READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Proverbs 16:1-9
1 Corinthians 10:6-13
- St. Luke 16:1-9
Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Church, saying:
“He also said to
the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were
brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions’”
Thus far from God’s Word given to us, caused to be written,
that we may see how important information is to God. Any use of information
should bring us to the Truth, Jesus. When it doesn’t, we take note and take
those thoughts captive to Christ and perhaps leave them there. What good do
they do us?
Mr. Rogers is very concerned that our society is much more
concerned with information than wonder and reflection. And these are the
thieves and discontents in our Gospel reading today. Jesus may praise the
“shrewdness” in the end, but He does not praise, excuse, or condone their
thievery.
Neither the Dishonest Manager nor the debtors deal honestly
with their Lord. They refuse to pay back, they refuse to deal fairly, and they
refuse to repent. They are playing the game and using the information they have
by being informed of the business to come out on top.
Information is still important in our day, as it ever has
been. If you deal in insider trading, you get the best deal first. If you deal
as a spy, you know what happens first. If you read the end of a book first…you
get it. Information is key.
Thus, being informed should be a good thing, right? The more
information you have, the better decisions you can make and the happier things
will be. At least, that’s what we’re told.
Let’s go back to the Gospel reading. The Dishonest Manager
was informed. He knew how to work the system and his Lord’s business and while
that could have been used for good, he used it to be dishonest. As the Small
Catechism says of the 7th commandment:
“We should fear and love God so that we do not take our
neighbor’s money or possessions or get them in any dishonest way, but help him
to improve and protect his possessions and income.”
Likewise, being informed did not help the debtors one bit.
They remained debtors, but now the Dishonest manager has made thieves of them
as well. Thus being informed is not necessarily a good thing.
And the world has employed this “informed” strategery on you,
to prevent you from being decent people as well. For when you say “informed”
today, it means something completely different.
Informed, today, means just knowing about 57 different,
horrible things that are going on that you can’t do a single thing about, at
all times.
Inundated is the word. Buried under so much information that
you have neither the mental capacity nor the energy to deal with it all
properly. In fact, many have said that you should not be on your phone after a
certain time at night, because your brain will still be trying to process all
that late information while you’re trying to sleep and you won’t get good
sleep.
Such as: how much do you owe the Master? Your body is
telling you that you owe plenty. Those checks you are cashing today are going
to come back. But what about your spirit? Is He also telling you something
there? In your life, you promised to just be nice to people, until you weren’t.
In your baptism, you promised Him you would make every
effort to live according to your confession, grow in Christian teaching, and
not even persecution, need, or death would cause you to renounce it. How much
did it cost you to not be nice? How much was it that got you to sin “for the
last time”? It was without cost, wasn’t it?
And we would say we all deserved it. We all made the
decisions. We all took the ticket. We all knew what we were getting into.
Nobody made us make a decision. Nobody made the dishonest manager dishonest.
Nobody made the debtors dishonest. The Lord gave us life, we did the dishonesty
thing all on our own.
Let’s be honest. You do not know whether or not being
informed is good or bad or whether or not the information you are gaining is
good or bad to begin with. First off, we have to be sure there is honesty in
this world. Once we find the source of that honesty, then the only conclusion
is to follow it.
Like the unrighteous wealth we heard of in the Gospel today,
information is a tool. It is not a toy and it is not given for us to pursue at
the expense of others in God’s Name. It is a tool for showing the honesty of
God and the dishonesty of our own selves.
Information is not neutral. There is no unbiased information
out there. It all comes with an agenda, no matter what the prologue tells you.
Human objectivity is a myth.
And while God does not snap His fingers and make dishonesty
disappear, He does come to inject truth into the world. The Truth. He proves
His truth, in Love. That is His solution to the dishonesty of sin: love.
Because He comes with the same story as any
Messiah-complexed man. I have the truth! Believe me over those other guys!
Follow me, not them! The difference is, Jesus gives. He does not take. He
doesn’t just tell you, He shows you.
He does not consider it a waste to step out of heaven into a
virgin’s womb. He does not consider it a waste of time to be subject to His
parents in His young life. He does not consider it squandering His Father’s
power when He heals the sick, feeds the poor, and raises the dead. And that
should be enough from Him to prove His truthfulness to us.
In fact, that is His defense at His sham-trial in front of
the high priest. He asks for which good work are they condemning Him. “I
have spoken openly to the world, Jesus answered. I always taught in the
synagogues and at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing
in secret. Why are you asking Me? Ask those who heard My message. Surely they
know what I said.” (John 18:20-21)
He tells us, then He shows us. For in order to perfect and
fulfill His words and deeds as the God-man, He then goes on to the cross in joy
and love for fallen humanity. Joy in that He gets to show the greatest love
ever, that a man lay down His life for His friends and grant them faith,
forgiveness, and eternal life.
And love in that He suffers death on a cross to purchase and
win you from your dishonesty. This information does not come from the world,
but is only revealed in the Bible. God’s truth about our Savior Jesus Christ,
made known only in the Bible; the Old Testament, which promises the coming
Messiah, and the New Testament, which tells us of the Messiah Who has come.
Jesus gives you His truth in true love. Love that is free of
charge, leading to a message that is free of charge: the Gospel. The Gospel is
without cost. Jesus suffered for it and His Apostles suffered double to make
sure that was known.
St. Paul comments, “I preached the gospel of God to you
free of charge. I robbed other churches by accepting their support in order to
serve you. And when I was with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone;
for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. I have refrained
from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so. As surely
as the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in
the regions of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!” (2 Cor
11:7-11)
The information Jesus gives is therefore trustworthy. He has
spoken in front of public scrutiny, He has done His work before all nations,
and He continues to seek and save today in Public worship. This is what Jesus
does with His information. “As it is written, He has distributed freely, he
has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9).
In our sin, we weaponize the information we receive to wield
against our neighbors and even against God. In Christ, we are invited into the
unconditional, undeserving, and unending love of God. This is the information
we obtain from the Creator of the universe.
Thus, it is the information we use to judge all other
information. Not that we can get a degree in it, but that God’s Word keeps us
in the Truth. The Truth that there is good information out there. The Truth
that it is full of God’s love and mercy. And the Truth that there is a Way and
a Life towards that source; in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Amen.
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