Luke 16 He also said to His disciples: "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. 2 "So he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' 3 "Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 'I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.' 5 "So he called every one of his master's debtors to him, and said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 "And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' So 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?' So he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' 8 "So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. 9 "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. 10 "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. 11 "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12 "And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? 13 "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

What a strange story of a common little thief who swindles his master -- the one who was trusting him, and then holds a fire sale and deeply discounts certain credit card debts before he is dumped as an employee. Why such an "unspiritual" little story? Why would our Lord descend to talk about an untrustworthy manager and even allow into his dialogue the praise for this unfaithful guy?

He was introducing us to a certain steward. A steward is a manager, one who has been placed in charge of someone else’s property. As if I had a business and placed you in charge of running the business. You decide what to do, you decide how to run the business. What I am interested in is to see that this business goes well and makes a profit. Here we have presented an untrustworthy steward. What can this unusual parable about an unexpectedly unspiritual steward have to say to us?

I. The Issue is FAITHFULNESS. Notice the triple repetition of the concept of faithfulness when Jesus comes to the application of this parable.

A. Faithful in that which is little (10) "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.

There is a clear connection between small responsibilities we have been given and larger responsibilities. The indication of faithfulness in larger responsibilities is how we deal with the small, insignificant things — maybe like making my bed in the morning, eating the right foods, listening carefully, making sure I get enough sleep, stopping to spend time with God.

B. Faithful in that which is unrighteous (11) "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?

"Unrighteous" in the sense that it is not real, true riches, unrighteous in the sense that it is easy to misuse. There is a connection between how you handle your little money down here and the true wealth that will be given you in the future. The comparison is between what is unrighteous (and present with us) and that which is true (and yet future). Apparently most people are getting tricked by that which is unrighteous. They think that the unrighteous mammon is true and because of that are not interested in the true riches. Faithfulness in the unrighteous mammon depends on understanding it properly and realizing that there is something more important; there is something more real.

C. Faithful in that which is another’s (12) "And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own?" The issue is how we treat things that are on loan to us. Almost everything we have at the moment is not ours, it is God’s. Even our bodies don’t belong to us; they belong to God. And God wants to teach us how to be faithful with someone else’s possessions. If you can’t be trusted to drive your Father’s car carefully, do you think that he is going to give you your own car? If you can’t be trusted to take care of your parents’ property, who is going to give you your own property? The point of the matter is that we learn how to care for our own possessions by being faithful in handling the things of others. These bodies don’t belong to us. Those who are unfaithful try to take over and act like they own the property and can do with it as they wish. Our money doesn’t belong to us; but sometimes we want to spend it as we want to spend it — on ourselves.

So often we get the notion that God wants us to be great, or brilliant, or creative, or talented, or super committed. But what He wants to develop in us is faithfulness. The responsibility of a steward is to be faithful. Think of Noah, day after day, building a boat, and preaching about a flood and the need to repent and turn to God. It doesn’t take too much imagination to think of what a day in the life of Noah contained. More wood, more cutting, more shaping, more fitting. But also the gaze and reaction of the towns-people. And I would imagine he repeated the same message to them he had given the previous day. If he preached one message a day for 100 years, he preached 36,500 messages. How many repented beyond his wife and children? None. How many joined him in his venture? None. How large was the church he developed after 100 years? Eight people, his family. And yet Noah kept doing what God had called him to do.

God wants to develop that kind of faithfulness in each one of us. What makes it difficult is our money. We see this in verse 13. The pressure arises to serve God AND something else. 13 "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." You will notice in this verse that it is not that people in vs 13 are against serving God. They want to serve God. But they want to meet their own needs too. So they become "God-and" servants. "God and money;" "God and my business;" "God and my sports;" "God and my education."

Jesus says, "you can’t serve God and mammon." Or God and anything. Once you put the "and" in there you drop God out. God is exclusive. You serve God alone, or you don’t serve Him at all. It’s like adding the name of another woman to your wife’s name and saying, "I’m married to Martha — and Gretchen." Do you know what Martha’s response would be? "You just think you are." And that is exactly the problem of serving God AND mammon. You just think you are. You’re not serving God faithfully.

