Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

Elon Musk recently said, “I do believe that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise.” He was talking about teachings like “turn the other cheek” and other practical teachings. We have one of those practical teachings before us in today’s Gospel. But I truly hope that Mr. Musk has some real Christians in his life who will tell him that those practical teachings of Jesus aren’t the heart of His teaching. You can’t start with them. You have to start where Jesus started, which was, “Repent and believe the Gospel!” The God who created all things sent His Son into human flesh to redeem fallen mankind by His perfect life and by His innocent death. So repent and believe in Jesus, and be baptized in His name for the forgiveness of your sins! Come into the Lord’s house, that is, the Christian Church, and find a Father’s welcome, for this life and for the next! Become a child of the light! Only then can you begin to live as a child of the light.

Jesus speaks of “sons of the light” in today’s Gospel. His practical teaching is for them, and only for them. So let’s turn first to the end of our Gospel to hear Jesus’ summary of the parable He told of the unjust steward, and then we’ll go back and look at the parable itself.

For the sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

What’s the problem Jesus is addressing in the parable of the unjust steward? What’s the sin He wants His people to recognize in themselves, to repent of, and to avoid and correct in the future? It’s the sin of negligence in our use of mammon, that is, the earthly possessions that our Master has entrusted to our care. And to teach us that lesson, He contrasts the negligence of believers with the shrewdness of an unbeliever, to drive home the point that we, the sons of the light, need to be better than that. We need to loosen our tight grip on our wealth and possessions put some time and effort into using our earthly wealth for heavenly purposes.

Jesus calls unbelievers the “sons of this age,” people as they are naturally born, born of the flesh only. They’re the people who live only for this age, for this life. Everything for them, every aspect of their life is about secular, worldly affairs, getting by in this world, having the best life possible in this world, enjoying life here. The unjust servant in the parable, the rich owner of the business in the parable, and the people who are indebted to that owner, all represent “the sons of this age.”

But the sons of this age are not completely incompetent. Even though they don’t acknowledge God, they use their God-given reason to solve earthly problems. Take the unjust steward, for example. When he was about to be fired from his job, he had to sit down and come up with a plan for his own survival. As it turns out, that plan involved using the little bit of time he had left as the manager of his master’s resources to gain the favor of as many people as possible by being generous toward them with his master’s wealth. You recall, he called in every person who owed his master something, whether it was oil or wheat or money. You owe my master 100 measures of oil? Change it to 50. You owe my master 100 measures of wheat? Change it to 80. 50% off here, 20% off there, and so on, and so on, until he had gone through the whole list of debtors. Imagine how those debtors reacted to the steward’s generosity, which they had to assume was actually the generosity of the owner who was authorizing these huge discounts. Imagine what would have happened if the owner had ended up firing the steward! The steward could have gone to each of those debtors and told a sob story about how the mean owner had fired him for the kindness he had shown to the debtors. And they would have welcomed him into their homes, while thinking poorly of the owner himself for firing such a kind and generous steward.

Yes, it was a wise plan. And, in the end, everyone benefited. The debtors had their burdens lightened, the owner appeared generous and magnanimous in the eyes of the debtors, and the steward was praised by the owner for coming up with that plan, whereas, previously, the steward had acted haphazardly with his master’s wealth, squandering it, being negligent with it, which is why he was going to be fired in the first place. But, when it became a matter of survival, when he had to rely on being liked by other people, he finally wised up and used the wealth at his disposal to do them some favors.

Now, how does Jesus apply this to His people, to the “sons of the light”? Listen again to His summary: The sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. In other words, unbelievers are often more careful, more thoughtful, more deliberate about using earthly wealth to gain earthly friends for themselves than Christians are careful, thoughtful, and deliberate about using earthly wealth to gain heavenly friends for themselves. Unbelievers sometimes show more kindness to others than Christians do, even if they’re only doing it for self-serving reasons. And that should make each of us pause and consider: How deliberate have I been with my earthly possessions, in using them to help others—especially to help them know the Gospel and receive the ministry of Word and Sacrament, which is what they need more than any earthly thing? How deliberate have I been? How intentional, how kind have I been with my possessions, which are actually God’s possessions?

You, the children of the light, are stewards, managers of things that ultimately belong to your Father. How much have you squandered on useless things? How much have you horded out of greed, or out of fear? How often have you neglected even to think about how God would have you divvy up your paycheck or your investments or your bank accounts? Has it occurred to you to take a portion of it and give it away in an act of charity? Give it away, not recklessly, but thoughtfully, wisely, deliberately, for the purpose of helping someone to know the Lord Jesus Christ, whether that means lightening some of their financial burdens, or whether that means seeing to it that others can have access to the ministry of the Word, which does have costs associated with it?

