“Cunning Stewardship”

Luke 16:1-13



Pastor Tom Johnson, September 22, 2013

Jesus says, “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” Jesus laments the fact that God’s people are less thoughtful in doing good than the world around us in doing bad. To put it another way, Jesus wishes we would put as much mental effort into bringing the light of God’s love into the world as a crooked accountant who steals money from his own clients. Jesus wants us to be just as cunning as a white collar criminal, but instead of for personal gain, for good and for God’s Kingdom. If this doesn’t bother you yet, think about how Jesus calls us to be as shrewd and cunning as a serpent and as innocent and naïve as a dove. What story does a cunning serpent remind us of?

Jesus wants us to be as deliberate, smart, and persuasive as the serpent of old. You’ll remember the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were as innocent as doves enjoying the good life without sin, evil, sickness, or death. And then the cunning serpent came and outwitted humanity. The snake shrewdly used Scripture but added his own little twist to the truth. “In the day that you eat of the fruit, you shall not die. You’ll become like God.” Well, they did not die immediately but death entered the world that day. They did became like God knowing good and evil but they did not evolve into higher beings. You’ll also remember the cunning and shrewdness of Cain who persuaded his brother Abel to follow him out into the field. Cain’s little lie deceived Abel and it cost Abel his life. And so it goes in human history—the cunning and shrewdness of people who promote evil, greed, and violence. Do you remember old Pharaoh how he would promise to let the Israelites go from their slavery and then change his mind at the last minute…and how he let them go the last time so that they would be caught between his army and the Red Sea so that he could annihilate them? Jesus called Herod a fox for his cunning to manipulate and deceive the people of God. And dare I mention other more recent world leaders, dictators, kings, Wall Street executives, those who deal in subprime mortgages, tax fraud, top secret government operations, and other examples of cunning and shrewdness?

The financial manager in our text is working for a rich man, squanders his money, and when he is caught, he is fired. But before word can go out that he is a crooked business manager who has lost his job, he shrewdly tries to improve his reputation. He does this because he is too weak to dig a hole in the ground and has too much pride to beg for money. And so, in order to make more people like him in the business community, he reduces the amount of money owed to his former boss by as much as half in one case. And it works. People enjoy owing a lot less. Who wouldn’t like their debts reduced? And now the boss who fired him will look bad if he tries to collect the money that has been forgiven. And even though Jesus calls him dishonest and his behavior wrong, he commends his cunning intelligence.

Wouldn’t it be nice, Jesus says, if believers would show the same amount of wisdom as stewards of the gifts of God? How much more effective we would be if we were just as thoughtful, deliberate, and winsome for the greater good of humanity and the glory of God! My mind goes to back to the lack of shrewdness in the way the Church treated Galileo. Religious leaders were afraid of a brilliant mind who challenged age-old assumptions about the universe. Rather than intelligently engaging Galileo in conversation, the church placed him under house arrest and would not let him write any more. Or more recently, rather than rising up to the challenge to win people to faith who understand our world through science and empirical truth, instead, we often vilify them or simply ignore the conversation altogether. In the last century, we remember that believers in Jesus have also been outwitted by those who used religion to promote evil such as anti-Semitism and institutional racism. Maybe that is why Jesus chooses difficult words. Perhaps he wants to jolt us and awaken us to the tension we live in as believers: while, on the one hand, we are unconditionally accepted and loved by God, on the other hand, he also wants us to act shrewdly and wisely as his Children of Light. We cannot afford to fall behind the world around us as they discuss important matters. We cannot lose sight of the relevance of the Gospel and the Word of God in an ever-changing world.

