Luke 16:1-13
Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'
"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
" 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'
"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' " 'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'
"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
"No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money."
Oh, the cleverness of the man in today’s Gospel!
OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite bright.
It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service, but not being quite satisfied with his salary, he had been wasting the property, property that was not his but belonged to his employer. Finding out about it, the employer quite naturally decided to sack him. He gave his employee something like the classic “two weeks notice.”
The employee had evidently been living it up on his ill-gotten gains. Now he was really up the creek! He didn’t know what to do. How was he to continue to live in the manner to which he had become accustomed? He had lost his job, and now he had to give his employer a final accounting. It was not bad enough that he had been cheating his rich employer for some time, but now he proceeded to cheat him some more, destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for his employer’s debtors.
Nevertheless, those debtors must have been delighted. Who wouldn’t like to be told that they owed less than they thought they did. “I’ll just move the decimal point one space to the left on your credit card bill!” Or the tax man saying that he was going to let you off some of your tax and you would only have to pay a portion of the taxes you thought you owed. But those things don’t usually happen in real life, do they?
But let’s change this story a little. Let’s suppose that, instead, it was the rich man himself who called his debtors in and handed them their bill. Let’s suppose that instead of writing a new bill for a lesser amount, he wrote, instead, “Paid in full.” Let’s suppose, further, that he even forgave his dishonest manager, and gave him another chance.
Does that remind you of anyone you know? It should! Because that is exactly how our God deals with us. If the bill for everything we owe God were taken away and we were given a new one for a lesser amount, it might be like having a bill for a hundred trillion pounds reduced to a mere hundred billion. No matter what kind of break God gave us, it would still be impossible for us to repay our debt. What would be the bill, after all, for our life and the whole world and everything in it—not to mention the entire universe? So God did the only thing a loving God could do that would make any difference. As an old hymn puts it, “Jesus paid it all.” And if that sounds too easy to be true, well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. Take a look at the cross if you need to be reminded how “easy it wasn’t.”
So where does that leave us? Home free, you say? Well, yes and no. Our “legal” debt is cancelled, thanks be to God. No bills, notices of disconection, no insistent phone calls. The debt of love, however, isn’t one that goes away. What can we give back to this God who loves us so much and has given us so much—“who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger; who sets prisoners free; who opens the eyes of the blind…” The list goes on forever.
What can we give back? Nothing, for anything we could give is as nothing in the face of so much generosity. On the other hand, everything—for that is all we have to give, and it is also just what God wants.
Yes, God wants us to come to church and worship. Yes, God also wants us to give to the church and for the relief of those in need, out of what we have been given. God wants us to spend time in prayer and in reading the scriptures. And, yes, God wants us to reach out to each other and be kind and honest in our dealings with each other; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and so forth. God wants us to live as one family, to work together for justice and peace on earth. But more than that, God wants it all. God wants our hearts.
I think that it’s fare to say that Saint Martin’s has had its ups and downs over the last few years… But now we are to move on to leave what happened in the past in the past, not to forget the things that hurt or wounded us as a church in the past but not to keep picking at the wound. If we pick at the wounds of the past, they will not heal; they will fester and become infected. It is time for Saint Martin’s to move on, looking to the future not distracted by the past.
The Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Church Wardens believe that God has called me to this parish as do I. I intend to be with you for quite some time, so that working together we can do some serious work for the Glory of God. But we can only do it if we all pull in the same direction. So work with me please, I don’t like factions or divisions in the church because we can only do God’s will if we are working together and that is the only way that the church will grow.
I wish to close by all of us quoting together from my collation service…
I am here as a fellow servant to share with you the mission of Jesus. We are to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. We are to make new disciples of Christ, to build up one another in the faith, and celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant. Therefore let us commit ourselves afresh to the task to which God calls us.
Amen.
OK, so he wouldn’t have scored well in the honesty department, but you must admit he was quite bright.
It seems that he was dishonest many times over. He worked for a rich man, managing his property. Probably he was well enough paid for this service, but not being quite satisfied with his salary, he had been wasting the property, property that was not his but belonged to his employer. Finding out about it, the employer quite naturally decided to sack him. He gave his employee something like the classic “two weeks notice.”
The employee had evidently been living it up on his ill-gotten gains. Now he was really up the creek! He didn’t know what to do. How was he to continue to live in the manner to which he had become accustomed? He had lost his job, and now he had to give his employer a final accounting. It was not bad enough that he had been cheating his rich employer for some time, but now he proceeded to cheat him some more, destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for his employer’s debtors.
Nevertheless, those debtors must have been delighted. Who wouldn’t like to be told that they owed less than they thought they did. “I’ll just move the decimal point one space to the left on your credit card bill!” Or the tax man saying that he was going to let you off some of your tax and you would only have to pay a portion of the taxes you thought you owed. But those things don’t usually happen in real life, do they?
But let’s change this story a little. Let’s suppose that, instead, it was the rich man himself who called his debtors in and handed them their bill. Let’s suppose that instead of writing a new bill for a lesser amount, he wrote, instead, “Paid in full.” Let’s suppose, further, that he even forgave his dishonest manager, and gave him another chance.
Does that remind you of anyone you know? It should! Because that is exactly how our God deals with us. If the bill for everything we owe God were taken away and we were given a new one for a lesser amount, it might be like having a bill for a hundred trillion pounds reduced to a mere hundred billion. No matter what kind of break God gave us, it would still be impossible for us to repay our debt. What would be the bill, after all, for our life and the whole world and everything in it—not to mention the entire universe? So God did the only thing a loving God could do that would make any difference. As an old hymn puts it, “Jesus paid it all.” And if that sounds too easy to be true, well, no, it wasn’t easy at all. Take a look at the cross if you need to be reminded how “easy it wasn’t.”
So where does that leave us? Home free, you say? Well, yes and no. Our “legal” debt is cancelled, thanks be to God. No bills, notices of disconection, no insistent phone calls. The debt of love, however, isn’t one that goes away. What can we give back to this God who loves us so much and has given us so much—“who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them; who keeps his promise forever; who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger; who sets prisoners free; who opens the eyes of the blind…” The list goes on forever.
What can we give back? Nothing, for anything we could give is as nothing in the face of so much generosity. On the other hand, everything—for that is all we have to give, and it is also just what God wants.
Yes, God wants us to come to church and worship. Yes, God also wants us to give to the church and for the relief of those in need, out of what we have been given. God wants us to spend time in prayer and in reading the scriptures. And, yes, God wants us to reach out to each other and be kind and honest in our dealings with each other; to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and so forth. God wants us to live as one family, to work together for justice and peace on earth. But more than that, God wants it all. God wants our hearts.
I think that it’s fare to say that Saint Martin’s has had its ups and downs over the last few years… But now we are to move on to leave what happened in the past in the past, not to forget the things that hurt or wounded us as a church in the past but not to keep picking at the wound. If we pick at the wounds of the past, they will not heal; they will fester and become infected. It is time for Saint Martin’s to move on, looking to the future not distracted by the past.
The Bishop, the Archdeacon, the Church Wardens believe that God has called me to this parish as do I. I intend to be with you for quite some time, so that working together we can do some serious work for the Glory of God. But we can only do it if we all pull in the same direction. So work with me please, I don’t like factions or divisions in the church because we can only do God’s will if we are working together and that is the only way that the church will grow.
I wish to close by all of us quoting together from my collation service…
I am here as a fellow servant to share with you the mission of Jesus. We are to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people. We are to make new disciples of Christ, to build up one another in the faith, and celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant. Therefore let us commit ourselves afresh to the task to which God calls us.
Amen.
