READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
2 Samuel 22:26-34
1 Corinthians 10:6-13
- St. Luke 16:1-9
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
Who speaks to you saying,
“The Lord commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”
As we ponder the lengths that the Dishonest Manager went to appease his Lord that he had so wronged with his dishonesty, we consider what bowing down to the Lord actually means. You could say that after his Lord’s proclamation, the Dishonest manager bowed to the Lord’s will and created a business or world where mercy was the order of the day, instead of wastefulness and dishonesty.
In like allegory, you, in faith, bow towards God’s will, as He commands, “Oh come let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our maker” (Psalm 95:6) or everyone's favorite in Philippians 2:10-11, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and…every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Not that you think it means “bow to the Lord”, but instead “bow to my political opinions”.
But at least you attempt to bow, right? While the Bible is very specific as to what it means to “bow down”, you take a more wishy-washy approach saying that you “bow down” in different ways, such as singing to Him, seeking Him, remembering His wonders, or giving an offering.
The Bible and your hymnal take a slightly different approach to bowing in that they take it quite literally. Whether its the passages I already mentioned, or St. Peter on his fishing boat, or the 24 Elders in Revelation 4:10-11, bowing means exactly what it says: face down in the dirt.
The Greek word literally means “as being a dog”, or “towards the knee” as that is where the dog and the knee are: close to the ground. This word also happens to be able to be translated as “worship” as in St. Matthew 2:2, “Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him.” To worship Him or “bow down in the dust” to Him.
So while it is good to bow down figuratively in hymn and sacrifice, God’s Word demands more than just figures. It is good to bow your spirit and your soul towards God, but “figuratively” is not what was demanded of the Dishonest Manager. The Dishonest Manager knew that something more than “thoughts and prayers” was needed to get him out of his situation.
So, too, us and our sinful, hell-filled situation. But what do we do? Where do we bow? We don’t have a Temple or a Mecca. We don't have a golden calf or a tree. We don’t have a location or object to bow towards.
Or maybe we do. Dr. Luther says:
- The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words, “And was made man” were being sung in [the Creed in] church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said: “May hell consume you, you boorish ass! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang: ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground! Yes, I would crawl ten ells down into the ground. And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!” Whether this story is true or not, it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith (Rom. 12:6). With this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation; they wanted us to open our eyes wide and ponder these words as well. (AE 22:105-106)
Jesus does not leave us comfortless and without a way to perform God’s Word, even that of bowing down. He gives us faith. Faith to hear God’s Word and believe it. So that when we hear Rev. 21:3 say, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God”, we don’t have to rely on our imagination or some emotive state to determine God’s presence among us.
For Jesus gives us His very own Bride, the Church. And in that Church, created and sustained by the Holy Ghost, we are gathered around Christ and His Gospel. Instead of finding a nice looking tree, or a spectacular sunset, or a Mirrormere God locates Himself in Word and Sacrament in order that we have a place to fulfill God’s command to “bow down”.
The heavens bow towards God, says Ps 18:9. Angels bow towards God (Rev 7:11). Now, at the Creed, we bow towards God. Not only there, but we also bow at the Name of Jesus, as Philippians 2 already told us. At any mention of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost or just Jesus Christ, in the Divine Service, we are encouraged to make a bow of some sort.
And because the Divine Majesty has made Himself like us poor bags of worms, our hearts thank God, our lips thank God, and our bodies thank God by their position. Thus it is when the Lord comes down to commune with us in His own Body and Blood, we don’t just bow, but genuflect. A more profound bow, if you will, on bended knee.
The Formula of Concord states that, “…no one - unless he is an Arian heretic - can and will deny that Christ Himself, true God and man, is truly and essentially present in the Supper. Christ should be adored in spirit and in truth in the true use of the Sacrament, as He is in all other places, especially where His congregation is assembled” (FC VII:15). As you witness me doing so, after I present to you the bread and wine newly blessed.
Consider the following quotes from the Catalog of Testimonies published in many editions of the Book of Concord:
Athanasius: "The holy catholic Church condemns anyone who says that the human flesh of our Lord is not to be worshiped and adored as the flesh of the Lord and God."