God has given us precious gifts. He gave his Son to purchase a place for us in Paradise. He outwitted the devil and the powers of darkness by going to the Cross. He was one step ahead of the Roman soldiers when the angels rolled away the stone from the empty tomb. I love the powerful prayer we pray during holy week when we pray that “the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the Cross be overcome.”  Is it too much of a thing for him to ask that we be wise and shrewd as stewards of such an empowering message? Should it surprise us that Jesus would want us to intelligently move forward as his Children of Light so that more and more people will come to the knowledge of the truth that there is a God and that God is good, gracious, and loves us with an eternal love? What a privilege it is to be both entrusted and challenged by the wisdom of Christ!

“Rejoice with Me!”

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“A king going out to wage war”

Luke 14:25-33

Pastor Tom Johnson, September 8, 2013

This is one of those weeks that the appointed readings sent a chill right up my spine. There are two illustrations of the cost of being Christ’s disciple—the contractor building a tower and a king going out to wage war—just as leaders of United States debate whether or not to strike Syria militarily.

“What kind of builder, begins construction before calculating the cost?” Jesus rhetorically asks. “What an eyesore the huge, empty foundation is! How embarrassing for people to daily pass this unfinished major building project as a constant reminder of poor planning. Won’t such a builder also lose his reputation? What sort of king declares war on another king before some reconnaissance? What if his troops are outnumbered two to one? What will the outcome be if you only have sticks and stones and the enemy has swords and flaming arrows? That’s why the military calls such information ‘intelligence.’ Without this military data, a king may not have the good sense to send out his ambassadors to negotiate peace.” “Like the tower builder and the war wager, so it is to be my disciple,” Jesus says, “If you do not give up all your possessions.”

Ok, Jesus, you lost me. What does a failed construction project and losing an unnecessary war have in common with a person who fails to be his disciple? Today we live in a country considering, struggling, and arguing for and against military action against a foreign power. And at the top of the list of what is stake is the reputation of a world power that draws red lines but may fail to keep good on their threats…just like the builder whose reputation is at stake. Is it a good king who goes out to wage war whose odds are on his side but whose reason or outcome for war is unclear? Does might make right? Does not calculating the cost of war also include what happens after lives are lost and a people whose homes are brought down low? And for the one who builds a tower: Is being ridiculed for not completing the project the worse it gets? Is one’s reputation sometimes worth sacrificing if it means doing what is good and right?

Jesus’ two illustrations and these questions lead me to one clear conclusion: it is difficult being a leader. It is a tough job to be a king, a president, or any person who makes decisions which impact millions of people. We know from recent history how a few, bad business decisions can have dire, economic consequences for a nation...or how faulty intelligence can be the impetus to wage war against a nation. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their lives because of a lack of foresight from business and political leaders. I don’t know about you, but I find that tremendously humbling.

Who am I to armchair quarterback? Who am I to sit back and tell the television screen how I think decisions should be made? Who am I to believe I have all the answers and that if the world followed my economics and my world diplomacy that there would be no more poverty or war? It is no accident that Scripture commands God’s people to pray for earthly leaders. The Apostle Paul writes, “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life” (1 Tim 2:1). Commend their responsibilities, decisions, and actions to God in prayer.

That’s when it hit me. “Ah ha!” I said to myself. That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus—to loosen my grip on all my possessions, to understand what is at stake, to finish what I start, to bear the burden of my fellow human being. Being Christ’s disciple is tough stuff. You’ll recall that the word disciple means pupil, student, or learner. To be a disciple of Jesus means that we are all on a learning curve—often times a very steep one at that. We on a path of spiritual growth. We have answered the challenge of loving God and loving our neighbor even when it is inconvenient, confusing, and downright difficult.

Did you hear the Collect we prayed earlier in the service? It expresses this deep truth beautifully:

Almighty and eternal God, you know our problems and our weaknesses better than we ourselves. In your love and by your power help us in our confusion and, in spite of our weakness, make us firm in faith.

