In Luke 16: 1-13, Jesus told the parable of an unjust steward. To be clear, the main character in this story was not a good guy. He was a “hustler” in all the word’s negative connotations. Nonetheless, (and this is what trips up many Christian readers) Jesus presents the steward as someone worthy of commendation/ respect.
The Master doesn’t commend the unjust steward for his past. His past was worthy only of judgment (v. 1, 2). The Master doesn’t commend the steward for his repentance. The steward doesn’t repent; he acts out of self-preservation & vanity (v. 3, 4). The Master doesn’t commend the steward for his sense of mercy and forgiveness. The debts the steward forgave didn’t involve his money; that’s not mercy (v. 5-7). The Master gives the steward props because he’d handled his business/ he’d dealt shrewdly (v. 8). The steward saw how things were going and immediately went out and “got on his grind.” He handled his business in such a way that it delivered a return to his Master and positioned the steward to provide for his own future.
Too often Christians see how things are going and do nothing. We talk about faith, and God’s time, and deliverance; but when things start to shift in our lives honestly most of us don’t even pray differently. Oh, we “say more prayers” when we lose a job or get a bad diagnosis. But do those life-changes alter your prayer-life. Did you add another 30 minutes of devoted prayer time to every day? Or did you just fire a prayer off while you were in the doctor’s waiting room? How are you handling your prayer business?
The unjust steward would have talked to as many medical providers and insurance people as he had to for as many hours as he had to over as many days, weeks, months as he need to until the situation was handled. How long, how often, are you willing to talk to God? How are you handling your business?
Did you start going to Bible study and Sunday school? Start really studying the Word of God at home every day, searching commentaries and resources on line to understand what God has to say about your situation? Or did you show up to one mid-week Bible study to vent to the pastor, and then never come back? Did you get on & stay on your Bible-study grind?
The unjust steward would have talked to everybody in his network and contacts list. He would have read everything out there. He would prepare and then prepare some more until he understood his situation and what to do. Then, he would have done it. How much time, study, and actual work have you been putting into serving your Master, into understanding how your Master wants to be served from this moment forward?
Jesus said: The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light
Secular rappers produce some of the most profane and morally twisted poetry in the world. Rappers like Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, and Drake glorify the worst aspects of Black culture and either ridicule or ignore most of what should be glorified.
But they do handle their business.
While we complain that an hour- and-a-half of Bible study is too much for a weekday evening, Lil Wayne says in a BET interview “I try not to sleep. I try to work more.”
Church-folk drag their feet about moving to the next level of ministry and service to God in these last day. Congregations try to water down the Biblical commands to holiness and perfection (Leviticus 11:4, 19:2, 20:26; Matthew 5: 48; John 17: 23). Meanwhile Jay Z records a song about moving”On to the Next One," in which he rhymes “I’m moving onward, only direction. Can’t be scared to fail. Search for perfection.”
While the church sits, satisfied with mediocrity, content that we’re going to heaven even if we leave no lasting impact on this Earth, even if we don’t bring anybody into heaven with us--- 24 year old high-school dropout, Drake raps in different songs, “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. I’m trying to do better than good enough. Cause you know life is what we make it and a chance is like a picture, it’d be nice if you’d just take it.”
Like the unjust steward, these rappers are caught up in lifestyles worthy of condemnation. If they don’t receive Jesus as savior they’re as doomed to hell as anybody else who dies unredeemed.
But you have to respect their grind.
I’m not saying Christians need to adopt a thug mentality. Jesus cautioned against that misunderstanding in the parable of the unjust steward.
Luke 16: 13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
But, we can learn this lesson from the parable of the unjust rappers:
Quit whining
Start grinding
Your time is
Right now
Get down, bro
Bow down, bro
That prayer time is how.
Your blade’s dull
Get your brain full
Of the Word
Daily Bread
Love Jesus
Like Jay-Z loves
His bank, son
We sleep
When we’re dead.
Romans 13: 11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II,
Pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road, Montgomery, AL 36116
Phone: 334-288-0577
Email: hallmemorialcme1@aol.com
