One Tough Parable with Pastor Ben Carruthers

Jesus tells a story in Luke 16 that sounds almost scandalous: a manager gets caught, cuts deals on the way out, and somehow the master praises him. That line has made a lot of people shrug, say “that doesn’t track,” and move on. We decided to do the opposite and sit with the tension, because the parable of the shrewd manager is not Jesus endorsing dishonesty. It is Jesus exposing how serious the world gets about survival and how casual we can get about what really lasts.

We walk through the parable step by step and then bring in the missing piece: cultural context. When you understand how a manager could earn money by adding a commission to debts, the story sharpens. The manager’s move becomes a streetwise, sacrificial play to secure relationships when adversity hits. Jesus calls that “shrewd,” not because the tactics are holy, but because the urgency is real. Then the punch lands: if people can be that persistent for comfort, cash, and control, how much more should we persevere for the good news, for our neighbors, and for the eternal kingdom of God?

From there we get painfully practical. We talk about the survival instinct, the difference between running with joy and running with complaints, and the temptation to sit on the sidelines because following Jesus looks hard. We end with the only “why” that holds up when life gets heavy: the love of Christ shown on the cross, the kind of love that changes how we live and gives us a reason to keep moving forward.

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Transcript

Why Preach A Tough Parable

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Yeah, what a way to start off our you pick sermon series with that parable. Uh we are starting our you pick series. So for the next four or five weeks, uh the sermons come from questions that you guys had. You pick uh the questions and we do our best to answer them. And when I get those lists, and they're great questions, but my eyes are always drawn to scripture passages. Uh one, because man, there's a lot of really well thought out, um, really smart people, way smarter than me, that has some content on this kind of stuff. And so my mind, my eyes went right to this passage, and I'm like, I'm gonna do it no matter what, I'm gonna do it. I wrote that down on a little preaching calendar before I read it, and then I went and read it, and I was like, I don't want to do it. It's a tough parable, right? And that's the that's the sermon titled this morning is one tough parable. Now, we're familiar with parables. Parables are these teachings of Jesus in story form, right? It's this incredible story that at the end he kind of hits you with the purpose and the meaning of the story. And we know them, but some of them are familiar, some aren't. So just go along with me here. Raise your hand, and this isn't judgment. If you don't know, please don't don't, it's fine. Uh, how many of you guys have heard of the prodigal son parable? Go ahead and raise your hand. Okay, raise your hand if you've heard of the Good Samaritan parable before. Okay, raise your hand if you've heard of the shrewd manager before. Yeah. All right, a couple people. Great, fantastic. Uh, this is a tough parable. It's one that isn't often preached about or heard about. Matter of fact, it's one of those readings that if you were reading through the Gospel of Luke and you came to it and just started off, you'd be like, this doesn't make no sense at all. I'm just gonna skip over this part, right? It's part of that Bible, and we do that a lot, man. When there's tough passages or tough scripture, stuff that doesn't make sense, we're gonna skip over it. We're gonna skip over this parable and go to the Good Samaritan because we know that story, we like it, it makes us feel good. We're gonna go to the ones that we know, and we just wanna skip over the tough questions. We all do it. This week, my son Arlo, he turned 10 on Monday, and so we're sitting around the table for his birthday dinner, and we're

