“JESUS THE JUST STEWARD”
Saint Luke 16: 1-9
9th Sunday After Trinity: 1 August Anno Domini 2021
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
It’s a parable; a true story told by God to make a point. Dr. Walter Maier is correct because most exegetes and scholars are correct, that not all parables need to be hyper-examined to make every single word, clause, and sentence “mean” something. There is however an overarching MAIN POINT that The Christ is making; that He wants the “12” and the other disciples to “get,” to understand. You disciples too.
“Rich man.” “Steward.” Okay. On an initial surface reading, or hearing, Jesus is telling a story that shows how a crooked (or at least an incompetent) house manager, book-keeper and money manager, wasted the goods of the rich guy. At best the wasting is wasting—not counting pennies (denarii; mites; drachmas) and being both profligate and irresponsible. At worst, the steward is an embezzler, a thief. So, the culprit, caught, performs some more thieving and makes friends with a bunch of very happy former debtors of the rich man who will now reward him financially, or will at least find him food and lodging. Again, on a physical and not a spiritual plane, The Lord is correct in having the rich man commend his crooked former money-manager; i.e., the children of this world, the thieves, gossips, murderers, and other assorted pagan parasites are pretty darn clever with “playing the system” and doubling down on their perfidy. The obverse is the question: “oh why can’t the children of light,” the good guys…the straight and narrow, play-by-the-book people be as equally shrewd?
Theft is breaking the 7th Commandment. Thieves who do not repent, restore, and turn from their larceny go to hell. Do not steal. Go re-read the 10 Commandments from your Small Catechisms—Jesus actually wrote it not the “Reformer.”
But what IS THE POINT?
What does Christ want you to remember about this sermon and more importantly about this troubling and less than perspicuous (clear) text?
The “certain rich man” is God. You are His stewards—His managers of the earthly things—goods, stuff, mammon, all the first article gifts which good as they are, still are fallen because they come from and are now produced by, a fallen world. They are profane, worldly, but nonetheless necessary. But you waste them. You waste time, the most precious commodity. You waste food, clothing (things which could be shared with the hungry and naked), money, and talent. You waste companionship and love—too busy with black mirrors, idiot screens, and self-entertainment to be someone that loves your neighbor; bears your brother’s burdens in love. “Give an account of your stewardship; for you can’t be a steward any longer!” Those are the words that The Judge will use as the convicting indictment at the separation of the goats from the sheep.
“What shall I do?” cried the crooked steward? Well, he did do something—which helped him, sort of, in his immediate future, but not in his eternal destination. What did he do? He gave away (even more) his master’s goods.
“What shall I do” you need to cry. With Paul you need to weep “the good that I would do, I do not, and the evil I would refrain from doing, that I do. Who will save me?” Ah, that’s the thing to pray. Not, “what shall I do,” but rather, “who will save me?” Thus, the Kyrie: “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.”
Jesus gives the answer. Jesus is the answer. What do you do? You give away your Master’s goods. Give away love by freely giving what was gracefully bestowed upon you: Forgiveness. Give forgiveness…give it a hundred-fold, 7 times 70, overflowing! How? Isn’t that Law? Yes. So, cling to the Law-Keeper, “for you.” Be found in The Word made flesh, “for you.”
He knows you cannot dig. Only The God/Man could dig out the rock-hard ground of sin and rip out the weeds and thorns of “old Adam” sin. Only Christ could have His own precious Body dug into by whip, back-hands, nails, and spear. You do indeed beg for your daily bread, your everything, BUT ONLY because The Lord Christ first begged His Father to have mercy on you—you who pierced Him—you whose sins He bore to the tree.
Jesus, as you confessed by The Holy Ghost in The Creed, IS “Light of Light.” He bids you pray to His Father as your heavenly Father, thus making you His brothers and sisters, and children of God—“children of light.” In Christ; in your Baptisms; in your confessions of sins and restorations by His words of Absolution; in your reception of Light itself, in the Body and Blood of The Light of the world…you too are wise, gentle, and filled with the Peace of God which receives you into the houses of angels.
Your friends receive you here at this parish. They are in front of you, behind you, to your left and right. You don’t just “cut their bills in half,” you remit all their trespasses against you by forgiving them for Christ’s sake—by Christ in you. They receive you and you receive them; all in the bond of Peace!
Your greater (large in number) company of friends now will receive you at Table—the foretaste of your everlasting habitation.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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