Wealth Squandered

 

A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost               

September 21, 2025

The Rev. Robin Teasley

 

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. 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.' 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. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 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.' 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. 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.

 

"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. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 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."  Luke 16:1-13

 

“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.” This is Gospel? Really Jesus? Making friends by means of dishonest wealth sounds kind of edgy to me. There’s a lot in this parable that I don’t understand, so I read lots of commentaries only to find that no one else really understands it either. For one thing it is a complicated text. Scholars think the author included the parable and then tacked on some sayings he liked at the end because he did not know where else in his gospel to put them. For today, let’s just focus on the strange phrase that Jesus uses – dishonest wealth – make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth.

 

In the retail environment, products are sold at a markup. As consumers, we know this but we willingly submit and are taken advantage of by this markup, because it’s convenient, its packaging is alluring, we like the commercial, our mother always used it, or it’s right there in the checkout lane and too tempting to ignore, just like that little container of overpriced chocolate caramels with sea salt that tempted me in the checkout lane last week. 

 

You may be surprised to realize just how hefty some retail markups really are. Bottled water costs over 2,000 times more than tap water. If you make coffee at home, it costs about 25 cents a cup, but that same cup will cost you almost five dollars at Starbucks. At the movie theater, people will pay popcorn premiums of 1,300 percent simply because they cannot resist that buttery aroma. That’s a lot of markup, and some of it may be justified, but might there also be some dishonest wealth in there? Is the retailer, the middle man, profiting too much? How much is too much? How much do we really need to profit and at whose expense?

 

In ancient Palestine, the manager was the middle man between the rich landholder and the merchants and farmers, in the exchange of goods and services such as buying and selling grain, oil, and crops and in collecting rents. It was expected that he would make a profit for himself in these transactions. As long as the owner’s profits kept rolling in and the manager didn’t get too greedy, the owner was fine with the manager making a little profit from each deal. 

 

The manager’s position in this complex system was both privileged and vulnerable. While he had a relatively high standard of living, he was completely dependent on the goodwill of his boss. Listen to what he says in verse three, “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.” We might assume that he is whining here, and trying to avoid honest labor. But maybe he began to come to himself and see the larger picture, that he was not physically able to compete with the peasant laborers for the hardest, most menial of jobs. He would be reduced to begging, and, in short order, would find himself living in poverty, like so many laborers do even today. Perhaps he began to understand that he needed support from his community. 

 

The manager’s action seems dishonest, even though many of us might admit that we have also been there in that place of panic. We have made a bad decision, taken the wrong action to try to save ourselves, or moved forward with what we wanted, knowing that it might bring harm to others. I’m guessing the dishonest manager had no small amount of anxiety as he was about to be fired from his position. 

 

I wonder though, that as he saw his livelihood passing away, if maybe he began to see what was truly important and what would endure. Perhaps he began to understand the importance of relationships and community, and then he decided to reach out to the rich man’s debtors. We could talk about whether his behavior was dishonest or self-preserving or a last-ditch effort to avoid a job digging ditches. We could give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he messed up, realized it, and did what he could to make reparations.

 

What do you think Jesus was saying about this manager?

 

In his desperation the manager called the debtors in one by one and reduced their debt. The wealth he was dealing with was dishonest wealth. It’s pretty certain that he’d overcharged them many times. Yet, in that moment of clarity, in that moment of metanoia, that place of repentance where we turn around and change our behavior, the manager did just that. He made a conscious decision to use his dishonest wealth to help others, to create relationships with those less fortunate than himself.  And in that moment, the master honored the manager’s repentance and his move from selfishness to generosity.  

 

Even though the manager had squandered the master’s wealth, he changed his behavior and helped others. He did this because he knew something of the character of his master. He knew him to be generous and forgiving. As he had hoped, the rich man’s character held true.  He acknowledged the manager’s resourcefulness, and his generosity towards others. 

 

Wealth is something we are not always willing to talk about. I have to wonder if that’s because we are not willing to admit just how much we cling to it, think we need more of it. There is, in each of us, a real fear of not having enough or not being enough. Could it be that the kind of self-centered storing up of treasures for ourselves that we tend to do is actually a kind of squandering? I suspect we squander what we have been given more than we might like to admit, whether it be money, time, material possessions, a relationship, or a responsibility.

 

Is it possible that all wealth is really only a dishonest wealth?  Dishonest in the sense that we believe that wealth itself can be our salvation? Dishonest in the sense that we claim to have attained our wealth on our own? We never truly attain wealth; rather it is all a gift from God.  

We are blessed with uncountable riches. But often we squander the opportunities to make friends for ourselves, and God, by not using, not sharing, what is given us. 

 

The good news is that the genuinely important things the most valuable things in life, do not have price tags and dollar signs attached. Once we realize that, we are then free to turn; to turn our hearts and souls and minds and bodies, as well as our wealth and resources, to the task of serving God by serving one another. God loves us and forgives us, over and over. God’s grace never runs out. God is more generous than we can ask or imagine. It’s a profit margin we cannot afford to pass up.