The Questions We Dodge

SPEAKER_00 2:05

going around for birthdays. We always say you gotta say three things that you love about that person, and so we're doing that, and we're having dinner, we're having cake and ice cream, and at our birthdays, I'm always reminded that when our kid's birthday comes up that we need to get them some presents, but it's also the birthing day of my wife, where she gave birth to the child, so she also deserves a present. So I don't know if this is common in your house. There's a couple people, yeah. So it's also the day that I'm reminded at the ninth hour and I have to run to Walmart real quick and find something. But so we're she I'm reminded of that at this dinner that I'm supposed to get her a gift because it's her birthing day. And there's some, there's a quiet, and all of a sudden Arlo asks, Yeah, I get it. Mom birthed me, but dad, what did you even have to do with any of it? But I tell you, I was I'm prepared, man. I I told my wife one time, I'm like, I'm ready for that conversation, I'm gonna have that conversation. So I'm like, this is my moment as dad, and I'm prepped and planned. Sure, I'm like, and I just started, well, and then there was a lot of silence because I wasn't prepped and ready as I thought I was. However, good thing my younger son Ezie was there, and after that long silence, he spoke up and he said, Arlo, mom goes, lays her eggs in the sand somewhere, and then dad goes and gets them. Duh. I said, Yep, that's exactly how it happens. Eat your cake, it's fine. I married a turtle. I don't know. It was fun. But it's those type of questions, right? That we just want to pass over, that we don't want to talk about. This is one of those passages. It doesn't make sense. It almost seems like Jesus is uplifting this dishonesty. That doesn't make sense, that doesn't track. And so we want to skip over and go to something we know. But when we do that, this is a parable of Jesus. He is teaching his disciples something. When Jesus speaks, we should listen, even if it's hard, even if it's tough, even if it's difficult. Because he's speaking truth into our lives, and he's speaking truth into our lives today with this tough parable. So our goal is to dive into this thing and to see what Jesus wants to teach us. And these parables usually have something to do with how we live our life, as how we follow Jesus and become disciples of Him. And that's our mission and our goal here at Central. And that's why it's important that we dive into the tough parable this morning. So will you pray with me before we dive into it? God, we give you thanks and praise for this morning. I thank you for this tough parable. One that it's easy to skip over and pass. Move on to something we know, move on to something that makes sense. So lead us and guide us, help us to make sense of this teaching this morning. It's important. You said it, you spoke it. So, Lord, you give us clarity into how you want us to interpret this in our life. Not just understand, but do something about it. So, Lord God, lead us and guide us this morning. It's in your name we pray. Amen. All right, so

Hearing The Story In Luke 16

SPEAKER_00 5:28

we have to understand the parable. We have to tell the story. So, this is what's going on here in Luke 16, verses 1 through 2. It starts off like this. Jesus told his disciples, there was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management because you cannot be manager any longer. So, what's happening here is the guy's busted. Okay, so the hierarchy here looks like this. So there's this rich man. We don't know how he's acquired all of his wealth or all that kind of stuff, but he he's the boss, the head honcho, he's got all the money. And he brings in this manager to manage all of his accounts. And we don't know what he's done, but something dishonest, something's off, the books are off, and the rich man has noticed, and so he's busted. He's done, he's fired. Okay, so that's the kind of hierarchy at the rich man manager looks over everything, and the manager makes sure all the accounts are right. He's dishonest, he's fired. Okay? Then the story goes on 16, 3 through 4. It says this the manager said to himself, What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg. I know what I'll do so that when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their house. So he's coming up with a plan. He knows he's busted, he knows he's out of a job, and may most likely out of a living, out of his house, all that kind of stuff. And so he formulates this plan. And here's his plan. What he's gonna do is he's gonna invite all those people who owe his boss money and bring them in and sit them down. And say, if some guy comes in, he says, How what is my what do you owe my boss? I owe him, you know, 100 barrels of olive oil, the parable says. Well, the manager says, cut it in half. Now you only owe 50. And the next person comes in, he's like, What do you owe my, what do you owe the boss? He's like, I owe him 80 barrels of grain, 80 barrels of wheat. He says, Cut it down by 20. Now you only owe 60. And so we see this, and we see, okay, it's pretty obvious why this guy got fired. He's pretty dishonest, he's pretty shady, right? And at this point of the parable, you would think Jesus would step up and be like, Do you see disciples? Do you see how he's dishonest? Maybe something, do you see how how wealth can corrupt? Do you see how easy it is to be pulled into the things of this world? If it said that, and if the parable ended there, this would make sense. We'd read it, make sense, apply it to our life, let's be honest people, and then we'd move on. But that's not what happens here. Jesus doesn't stop the

