READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
2 Samuel 22:26-34
1 Corinthians 10:6-13
St. Luke 16:1-9
Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord
Jesus, the Christ.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying:
Thus far from the Gospel, included in God’s Word so that we begin to understand that the world is not always what we think it is. We are Jesus-pilled, so to speak, when He arrives in His own rational body to do His own work. We didn’t think things were that bad, but His suffering, death and resurrection points us to the hostility of the world towards God and the centrality of the cross for us.
This should point us, in faith, towards our hymn of the day. When we look out on the world, we should immediately be distrustful because of its corrupt nature and because of our own corrupted senses. There is good to be found in the world, because of God’s mercy, but the world will pass away. The quicker we realize this, the quicker we will come to see blessings instead of curses.
The entire world is addicted to pills in some form or another and not necessarily literal pills. The most popular pills are what the Defamation League has termed “online pills”. Basically, virtual pills that have to do with how you think and how you conduct yourself in life. These pills were popularized by the movie the Matrix in 1999. Then, there were only two pills: red and blue. Kinda political huh?
We’re only staying on the surface of rabbit holes today.
In short, the red pill would allow you to see the truth of the world’s lies, if you swallow it, and the blue pill would put you back into blissful ignorance of those lies, to lead a blissful life, allegedly. Thus, to “red pill” someone is to get them to see things in a different light, a truer light.
Such as our Shrewd Manager today. He was living the blue-pilled life. He had access to all his Lord’s wealth, accounts, and connections. He was the man. He was conducting business as he thought His Lord wanted, when in reality he was doing the opposite. You could say, his “red-pill moment” came when he was fired and he woke up to reality and realized his Lord desired mercy, not sacrifice of others’ money.
25 years later, in our world, and things have become more and more messed up, thus more pills entered the scene to describe the current thinking. There was the white pill where when “taken” would put you in a state of pure optimism about the mess of the world. There was a black pill where you completely despair of everything and reject it all, completely.
There were also a set of so-called solution pills. Meaning, all the pills so far have only been about pointing things out and being angry, like the Media. There’s money to be made in being part of the problem, but there is no life to live there, no alternative to what they are angry at. The following two pills offer alternatives, again allegedly.
One of those pills was the Homestead pill, where you go buy several acres of land and live off-grid, away from it all. Another is the Trad Pill, short for traditional. This is where groups of online people think they have discovered “traditional life”, find a trad spouse, and live that trad life with them.
Plot twist: none of the pills worked! Being angry all the time at things that happen around you solves nothing, except producing more anger and division. Even the “solution pills” were sorely lacking in actual values and ended up hurting a lot of people and destroying marriages and relationships, because it was more than people could handle. What they all run into and what we run into is the Reality Pill.
You see, Jesus doesn’t just give us words to win arguments or reveal to us His Truth, The Truth, so we can start a podcast or yell at random strangers online, who are mostly bots, or fake accounts, anyway. In our parable, the Manager is red-pilled to reality, but then he doesn’t know what to do with that information. He is at a loss as to whether or not he should beg, get a laborer’s job, or die in despair.
The manager knew that life would go on, whether he had income or no, and that is reality.
Jesus has given life, not pills or laws that trump any and everything. And it is a life to be lived out in His Creation, until He says its time to go.
Repent. As I said, there is money and attention to be gained in being part of the problem and no money and no attention in being part of the solution. You can tell, then, which pill we love to ingest the most just by looking in a mirror. You don’t even have to flip on a TV or look at your newsfeed to discover your addiction to outrage and shock.
The Reality Pill is that we have to live with our decisions and our beliefs. They are not things we can leave as a post on FascBook or X. They are not just news headlines that flash on screen and then go away. What we believe is how we act. They are a part of us, whether we like it or not, and they determine our lives.
Our solution to all these pills? Show up. You make a baby? Show up and care for him. You have a job? Show up and work. You believe some political dogma? Show up and be the example. You have faith? Show up and support it. That is the solution. Don’t vote to make other people live how you think they should live. You live it. You own it.
Chapter 16 in St. Luke goes on past where our pericope stops at verse 9 and in verse 15 Jesus sums up the Dishonest Manager this way, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (16:15).
