To be debt free [Trinity 9]

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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: 

“The Lord 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.”

 

Thus far from God’s Word, written for you to show you He does not change the rules behind your back. He does not, one day, chose Judaism, then the next choose Christianity. It has always been faith alone in Jesus, that pleases God. Jesus simply reveals the Resurrection in Himself, that we too may believe and live like we have a tomorrow, forever.

 

They say rich men are like God because they both are so rich that they have nothing to worry about. So if the rich man decides to change something on a whim, it makes no difference to him. He doesn’t suffer from the decisions, those who have less do. The manager in today’s parable seems to have a run-in with a rich man’s flightiness. He thought he was ok, until he wasn’t.

 

“The job changed on me”, cries the manager. Monday we were doing it one way and now Tuesday, the rules have changed. “Lord”, the manager explains, “if we are going to get ahead in the world, then we need to make a profit. If we want to make a profit, we have to get the goy for all they’re worth.”

 

And it was a successful, soft life for him. Notice what the manager can’t do when he’s fired. Not strong enough to dig and too proud to beg. Entitled. Spoiled. Full of soy lattes. He was comfortable in the work and thought he was following all company policies. 

 

Like Job, he was the perfect, moral businessman. Wealth, he knows, comes as a reward for playing by the rules and “goodness” is like money in the bank. The “goodness” of following the rules, no matter what was thought of them.

 

What Job knew, however, was what the manager forgot: that this world of business is unstable. At any given moment, currency can change, interests can flag, and attention shift. If any small thing of that sort should happen, you can find yourself bankrupt as quickly as you were made rich. For you were invested in one currency, or area of worth, but now the system is operating on different currency.

 

Both Job and our manager find themselves in this situation. Both are turned out. Both are bankrupted. Both have been shown that the goodness they thought they had a hold of, was not the right goodness. To them, the Lord changed the rules and it was not fair.

 

This is exactly what the Jews were fighting and how they felt, just before the exile to Babylon. In Isaiah 22 we hear, that the secret places of David and the houses of his city were all pulled down to strengthen the walls of Jerusalem, in defense against coming enemies. In this distrust of God’s faithfulness, even the religious ceremonies and ceremonial items were used as grocery items, instead of proclaiming God and keeping the Sabbath holy. 

 

“but you didn’t look to Him Who made it from the beginning”, says Isaiah, “and did not regard Him Who created it”. “For this sin shall not be forgiven you until you die” and “your robe, your crown and your management” shall be given to another (Isa 22:11, 14, 19-21). 

 

Awful harsh for simple business transactions, no? No. This manager, from the Gospel, was not in charge of simple business. Look at his shrewdness. He was in charge of debt, make no mistake. And St. Matthew just so happens to call sins, “debts”, in his Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:12). 

 

What kind of debts? Huge, ungodly debts. These debts of oil and wheat are similar in size to the debt of the Unforgiving Servant in St. Matthew 18:24. His debt was ten thousand talents or twenty years of paychecks. The oil measures in at about 900 gallons and the wheat about 9000 gallons (fluid and dry measurements were considered the same). All unpayable.

 

Repent! What we and the manager and the Jews forget is the business of the Lord. We want the Lord to pay attention to outward appearances, statistics, and prosperity. We want His success to be based on how successful we are. And He promises as such, so it seems, and to our experiences, if you want your religion to be ahead of the others, you reward your followers better than everyone around them.

 

The manager was comfortable in this. Job was not. Job knew God to be a hard man and so he “would send and consecrate [his children], and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, ‘It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.’ Thus Job did continually.” (Job 1:5)

 

And instead he suffered for being dutiful. Even his health and family were removed from Job, not just his job. However, same as the manager, this was not a change of the rules or a change of currency, on the Lord’s part. For the Lord’s business is forgiveness.

 

Pat what you owe! (Rom 13:7), the Word says, and we are debtors.

But I will prosper you, says the Lord (Jer 29:11).

So, who is right? The manager? Job? The Lord? 