Why The Master Praises Him

SPEAKER_00 8:05

parable and say it's a parable being honest, it's a parable about the danger of the world. The parable continues, and this is where it goes off the rails. 16 verse 8 says this. The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. This does not make sense. So he said, Hey man, great job by cutting what those people owed me. Fantastic work. Well done. Don't know why I'm firing you. This is good business practice. Makes no sense whatsoever. Now it's important to know the word shrewdly, if we go back into the Greek, it means wise or wisdom. Sometimes the word shrewd, shrewdly, has like this dishonest feel to it, kind of a negative feel. In this passage, it really means wise or wisdom. And so what is happening here? Why would the rich man commend him for being wise when it looks to us that he's even being more dishonest? This is where culture and context play a major role. So back in the day, this is how the system might work. Now the rich man didn't pay this manager a salary like we're used to today. He didn't have a salary, he didn't get an hourly wage. How he made his money was adding to the bill of what was owed to the rich man. So if you owed the rich man 50 barrels of olive oil, the manager would tack on an extra 50, and that's his cut. If you owed the rich man 80 barrels of wheat or grain, he would add on 20 more because that's his cut. That's how the manager made a living. So what he's doing is he's calling in the people who owe his boss money or merchandise, whatever it might be, and he's cutting off what is owed to him. He's cutting off the money that he would make on the transaction. Does that make sense? So the rich man isn't out any money. The manager is making no money, but the people who are leaving that office feel like they're getting an incredible deal. They're saving money. And so the rich man knows that this is happening. He's not out any money. So he looks at this guy and says, Man, that was really smart. That was really smart of you. You're still losing your job because you've been dishonest somehow. You're still out, but that was pretty wise. Still, this still doesn't quite make a lot of sense. It's a play where everybody wins, in a sense, right? The manager gets his money, the people get paid a less of a bill, and now this manager has now made friends. So when he's out of a job, he has made friends with all these people. Maybe someone will give him a job, maybe someone will put them up in their house, maybe someone will feed them. But he's built relationships. Okay. Good story. Still a little confusing. But what's the meaning? What are we supposed to take away from this? Because the words that Jesus continues to use are pretty hard. It makes it feel like we should take the things of this world and use them and maybe make partners with dishonest people. It's still really confusing. So what does this parable mean? Well, Jesus always ends with what it means with. He tells you the story, and then he says, Here's the answer. A little warning. His answer may be just as confusing as the parable. Verses eight through nine

Streetwise Faith And Eternal Goals

SPEAKER_00 11:45

says this. The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly or wisely. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dwelling or dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. So the people of the world and the people of the light, which is followers of Christ. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourself, so that when it goes, when it is gone, you'll be welcomed into the eternal dwellings. What does this mean? This still doesn't really lay it out there. There's still a lot there. It still sounds kind of weird, kind of shady. What does he mean? There's a great translation of this passage from the message, Eugene Peterson's The Message, and it says this. Now here's a surprise. The master praised the crooked manager. And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way, but what is for right? Using everyday adversity or things that come our way to stimulate you to create to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials so you will live and live good and not complacently just get on by good behavior. So this is what I think Jesus is saying. He's saying that shrewd or wise manager, he was going to do anything to survive. He was going to think out of the box. He was going to maybe take a loss on his own money. But he the adversity had hit him, trouble had hit him, and he had decided that he was going to survive. This is how the world works. Now, listen, the world may do this in horrible ways. The world will survive by any means possible. And that can be dishonest, that can be by violence, that can be in hurtful ways. But the world, the people of this world find a way to survive because at the center of their world is themselves. And they're going to find a way to survive. Jesus notices this. Even in this time, he notices that the people of the world have this wisdom, this ability, this perseverance to survive no matter what comes their way. And he notices that in the children of the light or the disciples of Christ, that peace is missing. That drive, that perseverance, so no matter what comes their way, maybe children of the light seem to give up too quickly. But the world is wise. Because what it's fighting for is itself. How much more wise and persistent should we be as followers of Christ? Because our mission is not of this world, it's for the eternal world. But we get it. We know what it's like. We see the world doing what it needs to to get what it wants or to survive. When I was 10 years old,

