Sermon for 9/22/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.
Gospel: Luke 16:1–13
Then Jesus said to the disciples,
"There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him
that this man was squandering his property.
2So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I
hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be
my manager any longer.' 3Then
the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the
position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to
beg. 4I have decided what to
do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their
homes.' 5So, summoning his
master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my
master?' 6He answered, 'A
hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly,
and make it fifty.' 7Then
he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers
of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8And his master commended the dishonest
manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more
shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of
light. 9And I tell you, make
friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone,
they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
10Whoever is faithful in a very little is
faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest
also in much. 11If then you have not
been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true
riches? 12And if you have not
been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your
own? 13No slave can serve
two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and
wealth."
Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,
When you go through the seminary, and then call processes on
your way to becoming a pastor, you have to share your call story a lot, you
have to share how God brought you to this point in your life. After sharing
this many times, you can sort of condense and simplify things, and now, as I
think about my life, and how I got to this point, I realize that my calling as
a pastor comes mostly from my own parents’ dedication to keeping the vows they
took over me when I was baptized, just as we all try to do with our children.
Most importantly, in keeping these vows, my parents
emphasized that we are loved by God, and gave that love to me through their
love. They also brought me to worship, taught me to pray, taught me about the
Bible, creeds, and commandments and many other things that we are faith related.
And, they also taught these lessons to me, what it means to serve God, and not
money or things.
Let me take you way back for a moment, to the 1980s. It
was then, that I a young child in a small town, in an even smaller elementary
school, had just laid the start to what could have been a promising business
career. You see, I had a package of some really cool mechanical pencils that
I’d purchased for a dollar at the local Target, and sold the whole lot of them
to a friend the next day for the low, low price of only five dollars. A 500%
mark-up. Let me clarify, that I didn’t misrepresent the product in anyway, and
the transaction, in most legal senses was completely on the up and up.
But, much to my chagrin, when I shared with my parents
that I had pulled off such a sale, they didn’t share in my enthusiasm. In fact,
they called the parents of the other child, and made me return the cash. Not
only that, but they wouldn’t let me take the pencils back either.
I bet Donald Trump’s parents would have let him keep the
money, but apparently making a profit was illegal in my home. Well, maybe not
illegal, but my parents, raising me not only as their child, but as a Child of
God, weren’t real proud of my abilities to take advantage of someone else. Even
though I hadn’t lied, or scammed my friend, my parents made it clear that
living according to God’s will, meant looking out for him as well, even at the
expense of making money.
This lesson, taught to me in this case and many other
times, wasn’t something my parents came up with out of the blue. This lesson,
this life was God’s Word, the Word that was given to them in each of their
baptisms, just as it had been given to generations before them. This Word,
given to us so gracefully by God, and nourished in us by the power of the Holy
Spirit is what we are called to depend on, to trust in, and to grow in, as in
this end, this Word is what gives us life.
It is this Word of God that is the basis of Jesus’
seemingly confusing teaching about making friends with dishonest, or unrighteous
wealth. Much time and effort has been put into trying to figure out, what does
this parable means? It’s almost as if Jesus is telling us that the ends justify
the means. If I had been more well versed in the Gospel of Luke as a child,
maybe I could have convinced my parents that I could have given half the money
to the church, and then kept the other half. Then there’d be a lot of happy
parties, the church, myself, even my friend with his new pencils. But I don’t
think that would have passed muster with my parents, nor with Jesus.
But, if we remember God’s Word, given to us in our
Baptism, if we remember that it calls upon us to love each other, even our
enemies, with the same grace and mercy that God has loved each of us with, we
are given some clarity into this confusing parable. Instead of encouraging us to
act like one of the characters in his parable, Jesus is warning us against
them, or at least their motives, reminding us that the money that so guides
their lives breeds dishonesty, and division. Jesus is reminding us that we as
Children of God are called to a different life, a life lived in the light,
where we do not take advantage of people, but serve them. Jesus reminds us that
mammon and God cannot be served at the same time, and he does so, because one
leads to division, distrust, and death; while the other creates life, and
community.
Today, Jesus is telling us that we can’t serve God and
wealth; as we see signs dotting the area, most of them saying keep Milford,
casino free; with others saying the opposite. Now, I’m not a crusader against
gambling, and what people want to do in terms of this, or any casino is their
perogative. What I will say is that building a community around the prospect of
money, and especially money gained by taking advantage of people is not a
fruitful or faithful way to build community. As we think about it, what’s the
best case scenario? A casino that is a great success, that pumps a great deal
of money into the community, and then becomes the lifeblood which the community
depends on. The casino will become the lord of the town, which then influences
all decisions.
No, there is a better way to build community. There is
the way that comes from discerning what type of values we hold with our
neighbors, committing to them, sharing them, and even sacrificing for them. And
as I say this, I don’t mean to just try and pick on a casino. In all areas of
our life, whether it is worrying more about how much something costs than how
humanely it was made, or sacrificing the environment solely for the sake of
economic gain; we are all caught in a sinful system that causes us to think and
live by the rule that selfishness, is not only acceptable, but in our own
self-interest and good for the world. And this, is a system that we are all guilty
of participating in, even young boys who would go on to be pastors, even
pastors who were taught lessons and should know better.
But even as we chase after wealth, God chases after us.
God continues to call us together, and join us in a community of faith created
out of an unending, unselfish, undivided love for each of us. This is the love
that we dine on in our Lord’s Supper; the love that is not sold to us, but
given; the love that is never in short supply, but in everlasting abundance; the
love that empowers us not to ask what can we get? But what can we give? This
love, is the living Word of God in Jesus Christ, given to us in the midst of
our sin, in the midst of our dishonesty, making us friends with God. May we go
and make friends, in the same manner.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Amen
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