Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day one)
Join us as Senior Pastor Chris Johnson, Associate Pastor Aaron Hufty, and Associate Pastor Bryan Richardson walk us through Luke 16:1-18 in our Winter Re:Verse Series: “LUKE – Learning from the parables of Jesus.”
I find this parable from Jesus challenging. But as I ponder it, I think this parable is not about the “what”, but about the “why”.
Where did the steward place his trust at the beginning, and how did this affect his priorities? He placed his trust in himself, in his own capabilities to take care of himself. And this governed the priority he placed on finances and how he used money.
But this all changed after his interaction with his boss. The steward realized he was not as self-sufficient as he thought he was. This in turn, got him thinking differently about finances. The role of money in his life took on new meaning as he realized his inability to be “the captain of his own ship”. He started viewing money as a tool to invest in others, into people outside himself.
So perhaps we need to not look so much at what this steward did, but look at why he took those actions.
And the actions he took were because of the epiphany he had that he was more vulnerable and not as self-sufficient as he thought he was before his talk to his boss.
Therefore, because we are not self-reliant, because we are more vulnerable than we think, Jesus tells us to “use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.”
And the flip side to this, as Jesus tells us, is “no one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
To rely on your own capabilities to “save yourself” leads to being enslaved to money and not dependent on God.
And Jesus then turns towards the Pharisees and accuses them of relying on their own self-righteousness. As such, they distorted the law of Moses to suit their own needs.
As a church body we need to realize that we are not independent agents for Jesus, we are not loners who are gunslingers for God. Instead we are an interdependent community. As Christians living in this world, we need on each other.
Very thought-provoking!
(I watched with my granddaughter Callie, who loved the Stan Lee reference! 😊)
I’m totally lost this week!