- Psalmody: Psalm 54:4-5; 1; Psalm 8:1a, 1b; Psalm 78:1a; Psalm 19:8a, 10b–11a; Matthew 6:33
- Lection: Proverbs 16:1–9; 1 Corinthians 10:6b–13; Luke 16:1–9
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. What does this mean? It means that the sons of this world are those whose minds are not on things above, but on the cares and riches of this world, this life, this quick breath that precedes eternity. It means there are other sons in contrast, sons of light, of the one true Light. It means that in such a place where all sons are like the grass of the field, the sons of this world prove to be shrewd, to be prudent, to be wise in using what they have to preserve what they want, what they value, what they desire. The Lord Jesus compares them to us and us to them because they have a muted drive within, yet one that they maximize with much sacrifice and craftiness to work to their advantage, all but for temporary things. What more do the sons of light have, yet which we fail to pursue or preserve with similar wise, prudent, shrewd vigor?
Earthly speaking, we all have much, even the poor, even the wicked, as we confess in the Catechism: Give us this day our daily bread. What does this mean? God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving. We have a certain, infinitely rich man as Master Who holds all things in heaven and on earth at His disposal. There is nothing that is that does not belong to Him, which is a perspective with which even many a Christian strive and wrestle. We want our money and our possessions to be completely our own, to do with as we please, to be master, to believe that our choices, our hard work, our grit and determination are the supreme reason that we have what we have and therefore we are advanced far above being mere stewards of goods, whether few or many, goods that actually all belong to Another. That Master-steward arrangement between Creator and creature has no bad connotation at all, save in the ears of sinners who desire more of what we want than whether we’re wasting the Master’s goods or not.
The Lord Almighty is no supplement to whatever the life is that we have. He is the only source and cause of all daily bread. Lift up your hearts to Our Father Who art in heaven. Pray the Lord’s Prayer everyday when you rise, when you go to bed, and every appropriate time in between. Pray that God leads you to realize that He gives you daily bread and respond to Him with joy and thanksgiving. Conform your mind to His and ask for His wisdom to see that daily bread is more than the food He works to grace your table. For what is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body. As you hear the list, humble yourself and acknowledge over just how much God makes you steward, how much He is involved in supporting your daily life in what He gives into your care and use. Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body such as: food, drink – basic necessities of life over which we are neither to worry for fear of lack nor to glut ourselves with overeating or excessive drinking; let us not waste the Master’s goods in sacrifice to our bellies; clothing, shoes – other essentials, especially since the Fall because we now must be guarded against harshness of weather and shame of nakedness; may our stewardship in this regard ever lead us to godly modesty and respectability in how we don God’s gifts of attire; house, home – dear provisions from the One Who has gone to prepare a place for us that we might receive the abode He gives into our earthly care, keeping it as a godly home by whom we allow and by what we say and do in them; land, animals – every inch of what becomes our homesteads is from the Lord, down to the delightful plants, every blade of grass, shady tree, animals that give us companionship, and the cars and machines that get us around and serve us in place of those animals of old; money, goods – these, too, are from the Lord, for even in a financially prosperous nation where it is more possible to earn more of these things, only by Providence can such a scenario even exist in which so many can have so much. Being that unrighteous mammon is key in this parable, we’ll return to it after refreshing our minds with the remaining list of daily bread that we might give thanks and glory to God in so doing: a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like. In other words, a comprehensive list of our daily bread, of all the goods that God commends into our stewardship, is endless. Even the weather He gives according to our needs, pleasure, and good use.
Indeed, every life is full of daily bread from God, full of the Master’s goods that are good not to be wasted or put to ill use. Money is something about which we must be on our most earnest guard, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Money cannot buy happiness, peace, joy, yet it is something that we are quite sure that we could never have too much of even though Scripture warns against the idea and life proves it true just by things like the number of lottery winners whose lives have been utterly wrecked after hitting it big, and by the number of the rich who will camel-like never pass through the eye of a needle into life everlasting. It is one of the easiest things to both love and waste away in a society built on hedonism, debauchery, gratification, and indulgence. If relinquished to the staggering sewer flow of information, not just on the internet and TV, but everywhere we go, the senses become bombarded with crafty arguments, images, and slogans telling you what you need to quickly spend money on next, as if what you consume in this way determines your life’s fulfillment and worth. It’s a dirty trick; but one that the flesh loves, nonetheless. It’s also an incessant assault against a quite and peaceful life lauded by God in His Word. None of us need it all, or even a small portion. We are under constant persuasive speech urging us to enjoy ourselves by wasting our Father’s goods given into our care and stewardship, to spend money on temporary gain and fleeting pleasure, for is this not what the sons of this world do? Yes, but we’ve all seen what happens to the collections of stuff and the saved up money when loved ones die. Few things are passed on, much is sold for pennies on the dollar, even more given away just to get rid of it, even after sure and passionate “must-have” thoughts made all the things seemingly impossible to go without at the time, while the money is demanded and at times viciously fought over. We are being deceived.
We are deceived because we can see in the parable how this unjust steward was given to tend to the Master’s goods in how he managed them in relation to others, to those debtors of the Master. Love God and love neighbor rings true everywhere, yet he had failed in both and the Master called him to account. Knowing his wastefulness to be true, he showed worldly shrewdness in that he took wise measures for the preservation of his earthly life; that he would be able to have what he needed once the stewardship was taken from him. So, the rich man, the master commended him because he had dealt shrewdly. The steward used what was still within his power to ensure he would be received into others’ houses in the future. He had limited resources left, yet he was wise in using them up in pursuit of bodily provision. He was proving to be a son of this world.
So, we, sons of light, similarly with but a short time to be wise, have not mere earthly houses into which to vigorously pursue a welcome, but eternal mansions prepared by the One Who wasted nothing of the Father’s goods, but spent everything in His broken body and shed blood that ransomed us from all our sins. That same Lord asks why we, who possess so much eternally, who are sons of God and coheirs with Him, why we waste His goods by not shrewdly pursuing the everlasting things with the temporal things, with the daily bread that He entrusts to us. You have heard it said, “look at a man’s checkbook (or credit card or bank statement) and you will discover what he loves.”
Well, I make no demand of you to give more in your offerings, to prove your love to me. I do not know who gives how much. I’ve never looked at individual giving records and I never intend to. I’m no prosperity preacher proclaiming that you shouldn’t love money, but instead to give it to me so I can love it for you. Father in heaven, keep us both from that! But I do desire us all to discover the joy of giving more and more, and to be aware of the flesh, how it loves money, and as Luther said, “Every man needs two conversions: the first, his heart, the second, his wallet.” I desire for us what St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” There is no cheerfulness at gunpoint with a demand to smile as you hand over your cash. The cheer God loves is one that discovers and realizes that He gives daily bread and one that purposes in the heart the intent to wisely steward what He has graciously given away unto us as the Good Giver Himself, so that we might shrewdly deal with those goods in passionate pursuit of eternal treasures. Every cent that you give to His Church, where His Gospel is preached and His sacraments rightly administered, is good management as we live as stewards of the unrighteous, meaning that we have the joy of taking God’s goods as they are bestowed in an unrighteous fallen world that loves to waste them away, and do something different with them. To invest them in ways that keep the eternal near.
I commend you for your giving spirit, because I consider the collective offerings that I see at Our Savior to be generous, especially when there’s a need made known. Continue to steward well and even more, for it is written, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” May the joy and cheerfulness of giving to the work of the Lord ever flood our steward hearts as we look to our merciful, giving Master to receive us into an everlasting home.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.