+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
“God knows your hearts”, so Jesus says to the Pharisees in today’s Third Reading, when they ridicule Him after He taught about wealth and money. “God knows your hearts”, so Jesus also says to you and to me in today’s Third Reading, too. Some break today’s Third Reading into three parts—the so-called “Parable of the Dishonest Manager”, “On Faithfulness in What is Least”, and “The Pharisees Reproved”—but we consider the Reading as a whole, under the theme, “God Knows Your Heart”.
In last week’s Gospel Reading, the Pharisees and scribes grumbled about Jesus’s receiving and eating with sinners, so Jesus taught how they should be rejoicing over sinners who repent, just as one would rejoice over finding a lost sheep, coin, and son. In the parable of the lost son, the son had asked for and received his share of his father’s property and then squandered it, in the same way that the rich man’s manager in today’s “parable” wasted the rich man’s possessions. Jesus uses that “parable” as part of His teaching about the right use of possessions, wealth, and money—teaching spoken primarily to His disciples, those repentant sinners He had found. And, at the end of Jesus’s teaching about wealth and money’s possibilities, the Pharisees ridiculed Jesus, and so He then teaches about wealth and money’sperils (today we heard only the first few verses of that section of Luke chapter 16, and next week we would hear most of the rest of it, if not for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels that falls on next Sunday).
Today’s so-called “Parable of the Dishonest Manager” is probably one of the least clear of all of Jesus’s parables. And, the English Standard Version, read a few moments ago, does not help matters any; in a number of cases, the E-S-V translates the same Greek word with different English words. Even without the translation difficulties, the parable’s interpretation raises seemingly countless questions, but, as the rich man in the parable noted the dishonest manager’s shrewdness, so Jesus essentially teaches His disciples, including you and me, to be shrewd in our use of possessions, wealth, and money. Our shrewd use should help the poor, and ultimately Jesus says that one cannot serve God and money. The Pharisees, whom the Reading describes as “lovers of money”, apparently saw no conflict between serving God and money. They may well have used their helping the poor hypocritically, to justify themselves and be exalted before other people. The Pharisees might have been able to deceive other people into considering them to be high and holy, but, their self-exaltation and self-worship was an abomination before God. For, Jesus said to them, “God knows your hearts”.
Polls out this month suggest that Americans who use the internet are more concerned about hackers, advertisers, and family members violating their privacy than they are concerned about the government knowing details about them, though Americans are none too happy about that, either. Yet, witht all we have to fear from internet and other data collection, we have more to fear from God. Restating a truth found already in the Old Testament (for example, Proverbs 24:12), Jesus says to us. “God knows your heart”. Like the Pharisees, we might be able to deceive other people, who see and hear our pious actions and words, but God knows our hearts. He knows our true motives and sinful thoughts, not to mention our sinful words and deeds that we might think we are saying and doing in secret. Nothing is hidden from God (Hebrews 4:13), and today’s First Reading (Amos 8:4-7) reminds us that God especially remembers sins against the poor. As the rich man called the dishonest manager to give an account of his management, God, Who is ready to judge the living and the dead, calls us to give an account for everything we think, do, and say, including every careless word (1 Peter 4:5; Matthew 12:36).
Yet, as today’s Epistle Reading (1 Timothy 2:1-15) reminds us, God does not want us sinners to die but to be saved by coming to the knowledge of the truth—the truth that the God‑man Jesus Christ gave Himself for us as a ransom from sin. Jesus is the one mediator between God and us. He alone died on the cross and rose again from the grave in order to save all people from their sin. His serving us in such ways glorified God and led to His exaltation. In today’s Third Reading, the self‑exalting Pharisees ridiculed Jesus, they scoffed at Him, they rejected Him Who was God’s savior from sin and from the temporal and eternal death that sin brings. God knew their hearts, and He also knows your heart and my heart. He knows whether we scoff and reject or whether we are truly sorry for our sin, whether we trust Him to forgive our sin, and whether we want to do better. When King Solomon dedicated the first temple, his dedicatory prayer connected God’s knowing people’s hearts with His forgiveness of sins at that temple, where His Name and presence were (1 Kings 8:22-53, especially v.39), and so it is today: God’s knowing your heart is connected with His forgiveness of sins here, where His Name and presence are.
God’s Triune Name is invoked in the liturgy of the Divine Service, as He put it on us in Holy Baptism with water and the Word. Baptism truly works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. The Pharisees rejected baptism as a means of God’s grace (Luke 7:29-30), and they grumbled at Jesus’s eating with sinners (Luke 15:1). But, repentant sinners baptized into the Triune God come to this rail to be fed with bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is Christ’s blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins, and so also for life and salvation. Here, God in Jesus is truly present for us, to forgive us. The Pharisees should have been “faithful and wise managers” giving God’s household its food at the proper time (Luke 12:42), but they were not, and so Jesus essentially took their management away and gave it to His apostles and to their successors, pastors today, who are servants of Christ, faithful stewards of the mysteries or sacraments of God (1 Corinthians 4:1-2).
Depending on how many “disciples” one thinks Jesus in today’s Third Reading spoke the “parable” to, one might in some sense limit its application to the Office of the Holy Ministry. Yet, in another sense, what is true of the Office of the Holy Ministry is also true of those it serves. All who repent, believe, and are through Word and Sacrament forgiven in turn show forth the fruits of faith—in this case, using their possessions, wealth, and money to help the poor, crippled, blind, and lame—the very people invited to the feast in the Kingdom of God (Luke 14:13, 21). Possessions, wealth, and money are not really “ours” to begin with—God entrusts them to us for a time, in order for us to use them to serve our neighbors and so to glorify Him. Jesus says alms—that is, voluntary contributions of money, food, or clothes given to those in need—will “make friends” for us—presumably that is, they will ultimately make other believers, who will, as it were, be there to welcome us when God receives us into the eternal dwelling of heaven. Our helping those in need does not itself bring about that eternal life; repentance and faith bring about eternal life, but that same repentance and faith lead to our helping those in need.
“God Knows Your Heart”, so Jesus said to the Pharisees in today’s Third Reading, and so He also said to us. We have realized both that God knows our sin and that He also knows our repentance and faith. Even when He looks for and fails to find the fruits of that repentance and faith in the form of our using to His glory the possessions, wealth, and money that He entrusts to our care, He still knows our heart, that we are sorry for our sin, trust Him to forgive our sin, and want to do better. May God, Who so knows our hearts, grant that we, with repentance and faith, live every day in His forgiveness of sins, until He at the last receives us into His eternal dwelling.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +