Sermon Seeds: An Accounting

Sunday, September 21, 2025
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost| Year C
(Liturgical Color: Green)

Lectionary Citations
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and Psalm 79:1-9 • Amos 8:4-7 and Psalm 113 • 1 Timothy 2:1-7 • Luke 16:1-13
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=p&d=76&y=384

Focus Scripture: Luke 16:1-13
Focus Theme: An Accounting
Series: Raise Her Voice: Seek After God (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

In college, I studied Accounting–Micro and Macro–for a year. It was a requirement of the business school as a subject foundational to many others. I have used what I learned in those classes in ministry as I have served on organizational boards, finance and investment committees, and as a pastor reviewing monthly financial reports. I am grateful for the knowledge, but I confess that I hated taking those classes. They were boring. The homework was boring–monotonous and repetitive. The thing about balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow analysis is that the math is simple. The key to accurate accounting is knowing what to add, what to subtract, and what needs to balance (or equal) at the end. While the concept may be simple, that does not mean that accounting is easy…just straightforward.

I’ve often described faithful living in similar terms. Following Jesus is straightforward but that does not make it easy. Reflecting on the gospel passage, however, is neither straightforward nor easy. Jesus speaks to his followers with another lesson on discipleship with a particular emphasis on stewardship. The beginning of the story develops in a predictable fashion with an individual who has lost their way. After all, all parables have to feature a problem to be solved. Still, because Jesus tells the story, there is a twist. In this case, the manager seems to have the problem, and the rich man presents as the protagonist. That part of the story proves shocking as neither Jesus nor his audience demonstrated sympathy with the rich, who often gained their wealth by living a life and conducting business in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus and often the Law.

The rich owner charges their employee with mismanagement and asks for an accounting. This is not the list of financial reporting I learned in my class. The rich man essentially announces his plan to fire the manager. In contemporary terms, the directive to give an accounting equates to clearing your working space and turning in your badge. The manager will be let go, but the manager quickly pivots to execute a plan for his future.

Luke 16 shifts Jesus’ address from critics to disciples. A parable describes an economic delivery system featuring a rich man who acts unlike the father of the prodigal son. His broker squanders his property. So he dismisses him. The broker already manipulated accounts in his own favor and does the same for his patron’s creditors so they will favor him. Even the rich patron praises his prudence. Jesus interrupts this story at 16:8 with the comparison typical of Luke’s parables: Offspring of “this age”—that is, who derive their behavior from “this age”—are more prudent than offspring of light—who derive their behavior from “light.” All the characters in the parable—the rich man, his broker, the debtors—are offspring of this age in contrast to offspring of light. For Luke, mammon in 16:9 is also an “offspring” of this age; that is, mammon is born from injustice. Jesus’ exhortation to make friends by means of mammon that is born from injustice hinges on the oxymoron “eternal tents” (16:9). Tents as temporary shelters make this scathing irony (Porter; Brawley 1998, 820): Make friends by means of wealth that is born from injustice so that when it fails they will receive you in “eternal temporary shelters” (contra Nolland, 2:806).
Robert L. Brawley

The point of the lesson is anything but straightforward. Is Jesus suggesting that manipulating accounts for the benefit of the debtors is acceptable? After all, even the owner commends the manager for explicitly doing what the owner accused him of: squandering the owner’s resources. As the story is not a recounting of events but a parable, not all details are included. Perhaps, more would have been beneficial to understanding Jesus’ point. Would the reduced debt actually lead the debtors to pay the amount owned and thus actually add to the owner’s coffers in a way the inflated and therefore unattainable amounts would not? Was the manager planning to steal from the rich man and secure his own future by pocketing the new assessments while claiming in his accounting that the debts had been paid? Was the manager’s praise then one thief acknowledging the cunning of another while ignoring duplicitous practices?

All parables hold ambiguity but this story reads as particularly unclear:

This surprising twist in the story is an interpretive crux. Again, readers can only build coherence by filling gaps in the assumed cultural script. Taking account of the high value placed on social prestige, public honor, as well as the assumptions of an economy with limited goods to go around (see Moxnes, Economy 76–79), the most probable explanation is that the manager, by reducing the loan obligations of the debtors, has not only created reciprocal obligation that will benefit himself but also enhanced the rich boss’s honor. The manager has craftily fashioned a scenario beneficial to all parties: he now has a host of debtors (perhaps merchants) who “owe” him, ensuring his future survival; the debtors have reduced loans to repay; and the master enjoys a new reputation for generosity and kindness—such honor surpassing wealth in importance in his social world. At least, that is the plan. Readers equally suspicious of the desperate schemes concocted by embezzling scoundrels and of the moral character of wealthy landowners may wonder, instead, if the savvy manager has not simply succeeded in duping his former boss, and now the whole village knows it!
John T. Carroll

This lesson offers more questions than answers, and perhaps that is the lesson Jesus imparts. Discipleship is complex and contextual, and we need to account for our decisions, actions, relationships, and outcomes.

At the same time, Jesus makes clear that the lessening of debt was a good thing. Whatever the motivation, the manager relieved the financial burden of those indebted to the rich man. The acquisition and accumulation of wealth was de-glorified. Jesus infers that through his actions, the manager no longer served the altar of wealth. Perhaps the path and motivation for transformation does not matter as much as the impact.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
“Some of us seem to accept the fatalist position, the fatalist attitude, that God accorded to us a certain position and condition, and therefore there is no need trying to be otherwise. The moment you accept such an attitude, the moment you accept such an opinion, the moment you harbor such an idea, you hurl an insult at the great God who created you, because you question Him for His love, you question Him for His mercy.”
― Marcus Garvey

For Further Reflection
“I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn’t like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn’t be a mother and it was likely you wouldn’t become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You’d become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you’d have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.” — Carol Rifka Brunt
“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves.” — Julian Barnes
“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.” — Djuna Barnes

Works Cited
Brawley, Robert L. “Luke.” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
Carroll, John T. Luke. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
During this series, Raise Her Voice: Seek After God, in the season after Pentecost, we encourage the local church to engage in spiritual practices to support faith formation and ministry engagement. This week, collectively ponder the impact of the relationships your ministry has cultivated in your community.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/after-pentecost-15c-september-21/

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.