrusted with.  And that sinful nature is why Jesus took flesh, and it is why we are here.

But thanks be to God that Jesus is not lazy.  Jesus is truly shrewd, for he lures in our enemy the devil at the cross, and there, our Lord renegotiates our debts with God Himself.  Jesus is audacious and shrewd beyond measure – not as a dishonest manager, but rather as a faithful Savior.  And when it comes to the debt of our sins, He pays it with His own blood.  The bill is torn up.  He doesn’t merely have us pay half or knock twenty percent off, but rather cancels our debt entirely.  And He is authorized to do so by the Father.

Our Lord encourages us to be shrewd for the sake of the kingdom.  He tells us: “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.”  We should be shrewdly looking for ways to serve the kingdom, to draw people into the faith for the sake of salvation, to serve the Lord and His kingdom in good times and in bad times – not ignoring Him in the good times, and not making promises that we can’t keep in the bad times.

If we are grateful, we will be eager to serve the kingdom – with our time, our talent, and our treasure.  If we are shrewd, we will wisely receive the Lord’s gifts whenever they are offered, and not try to cut a better deal.  For the deal that the Lord offers us is already perfect: He exchanges our sins for his righteousness.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us be grateful!  Let us be shrewd!  Let us not take the gift of eternal life for granted.  Let us thank our Triune God for His undeserved mercy and grace.  Let us never serve two masters, but rather let us be eager to serve the Lord in His kingdom, in season and out of season.  For even when unrighteous wealth fails, our Lord’s blood does not.  And by His blood, we are received into eternal dwellings!  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.