Sermon from this past Sunday--text: Luke 16:1-15--primarily the parable of the unjust steward: In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Paul, in the midst of instructions concerning the Divine Service, reminds Timothy in today’s Epistle reading that “God desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth! The Truth is so terribly important, that God wants everyone to know it. Such an odd parable we hear out of the mouth of Jesus, then. The steward is not truthful and honest with the master’s goods and authority. That’s why he’s being fired. But how does he get out of the bad situation? He cheats some more! And then, what we’d never expect to happen in a parable of Jesus happens: the steward’s lord actually commends him for dealing shrewdly, prudently, cleverly. So, in contrast to St. Paul, is Jesus actually teaching His disciples that they should be sneaky and take advantage of their employers—use the tactics and strategies that the unrighteous, sinful men of this world use. Not hardly! When you stop and dig into this parable, and when you keep it in the context of the whole of this Book of Truth, when you keep it in the context of the Truth of the Life and Death and Life of Christ, you see that this parable isn’t primarily intended to teach us about ourselves, and what we are supposed to do. The subject matter is ultimately something else. It is about the center of the Truth. To be sure, this parable does give a pretty good picture of what we are, what we do. We certainly are supposed to see ourselves in the shoes of the steward: Unfaithful, untruthful, and unrighteous. Okay, so this parable is about a steward and Christ then speaks about mammon, so let’s think in terms of stewardship and wealth. “You cannot serve both God and mammon,” He says. But if we are truthful in examining our lives and actions, and then, even our motivations and our thoughts and our hearts, we find that we don’t use earthly “mammon” as good stewards. We are, after all, stewards. Everything that we have and are come from God. We have been given our “body and soul, eyes, ears, and all [our] members, our reason and all our senses. . . also clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and home, wife and children, fields, cattle and all our goods,” we have been given “all that we need to support this body and life.” We have been given these things to use with God’s own authority, to use according to His will—that is, as tools for the purpose of giving His love. But our actions and ways of thinking betray a different use. We believe that all these things belong to us, even in terms of their source, and we believe that our authority to use all these things is for the ultimate purpose of loving ourselves. I can do with my own body whatever I will—eat, drink and be merry, and let my body go to waste. My spouse belongs to me, for my pleasure and gain. The offspring of my body is for my self-fulfillment, and if I think they will get in the way, I can get rid of them, even legally until they’re born. My money is my money and the government better keep its grubby hands off it! The only purpose of my job is to get the money and things I need and want to make me happy. Even my church offerings become a tool for my own “happiness”, in any number of different ways. This is the approach we take in our sinful flesh—whether we take it to its crudest, crassest ends (and you can think of plenty of examples) or not. Earthly “mammon” is viewed and used as entirely for my own benefit and pleasure, down at the depths of my heart, even if I hide it from people around me or even from myself with a pretense of “unselfishness”. But the sad fact is that we even use the heavenly wealth this way, too! I can’t help but think, when I hear the word “Steward,” of the description of pastors in 2nd Corinthians as “stewards of the mysteries of God.” The Gifts of the Kingdom of God, the Gospel of forgiveness, life and salvation, these are the things specifically given into the stewardship of pastors by Christ, the Groom, on behalf of and for the blessing of His Bride, the Church. But the “unrighteous steward”-pastor—such power he has to use these things simply for personal gain, and to the terrible hurt, even eternal harm, of those whom Christ would have as His sheep and lambs! This, too, happens in gross and obvious ways as well as in subtle and insidious ways. And then, remember that the pastoral office is itself a gift of Christ entrusted to the whole Church, to the Church in a specific place. And the congregation can act as the unrighteous steward in innumerable ways, too, as a result. Churches mistreat the person called into the office, or conversely, Churches treat their pastor as a trophy for display and glory for themselves. Churches treat the pastor as nothing more than a hired hand who must do whatever the current whim of the congregation is—but it’s always couched in holy, churchly, even mission-oriented language. And in all this, it’s not ultimately the pastor who’s being misused, it’s the Gospel of the cross of Christ. The sons of this evil, sinful, rebellious age do all these things. They are very clever, very prudent; they use the Master’s property and gifts sometimes exceptionally well and build up great piles of comfort and money or whatever for themselves—but only for this age. “For the sons of this age are more shrewd than the sons of light in this generation.” But the unfaithful, unrighteous steward will be called to account. The books will be opened and audited. And there is no rescue, nowhere to go, when this Last Day comes. In fact, what’s happening right now, in this preaching of the condemning Law, is that the accusation is coming to the ears of the rich man, the master and lord, against