The Cost of Discipleship Week Three - Game of Loans

It’s (Still)The Season of Pentecost!

We are teaching through a sermon series in September, entitled “The Cost of Discipleship.” The inspiration for this series comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pastor who was executed by the Nazis at the end of World War 2.  

Bonhoeffer wrote a book entitled "The Cost of Discipleship," in which he asserted that grace is costly, not cheap.  We are going to be talking about our relationship with money today, and so I  want to share a quote from Bonhoeffer regarding a shift in the way we think about what we have: 

“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Today, we are going to read a strange parable that Jesus told that speaks to how we ought to relate to money.  

As it turns out, Jesus spoke extensively about money.  He spoke about money more than he spoke about anything else, except for the Kingdom of God, and even then, he managed to weave many teachings about wealth and the trap of never having enough of it.  

It’s almost like he knew that it could be a problem for some of us.  

Luke’s Gospel addresses the conflicts with wealth and discipleship. 

So if Jesus cared so much about the relationship between wealth and discipleship, shouldn’t we?  The problem is, most of us don't like to hear these kinds of teachings.  

I recall that years ago, I was approached by a church member who told me that he was glad I didn't preach about tithing because he came from a church background where they taught that one ought to give 10% of their income back to God.  He said to me, "You know, Jesus never taught about tithing."  

That interaction caused me to think more deeply about my own understanding regarding giving to my faith community.  So I decided to do an entire sermon series on generosity, which I'm sure my poor church member didn't expect me to do.  

Ultimately, I came to realize that Jesus did, in fact, discuss tithing and had a great deal to say about how we perceive our money and possessions.  Jesus taught that a good guideline for generosity was between 10% and everything.  

It was a lot worse than I had imagined.  And I'm pretty sure the church member who approached me wished he hadn't.  

There’s a reality in the churchy world that we need to address when it comes to giving.  In the Presbyterian Church (USA), regular church attenders give an average of 1.5% of their income to their church.  

I also know that the following is true across the board in every church: 

Roughly 10% of a congregation covers 70% of their church's budget, and a full 20% of any congregation does not give at all.   

This does not mean that faithful, regular church attendees are not giving elsewhere.  They are. But for some reason, they aren't funneling that giving into their local church.  

Some possible reasons are that they don't trust the church to handle their gifts wisely.  They want to give to things that are more near and dear than their local church.  They want to know they are making a difference.  

And all of this means that as a church, we must do a better job of telling the story of how every gift, every donation, and every dollar given is not only making a difference but also changing the world.  

But there's also something else.  We need to be teaching from the words of Jesus himself what it means to have a right relationship with God when it comes to what we have to give.  

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP IS RADICAL STEWARDSHIP 

Luke 16:1-3

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 

The language used with the manager is the same as the Prodigal Son. 

2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 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. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

In desperation, he renegotiates all the contracts with the debtors.  

He ingratiates himself with the debtors and earns the master’s respect. 

8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

Jesus is telling them something they already know—the way the world works

10 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The last exhortation is the real lesson here—you can’t serve God and money, or "Mammon." 

Are we being good stewards of what we have?  Do we consider the well-being of others when managing our finances?  

What Do We Learn Here?

1. We can serve God with our money.  

However, it will require us to surrender and live with open hands.  

2. When money becomes our master, we lose sight of our true purpose. 

Whether we have money or we don't, we can become so obsessed with it that we end up serving it, rather than serving God.  

3. Radical stewardship means it all belongs to God.  

When we make this shift, we begin to realize that if everything belongs to God, we have a responsibility to be better stewards of what is God's in the first place.  

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP IS RADICAL STEWARDSHIP