Scripture: Luke 16:1-15 (NIV)

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.’

“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 houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

Luke Skywalker was in a bit of a quandary. He really felt like he needed to go save Princess Leia from the Empire, getting her out of her cell before the executioner could get to her. However, it was not a one-man job and the two droids were going to be more of a hindrance than a help, most likely. It might be doable with another person and an imposing Wookiee, but Han Solo and Chewbacca were not at all inclined to lend a hand. Luke thought about everything, then came up with two words that immediately shifted the situation for the smuggler and his companion.

“She’s rich.”

Luke had spent enough time around Han to know what he valued. The nobility of the goal wasn’t going to be enough, nor the basic humanity of trying to help a person in need. No, what a man like Han appreciated was hard currency. Tell him that he would get monetarily compensated for a job and he might not immediately jump at it but he was going to give it a lot more consideration. The bounty on his head meant that he couldn’t really afford to turn down anything, especially such a lucrative opportunity as rescuing one of the heads of the Rebellion.

So Luke did what he had to do to convince Han to help out. He didn’t know for sure that there would be a reward, though it seemed logical enough to infer. He figured he’d use the carrot and hope that he could fulfill his promise later on.

Today’s parable is usually titled something like “the parable of the shrewd manager”. A man who was living a comfortable life suddenly saw it upended by the prospect of unemployment. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he gave some discounts to those that owed his boss so that they would think favorably of him and help him make it through the upcoming dark times. Surprisingly, his boss wound up OK with it and apparently didn’t try to get back what the manager had indirectly stolen from him.

In telling the parable, Jesus was saying we need to find what matters to those that we are talking to so that we know the best way to share the Kingdom of God with them. Perhaps someone needs a meal before listening to a sermon. Maybe someone needs to be bested in an athletic pursuit before they’ll respect the person talking to them. Maybe you slip in some similarities to God when you are talking about your favorite sci-fi franchise.

The point is that there’s no cookie-cutter way of sharing the Gospel. There’s no “one neat trick” that works every time. We need to be cognizant of the people we are around because you never know when you’ll find that opening that allows you to share Christ in an effective way. It might be something that comes from the world that you’d never expect to be an option. We don’t have to be naive when dealing with others and sometimes that shrewdness can be very effective!