Luke 16:1-5 - The Bottom Line - October 13, 2019

Today we’re going to talk about Money. I know…nobody wants to talk about money – especially at church. Church is supposed to be for “spiritual stuff.” But today we can’t escape it – Jesus doesn’t give us a choice. In addition, Money is very spiritual. Why? Most simply because all Money belongs to God. But that’s not the only reason. It’s no secret that Money is one of the most important things in our lives. It keeps us busy during the day and awake at night. It guides our choices and decisions. As Paul made clear, the love of Money lies at the root of all sorts of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). The love of Money has destroyed marriages and families and churches and led people to wander from the faith. Humanly speaking, it’s hard to argue with Oscar Wilde’s assessment: “When I was young, I thought money was the most important thing in life; now that I’m old, I know it is.” [1] Today we’re going to talk about Money, but not in the way you think. We’re going to get right to the Bottom Line. What’s the bottom line? You cannot serve both God and Money.

First, I want to make sure that you heard this right. Jesus isn’t giving a command. He didn’t say “do not serve both God and Money.” He’s stating a fact: “You cannot serve both God and Money.” It’s not a choice but an impossibility. The only question is: which do you serve? Here’s the lesson we all need to learn – sooner than later – about Money. It’s a merciless master. No, it doesn’t appear that way, at least not at first. Money looks like those glamorous celebrities selling the newest credit card that gives you all kinds of free miles and cash back, like a well-dressed investment advisor who guarantees to make your money work for you, like the dream job with the dream salary that promises to make all your material goals come true. But that’s only half the story. The dark side is that when you don’t make your payments on time, you don’t get any miles but you do get an astronomical interest rate. The investment advisor can’t do much for you unless you regularly give him large sums of money to work with. The dream job may leave out the fact that receiving this salary will demand your heart and mind, your body and soul. Stick around for the quarterly meeting and you’ll see that even in the church, the laws of money can’t be broken. What goes out must first come in. Every penny must be accounted for. Budgets can’t be balanced by faith alone. Money is merciless.

Why? Because Money is a matter of the Law. And because Money is a matter of the Law we can always, always be accused of mismanaging it. We see that in our parable. The manager was only accused of wasting [his master’s] possessions. We aren’t provided with any evidence and the parable doesn’t even state whether he was actually guilty or not. It simply shows how easy it is for the Money to make accusations.

Allow me to conduct an experiment to prove this. Just see how easy it is for me to make you feel guilty by merely questioning your spending habits; without a shred of proof. The average American spends 5% of their income on entertainment and the average WELS member gives 2.5% of their income in offerings. Where do you stand? What does that reveal about who or what has first place in your heart? Or how about this: did you know that if you saved just $20 a week – by eating out one less time, by making your own coffee instead of stopping at Starbucks, or however – you’d have an additional $1000 each year to give to God? We live in relatively nice homes, drive nice cars and take nice vacations. Just imagine if, instead of spending those thousands of dollars on ourselves, how many missionaries could be sent, how many churches could be funded, how many pastors could be trained. See. I have no proof that you’ve mismanaged your money, yet you’re squirming anyway. But that’s not even the point. The point is that no matter how you spend your money, no matter how frugal you are, no matter how much you give, you could still be accused of fiscal mismanagement. Money is a merciless master because serving Money is slavery to the Law.

Sadly, if we’ve never thought of Money that way, as a merciless idol, it’s probably because of the church. At some point the church decided that it could help people navigate the impossibly narrow road between serving God and Money; teaching that there is a way to find peace in money management, that you can serve both at the same time. You’ve heard the sermons, right? “God commanded his OT people to give 10% of their income and if you do too, then you’re off the hook.” “If you just prioritize your spending in this order: 1) Church; 2) Family; 3) Taxes; 4) Charity – then you can relax, you’re good.” In general, the impression is given that as long as you give God his cut, as long as you serve Money under God’s rules, it’s ok. Then nobody can accuse you.

But it’s a lie. Money management is part of the Law and the Law’s purpose is not to give us peace of mind but to cause us to sweat and squirm by revealing our sins (Romans 3:20). You can’t stand before God’s all-seeing eye audit and be found innocent based on your money management no matter how you’ve spent your money. (For example: you could sell everything you own, clear out all your savings and give it to God, and you still wouldn’t be justified. Why? Because all you would be able to think about is how much you would like it back!) If you think you can satisfy God’s justice by the way you manage your Money, then you need to remember that the greatest sin of all is called “self-righteousness.” If you hope to stand before God and say “I’ve given enough, spent my money wisely, never wasted it, spent every penny perfectly,” then you’ve placed your hope for salvation in yourself. You are lost now and will be damned on the Last Day. But, you may ask, what’s the alternative? If I admit that no matter how much money I make I’m not content; that my giving is often motivated by self-righteousness; that financial worries keep me up at night – then I have to live in perpetual fear of God’s final audit. See what I mean about Money being merciless? Do whatever you want with it: keep it, save it, invest it, spend it, give it, burn it – it will never justify you before God.

