Pastor Tommy Thompson
18th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16:19-31
26 September 2010
“Opening Gates, Opening Hearts, Opening Minds”
Today’s Gospel lesson carries on from last Sunday’s Gospel lesson. Jesus taught his disciples to be even more shrewd with wealth for the purposes of the coming age than those of this world are for the purposes of the age that is passing away. What we didn’t know last week was that there were eves-droppers in the room! Jesus just can’t get away from those Pharisees can he!? That the Pharisees were listening in is revealed in the short passage of Scripture that is directly after last Sunday’s reading and directly before this Sunday’s reading.
We are told that the Pharisees overheard what Jesus had taught his disciples and that they ridiculed Jesus for his teaching. It is the response of the Pharisees to Jesus’ teaching about the use of money that triggers Jesus’ telling the parable that is the content of our reading today.
Context is everything when reading the Bible. If we didn’t go back and look at what triggered Jesus’ parable, we might have made secondary issues the main issue. We might have thought this passage was all about heaven and hell...or the after-life. But that’s not at all what Jesus is trying to communicate here and that’s not at all the way the Pharisees would have heard it at that time.
Instead, Jesus is using the worldview of the Pharisees to engage them in a parable that will strengthen his challenge concerning the proper use of unrighteous wealth, making the claim that he is not teaching something different from what the Pharisees claim to be experts in --the law and prophets. If they would heed these, they’d embrace him and the message he came to announce. He’s holding up a mirror and asking them to see themselves for themselves.
The language he uses in this parable, including his language about the after-life is for the sole purpose of engaging these pharisees who have challenged his teaching. Thus, he is not here teaching us about what happens after we die from a Christian point-of-view. Instead, he tells a story that includes the first century Jewish, Pharisaic point of view concernign what happens when persons die before the general resurrection, in order to continue and intensify the teaching from last’s week’s Gospel lesson.
The way Jesus does this is brilliant. He presents two characters and develops a contrast between the two characters. First is the rich man. The details say it all...details that we may not immediately grasp. First of all the rich man is described as wearing “purple” and “fine linen.” That doesn’t mean as much to us...but it is not too different than naming the finest and most expensive of designer clothing in our world today. Only few wore purple in Jesus’ context...and even more, to wear purple and fine linen was unheard of for most. The Romans had set standards regarding who could wear purple and even how much purple they could wear! Clothing colored with Tyrian purple dye was a striking luxury and reserved only for the elite. As if this wasn’t enough to make his point, Jesus adds that the rich man also wore fine linens. The process by which wool was “fulled” in a basin with special clay in order to render the cloth brilliantly white was time-consuming and very costly. It is one thing to wear white, another to wear purple, but only the most prestigious of society wore white garments underneath their purple robes.
To magnify this man’s luxurious lifestyle, Jesus describes the rich man as having a gate, providing security for himself and separating him from the riffraff of the city. Very few in the first century world lived in a house with a gate. But this man has a gate...a gate that has the potential to be opened, but finds itself shut more often than not.
He wears purple, he wears fine linen, he has a house with a gate...and he feasts sumptuously EVERY DAY! The story of the prodigal in Luke 15 describes the killing of THE fatted calf on the farm in order to celebrate a feast. For a meal to qualify as a feast, it was a lavish, extravagant meal...most families would have to sacrifice the only calf in order to celebrate a feast...which meant something extraordinary had happened--like the prodigal coming home. But this man is described as feasting sumptuously EVERY DAY! ...It is not normal for folks to feast like this EVERY DAY. But this rich man does. He is among the elite who feast whenever they want on whatever they want...and they have so much that they use bread as a napkin, flinging it out the window after they’ve wiped the grease of their faces.
If you haven’t gotten the idea, this man was filthy rich, and this was immediately apparent to His Pharisee hearers who seek as much as anything to be seated in places of honor.
