You’re Fired!

Many years ago, and only those of those of a certain generation might remember, (although it has been shown many times since), there was an incredible British comedy series called Fawlty Towers. There was one episode that is so timely and so relevant for us this morning: A group of German visitors came to the Fawlty Inn in Torquay. They were on the books and unfortunately the owner of the Towers, Basil Fawlty, who was known for saying inappropriate and rude things. He was advised and the advice that he received is when the Germans arrive whatever you do, never mention the war. Basil Fawlty unfortunately had a concussion and as a result of this he forgot the words of wisdom and no sooner had the Germans arrived then he started talking about the war, they were so disgusted they left.

Basil had no idea what he had done, if only he had listened to the wisdom, whatever you do never talk about the war. Similar advice is given to people when they go to parties, whatever you do never mention politics or religion, which is one of the reasons I never get invited to parties! Don’t ever talk about politics and religion, it will ruin any gathering, I was even given very strict instructions once when I met members of the royal family, whatever you do don’t talk about politics or religion. So when the one member asked me what I did and I said I was a minister, we talked about religion for half an hour! Sometimes you don’t talk about things, it's just not done. And often times one of the things that you don’t do, particularly in religious circles, is talk about money, after all, we're all tired of hearing about money.

Money is what bombards us every day, marketing to spend it, investments to save it, all kinds of ways to move it around. Money, money, money said one great play and money indeed is something that we really don’t want to talk about too much, after all we're always being asked for money. Oftentimes we're embarrassed, because we have too much of it compared to others. Sometimes we don’t have enough of it and it leads to stresses in our life. The problem is, Jesus spends a lot of time talking about money. In fact, if you look at the gospels, so many of the parables and stories, so many of the wise words when he's travelling with people are about money. Money for Jesus was important. Money was not something that one should obsess about, but it reflected where your ultimate allegiance and values are in life were.

For Jesus, what you do with your money and how you have an emotional attachment to it, indicates where your ultimate loyalties lie. So, Jesus talked about money. He was never ashamed to do it and did it frequently. Today, in one of the most awkward parables that Jesus ever spoke, he talks about money. The problem is it's a hard one to decipher because we forget that many of these passages that we read in our translations were originally spoken in Aramaic, written down in Greek and translated into English. That goes for so much of the New Testament and the gospel stories. So we sometimes miss the nuance, the subtlety, in translation. Take for example, the word “wealth” that appears at the end, it actually appears in the Aramaic as “Mammon.”

Mammon conveys far more than just wealth, it conveys an attachment to wealth and money; almost a Godlike status, but how do you say that and still hold the parable together. Translation is a problem and clearly as we're reading this we cannot see the expression on Jesus' face, we don’t get the intonation in his voice; we miss so much. How then can we really understand what he's talking about? The more I read this parable the more I realized that it was everything around it that made sense of it. Before this parable in Luke's Gospel – and Luke always structures his gospel with a purpose – there was the story of the Prodigal Son. You probably know this story well; it's a story of a father who had a lot of money and had two sons. His greedy son says, "I want my inheritance now before you die."

He gets it and he blows it, he spends it on ridiculous things, licentious living and finally comes crashing down, he loses everything he's got, and comes back to his father, who is gracious, kind and forgiving to him. The other son who had stayed at home and looked after the farm can't understand why the father is gracious. To him he says, "Everything you ever had you've still got, but this one he's gone and lost it, what can I do but bring him home?" It's a story about money, inheritance, a wealthy father, a greedy son and forgiveness. There it is. After our parable this morning of the shrewd manager, we have other sayings by Jesus. For example he says, "The Pharisees, they love money. What is highly regarded amongst humanity can often be distasteful or despised by God.” In other words, they have an attachment to money.

