Proper 20

Jesus was good at getting to the point. He often summarized a principle of the kingdom of God with a very straightforward, black and white manner. Even when He used parables and other figures of speech, He often concluded by stating the point in simple, propositional form. This week is the perfect example. Even though the parable Jesus tells presents some challenges, He does not leave us groping in the dark for the point. Today He says, “You cannot serve both God and money” (Luke 16:13).

The Relationship we have with Money

In this parable our Lord Jesus talks to us about money and heaven. This is probably one of Jesus’ more difficult parables to understand, but the point is clear—You cannot serve both God and money. Unfortunately, many people ignore heaven and trust in their money instead. They rely on it. They serve it. It is their god. They use their god to secure for them the favor of important people. He can guarantee a comfortable life. If you serve him well you can become and remain financially secure. People trust in money. Then they die. They can’t take their money with them. Solomon’s wisdom is timeless. We heard this from the OT reading: Ecclesiastes 5:13-15 (EHV)

I have seen a sickening evil under the sun—

wealth hoarded by its owner to his own harm,

or wealth that is lost in a bad investment.

Or a man fathers a son, but he has nothing left in his hand to give him.

As he came out from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came.

From his hard work he can pick up nothing that he can carry away in his hand.

We are all headed for the grave and we can’t take our money with us. This is the fatal flaw in the religion called materialism — those who think that the only things that exist are things they can see, hear, taste, smell, and feel. They imagine that true wealth is measured in material abundance. They worship money — what Jesus in our text calls mammon. But money and all it can buy perishes with this world. To worship money is to worship what is dying and fading away.

When Jesus tells this story about the clever steward who feathered his own nest with his master’s money he is not commending the man’s dishonesty or endorsing his greed. But he does commend him for his shrewdness. He’s quite clever.

The man finds himself in trouble for wasting his master’s goods. Knowing he will soon lose his job he faces reality with cool rationality. He’s physically incapable of digging ditches and he’s too proud to beg. But he has authority over his master’s property for a short time. He uses that time to his own advantage by buying the favor of his master’s debtors. He undercharges them and leaves his master holding the bag. The master could not go back on the deals his steward made without embarrassing himself and his debtors. Better to let matters go and be rid of the steward who had cost him so much money.

Jesus says, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.” Those who worship money handle it better than those who don’t. But it shouldn’t be that way.

Jesus goes on: “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”

This is our Father’s world and his only begotten Son tells us to learn from the unbelievers how to use its bounty. Don’t misunderstand. Jesus is not saying that we should imitate the godless in their sins. He is saying that we can learn something about money from those who live in service to it.

You see, those who are clever will use money to benefit other people. The person in our gospel text today illustrates this. He benefited others so that they could benefit him. Put simply, he bribed them. He paid them for their favor. He enriched them with money he stole from his master and so made them indebted to him instead of his master. Smart guy! Unscrupulous, immoral, self-serving – yes, he was all these things – but he was smart!

So Be smart. But don’t make friends whose hospitality is fleeting and who can help you only for the things that will perish with this world. Make friends with whom you can enjoy the treasures of heaven.

Use the material gifts you have received from God to promote the extension of his kingdom in this world.

Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth...” Don’t buy anyone’s favor. Instead give God’s favor away freely, even as you have freely received it.

Give the gospel

Give your money to promote the proclamation of the gospel—money which Jesus calls unrighteous wealth, or mammon. The gospel, you see, reveals the favor of God that is purchased, not with any amount of money, but with the blood of Jesus Christ.

The gospel is the best way to make friends. There is a cost to the gospel, but we don’t pay it. Christ paid it. Understand what is for sale and what is not. Men buy and sell favor for money. But their favor is short lived. Memories are short. Loyalties are fleeting. But the bond of Christian fellowship that God establishes in Holy Baptism is as solid as God’s faithfulness. It is grounded in our redemption by Christ himself. St. Peter writes:

1 Peter 1:18–19 (EHV)

. . . you were redeemed from your empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, not with things that pass away, such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot.

The price of our redemption was the holy precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus Christ. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Apart from him we have no hope in this world or the next. We might as well live for what money can buy. If not for the obedience of Jesus unto his death on the cross where he abolished death by bearing all our sin, we would all be facing eternal death. But Christ faced death for us. In his own body he fought the death that held the whole human race captive, and by means of his perfect obedience and suffering, he won the battle.

The wages of sin is death, the Bible says, and Jesus paid its wages with his own death on the cross so that he could give us that eternal life in which we hope.

What is money to us? Well it’s not worthless.

Since we are redeemed — that is, purchased by Christ from that futile and meaningless life headed toward ruin—all that we are and have has been sanctified. That is, it has been set apart by God for a holy purpose, a purpose chosen by God himself.

We pray for this purpose whenever we pray, “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” God’s name is hallowed when Christ is proclaimed as the Redeemer of the world. His kingdom of grace comes when he gives his Holy Spirit in the preaching of his Word and the administration of his holy Sacraments. His good and gracious will to save sinners from their sin is done whenever the gospel has free course. We pray the Lord’s Prayer and consider his words, “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”

The Parable Teaches Us: One Day it will all Fail

We will fail. Our bodies will give out. Our eyes won’t see, our ears won’t hear, our brain will stop functioning, and we will breathe our final breath from these dying bodies.

As St. Paul says: 1 Corinthians 15:53 (ESV)— “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”

When we finally put off these dying bodies the angels will come to take our souls to heaven. There we will be welcomed by Jesus and all the saints who have gone before. We will be reunited with Christian loved ones who have gone before us. We will join them and all the saints to wait for the resurrection at the last day when God will resurrect these bodies from the grave, reunite them with our souls, but this time, our bodies will be perfect, immortal and glorified—just like Jesus’—and that will live forever. That will be a time of unparalleled joy. Within that pure and holy joy will be the knowledge that God used us to bring the gospel to others, who by the same gospel we believed, received the same joys in heaven. Daniel writes about that Day —Daniel 12:2-3

Daniel 12:2–3 ESV

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, money makes a poor god. In the end, he crushes you. Everything in which you trusted is gone. Eventually, it will all be taken away.

But, when you know God in Christ you have the treasures of heaven and your relationship to money is reversed. Instead of money controlling you, you control it. Instead of it driving you into its service, you put it into your service.

You can’t buy anything from God because He isn’t in the business of selling. He’s in the business of giving. What we receive freely we give freely and what we give to support the preaching of the gospel is an investment in treasures that cannot be stolen, lost, or destroyed.

When God sets our affections on things above where Christ is seated at his right hand, he lifts us up out of the power of money and makes us wealthy with riches that money cannot buy. It is true that covetousness and greed will compete for our loyalty. But it is also true that we belong to Jesus, who is our priceless treasure.

Paul Gerhardt, 17th Century Lutheran theologian and hymn-writer penned this melodic verse:

What is all this life possesses?

But a hand full of sand

That the heart distresses.

Noble gifts that pall me never

Christ, our Lord, will accord

To His saints forever.

Lord, my Shepherd, take me to Thee.

Thou art mine; I was Thine

Even ere I knew Thee.

I am Thine, for Thou hast bought me;

Lost I stood, but Thy blood

Free salvation bought me.

Thou art mine; I love and own Thee.

Light of joy, ne’er shall I

From my heart dethrone Thee.

Savior, let me soon behold Thee

Face to face—may Thy grace

Evermore enfold me!

“Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?”

by Paul Gerhardt

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/w/s/c/a/wscatgme.htm

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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