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).
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