Sermon 10 August – Luke 16:1-13
“Living a Good Life” – Part 2
The parable of the Shrewd Investor (or the Dishonest Manager), is a strange one, since Jesus uses an example of dishonesty or cheating to teach some positive lessons, ones that can help us to live a good life.
In this parable, a wealthy man calls in his manager because of reports that this man is cheating him. The wealthy man demands an account of the manager’s accounts, and informs him that he will no longer work as a manager for him. This puts the manager in a very uncertain position regarding his future. He cannot do physical labour, and is too proud to beg. He decides, then, to reduce the debts that his clients owe, in hopes that this action will earn him favour with them, and perhaps they will receive him into their houses.
Both the owner and Jesus commend the manager for his shrewdness – his ability to develop an effective plan to deal with his situation. Jesus, in fact, goes on to say that the people of the world are often better at planning for their time in this life than are “the sons of light.” He then continues to say that we should also use our resources in a positive way to help people so that we can be received “into the eternal dwellings.” He emphasizes this even more with the general principle that “one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much,” and applies that to the resources that God has given us in this life. If we cannot be faithful with these worldly things, are we ready to be entrusted with eternal riches?
Finally, to put even more importance on this, he says that we cannot serve more than one master, and therefore, we cannot serve both God and money. How we use our money shows us what our values are, and where our heart is.
To live a good life, then, we have to be very thoughtful about how we use our resources in this life. We should use them to serve God and to serve others. But I think that this parable should also encourage us to look toward to our future (heaven/the new earth!) and to prepare ourselves for the glorious eternity that we will spend with God, and with a life as it was intended to be. If we can live a life spent in doing good, we have a better chance of having a life that feels good, too.
Questions to Consider:
How much do you think about your eternal future? What do you think about, if/when you do?
How can we better use our resources responsibly, to both serve God and others? What prevents us from doing so?
How can we plan and prepare ourselves for our eternal home? Where and how do we need to grow, and what do we need to leave behind?
