"Jesus told his disciples: 'There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 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.'
"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 - I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'
"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 'Eight hundred gallons of olive oil,' he replied. The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.' 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.'
"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. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." Luke 16 : 1 - 9
As a community, we have been focusing on justice and generosity this semester. It has been amazing to hear the challenging and transformative stories of how you are being radically generous and searching for injustice. Focusing on Just Generosity this semester has helped push me to do radical things, but has also opened my eyes to the brokenness of this world. And Holy Week is the perfect time to reflect upon the cross; the ultimate form of justice and generosity.
The world acts out of evil because of our broken relationship with God. Wrongs have been committed and justice is necessary and death is the ultimate form of justice and redemption. By God's grace, Jesus paid that price for us. The cross is justice and generosity displayed in the most pure form. Jesus is the only hope the world has and that should influence all of us.
The church was created to be a blessing to the world. We are sent to love people and the best way to do that is to share hope; to share Jesus. We are called to release the Kingdom into peoples lives. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus tells us: "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
This verse from Matthew and the passage from Luke both say we should act shrewdly. When I think of "shrewdness" I think of manipulative and sneaky behavior, however I don't think that's what Jesus means for us. God has given all of us resources and he expects us to be good stewards of those resources. But being a good steward never trumps generosity. A good steward handles his resources in a way pleasing to the master.
In the parable of the shrewd manager, the master commended the manager for his shrewdness. He essentially told the manager "Good job using what you have to get what you want." What we want is for people to hear about the hope found in Jesus and we should not hesitate to use what we have been given to do that.
Do whatever you can to become friends with people! Use your worldly wealth to love people. In friendships, what you are passionate about always seems to come up. If you are passionate about people loving Jesus, that will come up sometime. So get to know people! We will never be in a situation like college again. We live with or near our friends, we have the same homework, similar struggles, and we like to procrastinate together. Our worldly wealth right now may not be money or time, but it is accessibility.
Like God has given us resources to work with, Ryan graciously gave us all $5 at large group tonight to use to get to know someone a little bit better. This buys some coffee or lunch for a friend. That doesn't sound like much but we never know when God will show up and transform someones life.
What did you do with the money?
