​15th Sunday after Pentecost – C (Proper 20)                                                LSB #’s 737, 730, 701
Text – Luke 16:11
 
If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 
 
ENtRUSTED WiTH TRUE RICHES
 
 
Christianity is often thought of as a set of principles that people struggle to follow.  The struggle occurs while trying to earn their way into God’s favor with self-denial & with obedience.   In that mindset, getting to heaven is often reduced to simply trying your best.  “Do your best & God will take care of the rest” is a conclusion that many people cling to. 
The challenge to that kind of thinking comes to us from St. Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, where he wrote:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith.   And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  (Ephesians 2:8-10 ESV)   
Do you hear how those words challenge the human thinking that says, “Do your best & God will take care of the rest”?    Indeed, God does call us to do our best, but not to earn His favor.  Jesus taught at Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  (ESV)    Doing our best falls a long way short of being perfect. 
Another problem with doing our best & God will take care of the rest, is that any good things we do were already prepared beforehand, by God – every one of them.  So, the truth is, they are not actually our good works to begin with.  They are not of our own creation or doing. 
Our Creator does call us to do our best, but as a response to His love & mercy that comes first.   He does not call us to earn His love.   That’d be the ultimate in cruelty, because our Creator knows it is impossible for us to do.   It is only God’s love that enables you or me to do anything good at all.  Without the love of Jesus all that we do is completely corrupted by sin.   And even with Christ’s love none of our good works are perfect.   From our own experience we know the frustrations that come with trying to do something perfectly. 
The Gospel reading today begins chapter 16, but Jesus’ teaching there actually continues that of chapter 15.  There, the tax collectors & sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus, & the religious leaders of His day, “…grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners & eats with them.’”  (Luke 15:2 ESV)   Jesus responded with three parables about things that were lost. 
Our Savior was making the point that if you lose something valuable, & then find it, any normal person will rejoice.  Jesus is highlighting that the tax collectors & sinners had been lost, & God had sent His Son to find them, because they were of great value to their Creator.   Those parables look at the situation from the perspective of God who is searching for them. 
As chapter 16 opens, this parable looks at things from the perspective of the person who is lost.  A manager was discovered to be incompetent at best; crooked at worst.  He gets fired yet is not immediately ushered out the door.  Recognizing that he’s too weak for manual labor & too ashamed to beg, he comes up with a plan that rests entirely upon the mercy of his boss. 
“…summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he…” dramatically cuts the amount they owe to his boss.  (Luke 16:5 ESV)   The manager no doubt hopes that he is feathering his nest with those debtors so they return the favor in the future.  The manager also counts on the mercy of his master to not cause him harm beyond having him fired. 
Jesus clearly designed this parable to take a shocking turn.  The actions of the dishonest manager, banking on the mercy of his master, are stunning.  And they are nothing compared with the actual mercy shown by the master who, “…commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.”  (Luke 16:8a ESV)   In the dog-eat-dog world we live in, at the very least we’d expect a criminal investigation to be launched or a lawsuit to be filed.  Jesus clearly designed this parable with a shocking conclusion in order to highlight the mercy of our heavenly Master. 
Much of our nation’s conversation today leads with hatred.  The national news media seems intent on attacking our president with every single newscast.  Then, our president gives it right back & none of them are godly enough to break the vicious cycle.  In the shocking conclusion of today’s parable, Jesus is pointing out how rare it is to rely upon mercy. 
The religious leaders of His day complained that Jesus was eating with, or having mercy toward, tax collectors & sinners.   In our day, people are spewing hatred at each other on both sides, the right & the left, & neither side seems inclined to stop.   Are we joining in with them, by hating people we have never met or spoken to? 
With this parable, Jesus calls us to do our best in showing mercy to others.  However, that is just a minor point.  What Jesus is really calling us to is trusting completely in the mercy of our heavenly Father.  All of us are dishonest managers in that daily you & I do waste the gifts of our Master.  He’s given us forgiveness & we share little of it. 
When the “other side” does something to offend us, by calling for violence & riots or even applauding murder, rather than following the impulse to get even, we should trust in God’s mercy for us.  Every one of us deserves hell for the evil we have spawned, & shockingly, Yahweh sent His own Son to die for what you & I have done & have left undone. 
Many people throughout history have refused to accept & believe that good news.   And all who currently believe it, are always in danger of turning away from the gift of their salvation in Jesus.  He knows that & tells this parable to call us back again & again to His mercy.   The words of the sermon text are meant to counter the temptations that Satan puts before us: “If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?”   In other words, if we are drawn to a lack of mercy in this life, who will entrust to us the true riches?  Jesus is saying that no one who has a wrong heart can be trusted with God’s truth which is salvation by grace alone. 
Our real problems in life are not about any set of principles we follow.  They’re not about practicing self-denial, nor are they about obedience.  Our real problem is our sinful heart.  How we live our lives, whether doing good or evil, flows out of our connection to Christ, or our lack of connection to Him.   We need that connection even to find rest in God’s mercy. 
It’s not easy to live that way.  Satan constantly challenges it.  Our sinful nature & our pride despise it.  That’s part of the reason this parable is so shocking.  How could the dishonest manager so completely rely upon the mercy of his master?  It leaves him absolutely vulnerable.  The Pharisees reacted to this parable by ridiculing Jesus. 
Apparently, they had not learned a thing from the parables of Jesus.  You & I face the same temptation to reject God’s mercy as the only way to heaven.  We’re tempted to resent that God is searching for us as if we’re lost.  We’re tempted to reject God’s mercy as if we are somehow dependent upon Him.  Either one challenges are self-determination.  
With those attitudes the true riches of God’s kingdom are wasted upon us.   For that reason, Jesus again calls us to lean solely upon the mercy of our heavenly Father.  There alone is salvation found.  There alone is rest from sin.  There alone is the true life that never ends.  When you feel that knee-jerk reaction to reject God’s grace, call upon Him in that time of trouble. 
Romans 10:13, “…everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Amen. 
 
