03.30.25

There is always a thread running throughout God’s truth, God’s word. And that thread works to prepare us for and give us tools to understand, the next insight or lesson given to us by the Spirit. 

Let’s look at our recent identified thread. We looked at Jesus’ 3 parables of lostness which enhanced our understanding of God’s love, specifically – how it is not negated based on our actions or the actions of another – 

We were reminded that we can never be so lost that God’s love cannot find us and we can never be too far to run back to God’s love. 

A story of a sheep that wandered away and a shepherd who did not give up on the desperate search for the sheep. A story of a coin that was lost, and a woman who went into a cleaning frenzy to find the coin. And, a son who rejected his father – and a father who watched the gate to his property passionately hoping for the return of the son. 

[Slide] All three parables provide us with insight into how God’s love never disappears, God is always in the pursuit of those he loves, and we are all loved by God.

On our way to today’s passage, let’s stop at a short passage in between last week’s passage and today’s passage – a passage that gives us an enhanced perspective of God’s unboundaried and unconditional love. 

THEN  – remember our ‘NOW’ from last week that served as a travel monologue of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the Cross? Today’s passage ‘THEN’ us to the thread further into and onto the THREAD of God’s love. 

THEN, Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to the rich man that his manager was squandering the rich man’s property. So the rich man summoned him and said to the manager, ‘What is this that I hear about you? 

Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.

I have decided what to do so that, after I am dismissed, I will be welcomed into the homes of my master’s debtors.’  The ‘about to be fired’ manager summoned his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 

The debtor answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ The manager said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ The manager did this for all of his master’s debtors. 

Consider this Story before we continue…An owner has been cheated out of at least half of his income because this employee has figured out away to ‘steal’ from the manager while, at the same time, taking care of himself and securing his own future – NOW, look at the owner’s response… back to the master’s response…

When his master found out what the manager had done, he commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly 

What?!?

Consider how Jesus’ wraps this story..

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into their eternal homes.

???

Il. Graffiti on building with correct spelling. ‘Commends’

Jesus talking about the manager recognizing the worth of others….baby steps to ‘Be Kind” and baby steps to God’s command to love, it was still totally selfish, but, something had happened, something to which caught the eye of the master – the manager recognized the worth of others. 

The manager had seen something he had never seen before – the worth of all of God’s others. W we see the worth of others, we recognize them, we stop to know them, and, along the way we begin to see and notice them for much more than just seeing in a selfish way.

So, with that on our mind – the thread of God’s unconditional and unboundaried love along with the recognition of every person’s worth, we come to today’s passage.

Remember, we are still under the umbrella of our ‘THEN’. Previously, Jesus was specifically focused on his disciples. Now, we have a new THEN and Jesus’ focus audience has enlarged to include the religious leaders.

One audience (the disciples) is listening to Jesus for words of earthly life that are focused on the now, life here on earth, as Jesus teaches about a heart faith which grows in its love for God’s created – humans and creation itself – a love that grows our love for God – a faith which naturally will transition to a widened definition of eternal life. 

While the other group (the religious leaders) has become entrenched in an institutional religion that has grown out of their sincere and authentic faith. They live by the thread of God’s promise to Abraham, but, as happens with us humans and religion, that faith and the subsequent human developed religious agendas of these religious leaders has become more dependent on human interpretations and attempts to control their own people than following their own passionate search for the promised deliverer.

In a nutshell…

• The faith of the religious leaders has lost much of its focus on the God of the promise – much like we see in our own institutional faith now.
• The faith of the religious leaders has allowed its passion to be gradually hijacked by their leaders and politics, much like we see in our own institutional faith now.
• The faith  practices of the religious leaders have been anchored to their traditions, much like we see in our own institutional faith now. 
• The faith of the religious leaders has reassigned its hope to being able to control their culture and society, much like we see in our own institutional faith now.

• All the while, Jesus is teaching those who will listen to his mission, which will be their mission. A mission that will rise up a religious striving to live life to its fullest. A fullness that will lead us naturally into an eternity of fulfilled abundance. 

So, we look at our passage for today with the following truths learned so far…

• God’s love for all of us never ends, we are never too far for God’s to find us and we are never too far to run back to God’s love embrace.
• God calls us to love him as he loves us – a love which is unboundaried and unconditional, a love which will grow us to love what and who God loves.
• God encourages us to embark on that love for others by intentionally noticing, knowing, and recognizing those who God loves – which is everyone. To not see others as a hindrance, threat, or annoyance, and instead as God loves them – leading to our recognition of their worth.
• God calls us to be kind and loving toward, and to, others on earth even to those who live very different lives than we live.

Our passage involves 2 characters who, here on earth, live very different lives, and then step into eternity living the life of the other. 

A story often only perceived through an eschatological filter but actually, along with the stories before it, it gives us a huge huge lesson on how to live here on earth. 

This morning, we fall into one of those categories – Jesus’ followers and/or possibly Jesus’ foes. So, let’s look at this passage not as a distant FUTURE eternity, to, instead, a NOW eternity. ‘Living life as we are called to live. Living a life the way Jesus lived his life.’’

Let’s look at what Jesus said about the thieving manager – 

“the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” (Luke 16:8).

Jesus is telling us that sometimes non-believers live out God’s call to love and value others better than believers. Yes, hear that, sometimes the world does a better job of being the hands and feet of Jesus, than we do! Why, because sometimes they are more attuned to the world, the needs, the injustice, the hatred and brutality, than we who are often isolated and detached religious people.

So, two individuals, living in the same area, living different lives. One is poverty stricken, desolate, cripled, gross, unclean, while the other is exorbitantly rich, enjoys every meal as a feast, wears the best clothes made of the most expensive cloths, powerful, sitting in a position of great influence. 

Everyday the rich man, who has no name, leaves his palace and resentfully has to step over the annoying poor man that lays at his gate. The poor man, who has a name, Lazarus, dreams of access to the crumbs that drop from the Rich Man’s table.The rich man does not know that because he refuses to know or notice the poor man. The rich man can see no worth in the poor man because he can only see the poor man as an inconvenience.

After both men die, the rich man comes to an understanding of the value and worth, of the poor man. It is too late. Sadly, now, there is nothing the poor man can do for the rich man.

As long as we live here on earth we are still able to love the poor man, or the rejected man, or the unloved man, or the depressed man, or the selfish man, or the judgemental man, or the powerful man, or the hateful man, or the desperate man, or the failing man, or the victorious man, or the ….. The list goes on. 

Who are we failing to notice, to see their worth, to know them. Who is God calling us to love but we are unable to love because we have created too many barriers to even notice them?

That is our question. Not asked out of a fear of an eternity of hopeless suffering but, instead, out of a desire to know and appreciate all those that are loved and valued by God just as God loves and values each of us. A calling to recognize God’s love in our life and in the life of others. 

Directed prayer.