True Riches Await

This sermon was preached by Pastor Ted Carnahan for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday, September 21, 2025.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we have what I can personally consider to be one of the most difficult and confusing parables of Jesus to interpret. Sometimes it's called the parable of the unrighteous steward. Newer translations sometimes call it the parable of the dishonest manager.

But it is a difficult one to interpret because at first glance it seems as if it praises this dishonorable man, this dishonest man, as being somehow a positive actor.

The Dishonest Manager's Dilemma

He realizes that he's in trouble. He's a servant, probably actually an enslaved person is the intention here, of his master. He's the manager of all of his wealth.

He has a big responsibility. He would be number two in the household.

This man apparently has squandered that opportunity and not done a good job.

Now we know that the accusation brought against him is probably true because when the accusation comes to his master and his master says, "You can't be my manager anymore," the guy doesn't even argue.

I mean, it's not "Wait a minute now, that's not true. Let me open up the books. I'll show you. I've been honest. I've been righteous about how I've administered your funds and your property."

He doesn't even begin to argue with him. He's just "Yeah, you caught me. You're right. I messed up." Not messed up. I probably did it on purpose.

He's caught. He's guilty.

He comes up with a plan. He doesn't want to beg. He's too proud for that. He doesn't want to be a manual laborer because he doesn't have the strength for it.

He says, "Well, I'll see if I can't ingratiate myself to some of the debtors of my master."

He goes around and he calls them together rather. He says, "Okay, let's do this. Let's take your account here. I'm going to give you your account slip. I'm going to turn around. If it says you owed a hundred of those, make it 50. If you owed a hundred containers of wheat, make it 80."

In other words, owe my master less. I guess he's still the manager. He still has control of the accounts.

He says, "Well, let's just modify things a little bit." Of his master's wealth, he earns friends for himself in the hopes that someday when he actually is fired, when it's all over, he will get to go and perhaps have a job with them.

The Master's Commendation

The thing that troubles me about this passage, though, is that the master, upon realizing what his manager has done, commends him. He's impressed.

I'm guessing it's kind of the impressed that says, "Man, it's impressive how absolutely brazen that was. How absolutely sort of unapologetically dishonest it was to take of the riches of his master and simply just give them away to earn something for himself."

He's amazed at his shrewdness.

Then Jesus tells us that the people of this generation, of this world, not of the church, not of the kingdom of God, but of the world, living in the world and belonging to it, are more shrewd in dealing with their own than we are as Christians and followers of Christ.

The Spiritual Dimension of Life

The difficulty, I think, for us is that we don't recognize that there's a spiritual dimension to everything that we do in life, a spiritual dimension to all of the choices we make.

It's not just a question of:

• Do I go to church on Sunday?
• Do I send my kids to Confirmation?
• Do I send my kids to Lighthouse or something like that?

But the spiritual dimension of life extends to what you do with your time and your money, what you do with your free time, what you allow yourself to consume as far as media, or even what you buy at the grocery store.

There are spiritual dimensions to all of life. But sometimes we don't realize it.

Actually, it's in the places where the spiritual dimension of life is least obvious to us where the greatest danger lies. I think one of the places where we run into that the most in our society, in our community, is the question of wealth and prosperity.

Understanding Mammon

Our translation today renders, and I've been thinking a lot about translation this week because I've been getting ready for my talk after church, which you should all come to. It'll be very interesting. I think it's interesting.

Our translation says you cannot serve both God and wealth. But if you've been around a while, you probably have heard that in the King James Version, which says you cannot serve both God and mammon.

What on earth is that? That's actually a literal sort of grabbing it straight out of the original language and plopping it into our Bibles. Mammon.

That's different than wealth. Mammon carries with it a spiritual dimension.

Early commentators on the Bible from 1,500 years ago or longer, would say things like, mammon is actually the name of a demon or a false god associated with wealth.

There's been disagreement on what exactly Jesus means by mammon. But something is intended here that is more than just the money in your pocket.

You cannot serve both God and greed? Possibly.

Wealth, prosperity, money, is a God that demands things of us, especially when it owns us. It's never satisfied. It always demands more.

That's the nature of greed. Greed says you have, and so you must acquire more. You must get on the rat race treadmill.

But as you might have heard me say before, even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.

Which is why Jesus tells us it's so difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

In fact, he uses the analogy in another place in our scriptures. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

We, and actually we're not unique in this, but human beings throughout history, hearing the teaching of Jesus saying it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

We have looked for every possible explanation to try to explain away what he's saying or to say, well, it's not true or it's not as bad as it sounds.

There's really no evidence that Jesus intended anything but an actual camel and an actual needle. Which means to say that it is impossible.

Because once you get the taste of wealth in your mouth, it's very difficult not to put your trust and your hope in it.

Once you get the ability to take care of yourself and not depend on others or God, then suddenly you start saying, "Well, man, you know, this is pretty good. I've got self-determination. I've got independence. I can do what I want to do. I can make my own choices."

My safety, my security, my prosperity is up to me. Then we start to lose our relationship with God.

