The Jesus MBA?

Sermon — September 21, 2025
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

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.
(Luke 16:9)

For a long time, I’ve had the idea of writing a book called The Jesus MBA, offering some practical advice on money management from the world’s wisest man. In my imagination, it falls somewhere into that nebulous genre at the intersection of personal finance, self-help, and pop Christianity that seems to generate endless numbers of book sales. You would learn through parables instead of case studies; guys would start wearing sandals and robes instead of Patagonia vests. I really think it would be a hit.

There’s just one problem: if you follow Jesus’ business advice, you’re probably going to get fired. And maybe go to jail.

 “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth” is not great business advice. And that’s not Jesus’ only questionable piece of financial wisdom. Today’s parable doesn’t tell us exactly why the manager is being fired, just that he was “squandering [the rich man’s] property”—but maybe this guy really internalized the sermon last week and lost 99% of the boss’s sheep.

Yet again, Jesus has given us a story that doesn’t quite align with the wisdom of the world.

Now, the parable itself makes sense as a story, in its context. Jesus lived in an agricultural society, in which most of the land was owned by large landowners. For the most part, small farmers worked on land that was owned by an aristocrat somewhere else. And in exchange for the right to live on that land, the farmers paid a proportion of what they produced to the landowner. Like most aristocrats, these wealthy landowners didn’t handle their own business directly; they hired a manager or steward to keep things running. The manager had the full legal authority to make decisions about the business, to make and amend contracts on behalf of the owner, and to interact with the tenants as if he were the landowner himself. This was a position of great power, and great trust.

The steward in today’s parable has violated that trust. We don’t get the details: only that he’s been accused of “squandering [the owner’s] property” and that he’s been called to account for his work. Now, he’s cooked. It’s clear that he thinks he’s guilty; at least, he doesn’t think he can talk his way out of it. And he knows he won’t be able to get another job managing land for someone else after being fired for cause. He isn’t “strong enough to dig” in the fields, and he doesn’t want to beg. And he needs to find some way to support himself after he’s fired.

But he hasn’t been fired yet. Today, he still has the job, with all the power he had yesterday. And so he goes around to each of the tenants, and he makes some changes. How much olive oil do you owe in rent? 100 jugs? Make it 50. How much wheat do you owe? 100 bushels? Make it 80.

It’s not entirely clear what he’s doing here. Is he taking vengeance on the landowner who’s about to fire him by cutting everyone’s rent so the boss makes less money? That kind of revenge would make sense. But it’s hard to understand why his master would “commend” him for it in the next verse. It’s possible that he would have made his living by charging a commission on top of the rent, and that he’s waiving that extra fee. And that makes even more sense: he now knows that he’ll never receive that money, because he’s going to be fired before the rent is due. And the master wouldn’t necessarily be that mad—he’ll still get what he would’ve gotten in rent, in the end. That’s plausible. But it’s only a guess. Jesus doesn’t give us those details, because they aren’t really the point.

The point is that the tenants feel relieved, because some of their debt has been forgiven. And now, they’ll welcome this disgraced manager into their homes with gratitude after he’s thrown out on the street. The forgiven of this debt has transformed their relationship.

This parable is still somewhat confusing, and somewhat strange. But in a way, the very lack of details about the situation focuses our attention on what Jesus does want to say: “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth.” An equally good translation would be to “make friends for yourselves by an unjust (or an even unfair) use of wealth.” And maybe that last one hits the mark: This is a story about what happens in our relationships when we break the rules of fairness and justice and balance, and we choose instead to forgive one another’s debts.

I wonder how many of you have ever been tempted to keep a running ledger of the relationship you have with someone—perhaps with a spouse, or a sibling, a parent or a child or a friend. “I call him every couple weeks to catch up on things—he only calls me when he needs something from me.” “I cook dinner every night, and yes, you ordered takeout on Tuesday, but I was the one who picked it up.” “I drove you to the hospital every week when you were sick, but then when I was going through a really hard time, and I needed a friend, you were nowhere to be found.”

I think most of us keep these kinds of accounts in our heads. At least, I’ve heard it from enough people that at least I know it isn’t just me. But I’ve never once actually seen this go well for anyone.

Congratulations! You are the better spouse in your relationship. You are the better friend in your friendship. The feeling of being in the right is delicious in the short term. But then what? Keeping track of what we think we’re owed is a road to increasing resentment. And resentment is corrosive to our relationships.

But every one of us has the incredible power that the steward has: we can open up the ledgers in our heads and write off that debt.

I’m not saying that you should stay in a relationship that isn’t safe. I’m not saying you should let a friend walk all over you and give nothing in return. There are times when it’s right for a relationship to end. But I’m talking about the ordinary, everyday relationships that are actually pretty good for us, but that nevertheless tempt us to keep score. When we keep those tallies in our heads, we run the risk of allowing resentment to build. But when we choose to forgive those debts, we open the opportunity for our relationships to grow, instead. We offer that same sense of relief felt by the tenants to the people we love—and to ourselves, as well.

Because there are two deeper realities at play. One is that we are not always the most honest stewards of our own lives. We don’t necessarily keep the most accurate accounts. We remember our own good deeds more clearly than we remember someone else’s; we hold grudges for things that other people do to us, and forget the times that we have done the same to them. Most of us think we’re mostly running a surplus in most of our relationships—but if we asked the other people involved what their balance sheets said, we might find that things were closer than we thought.

But the other, deeper reality is that this parable isn’t really about us. Like all parables, it’s an earthly story about a heavenly reality. The details don’t line up perfectly, and that’s okay in a parable, but there’s a way in which Jesus is the steward here. Jesus is the one against whom charges have been brought, who knows he can’t talk his way out of it. Jesus is the one who wants to be welcomed into our homes and into our hearts. Jesus is the one who’s taken our debt and wiped it out, and who’s willing to bear the consequences himself. He has been given the authority to forgive our sins, and he’s done it, and the Master has been pleased. Again and again, Jesus tells us that God plans to forgive us with a grace that goes beyond anything we have asked for or deserved. And we hear that message, and receive that grace, and all too often, we keep it for ourselves.

But we can do something else. We can let that grace overflow into our lives. We can try to forgive one another, as we have been forgiven. We can try to love one another as we have been loved. We can make friends for ourselves by an unfair use of wealth—and we can see what happens then.