So, beginning of chapter 16:

“He also said to his disciples,” so he tells those three parables to the Pharisees, those three are directed at the Pharisees. Now he turns to his disciples:

He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.”

So a steward is basically roughly in our modern equivalent, like a bookkeeper or an accountant. They’re keeping track of things coming into the household and things going out of that. Money coming in, money going out, food coming in, food going out, goods coming in, goods going out, right? They’re supposed to keep track of all that and generate wealth. We want this to be going in a positive direction in terms of income and outgoing rather than a negative direction. So a report comes to this rich man, says, this steward of yours cooking the books, right? He’s up to no good.

“So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’”

He calls him and he says, “Listen, I’m hearing this and that and the other. I want to see the books. You’re suspended. You’re no longer acting as steward. I want copies of the books. I’m going to look this all over. I’m going to see what you’ve been doing and see if this is true.”

“Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.  I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’”

Okay, so notice, the steward did it, right? The Steward’s been cooking the books. He’s caught. So he’s like, “Oh man, what am I going to do? I’m going to get fired. And once I get fired, they’re going to find out I was cooking the books. Nobody else is going to hire me. I can’t dig. I don’t want to do manual labor. I’m a bookkeeper, I don’t want to be out there digging ditches. I know that I’ll have to beg because I can’t find work. I’m too proud to beg.” He says, “Wait, I got a plan, so that once I get fired from this job, these other people, these other people will receive me into their houses. I’ll be able to get another steward job.”

“So he called every one of his masterís debtors to him,”

He calls in all the debtors. Everybody who has his master is a creditor, right? His last day of work, he figures, “I’m about to get fired.”

“and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’”

So he says, “I’m in trouble for cooking the books, let’s cook them a little more, right?” Halves this guy’s debt.

“Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”

20% off the top.

“So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”

So the master finds out about this. What he’s doing? And does the master fire him out there on the spot? No, he says, “You know what? That’s pretty slick. I see what you did there.” So, he’s actually kind of impressed. He’s actually kind of impressed. “Maybe I shouldn’t fire this guy. Maybe I just need to get him on board, stop getting him to cook the books for me.” Having an accountant with no conscience can work in your favor, right?

Jesus continues:

“And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful in what is another manís, who will give you what is your own?”

So what’s Jesus saying? He’s saying, be you like that guy? Cut corners? Be unjust? No.

“Be friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon.” What’s unrighteous mammon? Well, we’ll back up. What’s mammon? Well, it goes beyond just wealth. Mammon is sort of the way they used to use in English “substance”. It’s a person of substance. It includes wealth, it includes reputation and sort of all the sort of material goods of this world, right? All the material goods of this world.

And so, our steward, before, he’s not working with his money. He’s working with his master’s money. It doesn’t really belong to him. He’s just sort of wheeling and dealing. Wheeling and dealing with his master’s money. This is why Jesus says, if you’ve not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own? Mammon, and the things we have in this world don’t really belong to us, right? You can have them buried with you, but you can’t really take them with you. They’re just going to rot in the ground like you do. You can shovel it in there after yourself, but right, it’s not going to do you any good. So the things we have, the possessions we have in this world don’t really belong to us, they belong to someone else. Ultimately, it all belongs to God.

What is Jesus saying to do with all that stuff? Because we all have that stuff, especially as modern Americans. We’ve all got a lot of stuff. We’ve got more stuff than any previous generation of people. What do you do with it? What is Jesus saying to do with it? Make friends for yourselves so that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He’s saying this stuff doesn’t belong to you anyway, so use it to your advantage. How? By giving it to the poor. By doing good with it. By giving it up. This is actually a very important piece of St Luke’s Gospel here, because as we’ve talked about before, if you read St Luke’s Gospel passages of it in a very surface way, it sounds like he’s saying poor people are good and rich people are bad. On a very surface reading, there’s a lot about “woe to you who are rich,” right? “Blessed are the poor.”

But the point Jesus is making here is you can do good with all this stuff. Money and whatever influence, reputation, these things that you have in this world, you can do good with them, you can’t keep them, they don’t really belong to you. But as they pass through your hands, just like the master’s money passes through the servant’s hands, you can use them for eternal benefit. Remember we were just talking before, these are not storing up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on this earth. You could use the earthly treasure to generate the heavenly treasure.