Ambrose: "Angels do not adore only the divinity of Christ, but also His footstool.... the prophet says that the earth the Lord took upon Himself when He assumed flesh is to be adored. Therefore, we understand 'footstool' to mean the earth, that is, the flesh of Christ, which we today also adore in the Sacraments, and which the apostles adored in the Lord Jesus."
Augustine: "He gave us this very flesh to eat for salvation. No one who eats this flesh does not first worship it.... We not only not sin by worshiping it, we sin if we do not worship it."
Repent! We are too afraid of looking and being like someone else, that when it comes to celebration and ceremony in God’s Church, we turn it into a chore and a burden. We strip ourselves of any sort of enjoyment and rejoicing that could be had in the Divine Service, all for the sake of some made up religious purity.
Well guess what? You are the dishonest manager in your sin. You are in debt over your ears. You have only one lifetime to pay back 100 lifetimes worth of debt. You better be sure you are bowing down, genuflecting, and on your knees before God 24/7 if you know what’s good for you. It is time to turn in your account of your mismanagement of your life, for you can no longer be manager.
Where are your Lord’s debtors that you may summon them and have mercy on their debts, that the Lord may commend you for your prudence?
Actually, there is just one debtor. The Debtor Who took all the debts as His own and paid for them on His own.
Look at this parable again. Yes, the Dishonest Manager has mismanaged, not his own possessions, but his Lord’s. Point 1, the Lord is the one in debt here, having offered up His possessions to the whims of managers and business, offering up His name and reputation to the scrutiny of outsiders, and finally taking on even more debt when the accounts are not paid in full.'
In our bowing down to the Lord we are begging Him to first bow down to where we are, take on our debts, and forgive them. “Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me; For I am poor and needy” (Ps 86:1). “Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down”, Psalm 144:5.
What makes us have the boldness and audacity to ask such a thing? Because that same God promises to “…uphold all who fall, And raise up all who are bowed down” in Psalm 145:14, and “The Lord raises those who are bowed down” from Ps 146:8.
God bows down to us! Jesus says, “I came not to be served, but to serve” (Mt 20:28). He bows His head to heal the sick. He bows His head to feed the hungry. He even bows His head to give up His Spirit for us on the cross. This action is taught most profoundly to us when our Pastor blesses us saying, “The Lord be with you” and then bows down, in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we return the blessing saying, “And with thy Spirit”.
The Lord bows down to the Dishonest Manager in order to rescue him from his impossible debt, allowing him to partially undo his wrong. In our Old Testament reading, do you think that the Lord can be merciful in heaven, which we can not reach? Can He be a lamp, or a shield, or a rock, or a strong refuge if He is far away and not a God that is near (Jer 23:23)?
He must step out of His heavenly paradise in order to do so. He must bend nearer to the earth than angels touching their harps of Gold. The heavens are bowed down as the Lord of all comes to take a spot next to humanity, with His own reasonable Body. The finite contains the infinite as God loves His sinful neighbors, all sinners, more than Himself, by being made man.
The bows you offer to God are not towards His majesty. Meaning, you don’t bow down to God because He can squish you like a fly if you don’t. You bow down to His Mercy which He shows to the world in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. You bow down because your God takes the bowing position first.
It is in the abundance of this loving kindness that we step foot in this House: His house. It is in the redemption of our debt by the shed Blood of Christ Crucified that we bow towards the Temple pof that Body in reverence to Him (Ps 5:7).
You see, dear Christians, bowing is not your work. You are simply following your Lord’s example. Sometimes the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So there are bows of the head and bows at the waist, along with bending the knee. Regardless, all of those positions are mimicry.
Mimicry because we believe that our Lord is present, in Service, Communing with us. If this were not true, it would make sense not to bow, as our Reformed and Baptist friends believe. So we exercise our Christian freedom and choose to bow or not.
But Thanks be to God that He has confined Himself and disciplined Himself to a bowing position in order that He may reach us with His commendation and salvation in Christ, our Lord, truly and bodily present among us, even today, forgiving our debts.
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