So what’s the answer? How do you escape Money’s tyrannical hold on your heart and life? Through repentance. By repenting of ever giving Money the place in your heart and life that belongs to God alone. Money is an inanimate object; it is not God; it cannot accuse you; it cannot damn you; it cannot forgive you; it cannot justify you. Recognize that Money is merciless and in the end, powerless, because it is an idol.

So what’s the good news? Here’s where I’m supposed to say that the good news is that Jesus died to free us from our slavery to Money so that we can now serve the Lord with our Money – and then send the offering plates shooting down the rows. After all, that’s how the Church is often portrayed, isn’t it? God needs us to come here so that he can get our money and our time and our energy in order to make his Kingdom come. Is that true? Does God need anything from us to carry out his will? Is God angry with us until we give him a few bucks to get him off our backs? Do you understand how arrogant it is to suggest that God’s grace depends on something we do, that God needs our help to accomplish his mission? God didn’t have much patience for that kind of arrogance in either the Old or New Testaments. In Malachi God begged someone to close the doors of the Temple so that the priests would stop offering their sacrifices – because they thought that by merely going through the motions they were going to win God’s favor (Malachi 1:10). Paul told the idolaters in Athens point blank that [God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything (Acts 17:25).

So what’s the real bottom line, then? Remember that Jesus told parables to teach spiritual truths, not moral behavior – or here, proper money management. In parables, earthly things stand for heavenly things. So the point of comparison is not between the right and the wrong way to spend Money, but between the shrewdness with which unbelievers use the means at their disposal to give themselves comfortable lives in this world and how believers, the people of the light, use true riches to ensure their eternity. This interpretation is confirmed by the last two verses: 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 Pharisees thought that if they could just figure out the right equation for serving God with their Money, they could justify themselves and earn eternal life. They sneered when Jesus definitively declared that it’s impossible to serve God and Money.

So where’s the real good news? Having studied parables over the past several weeks, one helpful hint I’ve found is to look for the part of the earthly story that doesn’t quite seem right, that seems odd or out of place. Is there anything like that in this parable? Wasn’t this master pretty stupid for a rich guy? He heard that his manager was wasting his possessions, but he didn’t immediately have him thrown in jail. He allowed him to go free to settle his accounts. It doesn’t work that way today. If you get yourself fired, security tosses your stuff into a box, walks you to your car and your access to anything financial is immediately cut off. That’s how things normally go. In fact, spiritually speaking, that’s how it should go for us. When we leave here with God’s forgiveness and continue to feel guilt and shame over past sins, when we fail to be strengthened in faith by the Sacrament, when we hear God’s promise to provide our daily bread but continue to lay awake at night worrying about money – we are wasting the true riches God has given us. We deserve to have them taken away. But God doesn’t do that. Like the master in the parable, our Lord lets us go free, demonstrating an almost foolish level of mercy to us.

And our only hope for passing God’s final audit is that he will remain merciful. That was the only hope of the shrewd servant, too. And so, far from suddenly toeing the line, he doubled down on spending his master’s money to secure his own future. And how does the master respond? [He] commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. This manager had forced his master into a corner: either drag his former manager in for punishment and then demand the full amount from his debtors – and be known as a tyrant – or allow his manager’s actions to stand and be known throughout the community as a merciful and gracious lord. Of course, the punchline is that it will cost him a significant percentage of his revenue to be seen as merciful. But apparently, he figured that this loss to his bottom line was worth it to maintain his reputation.

Here’s the thing about mercy: it doesn’t cost the recipient anything, but it costs the giver dearly. The master in the parable had to suffer a significant financial loss to be merciful. God is merciful and he will continue to be merciful to us, but it came at a steep price. It didn’t cost him 20% or 50% but 100% of his only beloved Son. Rather than send us to destruction, he sent his Son to earth. Rather than demand a perfect, flawless life from us, he demanded a perfect life from his Son. Rather than demand that we maintain hearts free from greed and covetousness – which we could never do – to earn heaven – the LORD demanded that his Son be content to live in poverty for 33 years on this earth. Rather than send us to hell to pay off our debts, the LORD sent his Son to the cross to pay our debts in our place. The LORD, your real master, would rather suffer loss himself and be merciful than be just and lose you forever in hell. So be shrewd – serve him by relying on his mercy – trust his Word with all your heart, live in his forgiveness, let your heart rest in his peace.

This parable isn’t really about how to spend your Money but about who your Master is. The manager in the parable was commended because he knew his master’s mercy and shrewdly spent his master’s money to ensure his future. How much more should we freely use and spend the true riches God has given us – the Gospel in Word and Sacrament – the only wealth which can secure us a place in eternal dwellings. I know this hasn’t been your typical “money” sermon, but here’s the bottom line: You cannot serve both God and Money. Money is merciless – the best it can do is buy a nice piece of ground to put your body in; but God, God would rather suffer the loss of his Son than lose you – that’s a merciful Master, that’s the only Master worth serving. Amen. 

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5nxMx7d1K8S6nhjkPBFhHSM/withering-wit-and-words-of-wisdom-oscar-wildes-best-quotes