Sermon - Trinity IX 2024 - Luke 16:1-13

Parable of the Unjust Steward, Marinus van Reymerswaele, circa 1540

Making mammon a servant of eternity

1. The parable is about using mammon for the sake of our eternal home

1. A right use of mammon doesn’t save, only Jesus. But a wrong use of mammon can condemn us.

2. How ought the Christian to view mammon

3. How to use mammon for the sake of our eternal home

Talking about money can be a sensitive topic for a lot of people. It’s considered a very private subject and would be a breach of privacy if someone were to snoop and look at our financial situation, to see how many debts we have, or how much (or little) we have in the bank account, how much money we make a year, how much property we own, the state of our investments. Some people love to talk about money, and others hate to talk about money. Either way you slice it, our wealth is easily made into an idol, something which we trust in and don’t feel comfortable losing. This is the very definition of the word mammon: a treasure that a person trusts in. 

That mammon is a common idol is proved by the numeric decline of Christianity in the West. One of the most telling factors of how religious a country is is the level of wealth. The wealthier a population is, the less religious they are. It’s not just that more money makes you less Christian, rather it’s how much you idolize wealth. Poor, rich, and in-between can all worship at the idol of mammon.

Jesus is good at smashing idols, and so that’s what He does today. I know this parable is considered a hard one to understand, but its meaning is really quite simple: Make mammon a servant of your eternal home. But to see how we get to that meaning, let’s unpack this parable a little bit.

What makes this parable hard is that the main actor who is commended in the parable is a bad guy. The steward is wasting his boss's money, so the boss decides to fire him. So far it’s understandable, but then the parable becomes ridiculous. The boss fires the steward but doesn’t immediately take away the account books from him. That’s nuts! Because it gives the steward the opportunity to cook the books in his favor. The steward is a downright wicked man, he’s too lazy to dig, too proud to beg, so he manipulates the situation by altering the agreements made with the master’s debtors so that they owe less. In so doing, the steward makes himself a friend to the debtors, so that when he gets fired they’ll take care of him. He uses his bosses treasure to secure a home on earth.

Maybe it seems horrible, but what he does is just basic common business practice. It goes on all the time today. People lie, cheat, steal, and use other people’s wealth in order to make themselves friends so that they might advance their own station in life. Doctors and such make referrals to specialists and drugs, so that their patients lose money but the doctor gets a bonus. Politicians use tax dollars to make contracts with certain businesses in order to get kickbacks from those businesses. 

None of that is a christian way of dealing with money, but that’s not the point. Jesus doesn’t tell us to be thieves, but He tells us “make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” The dishonest steward used somebody else's money in order to secure a temporary home. Likewise, we are God’s stewards, all that we have in this life belongs to God, all of our money is His, and we should use His possessions in such a way that when this life passes away we may be received into the eternal dwellings. Therefore, the meaning of the parable is that we make mammon a servant of eternity.

Just to clarify, I’m not saying that we have to buy our way into heaven. That’s not possible. Our right use of mammon doesn’t save us. Only Jesus saves us from our sins. No amount of money can pay off our sins, especially because our money already belongs to God, we can’t pay Him something which is already His own, in order to atone for our sins. However, misusing wealth can condemn us, it can lead us away from faith in God. Thus, the right use of mammon doesn’t save us, but the wrong use can condemn us.

With all of that said, how ought the Christian to view mammon? Jesus says a handful of proverbs after the parable which gives us some glimpses into how we should view mammon. Listen again: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

For one thing, Jesus calls mammon a very little thing and unrighteous. Which means that mammon is the little thing, and that there is a greater thing to receive. Mammon is the unrighteous wealth, and there is a righteous true wealth yet to be received. In a way these earthly riches are like a test preparing us to receive the real treasure. For example, before the little girl gets a pony, her dad gives her a hamster. If she can’t handle a little rodent, there’s no way she can get a horse. Before God gives us the true treasures of paradise in His eternal kingdom, He gives us our wealth here on earth. Our earthly treasures are minor in comparison to what God will give us in the resurrection on the last day.

In addition to remembering that our earthly treasures are of little value compared to our eternal treasures, Jesus also tells us that this mammon doesn’t belong to us, but it belongs to God. We are but stewards of this wealth on earth. Your money, house, buildings, land, investments, cars, clothes, all belong to God, they’re not yours. This is clearly illustrated for us in the fact that all of our wealth can be immediately stripped from us, either in a disaster that destroys it all or we die and another gets it. Our wealth belongs to God, not to us.

Now, understanding how a Christian ought to view mammon, how can a Christian use mammon faithfully for the sake of eternity? Firstly, remembering that our wealth is a minor treasure when compared to the eternal treasure, and that it already doesn’t belong to us but to God, we learn not to treat it as our master. “You cannot serve God and mammon.” To do so is folly. Because as Solomon writes, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.” There is no lasting satisfaction with mammon. Indeed, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” Therefore St. Paul instructs us: “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

The Lord God is our Master, and He alone will care for us in this life and into the next. Certainly He uses money to that end! Money and wealth are not evils themselves, but creations of God for us to use in this life. Thus, we must use mammon in this life in order to help us reach our goal of living in God’s eternal mansion. The applications here are nearly limitless! We use mammon to build and maintain sanctuaries, provide for a pastor, so that we and others can hear God’s Word and receive the sacraments. We give alms to the poor and needy among us so that others do not starve, and we treat them as we would Christ. We build Christian schools to educate children in the faith. We build hospitals and orphanages to provide for the sick and lonely. 

But what is of particular importance is that we use it in such a way that we train ourselves not to love it or treat it as our master. The temptation for us is to trust in our wealth more than we do God. To trust in our mammon to save us instead of the Lord Jesus. To direct our lives with the aim of living comfortably on earth, instead of living eternally in paradise. How many spend their lives accruing massive wealth on earth, and have forsaken assembling in a sanctuary to receive an eternal home?

How often do we praise our children and grandchildren, other relatives, for their worldly successes? Their hugely successful careers, great athletic performances, academic rewards, big paychecks, multiple houses, fancy vacations, and on and on. But those same people are rarely ever in church. Mammon has become their master. We cope with their eternal demise by focusing on their temporary wealth. Lord have mercy on us! Remember, no one can serve God and mammon, not them nor us, and there is a greater home towards which we strive.

So fight this temptation by learning to value wealth less than you do the Lord. Give away some of your money and your treasures. Do it until it hurts. If it hurts, good, because smashing idols can be painful. Yet, there is nothing more eternally rewarding than trusting in God above mammon. He alone has the power to save. “For You are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. For by You I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God - His way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? This God is my strong refuge.”