Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Title: "God's Way"
Text: From the Old Testament of the Day: You save a humble people, but Your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. [2 Samuel 22.28]

From the Epistle: Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. [1 Cor. 10.12]

From the Holy Gospel: The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. [Luke 16.8a; ESV]

This 9th Sunday after Trinity brings to your ears each year the Holy Gospel concerning the dishonest manager who squandered his master's possessions. And every year people find this parable of our Lord to be puzzling. Even now, your brain may be searching itself, saying, "Yes, now what was it that makes God say what He does here, through the mouth of the dishonest manager?" The puzzle, as you heard it again today, is this: Why does the text say that the master "praised the dishonest manager for his shrewdness"? It just seems so unseemly, so wrong to praise is evil. And Jesus means you to understand that the manager did what was evil, because the text clearly says so. The manager is called "dishonest" and his deed is called "shrewd," and the unrighteousness of the deed is used by Christ to apply the parable to us when He speaks of the "wealth of unrighteousness" in this present world. So why does Christ tell a parable where the turning point of the parable is not the praise of that which is unjust? The answer is to understand God's Way. For, as the prophet Isaiah declares: "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." And so, the answer to the puzzle concerning God's praise of the dishonest steward's shrewdness is solved when you settle for the fact that you are dealing here with God's ways, not with your ways.

I.

The parable begins with the introduction of the rich man and his manager, his steward. And we told, "this manager was reported to him as squandering his possessions." Somebody reported on the manager, that he was cheating on his master. Somebody spilled the beans, and the manager is now in hot water.

So the extra rich man called him on the carpet, and he fired him. He said to him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager." Turn in the books, and clean out your desk!

Now, here is where a modern listener may miss an important point. The usual response of a master whose steward cheated on him was not simply to fire him. Even today, you would expect that a manger who stole from his boss might end up in jail. Such was the usual fate of a cheat in New Testament times, except for one thing: the jail was the infamous "debtor's prison," and those who ended up there stayed there until their loved ones and relatives bought their freedom by raising the money necessary to pay off the debts that they had incurred by their cheating.

But that was not to be the fate of this unjust steward, this unrighteous manager. And the fact that this was not his fate gives him the idea of what he will do now that he is being fired by his master. He will cheat the master some more, this time ingratiating himself to those businessmen who had accounts payable with this man's master. He will drastically reduce their bills, so that they might think well of him and hire him when he has empted his desk and left his master's business.

Why does he take such a risk? Here's the key to the entire parable. He takes such a risk because he knows the ways of his master. His master was not the kind of man who would  condemn him to the debtor's prison. So, the risk he takes is not because of the ways of the dishonest manager. The risk is taken because of the ways of the master. He was a man of grace and mercy.

This is what the unjust steward knew about his master, and this is what the master had just demonstrated to him, and this is what he banked on as he cheated the master yet some more, this time to buy his way into the good graces of these other businessmen who might then give him a job in this, his time of need.

So, why did the master praise the unrighteous manager for his shrewdness, for cheating him some more? The master praised this cheater because this cheater correctly understood ways of the master. In his own, evil way, the unrighteous manager recognized the master for who he was, and thus in this shrewd and unrighteous way, he honored his master. For that insight, the master praised the steward. Here, then, is the point our minds struggle to remember each 9th Sunday after Trinity: "My thoughts are no your thoughts, nor are your ways, My ways, says the Lord!"

II.

This brings us to the Epistle of the Day, for it, too, directs us to the truth that God's ways are not our ways. Here, St. Paul points his readers back to the time when the people of God were condemned to wandering in the wilderness for the better part of forty years because they doubted, repeatedly doubted, God's ways. When they encountered difficulties and challenges, they concluded that the problem was that they should never have left Egypt in the first place, that they should never have listened to this Moses guy, and that the solution to their plight â?" their way â?" would be to return to Egypt.

But this is not God's way. God's way is to fulfill His promise, no matter what this unfaithful and rebellious people of His own choosing happen to think. They will wander, until the adult generation that left Egypt has died and their children were now adults, and then God would lead this new generation into the land of His promise.

So what did the condemned lot of adults do with the 37 seven some years of wandering on their hands? Did they repent? No! Far from it! They sinned all the more! Why didn't God just flush away the whole lot of them and start over with another family that He could turn into His own nation? Because that is not God's way. Furthermore, while they rebel, their rebellion served another purpose â?" no thanks to them! Their rebellion serves you, God's children of His New Testament Israel! "Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." It was for our benefit that Jesus teaches of the dishonest manager, and it is for our benefit that the Old Testament reveals the perpetual rebellion of God's chosen people in the wilderness. It is all that we might learn God's way!

III.

Thus we come hear also from the Old Testament of the Day. "You save a humble people, but Your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down. This, too, is a matter of God's way, not mankind's way. In this case, it is mankind's thoughts versus God's thoughts, particularly mankind's thoughts about God.

It is not the God would never do a thing as bring down a people! He would, He has, and He will! The dishonest manager succeeds, is because the master was somehow unable to bring himself to use the debtor's prison for this rascal. Rather, it is because He chooses not to do so, out of undeserved and un-highjacked mercy. It is not that there is no way that God could condemn you as He did the rebellious children of Israel in the wilderness. Sure He could, and righteously so! He chooses not to â?" therefore, "Take heed how you stand, lest you fall!" You stand by God's way, and by God's mercy. And it is not that God won't bring down the haughty and the self-confident and the self-righteous! He just chooses in your case, despite yours sins that no different than these, He chooses not to, for the sake of His Son, for the sake of Christ's sacrificial death, and for the sake of His own undeserved promise! His Law and His Gospel serve the intended purpose in your life to keep you humble and off the path of the haughty and the rebellious and the neglectful. It is God's way! And thanks be to Him, it is His promised way with you!