“A Just Lord for an Unjust Steward”
Original sermon given on Sunday, September 21, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“A Just Lord
for an Unjust Steward”
Luke 16.1-8, 10-13
In the name of the Living God and His Risen Christ. Amen.
This morning’s gospel text is perhaps the most difficult reading in the entire gospel of Luke, and it presents great challenges for us. St. Luke serves up some soft balls for the preacher: the message of the angels singing “peace on earth” in chapter 2; the Sower and the Seed in chapter 8; the famous parable of the Good Samaritan in chapter 10; or the parable of the Prodigal Son, which leads up to this morning’s text. Luke’s account of Jesus’ life is sometimes called “the Gospel of Joy,” but at first glance there seems to be little joy here and certainly not a great amount of joy in preparing to preach!
It's called the parable of the “Unjust Steward” or the “Dishonest Manager” or the “Shrewd Manager,” but when it comes at you, it feels rather like the parable of the “wicked closer” or “nasty closer” to use a baseball analogy. It’s got a fast ball clocked at 103, a filthy curve ball and a nasty sinker at 98. Just when you think you got it figured out, it moves on you, and you whiff at it.
If you feel rather lost when you hear it, believe me, you’re not alone. So, we’ll retell, explain, and apply it this morning.
Let’s start with the easy part-- let me retell the story for you. There’s a manager, or steward, of a large, wealthy estate — something like 100 acres with 450 olive trees on it — a sizable farm in that culture. He doesn’t own the land, but rather is in charge of managing it, and leasing it out to tenants, who will work the land but give back to the owner an agreed upon portion of the produce. Such a slacker is he, and wasteful in mismanaging the owner’s property and wealth, that the Lord, the landowner, gives him notice. You’re done. Nothing too surprising here: it happens every day in the business world. You don’t do your job, eventually you’ll lose your job.
But here’s where it gets interesting: the slacker turns shrewd. As incompetent as he is, this manager suddenly gets real smart and starts shaking and moving when his own rear-end is on the line. He has been fired, will be out of work, has no place to stay, and has no hope for future employment He’s “too weak to dig and too proud to beg” so suddenly gets real motivated when it comes to his own self-preservation.
The previously incompetent, lazy, and wasteful steward puts together a rather shrewd plan. The plan: the manager/ steward quickly meets with each tenant and marks down significantly what they owe the landlord. He reduces what they must pay back to the landlord when the harvest comes in. This way, they will befriend him later when he’s got no job and no place to go.
Explanation. A couple of notes about this: the first is that this isn’t necessarily cheating the landlord. It’s not illegal, per se. The tenants of the land have agreed upon a certain price for the use of the land. In the end, if push comes to shove, they have to pay it. But it was up to the manager’s discretion to adjust these rates, depending on the circumstances of the crop yield, etc.
For example, although I’m not a farmer nor the son of a farmer, I am a grandson of the farmer. I remember my grandfather telling me how he would rent out a portion of his fields for a certain price, but if the yield was horrible because of draught, disease, etc., he might choose to be gracious and not charge the full agreed upon amount for the use of the land — the long-term relationship was far more important than the short-term gain.
Now this is smart for a couple of reasons: the manager is ingratiating himself to these tenants, who he’s going to need an a few months when he’s on the street; and he’s making the landowner out to be a very gracious and merciful Lord: the tenants rightfully owe the owner a lot, but he’s not asking for it. He’s not forcing the letter of the law.
The other twist is that the owner actually commends the manager, rather than upbraiding him for not collecting all his money. Why? 1) The guy comes up with a smart plan, works hard to execute it, and it pays off pretty good. (Hey, if only the manager had done this with the Landlord’s stuff to begin with, we wouldn’t have to deal with this parable…) 2) The landlord himself has actually come off looking pretty good here. The whole community now recognized him as good, gracious, and more than fair. So, the plan works out perfectly: the manager will have friends when off the estate; and the landowner comes out looking great with his workers and community.