So this is St Luke’s passage on what to do if you happen to be rich, which, by the way, all of us who are modern Americans are compared to most of the world today and the whole world in history, we are incredibly wealthy and overfed and over-comfortable with our air conditioning and heating compared to everyone else, and our indoor plumbing. This is what you do when you find yourself with money. He’s already said how difficult it is for someone who is wealthy. Why? Because they’re held more accountable, right? Well here’s… you could do good with that. If you have influence in this world, you can use that influence to help people. You can use that influence to make positive changes in the way the world runs.

You can use that power and influence to help you spread the gospel. Same thing with wealth, with money. You can spend that money on yourself or you can take that money, you can use that money to help people, use that money to help spread the gospel. You can use that money to help build Christ’s church. So Jesus is saying, if you’re wise, he’s not saying be like that, but he’s saying there’s something you could learn, right?

Because remember he said, the sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light. He’s saying, look how shrewd this guy is. This guy realized he was in trouble, he was going to need friends, right? And so he did what he could do to get friends. Say the same way, right? If you were shrewd, you’d look at all these things that you have and you’d say, how can I use these things to make God my friend?

“He who is faithful in what is least”

What is least? The things of this world are least, right?

“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.  Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?”

True spiritual riches that are what we actually want. That are so much more important than the things of this world. But if we haven’t even been faithful with the things of this world. Why would God entrust to us spiritual riches if we’re just going to squander those too? So this idea of squandering is tied back into that last parable. Remember, he finishes telling that last parable to Pharisees, then goes to his disciples. He’s talking about squandering what they have.

Interlocutor: I don’t understand what he did that was good.

Fr. Stephen: He didn’t do anything that was good. He was shrewd.

Interlocutor: He was saving himself.

Fr. Stephen: But he was shrewd at saving himself.

Interlocutor: But he was doing something bad.

Fr. Stephen: Right. The details. He says, this is one of the sons of this world, not one of the sons of light. This is a non-believer. But a non-believer is shrewd enough to try and save his own skin. A non-believer is shrewd enough to say, “Okay, here’s what I’ve got available to me. I’m going to use this to work for me, to save my own hide.” And Jesus is saying to his disciples, “You are not that shrewd. You should be looking at the things you have in this world, that are, in the grand scheme of things, kind of unimportant.” Because when we’re in the new heavens of the new earth, eternal life with God, how I spent the $5 in my wallet on a particular day, it’s going to seem kind of unimportant, right?

He’s saying, “If you’re shrewd, you’ll use the things that we have in this life in order to save our own hides. But in a spiritual sense.” He’s saying, you’re not as smart as this guy. You’re in trouble. Like, this guy’s in trouble, right? All of us are in trouble because we’ve all sinned. We’ve all turned our back on God, right? We’re all in trouble, and yet we have all these material things, right? If we’re shrewd, if we’re sharp, if we’re smart, it’s saying, then we will try to use those material things in order to repair our situation.

Which he describes as making friends, in this case, making friends with God in our case. So Zacchaeus, when he repents, remember, Jesus comes into his house and he says, “Whatever I’ve stolen from people, all that money I took from people, I’m going to pay it back five times over.” That’s an example of what Jesus is telling them to do here. So he’s repented, he’s found salvation. He’s not going to be a tax collector anymore. But he has all this money that he got. He got this unrighteous mammon. He’s got all this money, filthy Lucre, right? He’s got all this money he made through sinful tax collecting. He’s got all this money he stole, basically. What’s he going to do with that money?

Jesus is saying that what Zacchaeus needs to do is be shrewd with that money and use it towards his repentance and toward his salvation by giving back to the people he stole from.

He’s not saying be like him. He says this is a child of the world, right? But he’s saying he’s shrewd with money, okay? That’s the one thing he’s got going for him. He’s shrewd with money. You should also be shrewd with your money. He’s not saying steal, he’s saying, be shrewd with your money.

Interlocutor: And it wasn’t his money.

Fr. Stephen: It’s not your money either, is the point Jesus is making. You can’t take it with you. You don’t own it. You’re passing through. When you die, it’s going to somebody else. You have possession of it, right now. what are you going to do with it? Go spend it on yourself? Go waste it? Or are you going to use it, again to do good, to become friends with God the way Abraham was the friend of God?

Interlocutor: It’s hard for me, because I think of steward as people who kept control of other people’s money, and not steal it all.

Fr. Stephen: He’s not saying this person is a good person. He’s saying he’s sharp with money. You should also be sharp with money, not to do evil, but to do good.

