Summary of a sermon preached on September 23, 2007 at the Marbury Church of God. The text was

16:1 He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. 16:2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ 16:3 And the steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 16:4 I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.’ 16:5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 16:6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 16:7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 16:8 The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness; for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 16:9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations. 16:10 “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 16:11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? 16:12 And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 16:13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Luke 16:1-13 [+/-]Luke 16:1-13 [16:1]He 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. [2]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.' [3]And the manager said to himself, '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. [4]I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.' [5]So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' [6]He said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' [7]Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' He said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' [8]The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. [9]And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. [10]"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. [11]If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? [12]And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? [13]No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (ESV)
RSV

Let me start by confessing that although I have made it my business for many years to come to some kind of understanding of the parables of Jesus, this one, for the longest time, stumped me. I was truly befuddled at how Jesus could possibly, even by proxy with the business-owner in the story, commend what can only be described as dishonest acts of a habitually dishonest man. The guy was at the very least something of a sleaze.

My glimmer of understanding came at the point where I made a singular realization, which I think is really the whole point of this story. This story will never look like anything other than a story of wrongdoing, for as long as we hold to the absolute value of money.

It is to help us loosen that stranglehold in our value-system, I concluded, that this most incongruous parable has come our way.

Money is a useful tool, but when you are looking for something with absolute value, look not to money but to relationships.

It might be marginally okay, in a far from perfect world, to use money for the purpose of making friends; but it is never okay to use your friends for the purpose of making money, even though that kind of transaction goes on in the world all the time. It’s better to have friends when the money runs out, than to run out of friends, no matter how great your wealth.

This leads to verses 1-13, which gives us “four things never to do with money.”

1. Don’t love it;
2. don’t hate it;
3. don’t cling to it;
4. and don’t despise it.

That is, for better or worse, recognize it for what it is, something of use, that has no intrinsic value of its own. To love it would be idolatry (and as Paul says, “the love of money” —not money itself—   “is the root of all kinds of evil”). To hate it would also be both idolatrous, assigning it too much power, and unrealistic, denying the utility of something that is, at its core, morally neutral. To cling to it would mean a lack of faith; to despise it would mean repudiating a means God may have provided to us for doing good. But if we do none of those four things, we’ll end up with a healthy, well-balanced view of “unrighteous mammon”: one that will allow us to use it, even in the service of building good relationships which are the stuff of the Kingdom, and not be used by it, or have our Kingdom-appointed resources, the relationships, subverted into its service.