Faithful In a Little

Luke 16:1-13

September 21, 2025

 

            In the months leading up to my discernment of a call to go to seminary, I was out of work and desperately trying to find a full-time job. I was doing everything I could to keep the proverbial body and soul together. I worked temp jobs. I worked as a part-time nanny. I moved out of my apartment and lived with good friends from church so I could save money on rent. I would have walked dogs, answered telephones, run errands, and just about anything else I could to make ends meet. One Sunday at church, I was talking to a friend of mine, and I told him that I had applied for a job with the new state lottery association. They were looking for someone with publicity experience. I had that, so I applied. He looked at me and said, “Oh Amy, would you really want to work for the lottery? Think about the ethical implications.”

            At the time my response was “Right now, I need to think about the implications of not being able to pay my bills. I need a job.”

            I didn’t get the job, but I understood my friend’s concerns about the possibility of me working for the state lottery. The lottery seems like a good idea. The money from the lottery is designated as a help to schools and infrastructure, and it brings in tons of money for those needs. We’re not big lottery players at our house, but we’re not against it. I get intimidated buying a lottery ticket, but one of the things we do at Christmas now is buy scratch-off tickets as stocking stuffers for the entire family, and it’s always fun to watch everyone scratching their tickets to see if they won anything. Yet with that said, I also know that there are people who use their hard-earned money to buy lottery tickets with dreams of winning it big, when they would be better served just saving that money. They’d have more money from saving it than they would ever see buying lottery tickets. But winning the lottery is an enticing fantasy, which is why it is such a successful business. Folks buy into it, literally and figuratively. My friend worried that it exploited people for those reasons.

            I didn’t get the job so I didn’t have to wrestle too much with the ethical conundrums that might have arisen if I had, but I do think about what he said. I think he was asking the fundamental question of do the ends justify the means? Being unemployed and constantly worried about money made me realize that short of doing something completely illegal, I was prepared to see a steady paycheck as an end that justified whatever means required to earn it. But if we are looking for a passage of scripture to give us a definitive answer to the moral question of ends and means, then this passage from Luke’s gospel will not help. Not even a little bit.

            Jesus begins his parable in what would seem to be a straightforward way. There was a rich man. The rich man employed a manager to handle his business for him, and charges against the manager were brought to the rich man’s attention. We don’t know who brought these charges – a business associate, or a tenant, or another person who worked for the rich man, but what we do know is that the manager is accused of squandering the rich man’s property.

            The rich man summons his manager and tells him what he’s heard.

            “Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manger any longer.”

            The manager, knowing the jig was up and realizing that he wasn't strong enough to dig ditches and contrary to the classic song by The Temptations, knew he was too proud to beg, decides to make friends so that when he was dismissed he would secure a place where he would be welcomed. He goes to the people who owe debts to the master and reduces them.  How much do you owe to my master? 100 jugs of olive oil? Okay, cut that in half. Now you owe 50. You owe 100 containers of wheat? Well, now you owe 80.

            You would think that this would make the rich man even angrier, but here’s where this parable takes a bewildering twist. Instead of condemning the manager, the rich man commends him. The manager has acted shrewdly, and that’s a good thing. And if you weren’t already surprised and confused enough, Jesus then says some of his most confusing words ever,

"And I tell you, make friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes." 

I’m sorry, what? Is Jesus also commending the dishonest manager? I’m confused. I bet you are too. And sadly for all of us, I don’t really have a way out of the confusion. This parable has baffled scholars and theologians for years, centuries even. Every commentator I read said the same. This is a parable that leaves most of us scratching our heads and saying, “What?”

The response to the manager’s actions by the master and certainly Jesus' response to them seems counter-intuitive to everything we think about discipleship. Dishonesty, even though it is used to do something good, is still dishonesty. But in this passage the dishonesty and quick thinking of the manager is praised. Even though the text gives us no reason to believe that the manager was acting out of anything but self-interest, the way he deals with the situation helps other people in debt, so he finds himself not condemned but praised. Jesus lifts him up as an example of shrewdness, of someone who can think on his feet. What?

In the last verses Luke's Jesus seems to be explaining why he thinks this dishonest manager's actions are praiseworthy. But quite frankly, the explanations leave me more confused than ever. If you're faithful in a little, you're faithful in much. If you're dishonest in a little, you are dishonest in much. If you cannot be trusted to do the right thing with someone else's wealth, how can you be entrusted to do the right thing with what you have been given? It culminates with these words. A slave cannot serve two masters. You will love one master and hate the other. You cannot serve both God and wealth.

            The dishonest manger is praised for being shrewd. Another way to translate the word that is used for "shrewdly" is "worldly." The dishonest manager was worldly in how he dealt with his situation. Again, this seems counter-intuitive. Aren't we as believers supposed to be in this world but not of this world? Aren't we supposed to stay outside of all that is "worldly," because we have been taught to believe that "worldly" is wrong or bad or tainted? But here's the thing, we are in this world. And in small ways and large, the world is in us. We live in a world where money matters. Maybe it's wrong that money matters, but it does. Will any of us upon leaving here today repudiate what wealth we have? Will we sell all that we have and trust that we'll be taken care of? Anybody? No, we won’t do that. Because even if we don't have firsthand experience with poverty, poverty and the terrible hardships that come with it are all around us. Poverty is not glamorous. It is not a spiritual win. Poverty is hard, and it is dangerous. Suffering is suffering. I doubt that any of us would gladly surrender all our wealth. I know that I would rather not. But perhaps the point that Jesus was trying to get across was not that being dishonest was okay, but that when it comes to wealth we have to be realistic, not idealistic. The dishonest manager was praised for his shrewdness, his worldliness. What does it mean, then, for us to be worldly when it comes to wealth? 

            Maybe it means that we must recognize that we are going to be thrust into situation after situation where we must make hard decisions. Are we going to serve wealth? Or are we going to use whatever wealth we have to serve God? In the end the manager acted shrewdly by using wealth to build relationships. Are we enslaved to wealth or do we find a way to use our wealth to build up the kingdom?  Do we use our wealth to further relationship, with others and with God? It becomes a question of stewardship. How do we use our wealth to serve God?

            I’m not convinced that I’ve gotten any of my interpretation is correct. I suspect not. I know that I am leaving this passage as confused as I was when I went into it but I also know that the parables Jesus told were never about giving easy answers to complex questions. Jesus told parables to shock, to challenge, and to push those who heard them to wrestle with their meaning and their implications, and money and faith provides an ongoing wrestling match. This is true for us as individuals and this is true for us as a congregation. What does our budget reveal about our faith, our priorities? How are we called to be shrewd and worldly when it comes to our money and our discipleship? Those are questions that we wrestle with and will continue to wrestle with at least until the kingdom of God comes in its fullness.

            But here is one thing that the commentator Amy Frykholm wrote about this passage. We may not understand it. We may never understand it. But in every aspect of it there is grace to be found. There is grace in what the manager does for the people who owed the master. Reducing their debts was gracious. There is grace in the response of the rich man to the manager; praising him rather than condemning. And even though it may not be overt, there is grace in Jesus’ words to the people. You cannot serve two masters, but when you try to do it anyway, there is grace. And when you mess up in this call to discipleship, there is grace. When you stumble and fall, there is grace. When you try to walk away, I will call you back because of grace.

            We are given grace upon grace upon grace, so may we show grace to others and to ourselves. We are given grace upon grace upon grace. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.” Amen.