So, being a follower of Christ doesn’t mean being a dope, right? It doesn’t mean being gullible, it doesn’t mean being naive. It means being just as sharp as someone who’s wicked is sharp, right? But using that sharpness for good rather than for evil,

Interlocutor What did he do that was good?

Fr. Stephen: He didn’t do anything good. He was clever. Remember when Jesus said you should be innocent as doves but as wise as serpents, what did Satan ever do that was good?

Nothing. That wasn’t a trick question. Satan never did anything good, right? Well, you could sit there and say, well, why is Jesus telling them to be like Satan? He’s not telling them to be like Satan, right? But remember, the serpent in the garden was the wisest of all the animals, right? He’s saying, be wise, be clever, use it for good. Use it for good. But you need to be that clever. Again, it doesn’t mean being naive.

So, what he’s saying to the disciples is that even they are like the Prodigal Son. God has given us all these blessings, he’s given us all these good things and we squander them. So, he gives them an example. These wicked people, right? These people who are completely alienated from God, they at least know enough not to squander money, right? They at least know enough to use money to their advantage. So why are you, as someone who follows Christ, who follows God, why are you squandering your money, right? Even the sinners, even the heathens, know not to go and squander what they have, but to use it for their own benefit. So why are you out squandering what you have instead of using it for your spiritual benefit? Even a totally corrupt person like this knows better than to squander money.

Remember what he said about giving gifts to your children? Even a sinner, even a wicked person, if his son comes and asks him for a piece of bread, isn’t going to give them a rock, right? Even you, a sinner, you know, how to give good gifts to your children. He’s not saying that those sinful people are good people. He’s just saying, look, even rotten people know to give good gifts to their children. Well, if even rotten people give good gifts to their children, how much more is God going to give you good gifts? So he’s saying here, even a wicked person, even a totally wicked, corrupt person, knows not to squander what they have. So why would you, as a believer, squander what you have? Squander what God has given you.

Or when he says, even sinners, even wicked people, love people who love them back. So if you’re a believer, you’re a Christian, and you don’t love people. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you, as a Christian? Even wicked people love people who love them. Same kind of thing here. Even sinful, corrupt people at least know not to waste what they have. So why are you wasting what you have There’s nothing good about this guy. This guy is a bad example, right? That’s the point. Even wicked people don’t waste, don’t squander, aren’t prodigal. So you shouldn’t either. He’s a negative example, not a positive example. Does that make more sense?

Interlocutor: I don’t understand why he says “Make friends for yourself by unrighteous mammon?

Fr. Stephen: Because you have it. You have possessions in this world. You have worldly possessions and worldly influence.

Interlocutor: Is that advice to give to the church?

Fr. Stephen: Well, yeah. What do you do with your money? The things of this world, we’ve been told all the way through Luke’s gospel, don’t pursue the things of this world, right? Don’t go out there and be concerned about getting wealthy or being concerned about having, we were just told. You’ve got to be willing to give all that up to follow Christ. Well, so what do you do if you happen to have it? Zacchaeus follows Christ. He repents, he leaves tax collecting. He’s got this big pile of stolen money. What’s he supposed to do with it?

Interlocutor: He gives it back.

Fr. Stephen: Exactly. That’s what Jesus is saying. Zacchaeus had a huge mound of unrighteous mammon, right? It’s all stolen money. Right? But what did Zacchaeus do? Zacchaeus went and he did good with it. He paid it back with interest, right? He went and did good with that unrighteous mammon. And because, as Jesus says here, because he was faithful with what he did with that unrighteous mammon, he received spiritual riches in return. If he hadn’t been faithful with that unrighteous mammon, he wouldn’t have received those spiritual riches in return.

This is a tricky passage. There are lots of books written about this passage, so don’t feel bad.

And so Jesus then concludes:

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Now, it’s important that here in St. Luke’s gospel, this is in this context, because it’s not in this context. In the other gospels, you get the same statement, but not in the context of this parable about the unrighteous steward. Because if it’s by itself, how could you interpret that? Wealth is evil, right? Wealth is evil. Therefore, wealthy people are evil. But what this context helps St. Luke make clear, is that it’s not the wealth that’s evil, it’s serving the wealth instead of serving God with the wealth.

You have two choices. You can serve the wealth, you can serve money, you can serve influence, you can serve reputation. You can spend your whole life chasing after those and thereby waste your life. Or you could take those things that you have in this world and you can use them to serve God. Use them to serve God. And then you’re not wasting them, you’re not squandering them.

Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him.