 

Jesus says that we have our very life from the Word from His own mouth. The same life that Adam said came from his wife, the mother of all the living (Gen 3:21), the very life in the Breath of God (Gen 2:7). Indeed, Jesus even gives the command to “be fruitful and multiply”, suggesting success and blessing. 

 

But success and blessing are not the same thing, though they can be tied together. The world sees success and blessing as prospering in the material, money in the bank, people in the pew, a stable family life. So it transfers that experience to life with God. That if we pay the right amount, in those things, God will reward us.

 

“The measure you use will be used against you”, Jesus told us a couple Sundays ago. That measure is not just how you treat God, in some sort of imaginary way. That measure has to do with God, with His Christ, and with the neighbors He gives to you. For example, the measure you use against your wife will be what is used against you.

 

Jesus brings the measure and it is Himself. Jesus brings the rules and they are the Word made flesh. “A good man deals graciously and lends; He manages his words with judgement” says Psalm 112:5. Grace, pity, and favor are God’s mode of operation in the Old Testament and Grace, pity, and favor are shown in the Life of Christ. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules with Job. The cross was always the Way. Though Job could have success, Job’s greatest success would be found in the death of death. He even rejoices in this in his famous chapter 19 and when his fortunes are “resurrected” at the end of his book. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God” (Job 19:25-26).

 

Resurrection from the dead. Resurrection from the thing that actually destroys success and actually changes the rules on us: death. It was sin, death, and the devil that ruined the manager’s job, because he was focused on profit and not mercy. This reveals the shift from the Old Testament times to the New Testament times. 

 

Jesus did not change the rules on the Jews, he just continued to show mercy. He simply continued to cancel the debt of those who transgressed against His laws, no matter who had done so. Indeed, it was grace and mercy for they were His laws and His business which we profaned. And if the Lord commends shrewdness for dealing mercifully with a little, then He will commend a kingdom for dealing mercifully with all.

 

Jesus manages His own House perfectly. It is managed by faith and it is governed through grace and it is measured by Christ alone. There was no great change that took place from the Old Testament to the New and there is no great change from the New Testament to you. 

 

The New, is the Resurrection where, all having died to the Law that increases our debts, are freed from the Law by baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.” (Rom 6:3-5)

And “now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of [debts]” (Rom 7:6).

Faith works fruit [Trinity 8]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:16-29

• Romans 8:12-17

• St. Matthew 7:15-23

 

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: 

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits”

 
This is the Lord’s Holy Scripture and He includes it for you to hear of fruits, or works, one more time. Not only are you required to do good works, but prophets have their own set of works, as St. Jeremiah teaches today in our Old Testament reading. Different from your commanded works, a prophet is to proclaim the Christ, the Messiah. And the only Good Tree is the cross of Jesus. If a prophet does not preach and teach the Blood of Christ, then he is false.
 
The Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God for anything. And yet, there are still those who teach that works merit salvation and sanctification. Those teachings are presented to us to fool us into thinking a diseased tree can bear good fruit. Their falseness is found in that they will turn to a dictionary, rather than Scripture, to make this point.
 
And the dictionary reads like this:
a) Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths. 
And, b) For the performance of a morally good action, Sanctifying Grace is not required. 
Although the sinner, they explain, does not possess the grace of justification, he can still perform morally good actions and, with the help of actual grace, even supernaturally good works, and through them prepare himself for justification. Thus all works of the person in mortal sin are not sins 
 
The works of sinners are not sins? That’s convenient. The dictionary goes on:
c) The Grace of Faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, they say, even infidels can do morally good works. Thus not all works of infidels are sins. And, 
d) Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action, for fallen man can perform good works without the help of Divine grace, by his natural powers alone. Therefore not all works which are achieved without actual grace are sins
 
Hopefully you can already hear the rise of the false doctrine of theosis. That, if there are works you can do which are not sin, then continuing to do them will cause you not to sin, and therefore not be a sinner any longer. The problem we all have is our sin. If we get rid of them, then we have no problem.
 
Grace seems to be their focus here, but its used in a strange way. That grace is sufficient for you in weakness, the false prophets will quote from 2 Corinthians 12:9, but “grace” used their way appears to be just a wink and a nod. As if God looks at your works and says, “Well, at least you tried” and that is good enough for eternal life. “Do your best and God will do the rest”, they preach.
 