II. The difficulty in faithfulness is in what we have been given

We are STEWARDS, dealing with someone else’s property. And faithfulness is not necessarily easy. In fact, it is much more complicated than we initially suppose. Here’s why:

A. We are responsible for what is called the "least" (10). Our responsibility looks so "little." The steward thinks to himself, "the money I have been given to manage is so tiny. I am not worth anything." "If I could win the powerball lottery and have a couple of million — then I would be faithful." What’s the problem with this kind of reasoning?

The steward does not recognize the VALUE of what has been given him. It is small, and what everyone else has seems larger. Thus he tends to look down on what he has been given. Children don’t think that they have any talent, or musical ability, or math brains. Parents who don’t value their children, teens who don’t value their parents, wives who don’t value their husbands, church members who don’t value other members.

Why spend your time and energy and give your best to that which is not of much value? There are other things that are of more value. Thus the steward is attracted by greener pastures. Why serve God at BBC when there are larger places where you could be?

Faithfulness depends on understanding how important the responsibility is that God has given me. Stewardship is a conscious, deliberate, logical decision to give my all to the responsibility God has placed into my hand.

This includes how you treat the small moments as well as the big, how you spend small amounts of money, as well as major purchases, how well you screen the small things that ooze into your mind, as well as the major.

Stewardship deals with the small things. The Washington Wizards are on their sixth coach since 1999. Eddie Jordan, the new coach for the Wizards grew up on 17^th place in SE Washington, DC. His preparation to be coach began when he was 11 and started missing dinner. "I had to punish him for not being home on time," said Jordan’s mother, Marguerite. "He had done it so many times, being late for dinner because he was playing basketball. I decided to teach him a lesson. So I just gave him a glass of milk. Later he came back down and said he wanted to say something. He said, "I was playing basketball because I want to be a coach one day and I’ve got to learn how to play."

His mother replied, "Coaches have to learn to be on time." Eddie was always punctual after that, she said. What a great way to help him learn the importance of something small. But think of what this woman did. She didn’t get angry with him; she didn’t dismiss his silly ideas of being a basketball coach. Instead she valued him enough to meet him right where he was living. He wasn’t an "undependable brat;" he had goals, and she could help him with those goals. What wisdom!

That’s the principle of the "little." It looks insignificant to us; it looks like a bother, and we don’t understand why something so "least" has been given to us. The principle of "little" suggests that the question ought to be: "How I treat the minor and not the major people?" God knows that you will treat the MAJOR players in your life well. But how do you treat the insignificant people? Matthew 25:40 Jesus said, "inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

B. We are responsible for what is called "unrighteous mammon."

This means that it is "deceptive." It changes the people who touch it. They want to hold on to it because they think that it is something special. It portrays itself as something REAL and LASTING, something that will without a doubt bring the good life! So it is hard to be a steward of money without being bitten by the money, without being taken in by the money. It is tricky stuff. It says to us, "value, precious, important" so that we begin to live just for the purpose of getting it into our possession. (drop $100 bills at this point).

Money seems to be real, money seems to be permanent. The Bible everywhere encourages us to understand that riches come and go (uncertainty of riches - I Tim 6:17). There is a good chance that we may be much poorer in the future. Do you believe that? We basically dream and think of being richer. But God shifts wealth around from nation to nation. And America has probably had it too long. Are we prepared for that? Or is our future hope dependent upon our wealth? God wants to bless us and give us incredible happiness and joy and peace even though we may be poorer!

Think of Habakkuk 3. God has just announced to Habakkuk that He is sending in the Babylonians to take Israel captive, an event that happens probably less than 20 years after Habakkuk wrote his book. How does Habakkuk respond? Does he run to the bank to check his investments? Does he build an underground shelter? No, he says at the conclusion of his book: "Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls -- 18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. 19 The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills.

Money is very deceptive. The president of Liberia, Charles Taylor is a very rich man today. He controls the output of the diamond minds in his country, as well as many other commodities. He is at the center of a gripping international drama as the USA and other countries try to get him out of power. Do you know where Charles Taylor was 25 years ago? He was pumping gas at a gas station outside Boston, MA and working at a plastics factory and studying at Bentley College in Waltham. He is the only person who escaped from the Plymouth county jail and not be caught. And now he is probably a billionaire. How long will it be until he is worth little again?

The path to true riches is faithful handling of tricky riches. Faithfulness means

maintaining the proper view of these riches.