Fighting For The Gospel Like The World

SPEAKER_00 15:00

ironically, Arlo just turned 10. When I was 10 years old, uh, there was an incredible shoe that hit the market, and it was this shoe. It was an Adidas high top basketball shoe. Now I'm no longer 10, so I'm a little bit old. Does anyone remember this shoe? Okay, about those people who have who knew the parable. That's a small group of us. This was it, though, man. In my world, this Adidas basketball shoe was it. I wanted it at 10 years old. I had two older sisters. They really coveted this shoe. I had a younger sister who could care less, but we all wanted it, so she wanted the shoe. And my mom said, no, you cannot have this shoe. Adidas is way too expensive. Enjoy your British nights. If you get that reference, you'll understand. And I said, okay, but I really wanted these shoes. And I was gonna come up with a plan to get these shoes. And I just so happened to be sleeping over at my grandma's that weekend, and I just so happened to be my grandma's favorite grandson. So I had a plan. I was gonna go to my closet and find the dirtiest, holiest shoes that I owned. And I was gonna wear those shoes to my grandma's. So I wore those shoes to my grandma's. I took them off at the door, and we're having dinner that night around the table. She looked over by the door and saw my shoes and she said, Ben, are those your shoes that you have for school? I said, Yeah, they're my shoes I have for school. She said, Well, that won't do. We're going shopping tomorrow. I was like, Well, okay, I guess. We went shopping the next day and all these shoes, she's like, Well, do you see some that you like? And I was like, those are kind of nice. Tried them on. I went home with a brand new pair of Adidas that day. However, yes, this is not a moment of pride for me, let's be clear. I'm very saddened that I did this, that I played my grandma in such a way. But I got home and I put them on. I went right up to my big sister's like, see these? What are they? And as soon as I went, like, they came off my feet because my mom ripped them off my feet, put them in the box, and gave them back to my grandma and said, take them back. And so I didn't get the shoes. Long story short. But I can tell you what, I had to plan out how to get what I wanted. I knew what I wanted, I was gonna do whatever it was to get it. It's a silly story, but it's how the world works. And you've seen it. Maybe you've done it. Because the world has this great instinct of survival. And this parable is asking us as followers of Jesus: do we have that same fire? Do we have that same persistence to reach our goal? Because our eyes are not set on our lives, our eyes are set on the lives of others. Our focus is not on this life, but it's on the eternal life. Our mission is so much greater and bigger than that of the world's, but yet how could we not fight for it like the world does? This is what Jesus is saying in this parable. And here's what's really interesting. Do you remember how this parable started? It started with this sentence Jesus told his disciples. This is why it's interesting. Because if you go back a chapter before, it's where Jesus is teaching on parables. He's giving these stories out, and a massive crowd is there. The Pharisees are there. There's more than just his disciples there. And as soon as we get to 16, it's still the same setting. The same crowd is still there, all the different people, but he stops and he looks at his disciples and he tells them this story. Why? Because the disciples are in for adversity. Because Jesus is going to leave them. And these disciples are tasked with bringing the good news to the world. And it's not going to be easy. And so Jesus is looking at the disciples and saying, Look at how the world fights for what it thinks is important. Look how the world fights for itself. You, my disciples, need to fight for the good news like the world fights for itself. Don't be stopped by the adversity that's coming, and there's gonna be a lot of it. Don't let the bumps along the road stop you from your mission. Persevere. This is what the parable is about. Keep going, keep fighting, find a way.