Jesus goes on where the unrighteous manager cannot. Where we cannot. Jesus doesn’t just red pill us, that is, tell us that things are sinful and corrupt, but He shows up to show us. The Lord does not start a podcast or a news channel to announce His intent and give us a choice. He comes to renew the world by His suffering, death, and resurrection.
From Day 1, Jesus was not content to sit behind a commentator’s desk. Yes, He spoke. Yes, He caused His Word to be written. Yes, He expects a response. But first the Word was made flesh; He shows up, announces that the Kingdom of God is ushered in by Faith alone, and then give His own life to those whom He saves.
He gives His life to renew life. And even though He lays down His life, He takes it back again. This sort of distracts us from these worldly pills. The dishonest manager began to show mercy to his Lord’s debtors, regardless of what it did to the accounts or to the business. He didn’t have time to be greedy or selfish, because of all the Lord had put in front of him.
In front of us, Christ puts His cross. It is placed on us at baptism, it is front and center in our life of faith, and it is held before our dying eyes. This efficaciously draws us outside of our pill-induced, and sin-reduced life to the life and work of Christ, because we do not find the cross inside us, but outside.
And though we choke on the works and pills of this world, faith looks up and out to the cross, to see there the only life that can make a difference. The difference comes in Word and Sacrament, not protest and outrage. The difference comes in living a life that is not our own and instead gathering around the things God has prepared for us, in His Son, in the way He desires.
Jesus allows the world to remain to be an example for us. We are to learn that this world does not have our good in mind and we are to look to the next world promised to us, for that. Faith keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, Who has fulfilled the management of men perfectly.
Adam was given dominion. And we have royally messed that up. The Second Adam rose from the dead and has royally atoned for all things. He has freed His Christians from guilt and from pills, such that they only need concern themselves with honor, and the Holy Spirit will guide and teach all things. Jesus has covered the entire bill of whatever sort of life we think we could lead, with His Body and Blood.
Thus true management is in forgiveness. The Real-World Jesus has created runs on the stuff and nothing else. No amount of anger will produce the righteousness found only in the Blood of Jesus. The Shrewdness God wants is the unlimited forgiveness given to you and, believing that, sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against you.
What Jesus offers is only the true medicine of His Body and Blood.
Maybe we could call it the Christ-Crucified-Pill, though that doesn’t have the nice ring to it the others do, but that's probably the point.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying:
“And 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.’”
Thus far from the Gospel, included in God’s Word so that we begin to understand that the world is not always what we think it is. We are Jesus-pilled, so to speak, when He arrives in His own rational body to do His own work. We didn’t think things were that bad, but His suffering, death and resurrection points us to the hostility of the world towards God and the centrality of the cross for us.
This should point us, in faith, towards our hymn of the day. When we look out on the world, we should immediately be distrustful because of its corrupt nature and because of our own corrupted senses. There is good to be found in the world, because of God’s mercy, but the world will pass away. The quicker we realize this, the quicker we will come to see blessings instead of curses.
The entire world is addicted to pills in some form or another and not necessarily literal pills. The most popular pills are what the Defamation League has termed “online pills”. Basically, virtual pills that have to do with how you think and how you conduct yourself in life. These pills were popularized by the movie the Matrix in 1999. Then, there were only two pills: red and blue. Kinda political huh?
We’re only staying on the surface of rabbit holes today.
In short, the red pill would allow you to see the truth of the world’s lies, if you swallow it, and the blue pill would put you back into blissful ignorance of those lies, to lead a blissful life, allegedly. Thus, to “red pill” someone is to get them to see things in a different light, a truer light.
Such as our Shrewd Manager today. He was living the blue-pilled life. He had access to all his Lord’s wealth, accounts, and connections. He was the man. He was conducting business as he thought His Lord wanted, when in reality he was doing the opposite. You could say, his “red-pill moment” came when he was fired and he woke up to reality and realized his Lord desired mercy, not sacrifice of others’ money.
25 years later, in our world, and things have become more and more messed up, thus more pills entered the scene to describe the current thinking. There was the white pill where when “taken” would put you in a state of pure optimism about the mess of the world. There was a black pill where you completely despair of everything and reject it all, completely.
There were also a set of so-called solution pills. Meaning, all the pills so far have only been about pointing things out and being angry, like the Media. There’s money to be made in being part of the problem, but there is no life to live there, no alternative to what they are angry at. The following two pills offer alternatives, again allegedly.
