Serve God Luke 16: 1-13 9/22/13 Then Jesus Said to his Disciples: Jesus: There was a rich man who paid a manager to run his properties. One day one of the tenants came to visit. Tenant: Do you know that your manager is cheating everyone who farms your properties? Rich Man: What? I’m so sorry. I will look into this. Jesus: So the rich man called his manager to a meeting. Rich Man: (to his manager) What is this that I hear about you? One of our tenants said that you were cheating people. Tell me what you have been doing. Manager: Well, maybe I asked them to pay us more than I was supposed to. Rich Man: Well, you can’t be my manager anymore. I am going to look at these accounts and see what happened. Manager: OK—do you want me to leave now? Rich Man: Let me look at the accounts first. Manager: OK. (Manager leaves and sits down to think about what happened.) What will I do now that my boss has found out what I did? I am not strong enough to dig ditches. And I am ashamed to beg. I know he’s going to fire me. HMMMM. Maybe I can talk to all the tenants and save myself from disgrace. I need to have some friends after I get fired. Jesus: So the manager talked to each of the tenants one at a time. Manager: (To one of the tenants.) So, how much do you owe my boss? Tenant #1: A hundred jugs of olive oil. Manager: Here. Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty. Jesus: The second tenant meets with the manager. Manager: How much do you owe my boss? Tenant #2: I owe a hundred containers of wheat. Manager: Take your bill and make it eighty. Jesus: After the manager met with all the tenants, he met with his boss. Manager: Before you go and fire me, I want to tell you what I have been doing to make things right. I have met with each tenant and reduced the amount they owe you. Rich Man: Hmmmm. You sneaky guy! You were very quick to make sure you stayed on good terms with people around here. Were you worried you couldn’t get another job? That you wouldn’t have any friends? You should have thought about that a long time ago. You’re fired. Jesus: If you are faithful with a very small responsibility, God can also trust you with the riches of the spiritual world. God cannot trust you to have a place in God’s Kingdom, however, if you are dishonest. If you are not responsible with the money and your business with others, God will not trust you with true riches, the riches of the Spirit. And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who is going to give you what you have earned and deserved? You cannot serve God and money. ------------------------------------------- Oh, my! Who do I serve? Who do you serve? Do you serve God or do you serve yourself and money? And what does it mean to serve God? In today’s story, we have a Rich Man who is the master of an estate. And we have a manager he hired to run his properties. In the language of the Bible, he serves the master. He works for him and is responsible to him. But like many of us, this manager or servant wants to get as much as he can for himself—in this story that involves payment in commodities like olive oil or wheat. These took the place of money on the estate of this rich man and many farms during Jesus’s time. But the Manager is still working the system to cheat the tenants of the estate and possibly his boss, the Master. So we can ask the question for today. Who was this manager serving? Was this manager really serving his boss well? (response) Was he focused on his responsibility to his boss? (resonse) Was he focused on being fair to his tenants? (response) Maybe he was taking the extra olive oil and wheat and selling it to his neighbors or in the market in town. But he was definitely focused on himself and what he could gain. He was not focused on being responsible to his boss and his tenants. So Jesus was saying that this man was serving the god of Money and himself. He was not serving God So----What does it mean to serve God? If this man had served God, he would have cared about the tenants and the reputation of his boss. Jesus and Hebrew scriptures teach us that we must love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Serving God means loving your neighbor and treating your neighbor the way you want to be treated. If this manager had loved God and his neighbors, would he cheat them? But the story is more complicated than saying this guy was a bad example. This guy was learning from his mistakes. Even though he was a bit slow to learn. When he got caught, he realized that what he was doing—cheating people—was going to make it hard for him to live in this town, to have any friends, or to get a future job once he was fired. So, before the boss could look into the problem, the manager talked to each of the tenants and changed their account statements so that they owed less. This made everyone happy—what a great guy—he’s doing us a favor! When he told his boss what he had done, the boss said he was “clever”—a bit of a complement. But he still fired this dishonest man. So what had happened? The manager realized the natural consequences of his bad behavior. So he reached out to correct the problem. We don’t know if this was a token action or if he was completely being honest in correcting their bills. But we do know that he realized he could not live without friends and a good reputation in town. Perhaps he was beginning to serve God by loving his neighbor just a bit. I’d like to think this is a glass half full situation. God teaches us eternal truths, through our daily walk if we are open to learn them. The manager served God in this action just a bit—even though it was still in his self-interest to do so. Are we any different? We sometimes reach out to help others because we expect something in return. Maybe that’s a baby step toward helping others and expecting no return. I often used this concept of natural consequences with children. You know how children love to play with rocks and throw them in the water. We were at the beach one day and one of my children was throwing rocks into the water and got carried away. Soon the