Faith is not even mentioned; much more is the glaring omission of Jesus in all of that. We can work ourselves into godliness with “grace” without Christ. He may be our mediator at first, but then passes the baton to us, to greater heights of holiness. Thus, we peek into their million dollar dictionary of theological terms and find these two gems: condignity and congruity.
 
Both describe this imagined acquisition of God’s Grace. Condignity, or de condigno, declares that God will dignify human works with the grace of forgiveness and righteousness, no matter who does them. Congruity, or de congruo, promotes a grasping at any good work in the hope that God will offer His grace in return. 
 
How can either of those offer hope to the despairing soul? They cannot, because they are primarily meant to elude Scripture. If we can define away “sin”, “death”, and the “power of the devil”, then we can redefine and be “sinless”, “deathless”, and in control ourselves. He who defines the terms, wins the debate; apparently even against God Himself.
 
Repent. The intention of the one who works does not distinguish the kinds of merit he earns because of the work. In their security, hypocrites simply believe their works are worthy, and that for this reason they are accounted righteous, in their own minds. If you speak over yourself, “I am a good tree” enough times, even you begin to believe it.
 
However, there are also always conditions to being good enough. According to the false prophets, your “good enough” works must be morally good and in accordance with the moral law in object, intent, and circumstances. It must be done freely, without coercion, within or without. It must be supernatural, aroused and accompanied by actual grace and proceeding from supernatural motive. 
 
That’s a lot of big words there, miss… But how can works be accompanied by grace if we are seeking grace through them? How can we do supernatural work, when we are only flesh and bone??
 
This is St. Paul from our Epistle reading today. We are not debtors to the flesh, that is we have nothing that we owe to God in our flesh, to perfect our flesh for faith, before He gives us faith. Living according to the flesh, including good works, is to be a debtor to the flesh, having no Spirit. To live by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit. Not by your whims and fancy, but by His Will as the Third Person of the Trinity, only revealed in the Word.
 
The Spirit leads us to the Tree and Holy Scripture tells us plainly the Good Tree from the Bad tree: Jesus. The same Jesus Who promises to make us fellow heirs with Him, provided that we suffer with Him. Suffer what? Suffer the belief that Sinners sin. That we sin because we are sinners and any work done by a sinner is sinful.
 
At the foot of the cross, our Father declares to us His Will and His Judgement. That His lovingkindness, from our Introit, be found in the suffering of Jesus Christ, His Only Son. And that that same suffering was inflicted in the Temple, His holy Temple, the alleged center of holiness and righteousness for the entire world.
 
The Will of God accomplished there which is to be praised and rejoiced in, is that Christ became sin Who knew no sin, for you. He took on the spirit of the false prophet and ravenous wolf, demanding works too good for sinful man. The thorns and thistles He wore as a crown and was cut down in His prime, tossed and left for the fires of hell to care for Him.
 
But we know what happens next and this informs us as to what actual good fruit is. Good Fruit is Resurrection Fruit. Not only does the Spirit give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which any man can practice, but He will raise us from the dead to life everlasting with Jesus.
 
That fruit is only found in, with, and under the Body and Blood of Jesus. To please God, faith alone is necessary. To receive Christ’s own resurrection, baptism into His death and resurrection is necessary. To have the fruit of the Spirit: forgiveness, faith in Christ, and eternal life, eating and drinking the Body and Blood is necessary.
 
Necessary because that is where the Promise to be, is. The Promise is not, “in your works you will find salvation”. The Promise is “salvation belongs to the Lord” and “He will have mercy on whomever He will” (Ps 3:8; Ex 33:19). If He wants you to find salvation in work, He would have promised it and made a list for us.
 
But, salvation is His. It is His to hand out where and when He chooses. If He chooses.
 
In Jesus we know that’s what He chooses to do. There is no redefining of work or grace or salvation that will make a good tree a bad tree, or a bad tree a good tree. The standard is God’s alone, not man’s to weasel around with, redact, and find a another way in.
 