One of those pills was the Homestead pill, where you go buy several acres of land and live off-grid, away from it all. Another is the Trad Pill, short for traditional. This is where groups of online people think they have discovered “traditional life”, find a trad spouse, and live that trad life with them.
Plot twist: none of the pills worked! Being angry all the time at things that happen around you solves nothing, except producing more anger and division. Even the “solution pills” were sorely lacking in actual values and ended up hurting a lot of people and destroying marriages and relationships, because it was more than people could handle. What they all run into and what we run into is the Reality Pill.
You see, Jesus doesn’t just give us words to win arguments or reveal to us His Truth, The Truth, so we can start a podcast or yell at random strangers online, who are mostly bots, or fake accounts, anyway. In our parable, the Manager is red-pilled to reality, but then he doesn’t know what to do with that information. He is at a loss as to whether or not he should beg, get a laborer’s job, or die in despair.
The manager knew that life would go on, whether he had income or no, and that is reality.
Jesus has given life, not pills or laws that trump any and everything. And it is a life to be lived out in His Creation, until He says its time to go.
Repent. As I said, there is money and attention to be gained in being part of the problem and no money and no attention in being part of the solution. You can tell, then, which pill we love to ingest the most just by looking in a mirror. You don’t even have to flip on a TV or look at your newsfeed to discover your addiction to outrage and shock.
The Reality Pill is that we have to live with our decisions and our beliefs. They are not things we can leave as a post on FascBook or X. They are not just news headlines that flash on screen and then go away. What we believe is how we act. They are a part of us, whether we like it or not, and they determine our lives.
Our solution to all these pills? Show up. You make a baby? Show up and care for him. You have a job? Show up and work. You believe some political dogma? Show up and be the example. You have faith? Show up and support it. That is the solution. Don’t vote to make other people live how you think they should live. You live it. You own it.
Chapter 16 in St. Luke goes on past where our pericope stops at verse 9 and in verse 15 Jesus sums up the Dishonest Manager this way, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (16:15).
Jesus goes on where the unrighteous manager cannot. Where we cannot. Jesus doesn’t just red pill us, that is, tell us that things are sinful and corrupt, but He shows up to show us. The Lord does not start a podcast or a news channel to announce His intent and give us a choice. He comes to renew the world by His suffering, death, and resurrection.
From Day 1, Jesus was not content to sit behind a commentator’s desk. Yes, He spoke. Yes, He caused His Word to be written. Yes, He expects a response. But first the Word was made flesh; He shows up, announces that the Kingdom of God is ushered in by Faith alone, and then give His own life to those whom He saves.
He gives His life to renew life. And even though He lays down His life, He takes it back again. This sort of distracts us from these worldly pills. The dishonest manager began to show mercy to his Lord’s debtors, regardless of what it did to the accounts or to the business. He didn’t have time to be greedy or selfish, because of all the Lord had put in front of him.
In front of us, Christ puts His cross. It is placed on us at baptism, it is front and center in our life of faith, and it is held before our dying eyes. This efficaciously draws us outside of our pill-induced, and sin-reduced life to the life and work of Christ, because we do not find the cross inside us, but outside.
And though we choke on the works and pills of this world, faith looks up and out to the cross, to see there the only life that can make a difference. The difference comes in Word and Sacrament, not protest and outrage. The difference comes in living a life that is not our own and instead gathering around the things God has prepared for us, in His Son, in the way He desires.
Jesus allows the world to remain to be an example for us. We are to learn that this world does not have our good in mind and we are to look to the next world promised to us, for that. Faith keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, Who has fulfilled the management of men perfectly.
Adam was given dominion. And we have royally messed that up. The Second Adam rose from the dead and has royally atoned for all things. He has freed His Christians from guilt and from pills, such that they only need concern themselves with honor, and the Holy Spirit will guide and teach all things. Jesus has covered the entire bill of whatever sort of life we think we could lead, with His Body and Blood.
Thus true management is in forgiveness. The Real-World Jesus has created runs on the stuff and nothing else. No amount of anger will produce the righteousness found only in the Blood of Jesus. The Shrewdness God wants is the unlimited forgiveness given to you and, believing that, sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against you.
What Jesus offers is only the true medicine of His Body and Blood.
Maybe we could call it the Christ-Crucified-Pill, though that doesn’t have the nice ring to it the others do, but that's probably the point.
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