C, Post-Pentecost 15, Proper 20 - Luke 16:1-13 "Management Mastery"

Luke 16:1–2 (ESV) Jesus also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’”

We hear about mismanagement every day. We experience mismanagement in every facet of life. We see mismanagement occurring everywhere around us.

Fraudsters seem to have their fingers in every pie these days—Internet scams, overpricing, double-dipping, half-truths, con artists painting false pictures of the real situation, and political pork-barrelling to get votes and seize power.

We only have to look at our roads, the debt governments have incurred, and the increasing profits of multinational companies, executives, and politicians. We don’t have to look too hard to hear, see, and experience mismanagement in the Western world.  Managers not managing to manage!

Occasionally, we have the power to remove managers from their positions—at the polls, through motions of no confidence at meetings, or via legal proceedings. Despite this, there still seems to be a golden handshake for those who’ve mismanaged their responsibilities. So, in the scheme of it all, there’s a growing sense of helplessness in our society as “the rich get richer, and the poor get the picture.”

Today and next week, we hear about two rich men from Luke chapter sixteen. Today, the rich man is the master who removes his manager from management. Next week, we will hear about the rich man and Lazarus, who die and stand accountable before God.

So, I put this question to you: “What is being rich?” Or, “How much does one need to have to be considered wealthy?” “Do you consider yourself to be a rich person, a person of wealth?” In my experience, most people look to someone else who is rich—or richer than them. Often, we think of wealth in monetary terms or in one’s number of possessions.

Although we might consider someone else richer or wealthier than ourselves, that doesn’t necessarily mean we see ourselves as poor. This says much about the reality of our riches and how proud we have become of our wealth and possessions.

But whose possessions are they? We only need to be reminded of the rich fool and Jesus’ warning to us: “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15 ESV)

I don’t believe anyone would enjoy hearing God say to you, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Jesus concludes, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20–21 ESV)

This rich fool mismanaged the possessions and life given to him. And when God required him to return the management of his life, he was found foolishly short in being rich toward God.

In the parable before us today, the manager is not the rich man, but only the manager of his master’s riches.

The master says, “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” (Luke 16:2 ESV)

Just as we hear, see, and experience mismanagement by those called to manage our society today, the master’s attention is turned to the mismanagement of his dishonest manager in the parable. The master is about to end his management.

Although the manager may not have thought of himself as wealthy, he feared losing the management of his master’s wealth and becoming poor. Like the rich fool who did not recognize he only managed the riches of a greater master, the manager was about to lose his life and the riches of his master.

Humanity, from the beginning until now, has been called to manage the common wealth of God given to us in His creation. It’s always easy for us to see and point out the potholes in others’ mismanagement. But every one of us will be called upon to turn in our management and give an account.

How have you managed the riches God has given you?

In the parable, the dishonest manager takes the bill of one debtor and cuts it in half. For another, he reduces the debt so that only eighty percent needs repaying. And when Jesus tells us the master commends the dishonest manager for doing this, it’s easy for us to see the injustice and question: How can this be? Does the manager have the right to cut the master’s debt when one hundred percent should be paid back? It’s understandable that our sense of righteousness kicks in over the seeming injustice of the master’s commendation and the dishonest manager’s continued mismanagement.

Again, we can ask ourselves: “How have I managed the riches and wealth that God has given me?”

These are not just the riches of money and possessions, but the wealth of our time and our freedom too. Then there are the riches of ourselves—our talents, our relationships, our communications, our sexuality, our desires, and our deeds. Each of us can measure our management of God’s gifts by looking within to see where the glory of our management is going!

Going by our own sense of justice, shocked by the parable of the dishonest manager, one hundred percent should be given back to God for all the things we’ve mismanaged. That means every mismanaged feeling, desire, interaction with others, false witness, lustful glance, hateful thought, misuse of authority, and failure to submit to authority, requires one hundred percent repayment.

When God recalls your management at the end of this life, He requires an account. And by our own judgment, fifty or eighty percent repayment is not good enough. The debt of mismanagement must be repaid one hundred percent.

We feel the sting of our own justice bite us when we begin to contemplate the truth of our management. The reality that the removal of our management occurs in death is enough to grab our full attention. But having to give account of our management on judgement day, to receive a room in the house of God causes all to cry out over our mismanagement: “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.” (Luke 16:3 ESV) More so, digging or begging our way out of death and judgement is not possible either!

Unlike the dishonest manager who used unrighteous wealth to make friends and be welcomed into their houses, we can also use the righteous riches of God to receive others into his kingdom. We can cut the bill of others by forgiving them their sins. We can take what they owe and clear their debt.

“Clear their debt! How can this be?” you say! The manager in the parable only dropped the debt to eighty or fifty percent—not one hundred percent! However, Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12 ESV) Jesus one hundred percent forgives you your sin as you’re called to forgive other people one hundred percent of theirs.

Again, the sting of our own justice returns to bite us—or better still, the reality of our own dishonest and unrighteous management haunts us. Only having to be half-hearted or fifty percent repentant, or eighty percent forgiving, now sounds not too bad when it is our mismanagement of richness toward God at issue!

The gospel in this parable is not immediately apparent, even though the master commends the dishonest manager. Therefore, the good news for us is that Jesus takes our dishonest management and manages it in the richness of God’s debt removal at the cross. Not fifty percent, not eighty percent—but your management is one hundred percent shrewdly forgiven, despite it being recalled in death.

God the Father commends Jesus as the shrewd manager of your salvation and mine. You and I are received into the rooms of God’s eternal house—one hundred percent guaranteed—only because of Jesus. Our efforts are dishonest at best. Yet trusting in Jesus is the shrewdest thing any human can ever do.

While we are called here to manage God’s riches, we continually cry out to God in our mismanagement: “Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who sin against me!”

If God the Father is great enough to forgive your debt through the shrewdness of Jesus Christ at the cross, and the Holy Spirit rests upon us as He did on Jesus, trust that the Holy Spirit is working the riches of God’s wealth within the forgiven management of yourself—your talents, your time, and your possessions—given by God, for you to shrewdly glorify him, repenting of sin, forgiving others, and shrewdly managing the daily existence he has given, as you wait for him to end this management. Amen.