NRS Luke 16:1
Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 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.
10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Dear Friends in Christ, may God's Kingdom come to you in blessings of peace, love, and justice; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah.

It's been said many times before, but it bears repeating: Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Denial is a killer. Denial kills families, ruins communities, and just generally wreaks havoc. That's because denial is the refusal to face facts. Or more to the point, denial is when you willfully confuse what you want to be true with what is in fact the case.
" Denial is a marriage falling apart while both parties assume that things will just work out.
" Denial is when parents let a child spin out of control because they want to believe that it's just a phase he or she is going through.
" Denial is a business owner insisting on sticking to his or her plan even as clients flee, revenues drop, and profits tumble.
Right now, you know, there are thousands of churches across our country on the verge of extinction because their leaders and members refuse to accept that we are no longer in the 1950's and that people's attitudes toward church attendance and church membership have really changed. Every year, there are thousands of people who die needlessly because they refused to address their own pressing health issues even while there was still time to do something about them. And even after the devastation of Katrina and Rita, it's a pretty safe bet that the next time a monster storm barrels into the Gulf, there will still be people in the direct line of fire who will refuse to evacuate because they refuse to believe that any old hurricane can push them around.

Denial is pretty easy to spot in other people, and once spotted, we want to shake them and say, "Wake up and smell the coffee." But of course, acknowledging our own denial is something else altogether. We all want to believe that not only have we smelled the coffee, but we're also fully awake and firmly grounded in reality. That's because denial is not just a failure of intelligence. History is strewn with the stories of brilliant, capable leaders who just could not or would not see the catastrophes they were either fomenting or stepping into. Sometimes our own conflicted loves and loyalties can blind us to what's happening around us, and all evidence to the contrary lead us to insist:
" Not my family.
" Not my spouse.
" Not my kid.
" Not my boss, my company, my church,

Today's Gospel centers on a parable of dishonest dealing. A crooked manager is found out by his boss and is called to account for his management of the boss' estate. Realizing that he's about to lose his job, the dishonest manager concludes that he's not strong enough to dig ditches and too proud to beg in the streets. So to cushion his fall from grace, the manager, or steward, calls in the boss' creditors, and to curry favor among them, he cooks the books one last time, giving the creditors a break and in the process, making for himself a golden parachute. After discovering the scheme, the master actually commends the dishonest manager, "because," according to Jesus, "he acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light" (Luke 16: 8).

Is Jesus giving the green light to fraud and deceit? Of course not. Is Jesus encouraging "creative accounting" as an alternative to personal responsibility? I don't think so. But Jesus does tip his hat to this double-dealer if only because the parable's manager recognizes that when his situation has changed, he must act accordingly. When he realizes that he's been found out, the crooked steward does not dismiss or discount the peril he's in, but instead, he acts. He acts deceitfully, he acts dishonestly, but he does act, if only because he knows, one, that things have changed, and two, things are not going back to the way they've been. He may be a con man, a cheat, a chiseler, but he wins the master's grudging respect because at the very least he does not give in to denial and he acts. And according to Jesus, we can learn something from this bum.

When the boss summoned his steward to give an accounting of his management, the dishonest manager knew that he could no longer continue in the position he'd held. Likewise, when Jesus summons us to the new life of faith, we can no longer keep on living as though Jesus had not brought to earth the very rule of God. As children of the light, as people whose eyes have been opened, Jesus presents us with a new reality. In the light of Jesus we see where history is heading. In Jesus we know that when the Kingdom comes in all its fullness, healing, compassion, and love will finally triumph over division, competition, and hate. In Jesus we know that when the Father's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, swords will be pounded back into plowshares and spears will be turned into pruning hooks (Micah 4:3). In Jesus we know that when God's name is truly hallowed throughout the earth, the lowly will be lifted up and the powerful brought down, the hungry will be filled with good things and the rich will be sent away empty (Luke 1: 52,53).

But knowing all these things, do we act accordingly? Do we live as though God's Kingdom is really coming? Do we act as if God's will will really be done on earth as it is now in heaven? Is it really in God we trust, or do we trust more in the dollar bill that just sports the motto? Do we live to give away more than we get, or do we live just to get and get and then get some more? We confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord, but how often are our hearts in denial? We say that in Jesus the whole world, the very course of the universe has changed, but do we continue to act as though nothing's changed, as if Jesus had never existed, much less been crucified and raised to the Father's right hand?

In my office here at church I keep a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most people recognize Dr. King as the pre-eminent leader of America's civil rights movement. I also honor him as a great American hero, but I also consider him a great American theologian. In countless sermons and articles, Dr. King insisted "all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control." "I believe," said Dr. King, "that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality." And in light of that reality, Dr. King acted. While some wavered and others debated, Dr. King acted in the light of the reality that he preached as revealed to all humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.

Of course, it's sometimes really scary to act on a reality that the rest of the world is actively denying. It's unnerving to act in line with a moral vision that so many will tell you is just naïve, or foolish, or unrealistic. But as Dr. King once said, "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.