Serving Who

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE

SERVING WHO

Luke 16:1-13

16:1 Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' 3 "The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' 5 "So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 "'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. "The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 7 "Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?' "'A thousand bushels of wheat,' he replied. "He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.' 8 "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. 10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? 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." 

NIV

Here we have another large amount of the words of Jesus, but we cannot take any small portion alone for they would be out of context and we would not have the insight into why he said what he did. Although some might want to establish some doctrine from a few of his words taking then out of the context of the whole, it would be dishonest to do that. So what was the point that Jesus was making? It would make sense the point is his final statement about not being able to serve both God and Money. So what does all that story about the shrewd servant have to do with serving two masters? It would seem Jesus is making some comparison between the people of the world and the people of light. The worldly people strive for wealth. These people are in fact devoted to the world. They live for the world only, they are careful only to obtain material goods and provide for their temporal necessitates. This of course does not mean they are especially wicked people, but only that they are anxious about worldly things. It appears Jesus is saying they are more prudent, cunning and anxious about their particular life, or business, profession, occupation, source of income then what the children of light do to promote the kingdom of God. Jesus continues about this idea that the world strives for wealth we are to strive for the kingdom. This using the worlds wealth to make friends is not to be done as the unjust servant did, that would simply be wrong. What Jesus was saying was we should use our money for the benefit of making friends, the poor, the needy or even he could have meant God. That is we should not be using our wealth to secure a worldly position, being of influence in the world, having people fawn over us because of our wealth, but that we should use it to advance the kingdom. If we were as diligent about using our resources to advance the kingdom of God as the worldly are about advancing themselves in the world, the kingdom would be growing faster. Have we become so entangled in the ways of the world that we have forsaken the ways of the kingdom? Are we trying to serve God and ourselves at the same time? Are we as anxious about the kingdom as we are about the world? We cannot live in both realms. We cannot pursue God and pursue wealth.  It might appear Jesus is saying that in order to enter the kingdom of God we have to do the good deeds of using our wealth to gain friends, but he is not talking about how the servant used ill-gotten gains, but how we should be a giving people. Again it is about what are our priorities? Do we focus on worldly gain, our physical needs, or on God? Yes we need things too, but Jesus has already told us to seek the kingdom first and he will add all the things. Good deeds, giving money to the poor, or to God does not give us salvation, but it is the result of salvation. Our love for money has been replaced by our love for God. At least that is the way it should be. It still comes down to his last statement here, we cannot serve both money and God. We have to choose one or the other. Choose this day who we will serve, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.