Faithful Stewardship of God's Gifts :: Luke 16:1-13

How much do you owe? What is your total debt? Or as you just sang, What is the world to me?

If you’re an average guy or gal, it’s probably staggering. The national debt this week was $30.6 trillion and rising ... in other words, $92,002 per citizen or $243,797 per taxpayer. Our households aren’t much better. We have $23.5 trillion in personal debt ... or $70K per citizen ... and only $8,500 in family savings. We are terrible stewards. Can we ever repay that?

Of course, that’s all a pittance in comparison with what we owe the Lord. We can’t even begin to count the debt we have with him. We can’t begin to give an account for all the ways we’ve squandered his gifts. Even if we could enumerate our debt to him, we’d quickly recognize that all we have is his and become ashamed. Our Lord is the one who gives us food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods ... and all that we have. We owe him everything. How can we ever repay him? 

Fortunately for us, on account of Jesus, this isn’t a problem for us to solve. Christ the faithful and just steward has given each one of you a new writ for life. He has forgiven you through the cross. He doesn’t charge you for the living water and eternal feast he provides. He doesn’t bill you for the health care and life support he provides. His means of grace are free. Our just and righteous God, the only true God, uses these to daily and richly provide all that we need to support this body and life, while still taking care of us. All this he does only out of his fatherly divine goodness and mercy. 

This is where our Gospel reading is going today. 

1.

Before we get there though, you need to know our reading from Luke 16 ... the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward ... is widely considered the most difficult reading to understand. It’s riddled with all kinds of problems of interpretation. It raises all kinds of questions ... not the least of which is, where’s the Gospel? We’ll get there. But first, know this: the primary problem is ours, not God’s. As the Lord told Isaiah: Seeing, we don’t see, and hearing, we don’t hear. 

So I will start today by telling you what this parable is not about. It is ... NOT ... about money. It’s NOT about what WE NEED TO DO to pay off our debt to the Lord. It’s not about how WE should manage our house. It’s NOT about what WE need to do to gain access to our heavenly home. It’s NOT about naming it or claiming it. And it doesn’t advocate that WE should take advantage of unrighteous wealth. As always, this is all about Jesus and what does for us.

2.

To help us understand that, you need to know that when Luke 16 opens, Jesus has been catechizing His disciples and everyone who will listen ... teaching them about the Amazing Grace shown when the Lord finds the lost and raises the dead. He’s been teaching us to come to the feast to celebrate, because all of the riches of heaven are there. He’s been teaching us to trust God’s Word and sacraments: They do what he says they do.

Then, [Jesus] said to his disciples, There was a rich man who had a steward, and this was accused of him: That he was squandering [the rich man’s] possessions. And [having called the steward to the carpet], he said to him, What [is] this I hear concerning you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you are no longer able to manage [my house]. And the steward said to himself, What will I do because my lord is taking away the stewardship from me? I am not strong [enough] to dig. I am ashamed to beg (vv 1-3). 

You should notice right away, that the Lord didn’t fire the unrighteous steward right away. The steward also doesn’t argue his case or plead for mercy. He knows there’s nothing he can do to set things straight. So he does the only prudent thing: he decides he’ll make friends with his lord’s debtors so they will receive him into their homes later (v4). The way he does that is by cutting new deals. To the one who owed 100 measures of oil, he said, quickly ... write fifty. And to the next debtor who owed 100 bushels of wheat, he said, write eighty (vv 5-7). 

The stewards of the world take advantage of their vocations like this, cooking the books so that they will be commended by the community for forgiveness. And amazingly enough, the rich man then commends the unrighteous steward for his prudence, that is, his show of care and thought for the future. Thus, he says, the sons of this age are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light (v8). 

Jesus then finishes the parable with another astounding ... and frankly confusing ... verse. In verse 9, he says, 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 (v9).

3.

What is our Lord teaching us this morning by way of this parable? Does he really welcome and honor dishonesty among us, telling us to take advantage of our lot in life, to use someone else’s wealth for your own unrighteousness? Is it possible, as it seems in verse 9, that we can and should try to use unrighteous mammon to try to buy our way into heaven? Is Jesus telling us it is OK to be Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor?

Before we go too much further, it would be helpful to consider the context of the parable. Immediately before this reading, you will find the parable of the prodigal sons ... yes, there are two prodigals in that parable ... the younger son who demanded his riches before squandering them ... and the older son who refused to use his father’s riches to thank and praise the fact that his brother who once was dead now is alive at the Lord’s supper. Immediately following this parable is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. There, Jesus tells us about how a rich man lived the high life while Lazarus was so poor he had to let the dogs lick his sores. The rich man got what was coming, a fiery punishment for ignoring the poor. 

To be clear, none of these readings are about money ... at all. The abundance of money isn’t the point of any of these parables. They are all about God’s stewardship ... and his mercy.

Which brings us back to the parable of the unrighteous steward. 

It’s true that the sons of this age are more prudent in their dealings with one another than are the sons of light. The unrighteous stewards of this world ... that is, those who are slaves to their sin ... show each other mercy to gain favor with one another, but it’s always because they are thinking of themselves first ... protecting their feelings, their pride. ... They worship the god called mammon. Jesus is definitely not telling us to do that. You shall have no other gods. ... There is no God but one. 

The Pharisees overhearing this will become quite upset at the realization that they love themselves more than God. They love the way of life they’ve set for themselves (v14). They’ll do whatever it takes to protect this and pay no attention to how they are using the gifts of God. 

4.

But you, the sons and daughters of light, let me remind you: Repent. You are saved by grace through faith, and this is not of yourselves, so that no one can boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them (Eph 2:8-10). 

Our wealth will not help us get to heaven. But when we use unrighteous Mammon to aid and assist anyone in need, we give evidence of our faith in Christ and testify that we are heirs of eternal life, that we seek the things above, not the things that are on the earth (Col 3:2). And thus, Christ will commend us publicly on that day because of what we have done because ... 

JESUS IS THE RIGHTEOUS AND FAITHFUL STEWARD WHO FORGIVES OUR UNPAYABLE DEBTS AND ADMINISTERS THE GOOD THINGS OF GOD

This is the theme. This is what Jesus is telling us.

5.

 Our Lord is full of amazing grace and mercy. Jesus, the Son of God who knew no sin and was falsely accused, became sin for us so that He could pay the price and erase all our unbearable debt before our Heavenly Father, the rich man and Lord to whom we all owe our very lives and all that we have. On the cross, Jesus became a steward of unrighteousness ... that is, he who knew no sin became sin. He managed our sin and bore its consequences for us. 

While we are ashamed of our unrighteousness, Jesus begged His Father, the Lord of our estate, to forgive you for we know not what we do. He paid our debts to deliver us from bondage to death by shedding his blood for you and dying on the cross. He was raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven to prepare the riches of heaven for you. On account of his death and resurrection, we now inherit all that the Father has.

We owe nothing but thanks to God for his faithful stewardship. Therefore, owing nothing, we are free to serve our neighbor, sharing his mercy. We are free to deliver the Gospel to our neighbors that they are also free and clear of debt in the kingdom of heaven, too. 

So be good stewards of your heavenly Father, and invite all to share in the free gifts of salvation ... baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s supper. Our God is faithful in his stewardship of these gifts, which deliver an abundance of grace. Receive them every day if you can. In all these things, we are receiving more than we deserve ... a home with the eternal Father.

He that has ears to hear, let him hear.