Dear
Friend, grace and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord
and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. Amen.
Today
we conclude our brief series on “Jesus, said
what?… Outrageous Teachings.” In today’s Gospel
Jesus has praise for an outrageous scoundrel. So let’s see if we
can find out what He’s trying to say here.
There
was a rich man who had a manager who was cooking the books - lining his
own pockets at the rich man's expense. So the rich man gave this
rascal his pink slip. The soon-to-be jobless manager was
mortified. He said to himself, "What'll
I do?… I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to
beg." And then this unscrupulous manager hatched a
plan. He decided to use his remaining time to make a few friends.
Summoning the people one by one who owed the rich man money, he asked
the first, "How much do you owe my
boss?" "A hundred jugs of olive oil," was
the answer. "Make it fifty," said
the manager.
I can
see him rubbing his hands together with glee and avarice. This is
a good example of why some employees should not be given two weeks
notice. Some should be sent packing immediately. Then he
asked another of his boss' creditors, "And
how much do you owe?" He replied, "A
hundred containers of wheat." The manager said,
"Make it eighty."
Now
here's the outrageous conclusion of this parable: According to
Jesus, the rich man commended this dishonest manager because of his
actions. Then Jesus added these interesting words: "For
the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own
generation than are the children of light."
This is
disturbing - truly outrageous. Jesus, in effect, praised a
dishonest man. What in the world could this mean? What is He
trying to say?
First
of all we must understand that Jesus is not praising the man's
dishonesty. We don't need any more dishonest business people or
dishonest lawyers, or dishonest doctors or dishonest clergy or whatever
the profession may be. Everyone loses when people cheat.
Jesus
wasn't praising the man's dishonesty. Jesus was praising this
man's willingness to act. He was about to lose his job. He
was "not strong enough to dig, and… ashamed
to beg." What was he going to do? Well, let’s
look at what he could have done?
First,
he could have done nothing. He could have sat around,
wringing his hands, whining, "Oh, I am so
unfortunate. Woe is me. I never get any breaks."
Many people react to hardship this way.
One
guy, from personal experience, described how some people react to the
loss of a job:
Stage
one: I'll make a few phone calls and be working in no time.
Stage
two: None of these jobs in the paper are good enough for me.
Now that I've stopped shaving, maybe I'll just stop bathing too.
Stage
three: Gee, I'm not qualified for any of these jobs, but the house
sure is clean.
Stage
four: Maybe I'll try a whole new career. I wonder who's on "Oprah"
today? I've got to put something on my unemployment claim this
week.
Stage
five: The capitalist running dogs want me to fight for their filthy
money? I'm going to weave hats out of palm fronds and sell them on
the beach. I won't participate in this sublimation of true human
needs.
Stage
six: "You'll pay how much? Well,
I've always enjoyed being part of a team!"
The
dishonest manager could have gone home and spent his days watching TV.
He could have waited for someone to give him a break. That's the
first thing he could have done - nothing.
The
second thing he could have done was ask God to solve his problem for
him. You know it sounds so pious to say, "I'm
just going to pray about this, and if God wants me to work, God will
provide a job." It sounds like such a nice, religious
idea - waiting for God to provide our need. But it can also be an
evasion of responsibility. And as such, it can be deadly
personally, professionally and spiritually.
It's
very much like saying, "If God wants me to
lose weight, God will keep me from desiring ice cream."
Or, better yet, "If God doesn't want me to
stop at ‘Krispy-Kreme,’ there won't be a parking place out front
when I drive by." One guy prayed that prayer, and as
providence would have it, there was a parking place - his sixth time
around the block.
You
have heard this saying before, "God helps
those who help themselves.” It isn’t in the Bible, but
it very easily could be in the context of stepping out in faith.
Therefore,
the real point of Jesus’ parable is that the man was willing to
act. Dwight L. Moody was one of the world's great evangelists.
He was on a ship crossing the Atlantic. The ship caught fire.
The crew and the passengers formed a bucket brigade to transport water
to the fire. One man in the line turned and said, "Mr.
Moody, don't you think we should retire from the line and go down and
pray?" "You can go pray if
you want to," Moody replied, "but
I'm going to pray while I pass the buckets." Moody
understood the relationship between prayer and personal
responsibility.
Jesus
praised the dishonest manager because the man had a problem, and
immediately took action to solve it. Jesus follows this parable
with these words, which provide the clue to its meaning: "For
the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own
generation than are the children of light." Who are
the "children of light"? That's
us But listen carefully: the "children
of light" can actually be very frustrating to both God and
their friends when they refuse to help themselves; even worse, when they
use their religion as an excuse for inaction.
There
are people who are ruining their health, ruining their relationships,
ruining their careers waiting for God to give them some kind of sign
before they do anything.
Do you
remember what Jesus had to say about this? It might surprise you.
He said, "An evil and adulterous generation
asks for a sign…" (Matthew 12:39) The context was
slightly different, but the point was the same. We can evade all
kinds of responsibility looking for signs. Pray about your
situation, yes! But then use the brain and faith that the Lord
gave you and tackle the problem head on. That's the way to deal
with life in business or in the church or in the family or with regard
to your own well-being.
A great
philosopher once told about a make-believe country where only ducks
live. On Sunday morning all the ducks came into church, waddled
down the aisle, waddled into their pews and squatted. Then the
duck minister came in, took his place behind the pulpit, opened the Duck
Bible and read, "Ducks! You have wings, and
with wings you can fly like eagles. You can soar into the skies!
Ducks! You have wings!" All the ducks yelled,
"Amen!" and then they all waddled
home. No one flew.
There's
just too much truth to that little fable. Jesus calls His children
of light to quit waddling. He calls us to soar with faith.
If
there is something that you and I need to do to better our own situation
or our church or to better the world, Jesus calls us to get into action
with faith. No more wringing our hands helplessly saying, "What
will I do? What will I do? The sky is falling. The sky
is falling."
No more praying that God
will solve our problems for us, and thereby absolve us of our faith
responsibility. May we be the people of faith and action that
Jesus praises. Why? Because we saw something that needed to
be done and we did it.
Amen.
