Text: Luke 16:1-18
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,” heard our Lord’s parables, “and they ridiculed Him.” This mockery of Jesus came on the heels of His remarkable story, “The Dishonest Manager.” Jesus was using a tale about a “lover of money” – just like them – to teach about God’s kingdom and the forgiveness of sins. They missed the entire point. And this is exactly how it is that skeptics claim that they don’t understand Christianity, or that Jesus talks in riddles, or that they can’t believe the Scriptures because they were written in dead languages and mistranslated. This is all nonsense. The real problem is a stubborn attachment to an idol. But they want us to think of them as sophisticated and shrewd.
The Pharisees idolized money and political clout, and they perverted the Law to run their particular grift. But there are many other idols besides money. Our sinful nature loves personal attention (just like the Pharisees). The proud flesh doesn’t want a handout from God, but desires the admiration of people. It craves “followers” and “views.” It wants acceptance from society. It wants to be seen as powerful, not needy. And we all have an inner Pharisee in our flesh strutting around and worshiping idols as well.
But Jesus demonstrates how we Pharisees and lovers of money are saved, doing so by means of this parable. We are redeemed through debt forgiveness. For this is a concept that a dishonest person can actually understand. It is essentially a bribe based on stolen money. For there is a parallel in the kingdom of God. Our debts are paid by someone else’s blood, namely Jesus. It is undeserved wealth. We receive the bounty of that which we did not earn.
In the case of the kingdom, this unearned wealth is offered by God in love, and not taken by us by means of theft (as in the story). But the resulting grace is the same. For in the kingdom, we see grifters and thieves repent and come to faith. We see tax collectors and prostitutes leaving behind their idols to follow Jesus. The respectable Pharisees mock Jesus and His motley gang of misfits. But that is what the church is. For God has been shrewd in tearing up the invoice and giving us what we did not earn. Indeed, grace is something to be mocked when your God is money and respectability.
Though they mock Jesus, we know that “God is not mocked” (Gal 6:7). They are themselves fools who are shrewd only “in dealing with their own generation” rather than being shrewd as “sons of light” in eternity. Mocking Jesus and pretending not to understand the kingdom so as to continue serving idols is the very opposite of shrewdness. Jesus says as much when He responds to their mockery: “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
To be shrewd in God’s kingdom, dear friends, is to audaciously and joyfully receive the gift of grace, of the forgiveness of sins, of the cancellation of our debts. It is to put the kingdom of God and His righteousness first (Matt 6:33), and all other things will follow. For it is in receiving this payment made in blood – the sacrifice of Jesus Himself – that causes the Master to commend us for our eternal shrewdness.
Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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