So, that’s the parable explained. How, then do we apply it to the Christian life? There are four levels here.
1) First, on just the surface level: work hard, be smart, don’t be negligent or wasteful — and not just when your own rear-end is on the line. That is, when something’s been entrusted to you, make good use of it, as if it were very own. Work for others, as if you’re working for yourself. Be diligent with what others give you to do. The calling of the Christian in the workplace is a calling of honoring our bosses and coworkers and colleagues. This is how children of light should separate ourselves from children of the world: we care about our employer and our fellow employees and the work we do, not just when our own self-interest is at stake, but because it’s the right thing to do. This is a distinguishing mark of a Christian at work.
2) The second application applies to those seeking full-time ministry in the church. At First Saint Paul’s we are blessed to have many young people worshipping with us, from MBI and CUC, who are looking to perhaps have employment in Christian churches, or Christian ministries, or Christian institutions. Listen up y’all: “The One who is faithful in a very little will also be faithful in much, and the one who is dishonest in very little will also dishonest in much.” Take seriously the smallest, seemingly insignificant callings you’ve been given today. (Believe me, after years of ministry and training of future church workers, you can tell very early on who’s going to be effective by what they do with the so-called “little things” they’ve been given.)
If he or she succeeds in organizing a small group of volunteers on campus, they’ll probably succeed in running a church. If he or she’s on top of their studies, they’re likely to be on top of ministry. If you can’t trust them to run a small activity on campus, can you trust them to lead a larger, important one in a non-profit organization? Those faithful with the little stuff will also be faithful with the big stuff.
3) There’s a convicting application for all of us, for the work we all do together for the church. Let’s contrast the work we’ve been called to do together with that of the slacker-manager turned shrewd dude. The manager was generous, just so that he could save his own skin. How much more should we be generous, whose whole lives belong to Christ? The shrewd manager worked hard, using “worldly wealth” to ensure his “worldly security.” How much harder should we work for the kingdom of Christ, which is eternal? We know all our worldly wealth and worldly activities will all be gone one day. How much more should we work with competence for Christ’s eternal kingdom, which lasts forever and can’t be taken from us? Should not Christ’s eternal work and kingdom receive our greatest efforts and greatest sacrifices and greatest gifts, and not just our leftovers?
4) There’s a lot to unpack here, and much that convicts us. But actually, enfleshed in this parable is an abundance of grace. The graciousness of the Lord in the parable reflects the graciousness of our Lord. The slacker-turned shrewd dude didn’t get what he deserved — he should have been instantly thrown into prison for wasting the Lord’s resources, or rebuked, or kicked to the curb. Instead, the Lord was merciful to him. And, when the guy finally gets his act together, his Lord commends him. He was given a lot of grace.
The tenants didn’t get what they deserved, either. The Lord doesn’t go back to them and say, “This manager I fired had no right to reduce what you rightfully owed. I want the full amount. Fair is fair. A deal is a deal.” No, he allowed them to use his land at a huge discount — because it was his disposition to be gracious to his tenants. And no doubt they praised and honored his graciousness.
And we don’t get what we deserve either. How much did we owe God? How deep is the depth of our sin? A price so large we could never even pay it. And yet God in Christ has not only reduced our debt, he has forgiven it completely, fully, graciously in the cross of Jesus and the power of his resurrection. It is the disposition of our God to be gracious to us — forgiving our sins, not giving us what we deserve, promising the gift of eternal life to all who believe, and welcoming us one day into our eternal dwellings in heaven. So, I guess this parable, recorded by St. Luke, is a joyful one after all. No one’s getting what they truly deserve.
The mercy from God to all of us, whether we find ourselves on the slacker end or the shrewd end of life, produces in us great praise to the Giver of grace. Great giving, since all we have belongs to him; we are just stewards of his gifts. And Great graciousness to others.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.