God Journey
God Journey By Ruth Richter, Lay Preacher As most of you know, I am a co-mentor with Kim Culp for the Education for Ministry (EfM) program. With the new curriculum introduced in 2013, each year has a different focus. This year, we are focusing on “Living into the Journey with God.” If we are looking at life as a journey, we can see that all humans are on the same journey, the cycle of life, where each day we grow older, we eat, breathe, sleep, reproduce, learn, dream, and wonder. To say we are “living into” the journey means we are viewing life beyond ourselves to something that is enduring: making a difference…. discovering our passion, our ministry…. contributing….all the more striving to grow closer to God. Our EfM guide says that the human journey becomes a God Journey once it’s touched by truth, or beauty, or love that can be neither explained away or discounted. Being on a God journey, simply put, is living with an awareness of God. I assert that the majority who are here have embarked on a God Journey. But speaking from experience, the God Journey isn’t without its pit stops, we can and we do lose awareness of God from time to time. There is so much noise in the world, in our lives, that it takes vigilance and commitment to remain focused. In addition to the noise of life, the EfM guide points to another reason. The guide introduced the term Scotosis, from the Greek word skotos meaning darkness. The dictionary defines it as a term used to refer to intellectual blindness. A hardening of the mind against unwanted wisdom. The guide described it as a blind spot humans have, a massive resistance against learning, an ability to exclude ourselves from painful insights or awareness. This can allow us to become like unengaged spectators in the procession of lifei. These are the concepts and ideas I was churning about when I started my studies for this sermon. One of the first things I read was the chapter on Luke’s parable of the Shrewd Manager, in the book, The Parables by Simon Kistemaker. The first sentence of the chapter exclaimed, “out of all of the parables Jesus taught, the parable of the Shrewd Manager is the most puzzling.” So why did Jesus teach this way? Matthew Henry explained that the use of parables “is the way of teaching Christ used with multitudes of people, He taught them many things, but it was by parables, which would tempt them to hear.ii” I realized that this is what I do sometimes when I’m trying to get in a teaching moment for my boys. Because when I tell them advice outright, it’s often over looked. The best way to learn is through experience, self-teaching, something that churns up in your heart. So with the use of the parable, it can be both an effective and memorable vehicle for the conveyance of divine truthsiii. So what are the divine truths we can take away from the parable of the Shrewd Manager? To summarize the narrative, Jesus tells his disciples about a rich man who has been notified that his financial manager has been squandering his property and he gives the manager notice of his dismissal. [Just like in today’s times, wealthy people use financial managers. But in Jesus’ time, because it was against the Law of God to charge interest on goods, the wealthy created a workaround. They hired managers who ran their business without oversight, the managers were expected to make money for the rich and many did so by charging interest. If it was found out, since the master didn’t know, it was the manager who was charged. This was the risk of the job of a manageriv.] It could have been that this manager went beyond the typical practice, he was over charging, losing business, tarnishing the reputation -- squandering the property. Given this, the rich man had no choice but to let the manager go, and he gave him time
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to prepare an accounting of his management. Now, left to face his failure, the manager knew that he was culpable, and for that he had not only lost his job, but since he burned a number of bridges in the merchant community, he had nowhere to turn. His only option was to take an unskilled job or to beg and that just wouldn’t do. So from that rock bottom place, he saw the light. He would set the record straight with the rich man’s customers, he called them in one by one, and wrote off what was usurious over-charges on their bills. When he turned over the final report, it was clean and accurate, customers were happy not only with him but with his master. And people may now welcome him into their homes with open arms. Jesus concluded that the former-Master commended the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly; “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.v” Jesus highlights the shrewdness or wisdom of this manager, who after losing everything for his mismanagement, he turned the situation around and by shifting the flow of money to the benefit everyone. In this narrative, Jesus is pointing out that believers should be equally as shrewd with our vi wealth , to spend it on making friends, sharing yourself and through you, the love of Christ, reminding that us “we can’t take it with us.” Let us focus shrewdly on how we manage our cash flow so that we spend it not only on earthly things but those things that are enduring, opening the doors to the eternal home. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a great example of using wealth for eternal purposes. In chapter 4, Paul thanks the Philippians for supporting not only recently while he is in the Roman prison, but from the beginning they have generously helped to support him financially on his journey to spread the Gospel: Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account.vii Look what the parishioners in Philippi did with their money, St. Paul is credited with starting over 14 churches, he had countless apprentice leaders who started more, over ½ the books in the NT make up the letter St. Paul wrote which have taught and inspired countless over the past 2000 years. As a community and as individuals, we can and are making incredible, enduring things happen with our gifts. I could not help to think, “What if it was through our generation’s generous giving and sharing, on which the future of Christianity lay as it were with the disciples when Jesus told this parable?” Which leads us into the last teachings of this parable I will cover: “No servant can serve two masters.” Jesus teaches us that we shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind. But he didn’t say to love thyself as thyself. He said to love our neighbors as ourselves. During our offering in church, we usually sing “Praise God from whom all blessing flow,” and we are reminded that the blessings are not to flow to us, but through us. What we see in this world is not our own, but Gods. And we are the stewards of what we possess. So let us serve God by using our gifts wisely, to the glory of His name, as we continue on our God Journey through this blessed life. Amen. i
Education for Ministry Volume D: Living into the Journey with God http://www.biblegateway.com, Mathew Henry’s commentary for Mark 4:1-20 iii http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-parables.html iv The Parables by Simon Kistemaker, The Shrewd Manager vv Luke 6:8 vi “Dishonest wealth” used in this translation, which in some places seems to fit and in others it does not. The Greek translation of dishonest wealth is mammon, or “that in which one fully trusts, idolizes.” vii Philippians 4:17 ii
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to prepare an accounting of his management. Now, left to face his failure, the manager knew that he was culpable, and for that he had not only lost his job, but since he burned a number of bridges in the merchant community, he had nowhere to turn. His only option was to take an unskilled job or to beg and that just wouldn’t do. So from that rock bottom place, he saw the light. He would set the record straight with the rich man’s customers, he called them in one by one, and wrote off what was usurious over-charges on their bills. When he turned over the final report, it was clean and accurate, customers were happy not only with him but with his master. And people may now welcome him into their homes with open arms. Jesus concluded that the former-Master commended the dishonest manager for acting shrewdly; “for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.v” Jesus highlights the shrewdness or wisdom of this manager, who after losing everything for his mismanagement, he turned the situation around and by shifting the flow of money to the benefit everyone. In this narrative, Jesus is pointing out that believers should be equally as shrewd with our vi wealth , to spend it on making friends, sharing yourself and through you, the love of Christ, reminding that us “we can’t take it with us.” Let us focus shrewdly on how we manage our cash flow so that we spend it not only on earthly things but those things that are enduring, opening the doors to the eternal home. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is a great example of using wealth for eternal purposes. In chapter 4, Paul thanks the Philippians for supporting not only recently while he is in the Roman prison, but from the beginning they have generously helped to support him financially on his journey to spread the Gospel: Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account.vii Look what the parishioners in Philippi did with their money, St. Paul is credited with starting over 14 churches, he had countless apprentice leaders who started more, over ½ the books in the NT make up the letter St. Paul wrote which have taught and inspired countless over the past 2000 years. As a community and as individuals, we can and are making incredible, enduring things happen with our gifts. I could not help to think, “What if it was through our generation’s generous giving and sharing, on which the future of Christianity lay as it were with the disciples when Jesus told this parable?” Which leads us into the last teachings of this parable I will cover: “No servant can serve two masters.” Jesus teaches us that we shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind. But he didn’t say to love thyself as thyself. He said to love our neighbors as ourselves. During our offering in church, we usually sing “Praise God from whom all blessing flow,” and we are reminded that the blessings are not to flow to us, but through us. What we see in this world is not our own, but Gods. And we are the stewards of what we possess. So let us serve God by using our gifts wisely, to the glory of His name, as we continue on our God Journey through this blessed life. Amen. i
Education for Ministry Volume D: Living into the Journey with God http://www.biblegateway.com, Mathew Henry’s commentary for Mark 4:1-20 iii http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-parables.html iv The Parables by Simon Kistemaker, The Shrewd Manager vv Luke 6:8 vi “Dishonest wealth” used in this translation, which in some places seems to fit and in others it does not. The Greek translation of dishonest wealth is mammon, or “that in which one fully trusts, idolizes.” vii Philippians 4:17 ii
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