Pentecost 16 Luke 16: 1-13 9/19/04
“Looking Out For Number 1”
Two things they teach Marines: Keep your priorities in order. A college professor, an avowed atheist, was teaching his class. He shocked several of his students when he flatly stated he was going to prove there was no God. Addressing the ceiling he shouted: "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!" The lecture room fell silent. You could have heard a pin fall. Ten minutes went by. Again he taunted God, saying, "Here I am, God. I'm still waiting." His count-down got down to the last couple of minutes when a Marine - just released from active duty and newly registered in the class - walked up to the professor, hit him full force in the face, and sent him tumbling from his lofty platform. The professor was out cold! The students were shocked and babbled in confusion. The young Marine took a seat in the front row and sat silent. The class fell silent...waiting. Eventually, the professor came to, shaken. He looked at the young Marine in the front row. When the professor regained his senses and could speak he asked: "What's the matter with you? Why did you do that?" "God was busy. He sent me." A friend sent me that joke on Friday and the timing was prophetic. I had already started to write my sermon when I decided to take a tea break and read my email. And there was my friend’s joke and from it my sermon for today – a totally different sermon than I had planned. The parable Jesus tells in our gospel lesson for today is probably the hardest passage in all of Scripture to understand. Is Jesus praising what seems to be dishonest actions on the part of the manager? Who do the characters in the parable stand for? Is Jesus the manager or is He suggesting that we should be? Even the most knowledgeable Bible scholars don’t seem to have a sure answer to those questions, and as interesting as I think the speculations are I’m not going to take time going into them. Three things do seem clear though. The manager recognized a crisis and acted decisively. He knew how to look out for #1. And he was shrewd (and this is what he was probably praised for, btw). Putting aside the layers of bias against the manager that have built up over the centuries and the learned explanation of the cultural rule, called “Balanced Reciprocity”, that the manager employed (and which I just love to describe to you), this is basically a story about a man who made mistakes, but found a creative way out of the trouble his mistakes caused him. It is a story for us and for our day. I don’t know how many of you are aware that we have been having to take more and more money out of our savings to pay current bills, but our savings are dwindling fast. Out of concern for this and the future of St. Paul’s, Bob invited Bishop Jones to be with us at our council meeting last week. The bishop examined the treasurer’s report and listened to comments of various members present as to the reason for the decline in revenue. He then suggested some possible actions that can be taken both in the short term and in the long term. All will take effort and a willingness to sacrifice on all our parts. It can be very tempting in a crisis to let anxiety rule our thoughts and actions. When it does we are virtually blocked off from positive and creative problem solving. The devil doesn’t necessarily create the crises in our lives, but he sure knows how to use them to beat us down and separate us from God, and from each other. We may try to find someone to blame for the trouble (often secretly ourselves). Or, we wring our hands and make the crisis more overwhelming than it needs to be, perhaps claiming that the end is in sight. Or, we isolate ourselves in someway and feel that there is no one who can or will help. Or, we may withdraw and run from the problem. Because the devil is always ready to pounce, as we experience this or any crisis, the first thing we need to do is take a step back to give us a more objective view. We also need to take some long slow breaths to calm ourselves and send oxygen to our brains, so we can think. I think the manager in the parable was a master at this. Whether or not his solution – reducing the debts owed to his master – was admirable or even ethical, it was a creative and seemingly culturally acceptable response for him. (this is where “balanced reciprocity” comes in and if you’re curious about it ask me after church) There are ways that we can deal with both our current financial troubles and plan for a more secure future, but we need to be calm so we can be creative. We need to be able to recognize the problem, but remain objective so we can act decisively. The manager, for all that he had been negligent in handling his master’s resources wasn’t stupid. He may have been lazy or careless or too much of a risk taker, but he was also gifted. He was even commended in the end by his master for his shrewdness. Each of us has gifts to use in a crisis. Some of us are creative and can use that creativity to come up with ideas for ways to address our problems. The bishop suggested getting a group of five or six people together to look at the problem, examine what our needs are and seek ways to address them. We need creative people, shrewd people, people who can look at things from different perspectives. Since the work of this committee is going to be so vital members of it will be picked specially for their gifts. Please be prepared to say “yes” to serving is you are asked. We will be the managers who use our gifts, including shrewdness to find a way for the congregation to act decisively in securing our future. Of course, in all of this the manager was looking out for #1 - in the case of the parable, for himself. His motivation was to protect himself from winding up homeless and/or a beggar. By helping our his master’s debtors he assured himself a welcome in their homes. Looking out for number 1 is a normal, human reaction, especially in times of crisis. It is part of the survival instinct of all animals. But, humans can also look beyond their personal survival needs to the needs of family, friends and others. Humans can sacrifice even their own survival for another’s sake when heroism is needed. This was the heroism that Jesus showed. He put aside first His divinity in order to be like us and experience our human crisis, and then He put aside even his own survival instinct for our sakes, and died for us. As followers of Jesus Christ we are called to decide who will be number 1. This is a decision that we must make personally and as a church. Math is not one of my strong suits, so I’ve checked this out. Considering that our attendance averages sixty-five and that there are quite a number of people who attend only once or twice a month, I believe we could say that our worshiping adult membership is at least 100. Now, rounding off our average monthly deficit to $1 800 and dividing by 100, my math tells me that we only need to have each adult increase their giving by $18.00 a month to get us out of this crisis. That’s only $4.50 a week over what each of us is currently giving! Surely, that is not an impossible goal for the people of this church to achieve. It doesn’t seem likely that putting St. Paul’s first in this way will endanger anyone’s survival, but it will ensure our church’s. But, I want to also address the issue of who is number #1 for us as a church. St. Paul’s is a wonderful church, with a long history and much to be proud of. There is no doubt that this church should be protected and preserved, but St. Paul’s is not a relic or a historic landmark. It is a church in ministry and mission. It exists chiefly to proclaim that God is number 1. It is to be that marine in my opening story. It (We) are to hit a knock-out blow for God. We do this not because God is too busy to do it Himself, but because called us as His marines, fighting the good fight of faith on the front lines of the world. We, in fact, can say like the marine, “He sent me.” St. Paul’s exists and must be preserved so that it can go into battle against those who cynically claim there is no God. It does this, not just by having nice worship services on Saturday and Sunday, but by reaching out in ministry to members and non-members. It does it by support of the larger church in benevolence. It does it by the way our members live out their calling as Christian disciples every day of their lives. When a church makes God number 1, and its people keep their focus on serving Him, He not only helps them survive, He helps them flourish. May you hear God calling you to use all of your gifts, including shrewdness, to show that God is number 1 in your life and in the life of St. Paul’s. Amen |