C. It belongs to another. It’s hard to be faithful when the goods don’t belong to you. One of the things we do is take it as our own anyway. It may be someone else’s but I treat it as my own. Thus it becomes my house, my car, my property, my fortune. And all of a sudden, quite without any fanfare, the steward acts as the owner, the farmer views himself as the land lord! As humans we do it almost totally unconsciously. Even as Christians, we do it almost totally unconsciously. Even with God’s Word ringing in our ears, "you were bought with a price,""you are not your own," we go on acting as if we are owners.

And we wonder why the Owner takes away from us our property? Like Dan and Susan losing Susan’s parents. "Why did God take them away so suddenly" is a normal question, often asked. That’s the land owner question. That’s the question asked by those who "own," who think they "have" the parents. The steward question is, "why did God give them to us for 64 years? He could have taken them away 20 years ago, but He blessed us with them all these years. Thanks be to the name of the Divine owner!"

Thus the underlying motive which ruins so much of human life is the refusal to accept our position as stewards and the repeated attempt to "take over" what is God’s property. We are discontent with the job God has given us of taking care of this body, and we want to rule the body the way we choose. "I want to go where I want to go; I want to do what I want to do." But you don’t own your body. "So what? I’m going to do what I want to do."

Do you know what that leads to?

D. Instead of being faithful, most people serve two masters.

"I’m serving you Lord, as steward of this body, but I am sorry, I am running this body. Don’t try to tell me what to do, I know better."

The steward in Luke 16 was serving two masters, the landowner who had given him his job, and himself, as he was embezzling funds. He had this conflict going through his head. He wanted to serve his master faithfully, and at the same time he wanted to take a few shekels for himself from time to time. Was he successful in serving two masters? He may have thought he was, but the truth of the matter was that he was being unfaithful to his master, and for that reason lost his stewardship. He was stupid! Somehow he had been tricked into the assumption that he could actually successfully serve both masters!! What a total idiot! Can’t you see him handling his master’s finances and pulling out a $5 bill every hour and slipping it into his shoe so that at the end of the day he has an extra $50? And he goes to sleep with the realization that he has slipped it away from his master and is indeed $50 richer! Until the master appears unexpectedly one day in his office and says, "time is up, and you are out." All of a sudden he realizes that his assumption that he was successfully serving two masters was wrong. He wasn’t serving two masters, only one — the wrong one. And the one who was paying him, the one who owned all, was the one he was cheating. And suddenly it was all over.

Many Christians live like this steward, stupidly thinking that they can serve two masters. The difficulty is that many of them never wake up like this steward until it is too late, until they leave this scene.

III. The key to faithfulness is HOW we use our authority as stewards. As far as I can tell this man was never faithful. So I spent a bit of time this week wondering why Christ used this illustration to teach faithfulness. First of all, he is a crook. Second of all, when he wakes up, what he does is probably not the best thing. Thirdly, he never really becomes faithful to his master. He is only bright enough for his master to compliment him with the term, "you are one shrewd steward."

So what do we learn from all this? This parable teaches a RESOLVE — a determination to live in a new way, and that is the key. This crooked steward wakes up, slaps himself in the forehead, and declares, "I know what I am going to do!" "For crying out loud; why did I not think about this before?" "Where have I been?" "What is the matter with me?" It’s like he has lived his life in darkness, he has been clueless to life. When he realizes that he is going to have to start to do manual labor, as a ditch digger, or that he is going to have to get out his pan and start begging, all of a sudden, his brain cells leap into life.

The light dawns, he pounds on his forehead and says, "I’ve got it, I see it." The facts of the matter have not changed; "I will be put out." "I am going to lose my job." "But," and here is the nice part about it all, "I can make preparations for the future, so that I will have a decent place to live when I get riffed.

Everything in this parable revolves around that resolve. Everything in his life was changed by that resolve. What had happened? He began to see his money and possessions as an instrument rather than as a prize. Instead of collecting money for himself, he began to think in terms of using money for others.

So what does he do? He FORGIVES, and he GIVES. He streamlines his life to focus everything on making FRIENDS. We are kind of suspicious about what he does, because we think that he is cheating on his master. And then we are surprised when we read verse 8 and find out that the Master actually commends him for his actions. Actually what the steward does is legal, because the steward can handle the finances any way he wants, as long as he gains some sort of return for his master. And the interesting thing for us is that when we give away our things, we are actually giving away God’s property and God’s goods (not our own), and this is what our master WANTS US TO DO! He wants His goods to be passed around in such a way that they make the maximum benefit to the other creatures He owns.

