Sermon for September 21, 2025: Shrewd based upon Luke 16:1-13

Luke 16:1-13 (New International Version) The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

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?’
“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.
“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’
“‘A thousand bushels[b] 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?
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“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

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     The last time I preached on this passage, I called it “the Parable about Surviving Slavery when You Are Put in Charge of Stuff.” John T. Carroll, in his commentary on the text, calls it “one of the most puzzling texts in the New Testament.” He’s not the only scholar I’ve read who has said that. As we know, the parables that Jesus uses when teaching are often complex. They often contain within them a surprise turn meant to highlight how the reign of God is different than the present age of the hearer. The surprise in this text is particularly surprising! Jesus seems to praise dishonest actions. This is why Carroll finds the parable puzzling.

     There's a rich guy in the story, a guy rich enough that he owns humans and has either purchased someone who is skilled in financial management or has trained him to manage his finances. Jesus tells us that someone has accused that enslaved manager of squandering the rich guy's money. The rich guy seemed to believe the accusations though it not clear if they actually are true. It is clear that rich man doesn’t trust the man he owns. The enslaver asks the manager for an account of his actions and then demotes him to more grueling work. The manager doesn’t refute the accusations. The scholar Mitzi Smith, in a commentary on this text, notes that enslaved people often were not trusted to tell the truth. In Rome, slaves weren’t allowed to give testimony in court, unless they were being tortured, because it was just assumed they would be dishonest. Perhaps the manager knew he wouldn’t be believed, so refutation wasn’t even worth his time. Instead, he decided that building a network of people who would help him would be the better use of his time and energy.

     He quickly went to two of the people who owed the enslaver money and changed the records of their transactions to say that they owed much less than they actually owed. After that, even though he'd already been demoted, it seems like he still had at least one meeting with the man who owned him about the money. That meeting is where the surprised happened.

     The rich man saw what the manager did in cutting down the amount people owed, an action that looks like him losing the enslaver quite a lot of income. In an odd turn of events: the rich man commends his former manager for reducing the outstanding bills. In his commentary on Luke, Fred Craddock notes that some scholars have argued that some slavers allowed the people they enslaved to have commissions from transactions they performed. It is possible, then, that the enslaved manager cut out his commission out of the invoice. But, if that were true, the enslaver wouldn’t then describe him as dishonest. Dishonesty isn’t giving up money you earned. Dishonesty is, however, changing records for a loss! Why would he praise the person he enslaved for taking money owed him?

     In verse eight, Jesus seemed to offer some kind of explanation for the rich man's commendation. Jesus said that "children of this age," that is, people who have not decided to live according to God's will, are much more adept at gaming the unjust system they live in for their own gain than the disciples are. Jesus seems to be telling his followers to start living with that level of wiliness and skill for survival. Generally speaking, “be willing to outsmart unscrupulous people” seems like not terrible advice, but, at the same time, Jesus usually tells his disciples to follow God’s rules, not live like the oppressive community around them. In the next verse, Jesus even seems to tell his followers that if they have wealth from shady sources, they should use it to buy influence with people who will take care of them later. What? What is he talking about?

     Now, some commentators have said that Jesus is taking this moment to explain to his followers how any possessions can be used for good purposes, even ill-gotten ones. After all, in the last several readings, Jesus has spent a lot of time justifying his close relationships with people who have plenty of dishonest money: tax collectors, other sinners, the occasional woman of ill repute. Maybe this is a story for folks who might think they can't take this money that they earned from the empire's systems and then turn around and use it for God's purposes. Or, maybe this is a story that is like those verses in Matthew where Jesus reminds his followers to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Wisdom comes from using what you have to make do: This manager makes do by using what he has, which is, the bills owed the rich man, and offers mercy others in hopes of receiving help later. This is the level of shrewdness Jesus believes his followers will need to survive.

     In the next four verses, 10-14, Jesus returns to describing a relationship with wealth that sounds like it is more in line with his mission in the rest of the Gospel: bring good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, and proclaiming the Jubilee year of debt forgiveness. In verses 10-13, he seems to be saying that the wealth that we have right now, ultimately, is not the most important thing that we are entrusted with. There’s an underlying assumption that all wealth has likely come from cheating someone else. It is therefore untrustworthy, and pursuing wealth makes you more likely to justify taking advantage of people. Jesus argues that our "true riches" are our relationship with God and neighbor. We can demonstrate our faithfulness and wisdom with small things, like the dishonest wealth of the parable, in order to build the foundation for our commitment to the great thing, our relationship with God. 

     Ultimately, as difficult as it is to imagine, our money is the small thing that has been entrusted to us.  Our relationship with God and neighbor is the greatest thing that can be entrusted to us. Our relationship with the small thing of our wealth helps to shape the course of our greater relationship with God. In fact, our relationship with wealth should be a reflection of our faith. Jesus knew that then, just as now, it is too easy to become trapped in a system that tells us to value small things, like our money, more than big things, like our relationship with God and neighbor. Because money is such a powerful tool, it can also be easy to forget that as our primary concern, our relationship with God should be helping to guide how we use our money. When we forget that our relationships are our true riches, we can believe the lie that our wealth is the most important aspect of our lives, and we will turn our attention towards protecting it at all costs.

     Mitzi Smith, in her commentary on this text points out that it is the relationships the manager cultivates that he expects to be his salvation, not his work as a manager. He has assumed that the system that guides his owner, the dishonest system, will not offer him protection, even as he has to try to work in the midst of that system to figure out a way to survive. Could you have heard this parable and seen yourself in the place of the slave who has to find a way to survive? Could you have heard Jesus remind you that, even as you worked in the dishonest system, you could still find a way to shift those skills into honorable work with God? Would you hear the challenge to make God your ultimate guide, and not Caesar?

     We may not be enslaved managers, but we still are often faced with choices of how we will live out our values in our everyday lives. In fact, every day we are afforded a million small opportunities to allow our behavior to reflect our connection to God, including our behavior with money. I pray that we can each as ourselves, "When I make this choice, who am I really serving? The small things? Or, my God and my neighbor?"
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
Fred Craddock, Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
Mitzi Smith: https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4166
John T. Carroll: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-3/commentary-on-luke-161-13-6
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