How You’re Seen? / Luke 16:1–15 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday September 21st 2025 / Season of Pentecost / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday September 21st 2025: Season of Pentecost / Luke 16:1–15 “How You’re Seen?”

[Jesus] also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management 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 removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends Saint Luke ends his account of Jesus’ teaching about wealth and the faithfulness of the righteous by shifting the spotlight onto the Pharisees who, Saint Luke tells us, “were lovers of money,” and these Pharisees when they heard all these things ridiculed Jesus for His teachings. And Jesus said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

So we begin with a question: ‘Which is more important; the way God looks at you, the way God sees you or the way the World looks at you, the way the World sees you?’

The long suffering Job of the Old Tenement describes the doom of people more concerned with the way the World looks at them, the fate of people more concerned with the way the World sees them, the future ruin of those more concerned with their standing and power and influence within World than with how they stand with the Lord, how the Lord looks at them, how the Lord sees them; Job says:

        “This is the portion of a wicked man with God,

               the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty:

        If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword,

               and his descendants have not enough bread.

        Those who survive him the pestilence buries,

               and his widows do not weep.

        Though he heap up silver like dust,

               and pile up clothing like clay,

        he may pile it up, but the righteous will wear it,

               and the innocent will divide the silver.

        He builds his house like a moth’s,

               like a booth that a watchman makes.

        He goes to bed rich, but will do so no more;

               he opens his eyes, and his wealth is gone.

        Terrors overtake him like a flood;

               in the night a whirlwind carries him off.”[1]

Money and possessions have their use but they will not save you, and they are not eternal, they are not everlasting, they come and go, and even if you can hold on to them for a life time, in the end they will slip between your fingers in death like dry sand at the beach and even with wills and laws the transfer of whatever wealth you’ve accumulated might not go as you expect or plan. If you’re aware of this, while it may be painful to part with such things, you’ll grow to know that this isn’t the worst thing that can happen. If you love and serve your money and possessions more than you love and serve God in the end you will only be disappointed for that which your heart clings to, and from which you expect more good and help than from God, becomes your ‘God’ and that then is another god, a false god, an idol[2] and as Jesus says you can’t serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other; “You cannot serve God and money.” This amounts to worshiping the gift and not the giver of the gift. On the one hand if you seek money and possessions first and the kingdom of God second or last you will be disappointed “but [on the other hand, Jesus says] seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”[3]

Jesus’ parable illustrates that it is important to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us — what has been given to us — just as it is equally important to be generous and charitable with what we have with others, especially those in need, and to look at these things, our money and possessions, as tools in our care and not as gods and idols to be worshiped and served over and above the Lord God Almighty the giver of the gifts.  Dear ones do not be deceived, Saint James teaches us that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”[4]

Jesus is critical of those who justify themselves before men because, as Jesus says “what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” So whether you are rich or poor by the World’s standards, or somewhere in between, Jesus teaches that it is “God [who] knows your heart.” He knows you’re heart regarding the First Commandment: You shall have no other gods. He knows your heart on whether or not you fear, love, and trust in Him above all things or whether you worship money. This is important because there are very rich people who are good stewards of what the Lord has given them who do not worship their money and possession who put the giver of the gift first and then there are also very poor people who are terrible stewards of what they have been given who do worship what little money and possessions they think they’ve scratch together. Just as there’re miserly rich folks who have no heart for charitable giving and cling to every dime they can and there are content poor people who value the kinds of things money cannot buy. You might not be able to see which is which, some people hide it all very well but there is no hiding from the Lord what is in your heart. “If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive” ... but it will not last, as they say in the end ‘you can’t take it with you.’

When you are not a lover of money it is far easier to be generous and charitable. Saint Paul paints what this looks like in his letter to the Christians of Philippi when he writes them saying, “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”[5] The lover of money is only interested in accumulating money and possessions for themselves and is not very concerned with the interests of others, or their welfare. God knows the heart: So rich or poor there will certainly be people slow to lift a figure to help someone in need who can’t seem to stop thinking of themselves and their needs first before the needs of others. This of course is a challenge because wherever you go there you are and the whole World encourages you to think of yourself first before you think of others. 