Now, every year we come to this Gospel from Luke 16, and every year I remind you that it’s not intended to be some sort of fund drive or appeal for more offerings to the church, and certainly not for a raise in the pastor’s salary. It’s not that at all. It’s an appeal to you, God’s people, to take Jesus’ words to heart, first to convict you, and me, where we need convicting, because the sinful flesh is always wrapped up in the things of this life, and our possessions are the number one thing that ties us to this earthly life, because what we have here stays here. It will never see the kingdom of heaven. And yet our hearts, by nature, are tied to the things we possess, and we do not part with them easily, unless it’s to get some other earthly thing that we can use and enjoy here in this life. It doesn’t come naturally to us fallen creatures to think about giving away any amount of our possessions for things that won’t benefit us in this life at all, for things that we will only see the benefit of after this life, in the eternal dwellings of heaven. And that’s what charity is truly about. That’s what supporting the ministry of the Word is also about. It does you no earthly good, not really, to come to church, or hear a sermon, or support a mission far away. But the things that you give away so that the ministry can be carried out among you and among others, in other places—those things will have heavenly results, for you, and for others who benefit from the ministry that you support.

Again, this is not a complaint about not enough offerings. Far from it! As your pastor, I’m so thankful for all the good you’ve done for your fellow members, for all your support of the ministry here, for the ministry in Latin America, and for the ministry among our long-distance members. But we need to hear the Lord Jesus telling you and me, in today’s Gospel, the truth about ourselves, that we are not yet as wise or as deliberate or as selfless as we should be with our possessions. And if God’s favor depended on us being shrewd enough or good enough stewards of His things, then we would never have God’s favor or a place in heaven at all. No, God loved you and sent His Son to die for your sins and failures, to pay everything that had to be paid, to give away all that He had, even His very own body and blood and life, so that He might welcome you into eternal dwellings, at no cost to you whatsoever.

You have God’s favor through faith in Christ Jesus, apart from any wealth management you have or haven’t done well. So put your faith in Christ Jesus, and don’t think for a moment that you need to earn the favor of your Father in heaven. But if you love the God who loves you, for Jesus’ sake, then also listen to His practical teachings and put His words into practice. Take this annual message to put to death the deeds of the flesh and its desire to hold on tightly to every last penny or to use your pennies only for your earthly benefit. Arise each day to walk in the new life that Christ has given you, a life that doesn’t ask, “How can I serve myself today?”, but that asks, “How can I manage the things God has entrusted to me today, for the good of His kingdom and for the benefit of my neighbor?” And know for certain that, with your gifts and your charities and your offerings, you are, even now, making friends for yourselves, not for this life, but for the next—friends who will be there, in the end, to thank you and to welcome you into eternal dwellings in the presence of God. Amen.

Source: Sermons

Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

It’s a common thing in the world of politics to be generous with other people’s money. It’s one of the chief principles of socialism. Why do politicians like to be so generous with other people’s money? And why do people often support it? It’s theft, after all, according to God’s commandments. Well, it’s done out of greed for personal gain, usually to purchase the favor (and often the votes) of those who receive the money, but if nothing else, it’s because it makes people feel good about themselves to help other people, while not having to sacrifice anything of their own in order to do it.

That’s unjust, unrighteous. As I said, it’s a form of stealing in God’s sight, whether or not it’s legal according to human laws. But, in a very worldly sort of way, it’s rather shrewd of politicians to do it, because it works. It doesn’t make the world a better place. It isn’t morally right. But it does tend to keep that person in power, to keep that person with a job in politics. Politicians do it time and time again, because, time and time again, it works!

The parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel is pretty similar to that scenario, actually. He tells of an unjust steward who had done a terrible, sloppy job managing his master’s wealth, but who then decided, in a moment of personal crisis, that it was in his best interests to be generous with his master’s money, essentially to rob from his master in order to purchase the favor of the people who owed money to his master. And his plan paid off! Not only were the debtors now indebted to him, but even his master commended him for his shrewdness. Finally this steward wasn’t just haphazardly spending money and keeping the books. He used his master’s wealth to gain something for himself by helping others.

Now, Jesus does not want His disciples to be unjust. He doesn’t want us to be like that unjust steward in mismanaging our Master’s wealth, nor does He want us to rob from the rich to give to the poor. He doesn’t want us to be generous with other people’s money. To be sure, He doesn’t want us to do anything for self-serving reasons. But He makes His point clear at the end of today’s Gospel. The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. In other words, Jesus wants us, as the children of the light, to learn a lesson from the unjust children of this age—yes, a lesson from unbelievers, because they often act more deliberately with their wealth for earthly gain than Christians do for heavenly gain. So He wants us to learn this one lesson from how unrighteous unbelievers behave, to think about and plan carefully how we use the wealth God has lent to us, and to realize that God wants us to use it for the benefit of others, especially other Christians, which will also benefit us in the end.