Then there’s the poor man. The rich man is dressed to the nines; the poor man has nothing to wear. We can look at him and see that he is covered in soars. The fact he was laid or thrown at the rich man's gate seems to suggest he is crippled (maybe he was put there in hopes that the resources of the rich man would come to his rescue?)...in the eyes of Pharisees, he is outcast...untouchable. He longs to eat the bread that falls from the rich man table...the word used here is usually used of animals eating...not humans. The bread he wants to eat is what the rich man wipes his mouth with! The dogs are licking his soars...these dogs are not the dogs we have grown to love as man’s best friend...but vultures ready to rip into his flesh. This man is as poor as one can be without being dead...and he lives just outside of the rich man’s home.
But there is something that should be said about the poor man. He has a name. This is the only parable Jesus has ever told where he gives his character a name. His name is Lazarus, the equivalent of the Hebrew name, Eleazar which means “God helps.” There’s something to be said about how God gives a name to those who we strip of all identity...
So far the picture painted by Jesus’ words are of two different people with two totally different life-styles. But then the story takes a turn and that which is common to us all makes them both a visit--death. Both the rich man and the poor man, Lazarus, die (as to how they died, I’ll leave that to your imagination)...
As expected, the rich man has the resources and is buried in the appropriate manner...likely in his fine clothes. But then the unexpected happens to Lazarus. The Pharisees would have expected him to be carried off by vultures, forgotten and hopeless. But remember, God is his help. Angels and not vultures carry him away. And it is not just anywhere they carry him. Lazarus is carried to the bosom of Abraham. For the Pharisees, this is paradise.
Wait a minute! Lazarus? In the bosom of Abraham? But he was an outcast? His poor state certainly meant he was cursed of God...how is he in the place of honor?
Where is the rich man? Certainly his wealth, his royal and prestigious social status meant he was blessed of God...But he is being tormented.
Boy has Jesus just turned the Pharisees’ theology on its head!
But the rich man still hasn’t learned. He still sees Lazarus as inferior to himself. He still sees Lazarus as nothing but an errand boy if anything! He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him comfort! Abraham’s response in the words of Clarence Jordan’s deep south paraphrase, “Lazarus ain’t gonna run no mo’ yo errands, rich man.” Even though Lazarus is not the so called rich man’s errand boy, he couldn’t help the rich man even if it were so...a great chasm separates them and it cannot be crossed. Those gates the rich man never opened....they’ve shut him out for good.
Once the rich man gets the point, he begs Abraham to at least send Lazarus to his father’s house to bear witness to his brothers that they should not keep living as did the rich man lest their fate be just like his. But Abraham responds, “They have Moses and the prophets. If they won’t listen to the law and prophets, then they won’t listen even if someone were to rise from the dead!” ... and Jesus will ...
What a powerful response to the Pharisees...those who are suppose to be experts in the law and prophets do not recognize the fulfillment of the law and prophets standing right in front of them...and they, unlike those two disciples who end up recognizing him after he rose from the dead, won’t recognize his truth even after he has risen from the dead! Instead they ridicule the fulfillments’ teaching! These pharisees are blinded by their own fascination with themselves and the things of the age that is passing away. At least there was that one pharisee named Paul who was blinded by the light...that pharisee became a witness. He got it. Instead of ignoring the lazarus’ by the gate, he was an instrument used for healing the folks at the gates. He opened gates...he didn’t close them...But not these pharisees.
But Jesus leaves them with an immense challenge anyway...
The rich man could’ve opened his gate but he didn’t. He could’ve pulled up one of the many empty chairs at his table for Lazarus...but he didn’t. He could have ate less and potentially extended his own life (maybe he ate himself to death?), but he didn’t. He could have dressed in a different color so that Lazarus had SOMETHING to wear, but he didn’t. All these were opportunities to open gates that didn’t have to be shut. If he’d only opened these gates, which were not hard to open, THE gate would’ve been opened for him...but he didn’t. The gates he kept shut ended up shutting him out.