you, the unfaithful steward, and he is calling you to give an account of your stewardship. And the result will be that you will no longer be a steward. You will be thrown out of the master’s household. But here’s a strange thing. The lord delays the justice of throwing this miserable steward out on his ear. He doesn’t delay long, mind you—notice that the steward goes to his master’s debtors and says to them, “Sit down quickly.” But this strange lord gives this steward time and opportunity to misuse his authority even a little longer. Make no mistake! That steward is still acting with the master’s authorization. What boss or businessman would allow an embezzling employee to stay and continue to handle the company’s money for a month, a week, or even a day, before he cans him, even prosecutes him? But this parable isn’t really about you and me. It’s not really to teach you about what you should do. It is about the master, the Lord. The key to understanding this parable is to see what it was about his lord that this hopeless steward depended upon to provide his rescue, his safety net—golden parachute, his salvation, in light of his well-deserved impending dismissal. In this parable Jesus is really teaching His disciples and us about the characteristics of this Lord. On one level, even after he’s been discovered, the steward continues to lie. But on the deepest level, he’s depending upon the deepest Truths about the Lord: He is faithful; and He is merciful. The steward is faced with the Truth about himself. “What shall I do? I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.” He knew that he did not have the wherewithal to provide a safe landing for himself as he fell from the graces of the master. In fact, look at this carefully. He would starve. He wasn’t able, strong enough to earn his keep by his own work and labor. He wouldn’t even be a successful beggar. He knew that if he was cast out of the lord’s household, he would starve. He could not save himself. But he knew his Lord’s character and reputation, and so he quickly built his future on that. He knew his master was unwaveringly faithful to his own word. The master would honor these arrangements with the debtors which the steward had made in his name and still with his authority. And this man knew the master was merciful. In binding himself to these “unjust” arrangements, this lord would be having great mercy on the debtors, and even toward the steward. And what the steward trusted would be true, came true. “The master commended the unrighteous steward because he had dealt prudently.” It isn’t stated right out, but the implication is definitely that the steward was kept on, within the master’s household. How could he throw this man out, not show him mercy, when he had just been so merciful and faithful toward the debtors! This parable is not about what you and I should be doing. The point of this parable is that your Father in heaven is utterly faithful to His Word, and He is infinitely merciful to you. On one level, I am the steward, and you are the debtors. “The words which absolution give Are His who died that we might live; The minister whom Christ has sent is but His humble instrument. When ministers lay on their hands, Absolved by Christ the sinner stands; He who by grace the Word believes The purchase of His blood receives.” What’s important is not the person of the pastor, what he looks like, how smart he is, how sparkling his personality. The important thing is the Truth and faithfulness of the Lord whom he serves. The absolution, the forgiveness of sins, your forgiveness of sins and so also your certainty of everlasting life depends on the faithful Word of the Lord who has commanded and authorized the pastor to give out these, His Gifts. You are forgiven, because your Lord Jesus will pay, indeed has paid already, your debt. And He doesn’t simply write off and pay it in part; He doesn’t reduce your bill from 100 measures of oil to 50, or from 100 kors of wheat to 80, and still leave you to figure out how to pay off the rest. He wipes it clean, 100%, infinitely, with His own suffering and death on the cross. And the contract on this amazing deal is signed, stamped and sealed in the water of Holy Baptism on your forehead, and in His Body and Blood given into your mouth. And in another sense, of course, you are the steward. Unrighteous in yourself, to be sure. But building and acting purely on your trust in the Master’s faithfulness and mercy. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, [that is, when you die] they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Your time, your talents, your treasures—things that are given into your keeping for this age, but which do not last into the next—these you use in service to your neighbor, for the sake of the Gospel, not, ultimately, for yourself. And you do this because you trust in the faithfulness and mercy of your Lord to provide all these things that you need. Rather, you use these things—and the heavenly things too, the Gospel of Christ, given to you, the Church—you use all these things that belong to your Lord for the sake of making more friends who will greet you in the heavenly, eternal Home. Not for your own sake, but for theirs; after all, you already know your Master is merciful to you. Well, then, you see, this parable is about that verse in 1st Timothy after all. “For God does desire all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” Thanks be to God that the Truth has been told, is told, for me, for you, and for the whole world, even through you and me. The Truth who is Christ, faithful and merciful. On that you can depend. Amen.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:58:06 +0000
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