Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost (C) 2019

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Luke 16:1-13
Theme: Managing Material Blessings

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Jesus Christ was not an aloof religious sage. He did not issue decrees from an ‘ivory tower’. He was savvy in the ways of the world. He understood how fallen humanity thinks and how the unrighteous operate. It’s the same world we still live in today. We can’t assume the unbelieving world always wants to do the right thing from the right motives. In fact, we can safely assume the opposite. Jesus says today, “The people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.”1 Of course, no one can outwit Jesus and He wants His own disciples to be savvy about how the worldly-minded think and act. As He says elsewhere, He wants them to be “Wise as serpents but innocent as doves.”2 The same is true for us.

And so, today Jesus teaches what is widely considered to be one of the more challenging of His parables. He tells of a manager who was called to give account to the owner for mis-handling his assets. Those who owed the rich man money appear to be tenants who were share-cropping his various estates. The shrewd and quick-thinking manager went to the tenants individually and had them reduce their debt (to be paid in kind) to the owner significantly- a thousand bushels of wheat marked down to eight hundred, eight hundred gallons of olive oil to four hundred and so forth.

The reasonable concern of many is that here Jesus seems to be condoning dishonesty, or at least turning a blind eye. After all, in the parable the owner or master represents God, and the manager His servants. But the recommendation of dishonesty would flatly contradict the consistent witness of Scripture and of Jesus Himself. He is not encouraging people to break the Seventh Commandment (You shall not steal). He is not making exceptions for certain circumstances. He is using a real-world example that included a dishonest practice. But the dishonesty is not the point of this parable, it’s beside the point.

The parable is about the stewardship of temporary things in light of God’s permanent things. If the manager loses the support of the master, he is finished. So, what does he do? The manager puts all of his eggs in one basket. He doesn’t try to justify himself. He doesn’t despair. He doesn’t give up. He shrewdly puts the owner in a difficult position. If he doesn’t honour the manager’s writing down of the tenants’ debts his generous reputation will be impugned. The manager banks on the owner’s mercy and he is not disappointed. This is a key point in the parable. It’s God’s approval that we need above all else. Only He can truly supply our needs.

Jesus lived in a far less affluent society than we do. Still, He constantly warned people about the idolatry of materialism and taught them what it meant to be true stewards. Do we serve, or worship our wealth, or do we use it to serve others recognizing that it has no use in the life to come? What controls you? Who or what do you serve? What causes you the greatest anxiety, fear, or loss of hope? Where do you look for security? What calms your fears and puts your mind at ease? The answers to these questions tell us who or what our God/god is.

Most people are very self-aware of which temptations are particularly problematic for them. The temptations of lust, of greed, of jealously, of apathy, of cold-heartedness, of dishonesty challenge believers to different degrees. The Holy Spirit pricks our consciences when we stray outside God’s will and contrition initiates corrective action (in addition to greatly increasing our appreciation for the gospel). Yet, in spite of our general self-awareness of temptation, we can become blind and numb to certain sinful tendencies. It happens through denial. It happens through downplaying the seriousness of the offence. And it happens through flat-out disobedience. This applies also to the temptation of materialism.

A woman who had broken off the engagement with her former fiancée wrote him this letter: “Dearest Tommy, no words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you; I love you; I love you! I love you!”
Yours forever, Marie. PS: And congratulations on winning the lottery.

Our sinful desires, words, and actions cannot be satiated, they must be slain. They must be continually eradicated like weeds that persistently sprout. The Scriptures, not coincidentally, employ the term crucify. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”3 But, unlike the crucifixion of Jesus, this problem requires continually crucifying our sinful ways. That’s the implication of Luther’s explanation of the power of baptism. “It indicates that the Old Adam in us [our sinful desires] should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man daily should arise and emerge…”4 In other words, every time the Holy Spirit brings us to true repentance, a crucifixion happens. Those sins are put behind us, they are buried, and we are given a new lease on life; a clean slate.

Remember, the unbelieving world seeks only to deal with the consequences of sin. It enacts many laws to do so. Sometimes these laws don’t even have the consensus of unbelievers. Christians however, insofar as they truly wish to be Christians, are concerned with the root, the cause of sin. Unbelievers may or may not strive to follow the laws of the land and reap the rewards or consequences. Believers strive to follow the will of God. We don’t need to earn any rewards. Christ has already done that. We can serve freely. We can use all of our talents and blessing to help people to know God and His grace.


Jesus knew that meant having some understanding of how the world operates. Jesus also knows that the desire is so great, and the pull is so strong that many must face their mortality before confronting the idolatry of materialism. Often God uses trauma to initiate a reassessment of priorities. Even then, some sadly die believing that their great accumulation of wealth will somehow carry them to a blessed life in the hereafter. It’s a particular weakness of human nature to believe we can project our current status into the next life. But do not have any doubt, dear friends, that the believer who dies without a penny to his name still enjoys the full riches of heaven.

Remember what the apostle Paul says today, “[God] … desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…”5 That ransom was the price for our salvation. In Christ, we are rich beyond measure. We have a baptismal inheritance. We have the most wholesome food imaginable. We will never be disappointed when we bank on God’s mercy. He went to the cross. He overcame death and the grave. Neither poverty nor prosperity elevates or lowers us in Christ’s eyes. His love is indiscriminate. Thanks be to God! Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost
22 September 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Luke 16:8 2 Matthew 10:16
3 Galatians 5:24 4 Luther’s Small Catechism, baptism part iv
5 2 Timothy 2:4-6