What gates are we holding shut? These gates are actually shutting us out! How ironic! How many hurting, hungry, or diseased faces flash before our eyes on the way to Sunday dinner? How many of us have grown so numb to those outside the gates we’ve created that we don’t even see them laying there anymore? Most of us fit the description of the rich man...we feast sumptuously whenever and on whatever we want...if we want beef tenderloin, we get beef tenderlion...lobster, we get lobster...chicken, we get chicken...crab, we get crab...more exotic, we get more exotic. And yet we know the name of someone who gets little to nothing. If that’s not a gate that COULD be opened, then I don’t know of a gate that can be opened. Who are we really shutting out anyway?
This Sunday is not much different that last Sunday. We, like the pharisees, may not have liked what Jesus had to teach last week...we may have left thinking that time would pass and we’d forget the challenge that was placed on our lives and life would be great beyond measure once again...but that Jesus...he keeps coming back. We thought we’d get off the hook...but instead, he asks us again, How are we using unrighteous wealth to make friends for eternity? How are we opening gates? Opening minds? Opening hearts?
All this reminds me of another story about a man who lay at a gate. His name wasn’t Lazarus, but he, like Lazarus, was put by a gate. This man asked for money, something the rich man in our story had but something that Peter and John in this story did not. But even though they didn’t have money, they had something. They said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”
Two similar stories with two different responses. Which will be yours?
It is left open...it is for you to decide...It is for me to decide. Will I accept the testimony of not only the witnesses but of Jesus himself and open gates or will I ignore them and keep them closed even in the name of religion? I, like the rich man, should not be too surprised if THE gate of life is closed on me if I choose not to open gates for others in the here-and-now.
Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever. Amen.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Triune Economics 101
Pastor Tommy Thompson
17th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16:1-13
19 September 2010
Today’s Gospel lesson just might get me in trouble. One of the many discoveries I’ve made in ten years of ministry is that money is one of those issues church men and women would rather not discuss.
I remember once when I was serving a church in a different state from this one, my District Superintendent told me, “Tommy don’t mess with their money...you can mess with just about anything else, but don’t you mess with their money.”
But today the Gospel lesson intentionally discusses the use of money. What is a preacher to do?
First and foremost, I believe a preacher is to set the context for Jesus’ most famous discourse on the use of money.
So let me be clear...Jesus is not like us...he is not a fragmented post-modern thinker. He does not teach on money as a separate, though important issue from everything else...We are used to this kind of thing...we compartmentalize life...today is about money, next week is about sex, the following week is about religion and so on. But this is not the way Jesus thinks or speaks...for Him, all of life is connected and flows out of his over-arching identity and mindset as the Son of God who will become the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world.
We must keep in mind as we hear Luke 16 afresh that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem where the climax of salvation history will come to fruition--namely, his death and resurrection. Everything Jesus says and does from the moment he set his face toward Jerusalem must be understood in light of His journey to Jerusalem, even this so called “obscure” teaching on money.
An observation we should make is the fact that Luke 16:1 identifies Jesus’ hearers as “the disciples.” Jesus is not here responding to questionable behavior from the religious elite...he is not responding to the crowds...instead, this is one of those intimate moments in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus turns to his disciples to teach them for the sake of teaching them while they are on the way to Jerusalem, where his death and resurrection will bring salvation history to its climax and fulfillment. Though we should always take in every letter of every word that comes out of the mouth of our Savior, we should most especially listen when he is intentionally teaching his disciples.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been with Jesus at the table where Jesus teaches us by his actions and words to give without expectation of return...something that simply was not done in the first century Greco-Roman world. In an economy of reciprocity, where folks became a benefactor in order that the tables may be turned and one’s patrons might become one’s benefactors, Jesus teaches that his disciples shall become benefactors most especially for those who cannot reciprocate. Thus Jesus invites us out of an economy of reciprocity and into the divine economy of solidarity.
Jesus’ teaching reveals God’s life that the Son has enjoyed before the foundations of the world. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in mutual love and solidarity. In the Spirit, the Father empties Himself into the son and the Son receives the fullness of the Father. In the Spirit, the Son empties Himself into the Father and the Father receives His fullness. The economy of God is an everlasting donation of the self and receptivity of the other: This is the divine economy of love.
It is this economy of love that God intended for this world. God intends for us to participate in His life of love, living out his economy in His world as those who are stamped with His image and created in His likeness. But we chose to rebel against such self-giving and other receiving love and our desire turned away from God and away from the other and inward, toward only ourselves. In sin, we have become self-centered, unable to give to the other without calculating how much good it would do for ourselves. In the words of Seth and Scott Avett’s song,
I am sick of wanting and it's evil how it's got me
And every day is worse than the one before
The more I have the more I think I'm almost where I need to be
If only I could get a little more
Something has me, oh something has me
Acting like someone I don't wanna be
Something has me, oh something has me
Acting like someone I know isn't me
Ill with want and poisoned by this ugly greed
It is this condition, named so well by the Avett Brother’s song, that Jesus has come to heal. He has come to give us more than simply a medication to make us numb to the real issue of our illness.
This is what Luke 16 is all about. Jesus tells us disciples a story about a dishonest manager who knew his age well and acted shrewdly out of such knowledge of the world he lived in. Jesus uses this story to invite us, his disciples to know the age to come so well that we act shrewdly out of such knowledge of this coming age.
Here is the story: “There was a wealthy man who had a manager. Charges were brought to the wealthy man that his manager had been squandering his property. So the rich man called his manager out on the issue. ‘What is this I hear about your? Give me an accounting of your management...and by the way, “YOU’RE FIRED!!”
What is the manager going to do!? In the first century world, it was normal for folks to sell themselves as slaves in hopes to become a wealthy man’s manager...that would increase that persons prestige in the community and guarantee them shelter and food in the master’s estate. Please understand, this manager is not simply about to lose a job. He is losing his association with the wealthy master which has brought him a level of prestige in the community--so much so that he cannot even fathom considering manual labor or begging. Not only is he losing his prestige and honor but also he is losing shelter, food...his place in the master’s household. This is a huge loss. What is the manager going to do!?
He decides, while he is still associated with his wealthy master, that he will visit some of the master’s patrons. To one he asks, “how much do you my master?” the patron responds, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” The dishonest manager cuts the debt in half!Now let’s put this in perspective. The greek word for “jugs” here is roughly equivalent to forty liters. Forty times one hundred is four thousand liters of olive oil! That’s a huge debt. Now it is one thing to forgive half of a twenty dollar debt but it is quite another to forgive half of a 10,000 dollar debt. Luke records one more instance of the manager releasing one of his master’s clients of a portion of his debt: “How much do you owe?” “One hundred containers of wheat.” The manager instructs the client to cut the debt by 20% and make it 80 containers of wheat. Keep in mind here that the greek word for jug mentioned before is roughly 1/10 of the greek word for container used here.” one hundred containers of wheat is the same as saying 40,000 liters of wheat. That’s a whole lot of wheat folks. To reduce that debt from 100 containers to 80 is very significant, and in the eyes of the client, very merciful.
The dishonest manager becomes the shrewd manager in the eyes of his master now. The manager knows his master will save face and is not going to reinforce the debts...that would be humiliating. He also knows the world in which he lives. Now these clients of the master will become his benefactors...it is a an economy of reciprocity after all! He has guaranteed himself an opportunity for honor, food, shelter, and then some and has created a much brighter situation for himself than manual labor or begging by creating a brighter situation for these patrons...these so called friends.
It is such prudence that the manager’s master commends. But Jesus still refers to him as dishonest. It is important that we see here that Jesus does not applaud the manager’s dishonest behavior. Instead, he uses this example of knowing one’s world well and acting prudently out of that knowledge to teach his disciples to act as shrewdly according to the way of the age to come.
The dishonest manager used unrighteous money to his advantage by knowing his economy well. How might we know our world, the age to come, and its economy so well that we use the unrighteous means of this age that is passing away for its honor and glory? This is the point of the story.
What if we, the children of light, were as shrewd in our use of the money of unrighteousness for the purposes of the Kingdom of God as the children of this world are for the purposes of the kingdoms of this world?
For the past few weeks, Jesus has been revealing the age to come to us and its economy. We’ve been taught to give without expectation of return...We’ve been taught to be benefactors without expecting the tables to be turned. We’ve been taught to live out what Jesus’ death and resurrection has accomplished in our daily lives.
Jesus offered Himself, all of himself for all without expectation of return...without expectation of the tables being turned. He rose from the gave, overcoming the sin that has diseased us by the power of his self-giving and other-receiving love. He ascended into heaven, joining our redeemed humanity with the life of God. His kingdom will have no end!
Those of us who have been baptized into his death and resurrection are called to live out the ethos of the future kingdom and not any ethos of this world that is passing away. Death and resurrection leads to redemption. Thus as we live in this world, we die to the things that are passing away and live to the things of God, furthering redemption in God’s world. This includes money.
We, the baptized, are now citizens of another Kingdom with a new economy...the economy of grace...of love. As citizens of the Kingdom of God who live according to this new economy, how shall we use money that does not belong to us in the first place?
According to Jesus, we shall use money for the sole glory of the in-breaking Kingdom of God. We are invited to imitate the shrewdness of the manager but not the self-centeredness of the manager. We are called to forgive debts and give out of a sense loving solidarity...simply because there is need....not because there is something in it for us.
By using money in this way, we fulfill John Wesley’s call to early Methodists based on this very passage: (1) Earn all you can, (2) Save all you can, in order that you may (3) give all you can.
...Wow, Jesus knows how to challenge us doesn’t he!? We thought we were being faithful by keeping 95% for ourselves and giving 5%....some of us really thought we had arrived the day we started giving 10% of our income to the church...10% of our time...and so forth. But Jesus is calling us to a holistic view of life...a life where EVERYTHING said and done flows out of our sense of being the baptized...disciples of Christ...citizens of the age that is dawning in the midst of the darkness of this world.
He has come to heal us, to invite us to participate in His life fully. It is those who have become open to the healing Jesus has offered that begin to experience transformation. Seth and Scott Avett’s song continues offering a renewed realization:
Temporary is my time, ain't nothing on this world that's mine
Except the will I found to carry on
Free is not your right to chose
It's answering what's asked of you
To give the love you find until it's gone
A need for something, now let me break it down again
A need for something but not more medicine
May the Holy Spirit empower us that we may be healed from the illness of sinful greed and want so that we might live out the ethics of the future kingdom in the here and now...receiving money as solely that which can be used to reveal God’s economy of grace and love, that we might hasten the coming of God’s kingdom where we live in loving solidarity with one another for all eternity.
Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever! Amen.
17th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16:1-13
19 September 2010
Today’s Gospel lesson just might get me in trouble. One of the many discoveries I’ve made in ten years of ministry is that money is one of those issues church men and women would rather not discuss.
I remember once when I was serving a church in a different state from this one, my District Superintendent told me, “Tommy don’t mess with their money...you can mess with just about anything else, but don’t you mess with their money.”
But today the Gospel lesson intentionally discusses the use of money. What is a preacher to do?
First and foremost, I believe a preacher is to set the context for Jesus’ most famous discourse on the use of money.
So let me be clear...Jesus is not like us...he is not a fragmented post-modern thinker. He does not teach on money as a separate, though important issue from everything else...We are used to this kind of thing...we compartmentalize life...today is about money, next week is about sex, the following week is about religion and so on. But this is not the way Jesus thinks or speaks...for Him, all of life is connected and flows out of his over-arching identity and mindset as the Son of God who will become the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world.
We must keep in mind as we hear Luke 16 afresh that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem where the climax of salvation history will come to fruition--namely, his death and resurrection. Everything Jesus says and does from the moment he set his face toward Jerusalem must be understood in light of His journey to Jerusalem, even this so called “obscure” teaching on money.
An observation we should make is the fact that Luke 16:1 identifies Jesus’ hearers as “the disciples.” Jesus is not here responding to questionable behavior from the religious elite...he is not responding to the crowds...instead, this is one of those intimate moments in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus turns to his disciples to teach them for the sake of teaching them while they are on the way to Jerusalem, where his death and resurrection will bring salvation history to its climax and fulfillment. Though we should always take in every letter of every word that comes out of the mouth of our Savior, we should most especially listen when he is intentionally teaching his disciples.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been with Jesus at the table where Jesus teaches us by his actions and words to give without expectation of return...something that simply was not done in the first century Greco-Roman world. In an economy of reciprocity, where folks became a benefactor in order that the tables may be turned and one’s patrons might become one’s benefactors, Jesus teaches that his disciples shall become benefactors most especially for those who cannot reciprocate. Thus Jesus invites us out of an economy of reciprocity and into the divine economy of solidarity.
Jesus’ teaching reveals God’s life that the Son has enjoyed before the foundations of the world. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in mutual love and solidarity. In the Spirit, the Father empties Himself into the son and the Son receives the fullness of the Father. In the Spirit, the Son empties Himself into the Father and the Father receives His fullness. The economy of God is an everlasting donation of the self and receptivity of the other: This is the divine economy of love.
It is this economy of love that God intended for this world. God intends for us to participate in His life of love, living out his economy in His world as those who are stamped with His image and created in His likeness. But we chose to rebel against such self-giving and other receiving love and our desire turned away from God and away from the other and inward, toward only ourselves. In sin, we have become self-centered, unable to give to the other without calculating how much good it would do for ourselves. In the words of Seth and Scott Avett’s song,
I am sick of wanting and it's evil how it's got me
And every day is worse than the one before
The more I have the more I think I'm almost where I need to be
If only I could get a little more
Something has me, oh something has me
Acting like someone I don't wanna be
Something has me, oh something has me
Acting like someone I know isn't me
Ill with want and poisoned by this ugly greed
It is this condition, named so well by the Avett Brother’s song, that Jesus has come to heal. He has come to give us more than simply a medication to make us numb to the real issue of our illness.
This is what Luke 16 is all about. Jesus tells us disciples a story about a dishonest manager who knew his age well and acted shrewdly out of such knowledge of the world he lived in. Jesus uses this story to invite us, his disciples to know the age to come so well that we act shrewdly out of such knowledge of this coming age.
Here is the story: “There was a wealthy man who had a manager. Charges were brought to the wealthy man that his manager had been squandering his property. So the rich man called his manager out on the issue. ‘What is this I hear about your? Give me an accounting of your management...and by the way, “YOU’RE FIRED!!”
What is the manager going to do!? In the first century world, it was normal for folks to sell themselves as slaves in hopes to become a wealthy man’s manager...that would increase that persons prestige in the community and guarantee them shelter and food in the master’s estate. Please understand, this manager is not simply about to lose a job. He is losing his association with the wealthy master which has brought him a level of prestige in the community--so much so that he cannot even fathom considering manual labor or begging. Not only is he losing his prestige and honor but also he is losing shelter, food...his place in the master’s household. This is a huge loss. What is the manager going to do!?
He decides, while he is still associated with his wealthy master, that he will visit some of the master’s patrons. To one he asks, “how much do you my master?” the patron responds, “A hundred jugs of olive oil.” The dishonest manager cuts the debt in half!Now let’s put this in perspective. The greek word for “jugs” here is roughly equivalent to forty liters. Forty times one hundred is four thousand liters of olive oil! That’s a huge debt. Now it is one thing to forgive half of a twenty dollar debt but it is quite another to forgive half of a 10,000 dollar debt. Luke records one more instance of the manager releasing one of his master’s clients of a portion of his debt: “How much do you owe?” “One hundred containers of wheat.” The manager instructs the client to cut the debt by 20% and make it 80 containers of wheat. Keep in mind here that the greek word for jug mentioned before is roughly 1/10 of the greek word for container used here.” one hundred containers of wheat is the same as saying 40,000 liters of wheat. That’s a whole lot of wheat folks. To reduce that debt from 100 containers to 80 is very significant, and in the eyes of the client, very merciful.
