The Scripture this
week at Haywood Street’s service was Luke 16:1-13. It is the parable of the
shrewd manager. As Brian Combs said in his introduction to the sermon
exchanges, most ministers either don’t preach from these verses or they ignore
them altogether. They are full of irony and difficult to understand, but why?
On Tuesday evening
I had a conversation with Brian Hooks and some of the Tuesday afternoon Clothes
Closet workers. I made the comment that trying to explain to other people what
Haywood Street was all about was impossible. You have to be at Haywood Street.
It is like Copernicus trying to explain to his Inquisitors about the sun being
the center of the universe, not the earth. They had to look through the
telescope to see that the earth was not the center of all things and, in fact,
the earth revolved around the sun.
I come every week
to “catch” what the congregation at Haywood has and to work there on Tuesday
night or Wednesday morning is to be exposed to the “sneezes.” However, learning
to live the Gospel is a process, a process of learning Jesus in the most
intimate sense. We must not think we can get
it any better than the disciples who lived and breathed the same air as
Jesus until we come into contact with the risen Lord. He told us where to find
Him, with children, with the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry. Of
course, you have to cherish the little children, cloth the poor, heal the sick,
visit the imprisoned, and feed the hungry to meet the living Lord. That is the
first place to be if you want to learn the Gospel. You must have ears to hear
and eyes to see, too.
The parable of the
shrewd manager adds another dimension to learning Jesus. There was a manager
who was called in by his master. The master had heard that the manager had been
wasting his possessions and told the manager to bring his accounts to him. The
manager was worried. He couldn’t do manual labor because he was too weak and he
was ashamed to beg. Instead he went to all the master’s debtors and reduced
their debt so that they would be grateful to him and would help him when he
lost his job. The master heard about it and he was impressed. He commended the
manager for his shrewdness.
Parables are
supposed to have one truth they are teaching. So what is it in this one? What on earth was Jesus trying to get across? Jesus
explains that the children of this age are shrewder in dealing with one another
than the children of light. So he tells his disciples to use wealth to help
other people so they might be welcomed into heaven by the people they helped.
Jesus further explains that if you are not to be trusted with someone else’s
wealth, how can you be trusted with wealth of your own and if you are dishonest
with very little, you will be dishonest with much. You cannot serve God and
wealth, simple but hard to understand – and even harder to do. Money is only
useful if it is helping others.
We did not discuss
the last paragraph in this Scripture. Luke 16:14-15, but Jesus brings the point
home in the strongest of language. Listen.
‘The Pharisees,
who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who
justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is
highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.”’
The question all
of us rich and poor must ask ourselves is are we children of the light or are
we children of this age like the Pharisees? Do we walk in fear or do we walk in
faith?
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