Following that is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus of course being a poor friend of Jesus. Again, it's about money, it's about wealth and you have to understand that context to understand this story, because it is about – and I love what one New Testament commentator says, "These bunch of scoundrels." Let's not give anyone of these a good name, because they don’t deserve it. The master, he wants his money now, he's anxious to get his hands on it and is willing to fire a manager if the manager doesn't go and get it for him. The manager has to collect the money from those who owe the owner rent, olive oil and so on. The manager thinks, “Well, if I'm going to be fired, maybe I had better just hedge my bets here and make sure that I'm covered.

He goes to the debtors and tells them not to worry, just pay half of what you owe. Very shrewd, on the one hand, he seems to be pleasing his master by at least delivering something and on the other, he's letting off the creditors with only half. And so, the story goes that Jesus holds up the shrewd manager and says, "This shrewd manager should be watched, he reflects our generation." He is shrewd, maybe he's dishonest and he uses dishonest means to win friends. Now, is Jesus extolling him as virtuous? No, Jesus goes on to say, "I want you to contrast this steward who represents this generation, this worldly state of affairs, I want you to contrast that with children of the light, children who follow God."

And he says, "That His followers should be as shrewd, ingenious, and insightful as that manager." Why? Because, if the believer is not shrewd and thoughtful, if they take the things that are really important, eternal things and treat them lightly, they are not being faithful to God. The problem as far as Jesus is concerned is that the children of the light are not taking the eternal things seriously enough. The shrewd manager did, he certainly took the situation seriously. That’s why the shrewd manager is an example, it's an example of commitment. The shrewd manager is committed to the things of this world, but the children of the light should be committed to the things of God. For Jesus a sign of that commitment is what we do with money.

What are Jesus' lessons in all of this? It might seem a bit convoluted, but Jesus is very, clear about what the message is and that is this: “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much. Whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.” In other words, the little things and big things often have a connection and there's a correlation between how we treat the little things and the big things. Think about it for a moment, what percentage of our lives do we actually spend thinking in some way about money? Either earning money, accumulating money, managing money, spending money, saving money, being encouraged to hand your money over through advertising, being asked for money by institutions; we spend a lot of time in our lives thinking about money. At the end of it all, we try to calculate how much we are worth and that is a big thing these days.

Some people worry about money, because they don't have enough of it and they feel great stress. It is probably one of the greatest stresses on family life that we know. People so in debt that it becomes an obsession in their lives. Money, money, money. Yet, how much of our lives do we really spend on things that are more eternal in nature: charity, the good that we do, how we give, to whom we give, who we helped, how much love we give? These are things that oftentimes become significantly smaller as our consuming passion for money gets all the greater. The problem when that happens is that we lose our perspective. Our obsession with money becomes, in a sense, our God.

I read a wonderful story of a rabbi and I do love the rabbis, they are smart. This rabbi had an old man visit him who was wealthy and miserable. He wanted to know what the rabbi could do to help him in his misery. The rabbi said, "Come with me" and he took him to a window and said, "What do you see?"

The man said, "Well, I see women and children, people moving around and people going to work, I see all kinds of people"

The Rabbi said, "You have done well." Then he took him to a mirror and he said, "And now, what do you see?"

"I see myself."

"Do you see anybody else in the mirror?"

The man said, "No, I only see myself."

The Rabbi said, "Both of them have you looking out thorough glass. When you look through a glass window you see others, but as soon as you add a film of silver all you see is yourself. This is what you need to ponder".

The problem with the rich man in that story is he had become overwhelmed with his wealth at the expense of his vision of the world; he had become absorbed with himself at the expense of everybody else. The problem with these rascals, these scoundrels in the story that Jesus told, is all of them are interested in themselves; no one's interested in doing the right thing or the truth. The owner just wants his money, the manager just wants to save his job and the people who owed money, just want to save it. None of them did it in the best way, they did it with threats and intimidation and dishonesty. Jesus sees this happening all around him, because these are people who are looking at life through the mirror and not through the window. Jesus talks about the people of God being children of the light. In other words looking beyond themselves to the things that are eternal, to the things that really matter, and knowing what they do with their wealth is a reflection of that.

