Sermon
St. Stephen's Anglican Church
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, September 22, 2013
Now Whatcha Gonna Do?
Text: Luke 16:1-13
Well if the parable of the dishonest manager doesn't perplex you, you aren't paying attention. It is filled with things that challenge us and make us question what Jesus was doing. He seemed to make a hero and an example out of this man who mismanaged his employer's estate to his own advantage. It almost looks like Jesus is approving of bad behavior. I want to suggest that we not get all hung up on those issues as we discuss this parable today. After all, Jesus was talking to His own disciples here. I think He was just having a little fun making the story colorful and memorable as the vehicle for the points He wanted to make.
This parable shows us a moment in a person's life when everything is about to change. We all have those moments of truth when we have been drawn up short, and we realize that nothing is going to be the same as it was, and the question that confronts us is, "Now watcha gonna do?" This manager had it good. He had worked out a good life for himself as the employee of this rich man. He had authority. He had autonomy. He had power. And suddenly, the boss gets word that the manager has been wasting his possessions. The boss confronts him, and tells him to give an accounting because he is firing him.
Think about the manager's frame of mind. His world had come crashing down. He knew at that moment that nothing would be the same for him. What he had was over. So he said to himself, "Now watcha gonna do?" And he worked out a shrewd plan. He used the power he still had to make deals with the people who owed his boss money. So they were beholden to him, and they would welcome him into their houses in the future.
From this little tale, Jesus made a number of points in verses 9-13:
9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? 13 "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
This parable is clearly about stewardship. It is about how God expects us to handle what He has entrusted to us. And although this story is about money, stewardship is about more than money. It is about more than time and talent. Today, I want to ask you to think of our stewardship of something else that God entrusts to us.
- It is more precious than money.
- It is more irreplaceable than time.
- It is more satisfying than talent.
I'm talking about the relationship with Jesus, which He invites us to have, and which He entrusts into our care. A relationship is something that has to be cared for, maintained, nurtured, developed. That is the way it is with Jesus. He once said that the Kingdom of heaven is like a fine pearl which a man found in a field. When he found it, he went out and sold everything in order to buy that field. (Matthew 13:45-46) What did Jesus mean by "the Kingdom of heaven?" He meant the relationship that every one of us can have with the son of God. It is so precious that we ought to be prepared to give up everything else in order to possess and enjoy it.
Most of us have experienced Jesus entrusting that relationship to us. We have come to know Him. We have loved Him. We continue to grow in our knowledge and love of Him. We try to please Him. We try to discern His will. We try to get on board with what He is doing, and go there together with Him. We try to honor the plan He has for our lives. We try our best to be like Him.
But not always. As we discussed last week, we stray. We wander off and forget our first love. We get caught up in sin and are ashamed to look Him in the face. In other words, we abuse the relationship He has entrusted to us. And what a shame that is. We have the opportunity to be intimate every moment with the author of life and the King of kings. And we squander it. Just like the characters in Jesus' parables:
- the dishonest manager Jesus talked about in this parable this morning
- the prodigal son who left home (Luke 15:11-32)
- the people invited to the king's great banquet, but said no with a bunch of lame excuses. (Matthew 22:2-14)
- the farmer with the bumper crop, who instead of being rich toward God hoarded all his riches into barns. (Luke 12:16-21)
Jesus spoke often about those who abused the gift He offers—the gift of salvation, the gift of eternal life, the gift of intimacy with Him. And in all these instances, He shows us a moment of truth—a moment when the person realizes he's been a fool. He realizes the gig is up. And at that moment the question is: Now watcha gonna do?
As a pastor, I have been there in those moments with people.
- In a moment of truth, a woman said to me, "I'm a believer and a true follower of Jesus, but I don't know the Bible well enough to back up even a single one of my beliefs. What shall I do?"
- In a moment of truth, a woman said to me, "I never have pledged more than I could easily afford. What that says is that I've never trusted God to provide for me." Now watcha gonna do?
- A man told me of a moment of truth at the Redskins game when he suddenly saw himself, yelling and cheering and waving his hands. And it hit him that he had never praised God with anything like that kind of joy and exuberance. Now watcha gonna do?
- A man told me of the moment when he realized how many intelligent people have embraced the Christian faith. And he himself had never gotten past thinking he was too intelligent to believe in miracles and casting out demons and a lot of other things the Bible says. A moment of truth. Now watcha gonna do?
One of the blessings of our precious relationship with Jesus is that His love is forever. He doesn't write us off. He gives us many opportunities to recover from abusing the gift He has entrusted to us. He gives the Christian many moments of truth, when He shows us something that needs to change. He gives us an insight of self-awareness, and says, "Now watcha gonna do?"