Running The Race Through Adversity

SPEAKER_00 19:21

The Apostle Paul might say, keep running. Keep running the race. I've done a few funerals over the past month, a couple in particular, and this passage has been the piece of scripture that we've shared. And at both funerals, this passage fit the individual perfect. Incredible. This is the passage I'm talking about in 2 Timothy. It says this I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. What I love about this passage is not just what it's saying about this Christian life, this discipleship life is this race that we run, but the setting in which it was written. This is written by the Apostle Paul later in his life, 50s or 60s. Now I understand that that's not later in life today, okay? If you're 15, 60, you're like, oh, geez, Ben, thanks a lot. No, no, that was back then. So he's old, man. He's he's lived this incredible life, had this incredible journey of faith, and he's sitting in prison and he's writing this to a young buck pastor named Timothy in his 20s, leading a church in Ephesus. A church was not a big building like this. It was a group of people who met in their home and gathered. And so here's the old wizard sending off some wisdom to this young buck, and he's saying, he's reflecting on his life, and he's saying, I have run the race and I have fought the fight. Paul had nothing but adversity in his Christian walk. He was beaten, he was arrested, he was shipwrecked, he was almost killed, eventually killed. He faced adversity, but he continued to run the race. About a month ago, I was in Lichfield at the Watercade Festival, which I go to every year with my family. And uh this year, my oldest daughter Maya said she was gonna run in the race there. And the race was a four-mile run around Lake Ripley. And she told us this about a month or two beforehand. I don't think she trained at all. We're like, you better start running. She's like, I'll be fine. She's a teenager, it's fine. I was pretty proud of her though. She finished first in her class in her age bracket. It was pretty awesome. And so she goes, uh shows up and starts her run, and then we go later to meet her at the finish line. And as I'm watching the finish line, I'm noticing there are two types of runners that run this race. The first type is no matter where they finish uh first or dead last, they come across the finish line and they're smiling, they're excited, they're hugging their family, they're just happy to have finished, happy to have run the race. First or last, it didn't matter. And then there was a second group of runners. That didn't matter if they were first or last, but they came across the finish line, and all they talked about was the adversities they faced. The path wasn't wide enough. It was raining. It was too hot and humid. The person in front of me really smelt bad and it got me. See, what's interesting is those adversities that those people who ran that race are the same adversities that the people who found joy in that same race. This is what our race looks like as disciples of Christ. James says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face adversity. Because it's coming, it's happening. And Jesus knew it would. And so he tells his disciples to keep going. I lied. There's a third type of runner that I saw run this race, and this is the type that I fit into, and that's the person that doesn't run at all. It's the person that sits on the sideline and judges everyone as they walk across the finish line just for a sermon, sorry. There's a person that doesn't even run the race because they're scared. Because they know it's hard. They know there's going to be difficulties.

The Why Behind Perseverance

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That's a third type of runner. And man, in the Christian journey, that's a real thing. We can sit on the sidelines and be like, this is too hard. This is too difficult. Look at what Christians go through in the world today. Look at how hard it is to be a follower of Jesus. Maybe we have misconceptions or some ideas of what it means, but we're not even going to hop in the race. Central, what kind of runner are you this morning? Are you someone who's going to run the race no matter what comes your way? You'll find joy and continue on and press on. Are you someone who's going to run the race? But man, we're going to complain about it the whole time because it's just too dang hard. Are you someone who's sitting on the sidelines? Man, the goal of a disciple and the mission of a disciple is too important to sit on the sidelines. Jesus warned his disciples, say, man, be wise like the world is wise, but do it for good things. It's a great parable. It's a tough parable. It's a good lesson. And I'll leave you with this. The question would be: why keep going then? If we know it's going to be hard and adversity, why would we keep running? I don't think we do it because we're told to, right? I don't know if you have kids, but when you tell your say the word, because I said so, it doesn't go over too hot, even though when Jesus says something, we should listen. But I think we keep going because we're reminded of what Christ has done for us, of the sacrifice that was made for each and every single one of us, for the love that was shown on the cross for each and every single one of us. That love is transformational. It changes who you are, it changes how you live. That's our why. It's our why when tough times come, we continue to run the race. It's our why when adversity comes that we continue to move forward. We keep moving forward. We keep fighting, we keep running, and we keep going. Central, may we be a place, may we be a people that no matter what comes our way, we keep moving. Amen.