But Jesus never puts down little things, He doesn’t always suggest that you have to do big things in order to be faithful or to have big money to be faithful or make grand gestures. The great Fred Craddock, who died just over a year ago and was a great mentor to me, wrote this in his commentary to Luke's Gospel, and, you know, this sounds so real,

“Most of us will not christen a ship, write a book, end a war, appoint a cabinet, dine with the queen, convert a nation or be burnt at the stake this week. More likely the week will present no more than a chance to give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote in an election, teach a Sunday School class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice and feed the neighbour's cat. Whoever is faithful in very little is faithful also in much.”

Jesus doesn't expect the big things from us, it's the little things, but the little things become big things when they're done for him. That also implies that there is a choice in all of this. Jesus said, "A slave cannot serve two masters, they will end up hating one and loving the other." You can't serve both God and mammon, you can't serve both God and wealth and money. You can't do it.

One of the things that I find fascinating as I read the stories of Jesus and one of the things that makes him so attractive, is the fact that he spends a lot of his time with people who are financially corrupt. Have you noticed that? Zacchaeus was a moneychanger; ripping people off, working for the government, being a tax collector, defrauding people, taking a bit off the top for himself. Zacchaeus climbs a tree, Jesus sees him and says, "Come on down, I want to have dinner with you today" and the people grumble, "What's he doing having dinner with a corrupt person like this?" Well, Jesus did it because he wanted to win Zacchaeus around, he wanted to take this notoriously dishonest person and have him change in his heart.

Matthew was a tax collector, again somebody who took a bit off the top, gave money to the Romans, and wasn't particularly popular. The more he exploited people with these high taxes, the poorer they became. You can imagine how popular Matthew was. Who did Jesus appoint as a disciple? Matthew the tax collector. Why? Because Jesus wanted to bring Matthew around. Whether it was Zacchaeus or Matthew or the many others with whom he associated, who were like that shrewd manager, Jesus wanted to change them in order that they might be faithful to the things of the light, to things that are eternal, that they might follow Him. And so, when Jesus challenges his followers and says, "You can't serve two masters." And when he tells the story of the shrewd manager, believe you me, he is speaking to the Zacchaeus' and the Matthews and all the others of that ilk and he is calling them to make a choice as to who they will ultimately.

I remember when I was in Grade 12 and got a job working in a drug store. I'll never forget going to work the first day and being greeted by the owners of the store, one was Freddie and the other one was Fergie. Freddie and Fergie were nice men and pleased to have given me a job. After a few minutes of orientation, Freddie comes over to me and says, "Now look Andrew, I'm really your boss and I want you to stock these shelves with medical things on them first and foremost. That's your priority. Make sure the Aspirin is out there, if nothing else, number one job."

Half an hour later Fergie comes along and says, "By the way, you do know I'm your boss and I expect you to stock the shelves in the basement. You are to to go outside to the truck and bring the medications in and make sure the shelves are always full whatever you do."  I try to do both and please them both. The problem is every time I'm working upstairs, Fergie's mad at me, and every time I'm working downstairs Freddie's mad at me. This goes on for a week, upstairs, downstairs, these shelves, those shelves, Freddie and Fergie. Finally I called a meeting, sat the owners and said, "Gentlemen, I don’t know who my boss is, one of you has to be my boss, because I haven't got a clue what I am doing, I can't seem to serve you both fully." Well, that was okay, they fired me and hired their nephew to take my place. Problem solved. You can't serve two masters, you'll end up loving one and hating the other or in my case pleasing neither.

So it is with our lives and our hearts, you can't serve both God and mammon. You can't take and make a God out of wealth. Wealth, and Jesus makes this case, is never evil. He is not anti-materialist, he's not saying that money doesn’t matter. In fact, one should be shrewd about how you use and invest money, but money can't be your God. Only God can be your God and that becomes a matter of your ultimate attachment, affiliation, allegiance, it's ultimately about what you love the most. So, this day, think about the great loves in your life and make sure that God is your number one. Amen.