The command of Jesus is, "make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home." We worry about the end of the verse: "what does it mean, ‘when you fail’ and what is the ‘everlasting home’ into which you will be received? Whatever that means, it is good! But we should be concerned with the first part of the command: "Make friends for yourselves by using your unrighteous mammon." That’s the command. Selective giving away of your wealth of money, time, talents, and possessions is a most wise investment. Proverbs says, "he that has pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord."

A. "Little" can be turned into all that I need for the future (they will receive him). All of a sudden he realized that he had in his power everything he needed to insure his future! His future retirement was in his hands if he would simply give a little away to the appropriate people. The point of the matter is that anyone who realizes the value of what they have in their hands, will be amazed! Everything that looks small and insignificant (like DNA) is much more important than it looks. God is always working with the minute as well as with the gigantic. Just think of creation.

WHAT DEBTORS CAN YOU FORGIVE? What small issues can you turn into friendships? You may think that your relationship with your boss or your father is impossible. But maybe it will turn on some small thing that you can give to them or give up. Your goal is to make connections with people, to develop relationships — more than anything else. And God can turn small moves of sacrifice into large gains in relationships.

B. "Unrighteous money" can be turned into "genuine riches." This is genuine "alchemy." Alchemy was a philosophical dream in the middle ages. Scientists and philosophers believed that they could discover a means of turning cheap metal (like lead) into gold, and become rich. They also thought that they could find a universal cure for disease, and a means of prolonging life indefinitely. We may laugh at them, but in some ways it doesn’t sound like things have changed much. But this is genuine alchemy. Alchemy is the process of transforming something common, or cheap, or worthless into something precious!

Here is something that is common, cheap, and worthless — money. You collect it, and it is going to be worthless. But God has a method of transforming your money into something precious. He can turn it into LOVE as you meet someone else’s need; He can turn it into friendship and fellowship and life as you forgive someone’s debt to you.

What kind of money says "I love you?" Throwing $100 bills out the window as you drive may only say to people, "I am dumb." But sometimes a stick of gum given to a little child has a lasting effect. Spending money on a card, or a gift, giving to those in need, contributing to those who are ministering to others (missionaries) all create friends for the future.

Can you remember someone saying to YOU that you are important by the way they handled their money? We just returned from a Schuppe family reunion, hosted by my uncle Sam. He didn’t just "host" the reunion, he didn’t just "pay" for hotel rooms, or supply all the food we needed. He actually did it with class! And he said to each family member, "you are special." Alchemy!

C. That which belongs to "another" can be turned into our personal possession. What were the real possessions of the steward? What did he actually develop that was HIS? All of his possessions disappeared; they weren’t his anyway. The attitudes of appreciation, the friends he had recently made; the motivation they had developed because of his kindness — these were HIS.

The stuff we collect around us is NOT OURS! The children that grow up to love Jesus Christ and other people, are ours. Christ said, "I and the children you have given me." We have the privilege of using what God has given us to turn the hearts of people toward God.

This passage seems to hinge on two crucial concepts. 1. I am a steward, not an owner. What I deal with may not look very valuable or very large. But God has given it to me for a very important reason. He desires me to develop faithfulness.

2. This passage seems to teach a kind of Divine Alchemy — where something as base and even debasing (money) can be turned into something life-changing (by love, forgiveness, encouragement and hope). That won’t happen with a person who is self-absorbed who views his money as something to hoard and protect and gather for himself. But with a certain amount of wisdom, a certain amount of understanding of how money can be transformed into spiritual power, a person can lay up treasures above.

Do you see why God’s help is so important here? How do we use what has been loaned to us? The Owner wants to guide us. As we are filled with His Spirit we can receive wisdom from above in evaluating our responsibilities. How to use your time best, how to buy up the opportunities, how to handle your body properly, how to dispense your finances in the best way, how to become a channel instead of a pool, are all questions that the Holy Spirit wants to answer for us.

Are you double minded? Trying to serve God AND mammon? There is a better way — demonstrated by this little untrustworthy steward.

07/13/03, BBC

Stewardship.MEF, 7/30/03