O God, you understand the chaos of international diplomacy better than the world’s wisest leaders. In your love, and by your power, help President Barach Obama, Congress, Syrian President Assad, and other world leaders in their confusion and weakness. Enable them all to faithfully serve those to whom they are called—especially the innocent and vulnerable. And help each of us to answer Jesus’ call to be his disciples—to have the courage of continuing our journey with humble and teachable spirits for the greater good of all God’s creation. And help us to be learners of Jesus who, although ridiculed on the Cross for what looked like a tragic failure, carried out his plan to the end—who, although said he had twelve legions of angels who could fight for him, instead, conquered sin, death, our common enemy and found for us a path of eternal peace.

"Friend, move up higher!"

Luke 14:7-11

Concordia University Chicago Chapel
Pastor Tom Johnson, September 6, 2013

Jesus saw how each guest was trying to strategically and selfishly sit down at the place of honor. For us, it might a nice window seat, sitting next to an important person, or behind the bench at the stadium.

I wonder what Jesus thinks about Chicago traffic when three lanes merge to two? What about those drivers who refuse to let cars merge in front of them so that they won’t lose their precious 4.2 seconds? What about those who refuse to merge right away and whiz on by dozens of cars waiting patiently for their turn and then demand entrance to the front of the line?

For Jesus, where you sit at the table or whether you get through a construction zone earlier is a small window into the human soul. It is a small window but what we see through that little window is a huge problem. There is something deeply wrong with us—a sickness that plagues us all—and that troubling reality that we all experience is pride. Pride is the belief that I belong at the head of the table—it’s my place in line, not yours—what happens to me is of greater consequence than you.

Here is the troubling truth: We are both perpetrators and victims of pride. Pride traps us in a world where the self is the center of the universe. The earth is not the center of the universe, nor is the sun, not even our solar system or our galaxy. To put our selves there is a grand delusion of a false world. There are over 7 Billion people in this world. We cannot always be first. Jesus wants to save us from the shocking, painful and startling realization that we may not be as important as we think we are. He wants to ease us into a sober, self-assessment. He wants us to see that the world will not and cannot revolve around us. He calls us to humility.

Recently my wife and I were invited to dinner. It was no ordinary dinner. The home where the meal was served is adorned with beautiful furniture, paintings, and with the finest China and silverware. It was a seven course meal cooked by a local celebrity chef. Each course had its own designer wine or beer to match the food and its effects on the palate. Among the handful of people there were a CEO of a major institution, a person who just published a book on one of the church fathers, a restaurant reviewer for a major newspaper, and a retired professor who had a center of advanced study named after him in his honor. The meal itself was won by the highest bidder at a gala event on the top of a skyscraper in Chicago. There were three components to this event: the place, the meal, and the distinguished guest. As you might have already guessed, I was not the winner of that bid nor was I the distinguished guest. The retired professor was the distinguished guest.

Of all the things I saw, heard, and tasted that evening, what had the greatest impression on me was the distinguished guest. At one point during the evening, he began to observe people telling their stories to one or two people but not the whole table. He saw this as a lost opportunity and a fracture of the evening. “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” he said. “I want to hear that story you are telling over there but I can’t if I keep listening to this other interesting story over here. Can we all just take turns so we all can hear?” And so we all took turns and shared our stories. And we experienced those encouraging words, “Friend, move up higher.” You matter. Your story is important. You count.

It’s not as painful as it may first seem. Jesus calls us out of a world where we serve ourselves. He calls us into a world where we serve others…and here’s the clincher, where the great Other serves us. It is not your job to serve yourself. It is God’s job to serve you. Our job is to respond in kind by serving others. Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.” He is the one who says to us in the Gospel, “Friend, move up higher.” In his death, he lifts us up in forgiveness and raises us up to restored relationships. In his resurrection, he raises our eyes to a greater vision of what this world can be and he exalts us from death to eternal life. And once we realize how well we are served by God, it becomes contagious. So, friends, move up higher.

“Like a weaned child is my soul within me”

Psalm 131
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Pastor Tom Johnson, September 1, 2013