So, Jesus, remember, he says the three parables to the Pharisees. He turns and says this to his disciples. Well, the Pharisees are still standing there, right? And they’re kind of fans of money. They’re big on the money. So they ask, “What’s this?!”

And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

So notice here he moves to esteem, mammon includes that too. He says to the Pharisees, “You’re all concerned about your reputation and how you look. You’re all concerned about the fact that other people see you as being righteous and holy and that you have this good reputation as being these very spiritual and very religious and very good people. You’re worried about what all these men think, but God knows your heart. God knows who you really are.”

So, what’s he essentially saying? Well, he’s following up on what he just said, right? You can’t serve your reputation and God. God knows who you really are. Your reputation in this world doesn’t really matter. Isn’t really important. If you’re actually a righteous person who has a very bad reputation, like, say, Christ himself, you are better off than the wicked person who has a great reputation because God knows who you actually are. And what is highly esteemed among men, what men look at, what other human beings look at and think makes you a great person is an abomination before God.

Interlocutor: Back to the Prodigal Son, the son that was staying with the father, I can see that the son would also be angry, because the way the prodigal son, he didn’t take anything from the son, but he took from the father, and he hurt the family.

Fr. Stephen: But that’s not why the other son said he was angry. The other son doesn’t say, “You were rude to our dad. And that upsets me.”

What he says is, “Where’s my party?” Right? That’s what he said. He doesn’t say, “I was really upset about the way he treated you.” That’s not what he says.

Interlocutor: So he’s just self-serving.

Fr. Stephen: Right. It’s jealousy. It’s envy.

So, not only is God not impressed by all the stuff the Pharisees do that they think is so impressive, he thinks that those things are an abomination, a curse.

“The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.  And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.”

Just so you can see what that is, what a tittle is. They left that untranslated into the Greek. But there are two Hebrew letters.

Yeah, this is the darkest marker I have. I don’t know how much you could see that, but those are two different letters. One of those is a het and one of those is a tet. One makes a “ch” sound. There’s actually six Hebrew letters that make a “ch” sound. I think they ought to call it Flemish. But this makes basically a “t” sound. The difference is there’s this little hook here at the end of that stroke on this one, that little tilt at the end, that’s a tittle or a timmel.

So it’s this tiny little mark that makes a difference between those two letters. So the idea is one little stroke for the writing of the… he’s talking about, again, the laws, he’s talking about the Torah. He’s talking about the first five books of the Bible. So you can imagine we’ve got five scrolls, right? 50 chapters in Genesis. Right? A lot of writing. It’s easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one little half stroke from the law to fail. What is this? This is a qualification.

St. Luke has recorded this to make very clear Jesus is not here criticizing the law. He’s criticizing the Pharisees. He’s not criticizing the law. He’s criticizing the way the Pharisees used the law, the way they interpreted it.

He was saying the law and the prophets were until John, right? Meaning St. John the Baptist. St. John the Forerunner. Right up until him. This is why the church we refer to him as the last of the prophets before Jesus. He’s the end of the Old Testament. The law and the prophets is the Old Testament. What we call the Old Testament. It goes right up to John the Forerunner.

Since then, the kingdom of God has been preached, right? That’s Christ preaching the kingdom. That’s what’s now in the Gospels, he’s talking about this transition that we have in the scriptures. Old Covenant, New Covenant, Old Testament, New Testament. And so he’s making clear then, I’m not saying the law and the prophets, we’re getting rid of that. We’re not tossing that, right? That’s not going away, okay? Not even one little half little stroke of this letter is going away. Not happening, okay?

“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

Now, where did that come from, in terms of the flow of Luke’s Gospel here? So Pharisees love money. Jesus says, “Well, let me tell you, all of you are concerned about your reputation, but God, who knows who you really are.” Well, that makes sense. Then we have sort of this qualifier, law and prophets were until John. Now the kingdom of God’s being proclaimed, but don’t think that the old is going away, it’s still here. By the way, don’t get divorced and remarried, right? That’s kind of what it sounds like.

And as you can see on the page, what comes up next is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. What’s going on here, is there’s a little bit of shorthand happening, as I said before, when we read the statements of Jesus and the servants of Jesus and that kind of thing, like we talked about the sermon on the mount, you can sit, read the sermon on the mount. It doesn’t take that long to read the whole thing out loud. And yet Jesus starts around midday and we read it’s like getting dark by the time he finishes. That means he wasn’t just talking super slow, right? What we have is a summary from people who were there. He wasn’t working from a manuscript, reading it. There weren’t notes. It wasn’t distributed, right?  The disciples didn’t have steno pads furiously writing… we have our summaries and portions and sayings of Jesus that were considered important by the Gospel writer.

