Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 9/21/2025
Proper 20, Luke 16: 1-13
One of the more curious things about little children is their focus on things that adults miss.
When my boys were small they would play with other little people for an entire day - doing all sorts of running and jumping, game-playing, and laughing -
And you could ask them, "Wow it looked like you were having such fun! What was that little boy's name?"
To which my child would respond, "I don't know."
"Grown ups love figures" - remarked The Little Prince - in that short, classic French book: "When you tell them you have made a new friend they never ask, 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?' Instead, they demand, 'How old is he? How many brothers has he? What house does he live in?'
Seeing things others don't is not foreign to our quest of living lives of love -
As we are asked to see things others don't!
When some people see chaos in tumultuous times, apathy in times of despair, and hate in hateful people: Like little children - we're asked to see something else!
That beautiful, child-like Spirit of ours asks us to see love in hateful people, peace in tumultuous situations, and a light of hope in the darkness of despair.
Our Spirits - which are connected to God's Spirit - are not childish - but child-like - in believing God - that truth, honesty, and love will win out.
This is what I need, this is what you need, and this is what the world needs - more of a yielding to that wonderful Spirit inside of us that is going to remind us of the truth - that goodness, kindness, hope - forgiveness, reconciliation - and perseverance - are the ways of Love, the ways of God.
This is the point of our Gospel this morning - as confusing as it may have sounded to you - don't worry we're going to unpack it - and its calling us to a higher level of hope and possibility.
It's challenging us not to give in, not to give up, but to embrace the confidence of your Spirit in trusting God with everything that has caused you anxiety, fear, despair, and apathy - it is the confidence that God is not too small to handle things - love is not too little to slay giants - and your Spirit is not lying to you when it tells you - that all will work out.
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Now let's unpack the Gospel - and let me begin with an analogy - a story - some of you heard me tell it earlier this week -
It's about a clever group of marijuana dealers out on the East Coast.
These guys had a weed business, but there was a lot of competition, in fact, it would have been stupid to go into business because the market was simply saturated.
So they decided not just sell the marijuana, but deliver it, because there was nobody doing that!
And the reason nobody was doing it, is because it was illegal deliver marijuana.
You could sell weed in that state - but not have a delivery service.
Bummer for them - but these guys refused to give up, they didn't throw in the towel, they didn't just light up a joint and chill: they thought long and hard.
They used their imaginations - they got creative, and here's what they did:
They opened up a cannabis detective agency.
Here's how it worked:
You called them up, told them where you lost your weed, what kind it was, and how much you lost, and the detectives would go out, find it, bring it to you, and charge you a finder's fee.
Of course, no one had lost anything - it was just a way to get around the law -
And when the cops came to arrest them, the first the officers had to admit was that this was pretty freaking clever.
And this is what we see in this morning's Gospel about a dishonest manager.
We just heard the story - this dishonest manager got caught squandering the boss's property - and was fired.
He said to himself, "What am I going to do now - I'm not strong enough to work - and I'm too ashamed to beg..."
And he gave it a think: This dishonest manager got those wheels moving - imagining, wondering how he could made a soft landing out of this hard stop - and he was not going to give in until he found a solution.
And he came up with one!
He decided to make friends with people who can take care of him after he's been fired -
And he would do this by being even more dishonest and conniving!
He decided to use his position, apparently, he had not been fired just yet, and to ingratiate himself with his boss's customers - by forgiving their debts.
And when his boss hears about it - how this dishonest manager stole even more from him - he did not get mad - but he actually praised him for being determined and clever.
Luke tells us,
"And his master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly."
Now let's be clear - Jesus is not praising this corrupt manager's goal of 'looking out for number one' - but his cleverness and intelligence in pursuing his mistaken goal.
Then there's the comment that the worldly are more determined and creative in working toward their aims than those enlightened by trusting God, seems to be as true today as well as it was back then.
When seeking solutions, many well-intentioned people are bound, by a lack of hope, perseverance, imagination, freedom, and grounding in reality.
These stories - about the weed dealers and the dishonest manager - are about getting stuck, and finding a way out - getting knocked down - then finding some way to get back up.
This is something we face today.
Name your intractable situation: fear of increasing of autocracy, censorship, and division in our country-
More killing and bloodshed in Gaza -
Gangs and anarchy in Haiti -
Frustration at the grocery store because the prices just keep going up.
The lesson here is to get creative, imaginative, and persevere!
It's to see something others are not seeing.
And that is, that there is a way out.
It's high time to say: "We don't care about the apathy and the hopelessness out there,
"Because if that dishonest manager and those conniving weed sellers did not give up and throw in the towel - but found a way to break through the log jam,
"You and I can use our imagination, intelligence, and creativity to find a way through ours too."
This is a story about sticking to it - trusting God that we'll make it through - and resting in the faith that God will always be with us.
There's hard work to do out there - but you've heard me say many times, that it starts in here.
Ours is inner work - we're the only ones we can change.
And taking care of ourselves - being better people is paramount - because better people do better things.
For example, we all know the Great Commandment - love your neighbor as yourself - What if this was not a command, but an observation?
In other words, what if we look at how we love others and go back from there, and ponder the notion that this may be exactly how we love ourselves?
Look at how we Christians behave towards others - the nasty ways we can talk to them, judge, and shame them.
Christians do some pretty despicable things.
Is this how we love them, because this is how much we love ourselves?
Is this a reflection of how well we love ourselves?
Loving ourselves is so hard!
We look at all we've said and done - the missteps, miscues, and mistakes - and since evolution gave us an inclination to improve - and judge ourselves so we can do better - we can continuously harbor feelings of shame and guilt - we can let those intrusive thoughts that tell us how bad we are - have a deep affect on us: And who loves that?
Well, God does -
God loves us no matter what.
Romans 8 says nothing separates us from the love of God - we are loved by God no matter what we've done.
But that's so hard to accept that!
Because we often confuse how God loves with how humans love - which is more transactional - I'm good to you if you're good to me.
And so we have a hard time accepting that we are loved when we've been bad.
But we are -
God loves us *not because of what we do, but because of who we are -
Parents especially get this - because this is how you love your children -
Think of the devoted mom at the right hand of her son on the electric chair - not loving him for what he did - but for who he is.
And she never abandons him.
That's how God operates!
Accepting God's love despite all that we've said and done is a tall order.
Cue the guilt, unworthiness, and shame.
Theologian Paul Tillich called this the pinnacle of Christian discipleship, to 'accept our acceptance.'
And so when we fail to love ourselves - how much love to we have left for others -
And are we, then, loving them as we love ourselves?
Our failure at self-love is perhaps what justifies extremely unloving attitudes, words, and acts, against others, notably the most vulnerable.
That's why the practice of self-love is a bedrock to discipleship, if we're going to love Jesus, if we're going to love our neighbor, we have to give something that we already have: we have to love ourselves, and love ourselves first.
Hard?
Yes.
But not impossible - not with God –
With God, we are a people of nearly unlimited possibility!
That big, beautiful, creative, and clever soul of yours must not be underestimated - if we can't find a way through it, let's go around it, if we can't find a way around it, let's go under it, if we can't find a way under it, let's go over it - we have the Spirit of God inside of us - a Spirit of perseverance, grit, imagination and love.
Don't give up , don't give in!
Yours is not the sunset road of discouragement through the dark valley of apathy - but the bright and hopeful world of possibility - this is what that shiny, shimmering, dazzling, and luminous spirit of yours is calling you toward - I can see it - and doggone it - second Sunday in a row - I forgot my sunglasses!
I love you Church!
Amen.