Trinity 9
Lk
16:1-9
8/17/25
In the movie The Accountant, Ben
Affleck plays a very unique character named Christian Wolff. Wolff is autistic, and socially very
awkward. However, his mind processes
numbers and solves problems in an incredible manner. Wolff is yet more unique because his father,
an Army officer, had made sure that Wolff received training in fighting skills
in order to toughen him and prepare him for a world that was unlikely to accept
him.
As an adult, Wolff draws upon all of
this background by working as a forensic accountant. He is adept at sifting through immense
amounts of financial data in order to determine how money has been siphoned off
and stolen. However, he does so for an
unusual and frightening clientele – he does this for drug cartels and the mob
and for arms traffickers. In doing so he
has his own kind of moral code. When he believes that someone has wronged him
or broken that code, he passes on incriminating evidence to a U.S. Treasury
agent that results in high profile arrests.
In the parable that Jesus tells this
morning there is an issue with the financial books. But the owner of the
business does not need a forensic accountant to figure out how money has been
stolen. Instead, he knows that his
manager has simply changed the financial records in order to reduce what
individuals owe to the master. He has cheated
the master out of money for is own benefit.
In our text, Jesus teaches us how we are to view and use money in light
of the kingdom of God which has arrived in Christ.
Jesus begins our text by saying, “There
was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that
this man was wasting his possessions.” The rich man was probably a landowner
who owned multiple properties and had rented them out to people who worked the
land and paid him in return with some of what the land produced. However, the rich man learned that his
manager had been doing an incompetent job.
He had been wasting his possessions and harming the man’s financial
status.
The rich man summoned the manager and
said, “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of
your management, for you can no longer be manager.” He told the manager to
get the account records and turn them in because he had been fired. No longer
would the manager oversee the financial affairs.
A moment of crisis had arrived for the
manager. He was out of a job, and his future prospects were dismal. He said to himself, “What shall I do, since
my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig,
and I am ashamed to beg.”
The manager had been incompetent in
taking care of his employer’s affairs – he had squandered them. But now that his
own well being was on the line he became very proactive and shrewd as he
looked out for his own future. He still
had the official financial records. So he said, “I have decided what to do, so
that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their
houses.”
He summoned the master’s debtors, and
found out what they owed. Where one owed a hundred measures of oil, the manager
told him to cut it to fifty. Where
another owed a hundred measures of wheat, he told him to cut it to eighty. Since he was still in possession of the
financial records he was able to act as the agent of the rich man in making
binding changes. Certainly the manager
pointed out to these individuals that he was the one doing this for
them, so that they would be willing to help him when he was out of a job. It
has been estimated that each of the changes equaled about 500 denarii – 500
days’ wages. This was a significant
financial gift that the manager was giving the debtors – and a significant act
of fraud committed against the rich man.
As we arrive at the end of the
parable, we expect that the rich man will be angry. After all, the fired manager has cost him a
great deal of money. But we hear in our text that Jesus said, “The master
commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of
this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation
than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves
by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may
receive you into the eternal dwellings.”
This morning our Lord teaches us about
how we are to deal with money. Just
after our text he says, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will
hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Jesus sets forth the basic question of the position that money has in
our life. This is an issue of the First Commandment. As Martin Luther teaches in the Large
Catechism, whatever we value most is our true God. Jesus says earlier in the Gospel, “For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
The First Commandment teaches us that we are to fear, love, and
trust in God above all things. This includes trusting that God is going to
provide for us – that he is going to give us our daily bread. Jesus said to his
disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life,
what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.” He then proceeded to point out that God feeds
the birds, and we are of more value to God than they are. Certainly, he will feed us. God provides for
the lilies that are arrayed in beauty. Certainly, he will also clothe us.
Yet in our text, our Lord focuses our attention more specifically
on how we deal with our money – how we use it. Do we use our money in ways that reveal it is
our god? Or do we use it in ways that show we recognize what time it is
– that we recognize who we are?
At the end of our text Jesus says, “For the sons of this
world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation
than the sons of light.” Our
translation says “sons of this world,” but more literally the Greek says “sons
of this age.” In the New Testament “this
age” describes the present fallen existence that is ruled by Satan, sin, and
death. This is contrasted with the “age to come” – the end time salvation in
which God’s rule has triumphed over these things.
Jesus Christ was the presence of God’s kingdom – his reign. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the
virgin Mary, the Son of God entered this world to free us from Satan, sin and
death – to rescue us from this age. Paul told the Galatians that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the One “who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the
present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” By Christ’s death he has freed us from
sin. And in his resurrection on Easter
he has begun the resurrection of the Last Day. The age to come has invaded this
age through Christ’s saving death and resurrection. And so Paul tells the Corinthians in our
epistle lesson, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they
were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has
come.”
We know what time it is. We
know that the end of the ages – the age to come – has come upon us in Jesus
Christ. And we know who we are because of this. We are the sons and daughters
of light. We are because the Holy Spirit
has called us to faith. We are because we have received the washing of rebirth
and renewal in Holy Baptism. We are those
who have been rescued from the present evil age and have been given the status
by God as saints – as holy ones in God’s eyes.
We know what time it is and what this means for us. And by the work of the Spirit this prompts us
to live as sons and daughters of light. In the parable the manager tells the
debtors to make the change in their bill quickly. The manager acts with a sense of urgency
because he knows what time it is. It is
the time when he is about to lose his job, but he still has the financial
books. In the same way, our knowledge of what time it is gives us a sense of
urgency. We seek to live in ways that use money according to God’s will because
we know that the age to come has arrived in Jesus and that has made us the
children of God.
Jesus says that “the sons of this age are more shrewd in
dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell
you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous
wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal
dwellings.” The sons of this age are
more shrewd than the sons of light because they use their money in ways that
are completely true to who they are. They use it as unrighteous wealth – money
that is used completely apart from faith in Christ and trust in God.
The sons of this age use money solely for their own benefit. They focus on using money to buy the better
house and car. They devote their money to taking great vacations; to going to
great concerts and sports events; to buying stylish clothes and home décor. But of course, to spend money like this means
that you need more money. And so
the continuous pursuit of money and the worry about money rules life as they
serve money instead of God.
No doubt, all of us find ourselves described in some way by those
words. We are sons and daughters of
light in Christ, but in ourselves we continue to struggle with the old Adam.
And so Christ’s words call us to repentance. They call us back to the forgiving
reign of God that we receive through the Means of Grace. For through these
gifts the Spirit enables us to live in Christ.
In this we find contentment as we trust God to provide us with our
daily bread. Christ said, “And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are
to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after
these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and
these things will be added to you.”
And in this we also use money as the son and daughters of
light. We use money to support the work
of the Gospel in this congregation, and around the world. We use money to
assist those in need in the Church, just as the church in Antioch did when it
sent money to assist the Christians in Jerusalem by hands of Paul and Barnabas.
We view our money as the means by which we can help others, for in Christ God
has helped us.
By God’s grace we know what time it is, and we know who we
are. We know that the age to come – the
end of the age – has come upon us in the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. By the work of his Spirit he has rescued us from this age – the present
evil age – and made us the sons and daughters of light. Therefore as we live in Christ we trust that
God will provide us with daily bread.
And we use our money to support the work of the Gospel and to help
others – especially those of the household of faith.
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