And the standard is the Cross of Christ. If a false prophet wants to be heard and believed, let him die and rise again, proving his words. A true prophet is heard, because he proclaims Christ Crucified, Who has died and risen for His own Word and His own glory. That He hands out His grace by His grace and that the sinner is justified for Christ’s sake, by grace, through faith alone. 
 
Can sin be done in faith? No. In order to sin again, after we have been forgiven and saved, we must be lost. “It is false”, our Confessions state, “and must be censured, when it is asserted and taught…that [we] might or could act contrary [to the Law of God], and [yet]…retain faith and God’s favor and grace” (SD iv:20)
 
If you want your works to reach God, they must be baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, you must be fearful that any one of your good works could be a condemning sin. “So you also”, declares Jesus in Luke 17:10, “when you have done everything commanded of you, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” 
“If you live by the flesh, you will die by the flesh”, says Romans 8:13.
 
Our Confessions stand here:
“Here mercy has a clear and certain promise and command from God. The Gospel is properly the command that directs us to believe that God is reconciled to us for Christ's sake. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him" (John 3:17). Whenever mercy is spoken of, faith in the promise must be added. This faith produces sure hope, because it relies upon God's Word and command. If hope would rely upon works, then it would be uncertain, because works cannot quiet the conscience, as has been said before. Faith makes a distinction between those who obtain salvation and those who do not obtain it. Faith makes the distinction between the worthy and the unworthy, because eternal life has been promised to the justified. Faith justifies. (Ap V (III):224)
 
So what is it that makes a tree good and healthy? Faith. What makes good fruit from the Good Tree? Faith. What causes you to be known by the Lord on the Last Day? You got it.
Not the faith you have worked up on your own, made your own, and which is impervious to anyone’s opinion or scrutiny, even from the Word of God.
 
But the faith given. That faith that has the Crucified as its object and looks to the cross to reveal, explain, and teach all things. For, the Blood of Jesus is the only claim we have on God. We are not here to make our flesh sinless, but to be baptized into the death and resurrection of our flesh. 
 
 

Understanding and Faith [Trinity 7]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 2:7-17

• Romans 6:19-23

• St. Mark 8:1-9

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to you today, saying: 

“And He directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd”

 
This is God’s Word which Jesus sets before you to understand. Like a meal, you can understand how much this Word cost Him. This is to point you to the sacrifice Jesus makes for you. Not just 2000 years ago to middle-eastern hill people, but today. Today, may you hear His words, along with eating and drinking, and find there the forgiveness of our sins.
 
In St. Mark’s chapter 8 and part of 9, along with our Introit and the hymn we just sung, Jesus appears to be tackling the issue of understanding today, by setting His bread and His words in front of us. After our Gospel pericope, in verses 17 and 21, Jesus exclaims, “Do you not yet understand?” Not yet understand what? That Jesus is God in the flesh and that only God feeds in such miraculous ways, thus St. Mark is catechizing us. God has come and He has taken action.
 
Understanding, in general, is a sure sign of consciousness. In other words, being human is being conscious and being conscious means, you understand and can understand the world around you: up, down; good, bad; right, wrong. This is very helpful if you want any chance at survival. 
 
You see, understanding involves more than just knowing something. Understanding is not plugging numbers in an equation. That’s just computing. Any rusty robot can do such a thing. What consciousness and understanding give you is the truth behind the numbers. Instead of mindless computation, you believe that the mathematical rules that reveal 2 + 2 = 4, are true.
 
Same with animals. Though they seem to be conscious, they simply obey commands, whether they are right or wrong. It may be wrong to bite or attack a person, but the animal only knows rebuke and reward. Thus, obedience is not the way for us to consciousness either, since that can be produced by bit and bridle.
 
Maybe we get closer to understanding when we think of food. There are many things we call food and even things that our government calls “food”. Cows, eggs, and apples would fit the first category. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, xanthan gum, and cyanide (in small doses, of course) would fit the second category. 
 
