Sermon by Mike Stutso, Deacon in Training, Luke 16:1-13
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!! Do y’all remember the movie, Jerry Maguire? That was with Cuba Gooding, Jr. as a football player unhappy with his agent, Tom Cruise and he says show me the money if he wants to continue to be his agent.
So, I ask how much is enough?
I remember a while back when Lars Ulrich, the drummer of Metallica, almost single-handedly destroyed Napster, a free music streaming app, again over money. So, we can go on and on about stories of how people fall into the trap of being a slave to the money, keeping up with the Jones.
A new word I learned about is “Mammon”, the origin is Aramaic “Māmōn” and then the Greek “Mamōnas” finally the Latin word we now use “Mammon”, which means wealth as an evil influence of false object of worship and devotion, in other words dishonest wealth.
With that much said this early in this sermon, I’d like everyone to realize I’m not pointing any fingers or criticizing anyone’s values. It’s not up to me to judge just pointing out facts we all know about in today’s society.
Now I will start to get into this reading, I noticed that in all the commentaries I read they all stated that this is one of the hardest sermons to take on. I know some clergy that have dodged that bullet, they say give it to the new guy and y’all know me, I ain’t running from nothing.
Again, at face value it doesn’t say where Jesus is, but we all know where he is headed. Jesus is teaching his Disciples, which would mean there were more than just his 12 Apostles. It says there was a rich man; now realize that one of Luke’s focal points in his Gospel is on wealth as a negative attribute that is displeasing to God.
But back in those days, society viewed wealth as a reward from God and those without riches and earthly possessions had offended God. So they had nothing except poverty, disease and afflictions. We know today this is totally against the teachings of Jesus.
I’ve learned to never take a reading at face value; you have to go before and after the text at times to get the full meaning of the given Gospel. Today is no different if you look at Luke 15 you have Pharisees and tax collectors, well both have Mammon/dishonest wealth and then it jumps into the prodigal son.
So, a family with money and one son squanders his wealth. Then in Luke 16:14 the next sentence after our Gospel today it says “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all of this and then it goes into the rich man and Lazarus. So, we are surrounded by dishonest wealth in today’s reading.
So, as I said earlier Luke cuts loose on wealth being used wrongly, he clearly uses the word “rich man” never a rich woman, not surprising for those days. I do need to make one thing perfectly clear for this sermon and any sermon dealing with wealth, Jesus never said money is wrong or bad, IF it is used in the ways God intended, to help one another. Always remember you cannot serve God and wealth at the same time.
So the rich owner calls for his manager, you know that dreaded call that most of us have heard before. That call that makes us cringe wondering what have I done wrong? I’ve read that in today’s reading that the rich owner could be a metaphor for being God and we the manager and that the manager owns nothing just like us.
Just like the manager we are entrusted and the stewards of God’s creation. We know because God has given us free will we are capable of using this gift wrongly not for the greater good of God. We should never think that it’s just money as mammon that we can squander but things like our talents, abilities, education, social status, physical power and military power. We could add to this list but you know what I’m saying they are all gifts from God that we can squander to help our sisters and brothers. To help those who do not have the means or attributes to help themselves, in the 21st century we call it our outreach programs. I prefer to call it loving and caring for our fellow human beings through the teachings of our Master.
I personally squandered my education and realized it in 1984 on an incentive flight in a jet fighter (a reward for exceptional performance and y’all know that how I roll). Anyway, I knew how to fly and was given the opportunity to tear it up and when I was done the pilot told me, shame you didn’t finish your college education because you would have made a great pilot.
So, I wish he hadn’t told me that now I live with the fact I wasted an opportunity to party! I will tell you something about using your talents for evil and it irritates me to no end. That is those well-known individuals from films and sports that use their fame for evil that is promoting online gambling. Point blank I feel they have sold their souls to Satan and trying to drag everyone down with them.
My guitar player’s daughter is a recovering gambling addict, and this affects her. It’s like waving a bag of drugs in front of a drug addict. I will get off my high horse but if you want to rile me up just talk about those individuals because they, not I, will have to answer to God for dishonest wealth. Now back to our scheduled program.
This reading as many does not explain everything to us like, you cannot be my manager anymore but turns around and commends the dishonest manager. Well, was he forgiven? Was he fired? Did he give back his ill-gotten wealth? Why didn’t the manager defend himself unless he knew he’d only dig himself in deeper. Sorry I can’t really answer those questions for you, I’m old but not that old and I can only speculate on those things.
Obviously, this manager is guilty of cheating his master and the master’s debtors so he calls them together because he knows his derriere is in the ringer and corrects the wrongs he committed.
Let’s talk for a minute of Devine Economics 101 (I borrowed that saying). I’ve read that Jews/Hebrews could not charge interest to another Jew/Hebrew, so what’s going on here, were they Gentiles?? But I’d like a loan like that without interest. So he cuts the payments from 20-50%, that sort of tells me he was a lousy manager or a big time scam artist, we just don’t know for sure. I’m betting he didn’t use it like the disciples would have, giving it to the needy.
In any given scenario either 2,000 years ago or two years ago this amount is substantial. If we were in a position like the manager, we might be a bit worried too, is this repentance or covering his derriere because he didn’t want to work hard and probably didn’t want to sit in the town square begging for alms.
Then we get into some wild words, children of the age and children of the light. It took me a minute, but this is what I figured out. The children of the age are non-believers who are more aware of earthly possessions/mammon. The children of the light are believers who in many cases are naive to mammon or the life one lives to obtain those ill-gotten things. Being children of the light leaves us the responsibility of leading those of the age to find grace and the true love of our Master not dishonest wealth.
Versus 10-13. Ain’t all of this a mouth full of words and it was confusing to me at first, but I finally got a handle on it. You can’t be faithful a little, faithful is faithful; you can’t cut God short on this and think that God will be happy with you. Faithful comes in all sizes big and little in everything we do. If we are sweeping floors be the best floor sweeper in the company not for praise or money but for self-awareness of our commitment to God. Also unfaithful is unfaithful PERIOD, there is no I’ll be faithful today but tomorrow is another story, it just don’t work that way and we know that. But as Jesus told us many times to follow him will not be an easy road to follow. That is why someone that is unfaithful will not be trusted with the stuff of others. Always remember that we can repent, and God forgives because God’s love for us is beyond our understanding.
So to the point of the story, we cannot serve two Masters at the same time, it’s like asking us to swim upstream and downstream at the same time or climb up and down a mountain at the same time. It can’t be done; we must choose one or the other. I’ve seen in my lifetime that just maybe Satan is as strong as he has ever been. He comes after us through our money, earthly possessions and our freedom of choice. We have to think, what would Jesus do and do it. So now my philosophy is, if it is to be, it’s up to me.
So, I’ll say it again is it show me the money or show me the way to the light?
AMEN