So, we shouldn’t think when we read it, this is every single word Jesus said right at the time. This is every word he said at the dinner party last time. This is every word he said on this occasion. There’s a little bit of shorthand taking place here. But remember what we said that clarification there about the law and the prophets was doing. It was clarifying that Jesus is not criticizing the law. We’re saying that the law is going away when he goes after the Pharisees. He’s attacking the way they interpreted it, the way they applied it. And so, their reputation that they’re so concerned about for being just, their righteousness. This justifying of themselves, Jesus is saying, is based on a fiction. It’s based on a misunderstanding of what the law is about.

And so, this bit about divorce and remarriage, is Jesus giving an example of a place where they have reinterpreted the law for their own benefit. Because what they’ve done is what they’ve done is they’ve said, “Well, okay, here’s the process for getting a divorce,” and they’ve come up with a whole bunch of case law, right? Well, if this happens, you could divorce her. If this happens, you shouldn’t. Here’s how you need to do it. You need two witnesses for this. They’ve got all their case law, and as long as you follow that, you’re righteous, you’re just, you’re fine. You’re doing the right thing. So they have created a way for people, for a man to just divorce his wife because he doesn’t want to be with her anymore and marry another woman, right? They’ve created a way to do that.

What does it actually say in the Old Testament? There’s only one thing specifically mentioned, and it’s not the one that’s usually mentioned today, three-word phrase that begins with “God hates”. In the Old Testament. It’s in Zechariah, and it’s “God hates divorce.”

That’s pretty clear. That’s pretty clear. And what did Jesus say when they asked him about divorce earlier in Luke? He said, “You know, it’s not always this way. God created man and woman. Two became one flesh. God has joined together. Let no one put asunder.” That’s in Genesis. That’s in the Torah, right? That’s in the law. That’s what the law says. But the Pharisees have created a way for them to go ahead and divorce their wives and marry someone else and keep their reputation as this good, righteous person. Even though they offloaded the wife of their youth and married someone else, they still have their pristine reputation. That’s why Jesus brings it up here. It’s sort of case in point, right? He’s listed plenty of others before, when he was talking about other things they did, right? But this is a case in point, right? Because what he’s saying here, whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. Whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery. He’s just applying what it actually says. Here’s what it actually says.

But you’re not concerned with your actual righteousness. God sees how you actually treated your wife, right? God sees the lust in your heart for that other woman who you’re getting rid of your wife in order to marry. So the little game you’ve devised to maintain your reputation and still follow the lust in your heart isn’t fooling God. He’s not tricked somehow. “That was a good one.” Like the master with the steward. God isn’t up there, “These Pharisees, man. I want them to stay married. But they got around it.”

That’s not happening. That’s not happening because God knows their heart. So it doesn’t matter what little loopholes and all this you want to put in place and the little games you want to play with your reputation. God knows your heart, God knows what you’re really doing. He’s going to judge it by as well as he’s revealed it, right? And once again, just in case you decided, as the Pharisees did, “Jesus hanging around with all these tax collectors and sinners, he doesn’t care about sin. He doesn’t take sin seriously.” Well, I challenge you to find a stricter rule on marriage than that one, right? “I’m not being loosey-goosey about the law. You want the law? Here’s the law. Here is the law. I’ll really give you the law if you want the law. Not your little watered down rules version of it. Here’s the law.”

Now, one last note and then we’ll end. I know we’ve run on a little bit, right? As we were saying before, what’s the purpose of him laying out this law? Is the purpose of him laying out this law so that all of them there who are divorced get depressed, “You miserable, no-good, divorced sinners.” Is that what he’s trying to say? Is the purpose of him throwing out the way the Pharisees do it so that all the ones who aren’t divorced can say, “Oh, well, okay, I’m not like you, no-good divorced people.” What’s the purpose of the law all along? If someone has done this. If someone has divorced their wife and married another person, this is to call them to repentance. This is to call them to look at themselves and look at their heart and say why did I really do that? It doesn’t matter if it was legal. It doesn’t matter if I follow the right procedure. How have I treated her? Both women involved. And to come to repentance.

So we’ll go ahead and end there, even though the rich man and Lazarus sort of dovetails off this. But that’s okay. In my introduction next time, I can talk all about dovetail. So thank you, everybody.