rocks were hitting other children. But then the child was just standing there with no one to play with. The children all ran away. I said, “Don’t you want someone to play with? See they don’t like to have rocks hurting them. You need to stop.” Just like my child, we often do not realize the consequences of our actions. We may not throw real stones, but our actions and words often hurt others. It is hard for us to learn how our actions affect others, and in the long run, being only focused on self hurts everyone, including ourselves. When we first started working with the neighbors here, many people mistrusted each other—those who spoke a different language, or had a different color of skin, or a different way of taking care of their property. I remember one woman’s house was robbed and she saw the truck or car that supposedly belonged to the robber go into the apartments down the street. So this stirred up fear of everyone who lived in those apartments. She didn’t realize that if she had friends in those apartments and the police had contacts there, then the whole community could help catch the robber. It is in our self interest to build friendship in our communities. But I loved to tell people, and I still do, that we cannot judge a whole group of people based on one person who happens to live where they do. That everyone in the community wants to be safe, no matter where they live. If we judge a whole group based on one person-- that is called prejudice. We recently acted out the story of the good Samaritan in a worship service. Jesus’s community hated all Samaritans. But it was a Samaritan who saved a man who was robbed. And he had nothing to gain from it. As we have come to be one community, young and old, apartment dwellers, home owners, from all walks of life, from many cultures and countries, we have learned that if we treat all people with kindness and welcome, we all benefit. Together we serve the community, giving and receiving. Who is here to run the food pantry that feeds 75 families a week? Our neighbors in this community. Who stays with us to help clean up after ESL, the Food Pantry, even church? People from all walks of life. Who helps to drive our youth on their Saturday adventures together? People from Sacramento, Modesto, San Ramon, and Novato. And we benefit as a congregation from all those who come together to serve this community. We benefit as our youth learn about God and creating sacred community. We benefit with friendships, with food, with learning, with help in times of stress, with the touch of God’s Spirit at moments when we need it. Because each of us will one day be that person on the road who is cared for by another. And each of us has the spark of God in us that learns to give—first because we receive. That learns to be fair and honest because we want to be treated that way. And then as we grow in relationship to God, we give because it is just who we are, God moves in each of us to create God’s Kingdom, right here. God moves in each of us, to bring light and blessing to others. We call this God’s grace—because we are self centered, we forget to serve God, but God’s grace moves in us anyway! Praise God. Two week’s ago, God’s grace poured in at the food pantry. Our volunteers were finishing prep to open the doors, and Wilfredo, one of our leaders, said that we should stop and have a moment of silence or a prayer for Dave Yost and his family. I asked everyone if they wanted a prayer and they said, “yes.” Wilfredo asked me to say the prayer and I did. Our volunteers who know Dave miss him very much and they are always asking about him and Maureen. At that moment in the pantry, the secular nature of the pantry, and the sacred act of love and faith came together to bless everyone. Why—because Wilfredo was open to the leadings of God’s Spirit. Two Sunday’s ago, Dave and I were leading worship and I was touched by God’s Spirit in many ways. One thing I will not forget is the play dough offerings of the children. Dave and I worried that play dough in the service would distract the congregation and make a mess. But with Chriss’s help, we molded clay like God molds us. And when I asked the children to bring their creations to the altar, Chriss brought his first. Then Roselena and Alex, both 2-3 years old, willingly brought their creations up to put on the altar. They did not complain that someone was taking away their play dough. Surely, God’s Spirit rested on those children and blessed us through their gifts. I am very proud of my daughter who has gone to India to teach. One of the ways she has chosen to serve God is to use her teaching and musical gifts to bless others. Another way is that she takes responsibility for our stewardship of the environment. She doesn’t buy new clothes but usually buys “recycled” clothes from consignment stores. With many others, she believes that God has given us responsibility over this precious place where we live. So she finds many ways to do her part to care for the earth and using its resources responsibly. However, she admitted that she was tired of wearing two pair of pants and three tops for two months and went on a ten hour school field trip to the mall. Since she lives in a small mountain town with few stores, she bought clothes and household goods that she needed at the mall. She now wears some new traditional Indian clothing—but I’m sure she will wear them until they are thread bare!!! What does it mean to serve God? It means following the eternal principles of God’s Kingdom—of loving one another as we want others to love us. Of using our resources responsibly so that others are treated fairly. Of believing that God’s grace moves in us in ways we don’t always anticipate or understand. Like the corrupt manager, God’s grace blesses us even in our darker moments of dishonesty and selfishness. May God’s Spirit work powerfully in your lives to serve others and transform this world into the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. - Janet Irby
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 05:01:10 +0000