Let’s make some comparisons between the unjust steward’s situation and our own so that we can reevaluate our stewardship as children of the light.

The steward in the parable worked for a rich man. He had no wealth of his own; his job was to be a good steward, to manage the rich man’s wealth diligently, honestly, and faithfully, for the benefit of the rich man’s business.

You and I should recognize that we also work for Someone. We have no wealth of our own. I think you all know that, but it’s worth reminding ourselves, because it’s not at all how the world thinks. We acknowledge God to be both the Creator and the Owner of all things. Even the things we’ve earned with our hard work still belong to God. As the Psalm says, The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness. We are stewards, managers of the things God has given us or granted us to have, whether much or little. He expects us to manage His wealth wisely, diligently, thoughtfully, deliberately.

But the steward in the parable wasn’t diligent at all. He squandered the rich man’s wealth in a way that helped no one. Can that be said about you? Does your household budget reflect God’s priorities? Do you even have a budget? Or do the bills just dictate where most of the dollars go, while the rest just sort of trickle away on unimportant things?

Well, that haphazard, lazy, purposeless stewardship got the steward in the parable in big trouble with his boss. He was about to lose his job, but he was given a little time to get the records straight and present an accounting of his management. So finally, when his life depended on it, he started to take the management of his master’s wealth seriously, not to benefit his lord’s business, but entirely for his own benefit, not by stealing the money for himself, but by lessening the financial burden of his master’s debtors, so that they might help him out and take him in after he lost his job, so that they might welcome him into their homes after that mean rich man fired him.

Except that he wasn’t fired in the end. His lord finally saw some skill in that unjust steward, some shrewdness, some thoughtfulness, some purpose. And he actually commended the steward for it. Maybe he could be an asset to the rich man’s business after all.

Now, this is a rather unique parable, isn’t it? Why does Jesus want us to study the bad example of the steward to learn from it? Well, it isn’t that uncommon in Scripture, actually. Today’s epistle made that clear. St. Paul pointed the Corinthians Christians to several bad examples from Israel’s history in order warn Christians not to become complacent, not to take God’s grace for granted, not to become so assured of your salvation that you stop listening to God’s direction. That went very badly for the Israelites. But God uses that bad example for the good purpose of keeping His children humble and penitent and focused on His Word.

Again, Jesus words at the end of the parable make it clear why He uses the bad example of the unjust steward: The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. He’s talking to His own disciples here. He’s talking to Christians. He’s talking to those who believe in Him and who are counted among the sons of the light, whose sins have been forgiven, who are beloved children of God, on the path to spending eternity with Him in Paradise. But He knows that we have not been perfected yet. In fact, that won’t happen until we slough off this sinful flesh. And He knows that our sinful flesh is always turned inward, not toward serving God and not toward helping our neighbor. And He also knows that wealth and earthly possessions are one of the biggest temptations and pitfalls for His people, so that even penitent and believing Christians often forget that we are stewards of God’s possessions. We often forget that God has priorities for the wealth He’s placed into our hands—even the wealth that is our time, by the way—and that one of His top priorities is helping other people through this life, especially our fellow Christians. And, yes, we should be convicted by His words for not even being as shrewd as unbelievers are in being generous with other people’s money. We have been called to be generous, not with other people’s wealth, but with God’s wealth, with all the wealth God has put into our hands, to think carefully about how we might use it to “make friends for ourselves.”

I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

Mammon—worldly wealth—is not evil, but it’s often used for evil, unrighteous purposes. Hear the Lord Jesus today teaching you, His disciples, to direct the wealth He’s put into your hands for the benefit of others, because you can’t take it with you when you go. But the Christians who have been helped by you will remember that help even after this life, as you will remember those who have helped you. They won’t be the gatekeepers letting you into heaven—the only way to be saved and to enter God’s kingdom is by faith in Christ and His righteousness, and His death on the cross for your sins, and the free forgiveness He extends to all who trust in Him. But the citizens of heaven who received God’s help by your hand will not be ungrateful in the heavenly mansions, even if their gratitude wasn’t perceived here on earth. Your use of God’s wealth will solidify those friendships for eternity. Isn’t that incentive enough to be intentional and deliberate and generous with the wealth you’ve been given to manage, knowing that it not only fosters eternal friendships, but that it pleases God, whose wealth you manage and whose child you are? Because God sees you as people who might yet be an asset to His heavenly business. Amen.

Source: Sermons