The Merciful Master
Luke 16:1-9
August 18, 2019 anno Domini – Redeemer
(Note: It was a long week at the Timm house, so I owe this sermon to my son-in-law Pastor Matthew Moss. Although I rewrote his entire sermon in my own words, the structure and insights are mostly his. The weaknesses are mine, the good stuff is his, the glory is God’s.)
The Lord is merciful and compassionate and that just doesn’t make sense to selfish sinners. That is why this parable is so difficult. Jesus puts the Lord’s mercy in the midst of an ordinary everyday business, but nobody’s business works by mercy. Wells Fargo isn’t going to succeed if they are merciful with your mortgage payments. Costco isn’t going to let you walk out of the store without paying for your 2 gallon jug of tabasco sauce. But here in the parable we find a merciful Lord, a manager who trusts that mercy for his future, and a bunch of tenant farmers who benefit from that mercy and praise their master.
The farmers rented from the Master, a rich man. He owned everything for as far as the eye could see. That’s why He had a manager. The farmers paid their rent with a portion of their crops – this guy paid with wheat, that guy with oil. The Master could be merciful, if he desired, and forgive part of the debts of his tenants and He was merciful as the parable shows.
So here are the characters – a very rich Master, a wasteful manager, and a bunch of farmers who are always in debt. From the moment the parable begins we see that the Lord goes about His business in a far different way than 3M or Apple. The chief financial officer of 3M is found to be wasteful. What does 3M do? Give him one small box to pack up his belongings. Lock down his computer access and have security walk him to the door. Get the books audited and if he’s been stealing call the cops. What does the Master do? He lets him go back to his house, have time alone with the books he’s probably cooking, and then leave his job with no shame or public ridicule or jail time. In the world this Master is a failure. No business can give away it goods and succeed, but He is not of the world. This isn’t failure. This isn’t business. This is mercy.
What did the manager do? He trusted in the Master’s mercy. He was fired. He had been wasteful. This was his fault entirely. What was he going to do? He looked in the mirror. He was 57 years old. He couldn’t dig ditches any more. He looked around – none of his friends had enough to bail him out. There was only one option left. He knew his Master was a merciful man so he banked on that. He staked his life on his Master’s mercy.
What’s the point up to this point? You’re the manager. You have been wasteful with God’s gifts. You have sinned and deserved to be thrown out, shamed publicly, and cast of by God. You cannot stop sinning and you certainly don’t have the strength to atone for your sins. You can’t borrow righteousness from any of your friends because they don’t have anything to give you. You have one hope – the mercy of the Lord. (And the good news from this parable is that the Lord is merciful.)
How do we know the Master had a habit of forgiving? The farmers did not protest. If the Master had been a ruthless businessman who weighed every bushel and counted every nickel and demanded payment in full they wouldn’t have changed their bills without protest. They would have become suspicious of the manager. They would have been like me when I receive a letter from some lawyer in Nigeria, claiming there is $10,000,000 just waiting for me because my last name happened to be Timm and some dead guy named Timm (which is a very common name in Nigeria) has no relatives that they can find so I qualify. Right, let me just spell out my name and give you my social security number and access to my checking account. I don’t think so.
The farmers had been forgiven before. The manager knew this and had done this before. His only hope for life was to stake his life and put his faith in the Master’s mercy. He demonstrates that faith by extending that mercy to the others, the farmers. The only way of salvation is God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus, and that faith, your faith, the Christian faith, is shown chiefly when you extend that same forgiveness to the rest of the sinful world.
Trusting completely and only in His Master’s mercy, the manager cancels some debts. What farmer wouldn’t rejoice in having some of his debt cancelled? What farmer wouldn’t befriend the messenger who brings that forgiveness – in this case the manager? This is why the Master commends the shrewd manager. In case you haven’t noticed, the sons of this world are very shrewd with their money, to make more money for themselves. The manager was very shrewd in his plan to trust his master’s mercy. And even after this cunning plan, the Master remains merciful and kind. He still doesn’t throw the manger in jail even though the manager’s forgiveness has cost Him.
You don’t want to run your business the way of God’s kingdom. You’d be done. Your business would fail, but that’s the point. Jesus is teaching about God’s grace and mercy. God is not stingy. He doesn’t measure His forgiveness or gifts. He’s not worried about the cost or giving too much away. That makes no sense. It wouldn’t work in an earthly economy, because it’s the heavenly economy. That is why Jesus must teach the parables and why our ears must hear them our faith believe them.
The Master is reckless with His mercy and generosity. He is more concerned about His reputation of kindness and mercy than His profit and bottom line. While it might be bad business this is the God we have. This is the Master our faith clings to.
If you want to see the grace and mercy that would fail on earth, but succeeds in the Kingdom of God, then look at the cost of our redemption. Jesus Christ forgave us the debt we owed to sin, death, and the devil. The life of Jesus hangs in the scale of God’s justice at the cross and you don’t have to be a trained economist to see the trade deficit. Jesus for you. The priceless, sinless, only-begotten son of God is traded for a rebellious, selfish sinner, for you. Nobody’s going to make that deal any more than a convention of climate change scientists would buy stock in a coal mine. But you and your salvation are what God desires most. God, our Savior, desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. We are those happy tenants whose debt has been forgiven, who know our Lord is merciful, and show it by gladly forgiving those who sin against us.
The world sees sin as a way to get the upper hand. We see sin as an opportunity to lift up another indebted sinner with forgiveness and give the mercy we have received. The world sees wealth as something to hoard and spend on yourself. We use our unrighteous wealth to gain friends for eternity. That’s what your offering does – it supports the preaching of God’s Word, the extending of His mercy, to you and through you to the world. Your unrighteous wealth offered here teaches preschoolers who have never heard of Jesus His life story, from “Away in a Manger” to “Jesus loves me.” It teaches 120 children in our Lutheran School that their value to God is beyond measure, that life is sacred from the womb to the grave, that Jesus is their brother, their forgiveness and their salvation. You support missionary Dan Jastram in Asia and help fund Issues, Etc., a worldwide internet broadcast that brings sinners to the knowledge of Christ and His forgiveness. The sons of the world think your offering and tithes are a waste and yet according to Christ that “wasteful” spending will gain us friends in heaven.
When you are brought into God’s presence on the last day you’ll see those friends — friends from the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, who received mercy from the pastors Dr. Jastram is training, friends , children who went to Prince of Peace Lutheran School, a friend from Siberia who learned of Jesus through Issues, Etc. An old friend from Redeemer that receive Jesus in His Word and Supper right here.
All of that happens when you live by faith in the master’s mercy, when you give forgiveness as it has been given to you, when you use your unrighteous wealth not for yourself, but in faith to gain friends for eternity. All of that happens by the mercy of God in the name of Jesus. Amen.