The Master's Money

A man is about to lose his job, and Jesus is about to praise him for what he does next. Sit with how strange that is before it goes down easy.

"There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods." — Luke 16:1 (KJV)

A steward. Not an owner. A man hired to manage another man's estate, to run money that was never his across a desk that was never his. And he is caught wasting it. The notice comes.

"How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward." — Luke 16:2 (KJV)

Give an account. You are done. Feel the floor go out from under him. He has until the books close, and no longer.

"What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed." — Luke 16:3 (KJV)

Cannot dig, ashamed to beg. So he moves fast. He calls in the people who owe his master, and he slashes their bills, and he buys himself a landing for when he is out on the street. It is not honest. And then comes the verse that has scandalized readers for two thousand years.

"And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." — Luke 16:8 (KJV)

The master praises the crook. Read it again, because your eye wants to skip it. He does not praise the man's honesty; the man had none. He praises his shrewdness. Facing the end of his stewardship, the steward took what was in his hands, which was never his to begin with, and used it to secure a future he could not otherwise reach. And Jesus turns that on the religious like a slap: the children of this world are smarter about money than the children of light are about eternity. The crook saw the end coming and moved. You know the end is coming and you sit on your hands.

"And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." — Luke 16:9 (KJV)

Use the money. Use the mammon, the unrighteous stuff, and make friends for eternity with it. Because the money is going to fail you. It fails everyone. You brought none of it in and you carry none of it out. So spend it now in the one direction that outlasts it, toward God and toward the poor and toward the kingdom, and convert the currency that dies into the only thing that does not.

Then he tells you why it is a test.

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much... If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?" — Luke 16:10-12 (KJV)

That which is another man's. There it is, the whole thing in four words. Your money is not yours. It is the master's, and you are the steward, and the money is the least, and the true riches are the much. How you handle what was never yours decides what he will trust you with of what will be. The bank account is the pop quiz for the soul.

"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." — Luke 16:13 (KJV)

Two masters, pulling in opposite directions. And notice he does not say you should not serve mammon. He says you cannot serve both. Mammon is not a neutral tool sitting quietly in your wallet. It is a master. It wants to be served. It asks for your worry and your Saturdays and your quiet trust, the trust that belongs to God, and it will take all of it if you let it. You will end up hating one of them. The question was never whether you would serve money a little. It is which of the two owns you.

Six hundred years earlier a prophet watched a nation find out too late what it had banked on.

"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." — Jeremiah 8:20 (KJV)

The books closed and they were not ready. The season ran out while they were still counting the wrong thing.

You tithe, maybe, and consider the account settled. But the steward's question is not whether you paid the minimum. It is whose it is. A tithe you hand over precisely so the other ninety percent is finally, safely, unquestionably yours is still two masters wearing one coat. He is not after ten percent of your money. He is after the fiction that any of it was ever yours to divide.

So give an account like a man who is about to, not an owner who never will. The notice is already on the desk. Before the books close, get shrewd about the one thing that lasts. Loosen your grip on the currency that is going to fail you and spend it hard in the direction of God, while it can still buy you a friend at the door of the everlasting habitations. None of it was ever yours. That is not the bad news. That is the freedom. You cannot lose what you were only ever holding for him.

Amen.