Yet, both categories are considered food. Understanding lets you know that consistently consuming hamburger is infinitely better than consistently consuming Xanthan Gum. Now you can say its a matter of quantity, but understanding is understanding. If your child is hungry, you reach for the bread, not the lab kit.
 
Let’s take this into the Feeding of the 4000, because Jesus brings up the leaven of the Pharisees and that’s where our misunderstanding begins. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, He says, and the Apostles reply, its because we don’t have any bread and Jesus, once again, tells them they are wrong.
 
Again Jesus makes this spiritual. Beware the spiritual leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, that is their doctrine and preachings. Do you not understand, Jesus asks, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. If you have even a small amount of works mixed into your Gospel, then you do not have the Gospel. If you do not understand what Jesus is doing, then you do not have Jesus.
 
However, just as knowing only takes you so far until you must understand, so too, understanding without faith is just as bad. For the Pharisees and Herod don’t only have leavened doctrine, they also have actual bread they use on the people. Bread and circuses from Herod and the Bread of the Temple for the Pharisees.
 
Repent. As is understandable, when we understand something, it is mostly spiritual to us. An inward change, if for no other reason than you cannot see thoughts. Anything that comes out of the brain is physically only chemical and electrical. A brain surgeon will never come out of the O.R. saying, “well that guy had some interesting thoughts.”
 
But Jesus, when He created us, put all of His Wisdom into creating and locating these spiritual thoughts and understandings in a fleshy brain. Such that it is necessary to have a fleshy brain to have unseen thoughts. Jesus works our consciousness in and through our bodies.
 
Same with the bread. Jesus does His work with both spiritual bread and physical bread. Not only does He feed those in need with daily bread, but He also says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). 
 
This means that the understanding faith gives us is to see and believe that feeding and bread are the point. The feeding that God will do with every word that comes from His mouth, is going to be through the ears AND through the mouth. He is not going to be a bread King, but God of our daily bread. Not a food pantry king, with an endless supply, but a Father with endless mercy.
 
Thus, feeding is the way to God. It is how God is accomplishing His work of salvation on earth. He is not using bread only in a spiritual way, like the Pharisees, and He is not using bread only in a physical way, like the kings and elites of the earth. All to coerce and control.
 
He is using it as a sacrifice. It is a sacrifice. Food is always a sacrifice. Whether it is burned up on an altar or ground up to feed the priests, the food always “loses” and in this way, sent up to God.
 
God makes the sacrifice. 
 
Since Jesus is the Bread of Heaven and food is always the sacrifice, then Christ is the Bread of God Who taketh away the sins of the world. He is the food Who endures to eternal life. He is the Bread Who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. 
 
“This is the bread that comes down from heaven”, Jesus says in John 6, “so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:50-51)
 
How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things? Because God said so. It is His Word that declares, “This is how it is”, not any priest, or holy man, or leader. It is His Word that generates belief in His words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” It is the Word along with the bodily eating and drinking which accomplishes the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe.
 
Now, let us answer Jesus’s question of, “Do you still not understand”.
Yes. We still do not understand, but we believe. We believe in You and Your Word. That it does what it says and accomplishes the great feat of the salvation of sinners. Help our unbelief.
 
Jesus makes the point to remind the Apostles that at both great feedings, the 5000 and the 4000, that there were fragments left over from the meal and gathered reverently, in order to foster their understanding. Their understanding that He is going to save and care for His Creatures is the most perfect and final way ever: uniting Himself to you.
 
And it won’t be a union only on paper or only breathing in your nostrils. It will be flesh and blood. It will be body and soul. It will be a perfect union of God and man in Christ, such that we will be able to say, “Yes, Jesus. Now we understand. We feed on You.”
 
Not just a “sitting at table” way, but a “baptized into Your Body” way. That being members of His Body means that we feed as the heart feeds. We feed as the eyes, hands, head, and feet. This is the fulfillment of everyday eating. That we eat and are never hungry again. As branches of the vine, through faith, we live accordingly.
 
Not as robots, but understanding what our Lord is doing and loving that it is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. And since it has been set before us, we think about these things and rejoice (Phil 4:8). For God has revealed His glory, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it (Isaiah 40:5).