Midweek Devotion

Read Luke 16:1-13

A hen and a pig approached a church and read the advertised sermon topic: “What can we do to help the poor?” Immediately the hen suggested they feed them bacon and eggs. The pig thought for a moment and said, “There is only one thing wrong with feeding bacon and eggs to the poor. For you it requires only a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment.” That story also serves to illustrate a key point that we will be emphasizing from the Scripture today: Counting the Cost.

That is something that we don’t like to think about too often. But, everything comes at a cost. For an athlete, they must decide early in life just how serious he/she wants to become in their sport and train accordingly. I remember watching the Olympics this summer. Some of those people have been training for 6-10 years just to qualify to participate in the Olympic games. What dedication to sport. What a price to pay. They will train and condition themselves for years just for the chance to compete.

This morning’s Gospel reading is the Parable of the Unjust Steward: Luke 16:1-13. This is one of the most difficult parables to understand, because at first blush it looks as if Jesus is condoning deceitful practices. On careful reflection however, I don’t think he is. One of the interesting things about difficult parables is that Jesus explains the difficulties and this parable is no exception.

What Jesus is admiring is the shrewdness of unjust steward. We see this with Jesus’ comment in Luke 16:8. The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are shrewder in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

Jesus is not commenting on the morality of the man. The message of this parable however is not found in this difficulty. Rather the key verse to the parable is found in Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money.

It seems to me that the message of this parable is simply this. That Jesus is looking for single-minded people, people totally dedicated to God, who have one purpose in life to serve God in all they do. If we are Christians, we are God’s stewards and the challenge is, what kind of steward are we. The Unjust Steward was single-minded but he wasn’t serving the right master.

Jesus is stressing discipleship, not necessarily salvation. I think it’s possible to be a believer and not follow Jesus and his teachings. I know because I’ve been there. My faith in Jesus as Savior is rock solid as it is for many people. But my dedication to His Lordship, that is, to what he taught and the lifestyle he advocated has flagged at times. Jesus talked earlier in Luke 14 about how everyone is invited to come to the banquet of salvation. It’s freely offered and freely received. We don’t have to count the cost for salvation because Jesus already did that. But discipleship is a different matter. It is costly. Discipleship is not an invitation to a Sunday school picnic. It is an invitation to a long term relationship.