BFFs

BFFs

— And I your Lord and Savior tell you, children of the light: Use your money, tainted as it is, to help your eternal friends, so that when your tainted money is gone, they will welcome you into homes where the light never goes out. (Luke 16:9)

How’s that for a Stewardship statement? Do we really know where all our money has come from, or where it all goes? And can we decide not to take any tainted money? No, no, and no. The “dishonest wealth” you heard in the Gospel reading could also be translated “unjust wealth,” or “tainted money,” perhaps something we “children of light” can relate to more easily than dishonest wealth. But, even if we are all implicated in “tainted money,” we can decide what kind of friends to make with our tainted money? That is the Gospel, the Good News that Jesus gives us today. The very strange story he tells today is one with which his disciples could easily identify. And with a little imagination, so can we.

“There was a rich man who had a manager,” or “steward.” A steward was charged with managing the property, in this case, for an absent landowner. He would rent parcels of the land to sharecroppers, then take a percentage of their crops as income for his master, and a commission for himself. With the rich man absent, the steward had a great deal of power. But he didn't have security, because the land wasn't his. Managers in this position were caught between rich landlords who wanted more profits for themselves, and laborers who wanted more wages for themselves.

“And charges were brought to him that this manager [or steward] was squandering his property.” Who contacted the absent landowner with these charges: day laborers who thought he was claiming too much of his commission at their expense; tenants who thought the steward was overcharging their rent? And does Jesus say that the “charges” were true? Maybe the manager had gotten greedy with his commissions. Or maybe the workers and tenants wanted more than what the manager could give after he’d given the master his share. And from a distance, not knowing the facts on the ground, who does the rich master side with, the one manager or the many laborers and tenants?

And now our “hero” has a big problem. “I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg.” He’s not a manual laborer, he’s a nerd with the numbers, and having to dig from sunup to sundown six days a week would break him. But living in a world ruled by the law of — I scratch your back–you scratch mine — the manager knows how to obligate the very laborers and tenants who got him fired. And the absent master senses that the bills are off, but he can't prove it. And besides, does he really want to shake down the laborers whose favor he curried by firing the steward? What else could he do but “commend the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly,” and perhaps hire him back? How’s that for a happy ending to Jesus’s story?

“For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light,” Jesus says. We children of light must live among the unjust. We must also live among all those who argue that their financial need is more just and deserving than others. And how shrewd do we have to be to protect ourselves and our families? What compromises do we make between what Jackson Browne called the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender?

What is most important for us the children of light are the kind of friends we make with our stewardship of the wealth that has been given to us. Do we make friends of mutual self-interest, like the manager, or the friends who will be waiting for us “in the eternal homes” when the light of this world and its tainted wealth has gone dark? Christian stewardship is about investing in the friends whom God has given us to spend eternity with. And so here we all are this Sunday morning in this sacred space where we meet God in the beauty of holiness, and renew our friendships with each other.

To my friends and fellow children of light caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender: I look forward to seeing you again when the money is gone and all that’s left is light.

The 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 20, Year C,

September 21st, 2025

The Rev. David Kendrick