Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Luke 16,1-9. 9. Trinity

Luke 16,1-9 4122

9. Sn. n. Trinitatis 55

Athanasia, Widow Abbess at Timia, Greece, 860

14. August 2022

1. ℣ Behold, God, is mine Helper:

℟ Yahweh is with them that uphold my soul. (Psalm 54,4)

O Yahweh, give us Thy heavenly wisdom, so that we do not repose and stand up on our own wills, and be Thou our Friend and Faithful Counsel, so that we do what is good. (Ich weiß, mein Gott, daß all mein Tun elkg 768,8 2021 Paul Gerhardt 1653)

2. »Jesus said to the disciples: „There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. ²And he called him and said to him: ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ ³And the manager said to himself: ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management 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 removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first: ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶He said: ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him: ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ ⁷Then he said to another: ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said: ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him: ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ ⁸The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.“«

3. Jesus uses the verb διασκορπιζων: squander in back-to-back parables. In chapter 15, with the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus tells us that the prodigal διεσκορπισεν (Indic Aor Act): he squandered his wealth (15,13); and in the next parable He tells, Jesus says the steward διασκορπιζων (Par Pre Act): squandering his master’s wealth 16,1). Whereas the prodigal cannot save himself from his recklessness, the steward was shrewd enough to save himself from destitution; but the steward did so by dishonesty and injustice: he changed the ledger books for some debtors so that it appeared that they had paid part of their bill to his master! He was willing to lie to and steal from his master in order to gain favor with his master’s debtors. In doing so he ensured there would be people who owed him favors after he was dismissed as a steward. Unscrupulous business people and politicians do this sort of thing all the time.

4. In this parable, Jesus reveals how corrupt our sinful hearts truly are. We will devise all sorts of ways to appease God. One of the most common methods is to bargain that enough good works will offset our sins recorded in God’s Divine ledger book. If we can just get one more good work that tips the scales in our favor or changes our account of debit and credit from red to black, then we will have been successful in righting our account before God; but it doesn’t work that way.

5. Nevertheless, even Christians are prone to this deception. If I do enough penance, pray enough prayers and give enough arms or charitable works, then I will be storing up enough good credit to tip the balance in my favor or at the very least show God that I am trying to reconcile the sinful debt I owe to Him. It was this very attitude that inspired Martin Luther to write this thesis in his 95 Theses in 1517: our good works do not free us from sinful penalties nor do our good works save us (Thesis 21).

6. The reality is: to put forth our good works before God as means or methods of salvation or appeasing Him is to lie and cheat God just as the unrighteous steward did to his master in today’s parable. What saves, forgives and pardons is Christ alone. To put anything above Christ, on equal footing with Christ or under Christ as something we can add to Him is to rob God of His grace and mercy! We want to say: „‘We will do it! We will show God what splendid people we are and claim our reward.’ … [We] would transform the gracious, giving God into a spectator who would applaud [our] achievements“ (Galatians 3:15 1955 Nagel ¶ 8) or our attempt to achieve something. Such is the approach of the Pharisees and the prodigal son: „I will do it; I will earn my way back into God’s favor.“ Truly we are exactly like the prodigal who utterly fails each time he gives it a go of appeasing himself before his father.

7. The core teaching in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is that we will always fail to appease God; we are lost and can never get restored back into the relationship we have broken with Him. One of the teachings in the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward is: even if you think you can bribe some favor, it always comes through deceit and lying; you still remain unrighteous in the eyes of the rich man and will never be welcome back into his household.

8. The gospel at the heart of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is the father’s love, compassion and mercy he has for his lost younger son. The prodigal tried to redeem himself, but he utterly failed. He remained lost; even his scheme to appease his father failed … because his father would not hear of it. „No, you aren’t redeeming yourself, my son, because I have already found you. I am running to you; I am giving a feast for you; my love, my compassion and my mercy have found you and restored you.“

9. The irony is, the Parable the Prodigal Son didn’t play out the way the Jews expected it to play out; but in God’s salvation plan the parable plays out as it was expected to. In the parable, the older brother should had been the mediator and redeemer to his brother to restore the broken relationship. This is exactly how it plays out in the Gospels! We are the younger brother, God is the father and Jesus is our older brother. We became lost and Jesus does what the older brother is supposed to do: He goes and finds us; He mediates us before our Father; He redeems us. In doing so He reveals to us the loving, compassionate and merciful heart of our Father. We were lost, and God found us.

10 The gospel at the heart of the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward is that Christ is the righteous steward who saves us from our unrighteous attempt to garner favor with God. 11. „In Christ it is all clear. He is the fulfillment of the promises, and He sets aside the condemnation of the Law. God’s promises cannot be repeated or replaced. The Law that uncovers sin and condemns Christ put Himself under with us. He was „made of a woman, made under the Law“ (Galatians 4:4). What we could not do, Christ did for us. He kept the Law in our place, and He endured its condemnation on our sin. Christ took our sins on Himself and on Calvary bore their condemnation in our place. He was made a curse for us, so He redeemed us from the curse and condemnation of the Law. Christ has done it all. The gift God gives is, above all, His Son. Here is the height of giving. For those who rebelled and refused His gifts, God gave His Son to die and rise again so to us He might give the forgiveness achieved by Christ’s atoning death and the risen triumphant life victorious over sin, death and hell. From all the wretched unrest of getting and wanting and getting and wanting again, we have been made free. We are God’s own, living from the gift of His hand. From our glad and grateful hearts we sing, „Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!“ There it is. Is it yours? Do you receive it, that is, do you believe?“ (Galatians 3:15 1955 Nagel ¶ 10.13).

12. Lord, Thee I love with all my heart;

I pray Thee, ne’er from me depart,

With tender mercy cheer me.

Earth has no pleasure I would share.

Yea, heav’n itself were void and bare

If Thou, Lord, wert not near me.

And should my heart for sorrow break,

My trust in Thee can nothing shake.

Thou art the portion I have sought;

Thy precious blood my soul has bought.

Lord, Jesus Christ,

My God and Lord, my God and Lord,

Forsake me not! I trust Thy Word

(Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart lsb 708,1 2006 Martin Schalling 1532-1608).

This is most certainly true.

13. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7). Amen.

14. Let us pray. O God of our fathers, who keepest Thy mercy, … give us wisdom …; that being present with us she may toil with us that we may learn what is well-pleasing before Thee, that in our doings she may guide us in ways of soberness and guard us in her glory, henceforth and always. Amen. (The Week of Trinity 9, Vespers Collect 1. The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House.)

To God alone be the Glory

Soli Deo Gloria

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Saturday, August 13, 2022

Luke 16,1-9. 9. Trinity

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