This is not what Jesus is like. Jesus, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages, born from the substance of His mother in this age — perfect God and perfect man — composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity Holy in every way and yet with humility the Son of God agreed to take on our flesh and blood and become our incarnate Saviour and Redeemer out of love. He does this less concerned with how the World would look at Him, less concerned with how the World would see Him than He was with putting Himself in the position and posture necessary to save us from the World, from sin, from the devil, from ourselves, yes even from death; putting our interests before His own. As Saint Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[6] Jesus Himself teaches His disciples saying: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus says, “that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”[7] Saint John in the Gospel of Saint John explains how this same Jesus “came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him,” that would be men like the Pharisees, and all those lovers of money, “But” Saint John says, “to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”[8] These then are those born again in the waters of Holy Baptism, by the command of the Lord and in His name.

Jesus at first looks at us men, women and children as weak sinners, but unlike the World who see this in us and seeks to exploit it and crush us under the weight of it, unlike those ‘lovers of money’ in our day who look at us and see this sad condition and only plot to keep us that way in order to feather their nests and make a fortune on our misery, Jesus rather sees our need for mercy and redeems us. He looks at us and gives us rest from our labours, and He sees us not as slaves but as friends, as children of His heavenly Father made new by the power of the Holy Spirit working to change us.

So that question that we began with: ‘Which is more important; the way God looks at you, the way God sees you or the way the World looks at you, the way the World sees you?’

When the World sees you as ones fit only to be trampled on, as ones who can be sold for silver and bought in exchange for pair of sandals, who’s only worth is in what profit they can generate for the rich and the powerful[9] then the question is ‘why would you want to impress the World, why would you care what the World thinks of you when the World sees you in that way?’ Saint James provides this warning when he asks, “Do you not know that friendship with the World is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the World makes himself an enemy of God.”[10]

The Pharisees who counted Jesus as their enemy finally succeeded in bringing about His death. And Jesus in His cross and passion was treated as an enemy of the very people He came to save. The Pharisees and all those “lovers of money” in their cohort—among their friends— worked their hardest to turn the people against Jesus. And Jesus for His part went to the cross to enduring the shame of His crucifixion in order to truly make The Way for your Life in the LORD, where you are a child of the Heavenly Father, where you are a friend of the Lord, so that His joy might be complete.[11] Naked, beaten, nailed to the cross, crowned with thorns how does the World looked at Him, how does the World see Him? As Saint Paul says “we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”[12] There is wisdom in looking to Jesus upon the cross, even in a painting or depicted in a crucifix, and seeing there the one who out of love was willing to be despised by the World in order to save you. The one who provides an inheritance not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with His own precious blood without blemish or spot shed for your redemption.[13] Dear ones, it’s more important than anything else that God knows your heart and in Christ looks at you as His children, that He sees you as His friends; and when you trust in this you can say:     

        The LORD is My chosen portion and My cup;

               [It is He, not the World, who] hold my lot.

        [Yes] the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

               indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

        [It is the Lord who] make known to me the path of life;

               in [His] presence there is fullness of joy;

               at [His] right hand are pleasures forevermore.[14] Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Job 27:13-20
[2] Luther’s Large Catechism the First Commandment, Pocket Edition of the Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord: Concordia the Lutheran Confessions, Concordia Publishing House 2006, page 493.
[3] Matthew 6:33
[4] James 1:16–17
[5] Philippians 2:3–4
[6] Romans 5:6–8
[7] John 15:12–15
[8] John 1:11–13
[9] Amos 8:4, 6
[10] James 4:4
[11] Hebrews 12:2
[12] 1 Corinthians 1:23–25
[13] 1 Peter 1:18–19
[14] Psalm 16:5–6, 11

Photo Credit: Main photo AI generated Jesus montauge from stockcake.