The dishonest manager becomes the shrewd manager in the eyes of his master now. The manager knows his master will save face and is not going to reinforce the debts...that would be humiliating. He also knows the world in which he lives. Now these clients of the master will become his benefactors...it is a an economy of reciprocity after all! He has guaranteed himself an opportunity for honor, food, shelter, and then some and has created a much brighter situation for himself than manual labor or begging by creating a brighter situation for these patrons...these so called friends.
It is such prudence that the manager’s master commends. But Jesus still refers to him as dishonest. It is important that we see here that Jesus does not applaud the manager’s dishonest behavior. Instead, he uses this example of knowing one’s world well and acting prudently out of that knowledge to teach his disciples to act as shrewdly according to the way of the age to come.
The dishonest manager used unrighteous money to his advantage by knowing his economy well. How might we know our world, the age to come, and its economy so well that we use the unrighteous means of this age that is passing away for its honor and glory? This is the point of the story.
What if we, the children of light, were as shrewd in our use of the money of unrighteousness for the purposes of the Kingdom of God as the children of this world are for the purposes of the kingdoms of this world?
For the past few weeks, Jesus has been revealing the age to come to us and its economy. We’ve been taught to give without expectation of return...We’ve been taught to be benefactors without expecting the tables to be turned. We’ve been taught to live out what Jesus’ death and resurrection has accomplished in our daily lives.
Jesus offered Himself, all of himself for all without expectation of return...without expectation of the tables being turned. He rose from the gave, overcoming the sin that has diseased us by the power of his self-giving and other-receiving love. He ascended into heaven, joining our redeemed humanity with the life of God. His kingdom will have no end!
Those of us who have been baptized into his death and resurrection are called to live out the ethos of the future kingdom and not any ethos of this world that is passing away. Death and resurrection leads to redemption. Thus as we live in this world, we die to the things that are passing away and live to the things of God, furthering redemption in God’s world. This includes money.
We, the baptized, are now citizens of another Kingdom with a new economy...the economy of grace...of love. As citizens of the Kingdom of God who live according to this new economy, how shall we use money that does not belong to us in the first place?
According to Jesus, we shall use money for the sole glory of the in-breaking Kingdom of God. We are invited to imitate the shrewdness of the manager but not the self-centeredness of the manager. We are called to forgive debts and give out of a sense loving solidarity...simply because there is need....not because there is something in it for us.
By using money in this way, we fulfill John Wesley’s call to early Methodists based on this very passage: (1) Earn all you can, (2) Save all you can, in order that you may (3) give all you can.
...Wow, Jesus knows how to challenge us doesn’t he!? We thought we were being faithful by keeping 95% for ourselves and giving 5%....some of us really thought we had arrived the day we started giving 10% of our income to the church...10% of our time...and so forth. But Jesus is calling us to a holistic view of life...a life where EVERYTHING said and done flows out of our sense of being the baptized...disciples of Christ...citizens of the age that is dawning in the midst of the darkness of this world.
He has come to heal us, to invite us to participate in His life fully. It is those who have become open to the healing Jesus has offered that begin to experience transformation. Seth and Scott Avett’s song continues offering a renewed realization:
Temporary is my time, ain't nothing on this world that's mine
Except the will I found to carry on
Free is not your right to chose
It's answering what's asked of you
To give the love you find until it's gone
A need for something, now let me break it down again
A need for something but not more medicine
May the Holy Spirit empower us that we may be healed from the illness of sinful greed and want so that we might live out the ethics of the future kingdom in the here and now...receiving money as solely that which can be used to reveal God’s economy of grace and love, that we might hasten the coming of God’s kingdom where we live in loving solidarity with one another for all eternity.
Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever! Amen.