Some of His parables have happy endings.
- The dishonest manager took some actions that secured his future with his new friends.
- The prodigal son "came to himself" as he wallowed in the mud with the pigs. He came home repenting and was restored to his relationship with his father.
But most of these stories don't have a happy ending, because the person who had the moment of truth didn't make the change.
- Sometimes it came too late, as it did in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. For years, the rich man ignored this poor soul sitting by his gate begging and covered with sores. And after both of them had died, it was too late for him to get on the right track. (Luke 16:19-31)
- It was too late also for the farmer with the bumper crop. He had all the riches stored up, but that night his life was demanded of him, and he discovered he couldn't take it with him.
And sometimes, it was just people's stubbornness that kept them from changing anything at the moment of truth.
- In the parable of the king's great banquet, they had the invitation and turned it down.
- In the real-life encounter Jesus had with the rich young ruler, Jesus invited him to follow him, and to sell all his things and give the money to the poor. The man went away sad, the Bible tells us. When Jesus asked him "Watcha gonna do," he couldn't bring himself to make the right choice.
(Mark 10:17-22)
I read an article recently by a man named John Shore, whose moment of truth had a happy ending. He's nobody famous. He's just a guy who was sitting at his desk in his cubicle at work, when he began feeling hot and uncomfortable. He knew something big was going on, so he hid in the supply closet where nobody could watch him. What happened in there was that he had an encounter with God. Here is some of what he wrote:
I was anti-Christian. The religion struck me as ridiculously immature, a way-too-obvious system designed mostly to capitalize on people's guilt: Big Daddy in the Sky knows you did wrong, but will love you anyway if you'll only admit that he's perfection itself, and that you're a wretched, sickening sack of sin.
...it wasn't like I didn't believe in anything. I did. I very seriously believed in me. I hadn't a doubt in the world about the fact that I was somebody truly worthy of my utmost affection and devotion. I was strong, capable, friendly, competent—I was just a general, all-around good guy. I was thirty-eight years old. I'd been happily married for sixteen years. I had a good job. I had friends. People liked me. I liked me. That is, I liked myself as much as it seemed reasonable to. I was certainly aware of my own shortcomings...
But I didn't need God or anybody else to forgive me for the times I behaved poorly. I was perfectly capable (if not spectacularly efficient) at forgiving myself, thank you very much. Because I knew that, at my core, I was a good, morally sound person. On the other hand, I was a human being. And human beings, I knew (boy, did I know) have natural needs, and natural weaknesses.
What suddenly became a fact to me was that I'd been fooling myself for so long I'd forgotten the act. I wasn't the great, honorable person I started out to be, that I'd meant to become—that I actually thought I was. I was just another guy so busy thinking he's constructing the perfect home that he doesn't realize how long ago he stopped using a level.
Here was John Shore, atheist, hiding in the Janitor's closet, sweating, agitated, and confronted with the truth of the Gospel. Now watcha gonna do? Well here's how he tells what happened:
I saw my death. I [saw] in a sort of direct, open tunnel, the disturbingly short distance between where I was, and where I was most certainly going. I saw my mortality. I saw the simple fact that I would die—and that, as surely as one day follows the next, at the moment of my death I wouldn't be any different from how I'd been at any other moment of my life.
I wasn't going to get better. I wasn't going to become stronger, or wiser, or smarter, or more honorable. It just wasn't going to happen. I was thirty-eight. I was who I'd die being. At best.
Oh, but that was a bad, bad moment for me.
And then my legs disappeared from underneath me.
I actually fell on my knees.
In the supply closet.
At my job.
Then I did something I never, ever do. I started to cry...And do you know what I knew at that moment—what instantly imprinted itself upon me? That the story of Jesus is... true. That it happened. That God, desiring above all else to show the people he'd created that he loved them, became a human, and came to earth, and sacrificed himself, and in every way did everything he possibly could to show people exactly how deeply and terribly he loves them.
The King of all creation has come into our midst and offered us a personal relationship with Him. He has offered to forgive our sins and give us a fresh start. He has offered to take us into His Kingdom, where we can communicate freely with Him whenever we want. He has given us an intimacy with His Son that makes all other loves in this life pale by comparison. He has offered to give us important things to do for Him that have eternal consequences. And He gives us supernatural power through His Holy Spirit. And atop that mountain of blessings, He promises that these riches will go on for eternity for those who accept His invitation.
Could there ever be a pearl of greater value? Could there ever be anything else for which it is worth giving up everything?
I hope that some of you are experiencing a moment of truth here this morning. I'm hoping Jesus has shaken something loose in you, and set off a moment of great clarity when you see that things are going to have to change. And my question for you is, "Now watcha gonna do?"
© The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, 2013