Praise and exploitation Sunday morning rewrite

Sermon 2

This morning we have praised God, pondered words from the prophet Amos about not exploiting people, and then this passage from Luke.

This parable is confusing, and reading various scholars hasn’t helped much. I could go through various parts of the parable and explain the culture and economic system, that may help a little, but it still doesn’t help us work out why this parable was told.

Parables typically have a twist at the end, the twist in this one is that the master praises the manager for being shrewd rather than being angry with him for reducing what people owed. Which may or may not have hurt the bottom line for the master – it may have been that the manger was adding his own cut to the accounts, and he simply reduced the bill by his cut.

Here is a story: Izzy gets busy  from Spill the Beans 2013

I wonder in what ways we are like Izzy, using our brains and creativity for selfish reasons, rather than for the good of the kingdom of God?

Remember the quote from Augustine:

“... that God gave us people to love and things to use,” ^[i]

I can remember many years ago making a mobile, with people and things on opposite sides of one piece of paper, and love and use on the other piece of paper, just like this.

Do we use our position in life, our resources to feather our own nests, or do use what we have to show and share the love and grace of God?

---

[i] David Lose, In the Meantime