Choosing Your Master

Jesus is very clear on this. He does not give us a gray area. He says you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and mammon.

It's not that you can't serve two masters exactly. I mean, think about it. If you had two masters and they're telling you what to do, have you ever been in a situation like in an office or something where you had two bosses and they tell you to do different things and you're going in different directions at the same time?

If you've ever been in that, if you've ever been micromanaged that way or managed in a contradictory way, you can know how frustrating it is. This person is telling me I have to go do this with my time and this person is saying go do this and there's only one of me and there's two priorities and I can't figure it out.

But you can sort of figure it out. I don't think that's what Jesus exactly is saying, though.

I think what he's saying is that you can't be a slave to both. One will own you. It'll either be God or it'll be mammon. It'll either be God or it'll be wealth.

No one can serve two masters in that sense. He puts it this way. He says you will either love God and hate wealth or riches or the other way around.

Your heart cannot be divided in two and given to two.

With that in mind, I don't think that the parable today is commending dishonesty. I don't think Jesus is saying, "Hey, you know all that stuff that I've been saying about honesty and integrity and doing what's right and loving your neighbor and serving the good of others and putting others ahead of yourself? Actually, you should lie, cheat, and steal with the opportunities that you've been given in order to get yourself ahead."

That's not what Jesus is saying here.

But the dishonest manager is commended for his shrewdness by his master because he was faced with a crisis. He was faced with a choice.

Will I continue in the way that I've been going or will I make a radical change and try to be rescued? Will I use the resources in front of me to change the situation that I find myself in or will I be passive and just allow whatever is going to happen to happen to me?

He was faced with a crisis. A decision point, a fork in the road where he has to say, will I go to the left or to the right? Will I get myself out of this predicament by means of dishonest wealth or will I just continue and let this happen to me?

What Jesus is commending here is that faced with this crisis, he does something about it. He doesn't just hear that he's about to be fired and say, "Well, I guess that's the end."

But he grasps any opportunity he has in order to hold on to what life he can get. He doesn't just kick the can down the road and say, "I'll deal with this later."

Facing Our Own Crisis

Ultimately, I think everyone who hears Jesus' preaching is also faced with a crisis. I think that crisis is Jesus' bold statement, you cannot serve as a master God and mammon, God and wealth.

Similarly, for us as Christians here in Jackson, Minnesota, in the 21st century, we have a decision to make.

Will we enjoy the immediate benefits of this life, do the things that we continue doing, live the way we are, which is probably quite pleasant and prosperous for a lot of us, some of us struggle.

But will we continue going down the road that we're going down without any regard to what the future holds for us? Will we continue to cling to our master mammon and continue to say that my days of following God are at some point in the future, but I'm not gonna worry about that today.

In so doing, ignore the crisis that stands before us. Because as Jesus says in other places, perhaps tonight your life is demanded of you.

Or will you be prudent, realize the crisis in front of you and reorder your life, your priorities, make use of the resources you have to follow God instead of your own prosperity?

Because people of God, I'm here to tell you today that there will come a day of reckoning. The manager will come, or the master will come and demand an account of how you've spent your life.

On that day of reckoning, will you have sacrificed of your resources for your future welfare? Will you have sacrificed what you have for the sake of living in God's kingdom?

Or will you continue to hold tightly to it for your own sake? In so doing, squander the opportunity to love and serve the people around you.

Will God look at you and remember your dishonesty with the things that he gave you, which is to say everything you have and the dishonesty of you, is using that as a manager?

Will he look at you and see greed, disrespect of the poor, and a lack of vision?

Or will he look on you and see that you have been a faithful manager who has used the gifts that God has given you to show generosity and kindness and faithfulness?

Because if you regard earthly wealth as something that you don't own, and you hold in trust for him, it changes the way you make decisions about money.

Faithful Stewardship and Eternal Reward

When you start looking at the things that you've been given, not as an opportunity to protect your own safety and prosperity, to ensure that the status quo stays the way it is, but you say, this is something that I've been given both to care for the responsibilities I've been given, but also to care for the people around me who don't deserve it, who haven't earned it, to use it for the sake of others grace, his unearned favor, then I think it's true for you what was true of the dishonest manager, that you, God will make for you friends out of the unearned generosity that you share.

That if you take the things that God has given you and you give them away, you will be welcomed into the heavenly homes by people whom your life has touched, and God will be your friend too.

If you are faithful with the dishonest wealth of this world, which is to say, all of it, then Jesus will reward you with that which is true riches.

He'll give you provision for this life. He will take care of you. It may not be opulent, but you will be taken care of.

But more importantly, you'll have friendship with God. And at the last, you will be welcomed into the heavenly homes, given the true riches, given eternal life and salvation.

For just as our Lord Jesus Christ gave of himself for you on his cross, so he calls you to take up your cross and to follow him.

But far from being something which diminishes us or takes us away from our life, instead it gives us true life.

May you find this peace that comes from finding your true life, not in what you own or rather what owns you, but in who you belong to and whose you are.

May you find peace with God by choosing to follow him and only him.

And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus our Lord to life everlasting. Amen.