The world seeks after wealth & all that mammon offers yet never is content though gold should fill its coffers.   I have a higher good, content with it I’ll be:  My Jesus is my wealth.  What is the world to me!  Amen.  LSB 730:3. 

13th Sunday after Pentecost – C (Proper 19)                                      LSB #’s 684, 611, 819:1, 3-4
Text – 1 Timothy 1:15
 
The saying is trustworthy & deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
 
THE G.O.A.T.
 
 
If you’re not a huge professional sports fan, THE G.O.A.T. may be something you’re unfamiliar with.  The acronym stands for Greatest of all Time.  In the National Football League, Tom Brady is considered to be THE G.O.A.T. almost unanimously.  In the National Basketball Association, Michael Jordan is favored by many, but there is a lot more debate. 
Major League Baseball has seen thousands more players than any other league & it’s been a major pastime for many more years.  It’s a lot more difficult to come to a consensus.    In the realm of Christianity, the apostle Paul has staked his claim to being THE G.O.A.T.:
“The saying is trustworthy & deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”  (1 Timothy 1:15 ESV)   In our world alone that is an amazing claim.  In Utah, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight, in front of thousands of people.  
In North Carolina, a young woman who fled the war in Ukraine was brutally stabbed to death by the man in the seat behind her.  Worse yet, three other people were within 8 feet of her, & not a single one of them made a move to help her.   Catholic school students were at chapel when a killer opened fire through the windows & ended the lives of two children. 
In Colorado, a teenager shot two other students at their school before he committed suicide.  In the Middle East hundreds of thousands of people have had their lives destroyed by the sadistic actions of cold-blooded killers.  The ego of Vladamir Putin has brought Ukraine to ruin & destroyed the lives of millions of people.  Less than a hundred years ago, Adolph Hitler had anywhere from 11-17 million people executed.  Joseph Stalin had another 20 million slaughtered.  Mao Zedong of China is estimated to have had between 30 & 45 million people destroyed.   Yet, St. Paul claims that he is the chief of sinners.   What kind of definition is he working with?  Is that definition one that you & I should be applying to ourselves?  
“The saying is trustworthy & deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”  (1 Timothy 1:15 ESV)   By default, as sinful human beings, when we’re confronted with a weak version of the Law, we tend to work with this definition: “Chief of sinners though I be / you-know-who is worse than me!” 
All the afore mentioned sinners, who’ve killed close to a hundred million people, are certainly worse than any of us, aren’t they?   To answer, “Yeah!” is where we end up when we work with the definition: “Chief of sinners though I be / you-know-who is worse than me!” 
That way of thinking reduces sin to nothing more than a criminal record.  Here’s the list of sins I’ve committed,  & since my list is shorter than yours  I’m not as bad  as you are.  In that sense all of us can find someone with a list that is longer than ours.   But that is not the definition used by St. Paul.  My sin is not simply a list of the bad things I’ve done. 
At its core, sin is the attitude of my heart.   In which direction is my heart facing?   In which direction is your heart facing?   Each morning, as you begin to regain consciousness, what are the first thoughts that come to mind?  Aren’t they often something about how you feel? 
I’m not a morning person so it’s common for me, as I wake up, to realize, I feel tired this morning.  It becomes clear that I didn’t get enough sleep, or I didn’t sleep well.  Or, can that really be my alarm – already?  What time is it anyway?  If things are really bad, “Where am I?” 
For those who are morning people, I’m just guessing now, “Oh, the sun is shining!  The birds are singing!  I feel alive & awake & refreshed!  Look out day, here I come!  There are so many things I’m looking forward to doing.”   In either illustration, morning person or not morning person, did the first thoughts of consciousness include anything like these words?  “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor & glory forever & ever.  Amen.”  (1 Timothy 1:17 ESV)  Is that how your mornings begin, from the very first moment? 
 Every thought, of every moment, of every day should be centered in our Creator.   They don’t have to be explicitly focused on Yahweh, but every thought should revolve around Him.  As His creation, & especially as His children, our very existence is centered in Him & in Him alone.  That is so, because apart from the Creator, you & I have no existence. 
Every thought,    of every moment,    of every day…   Before the fall into sin, that is how life was for Adam & Eve.   Not a one of us can begin to comprehend the jarring break that occurred once they bit into that forbidden fruit.   I expect that Satan’s lie was immediately obvious in a heart-wrenching way that none of us can comprehend.  Sin is normal for you & me. 
St. Paul was barely scratching the surface when he wrote: “The saying is trustworthy & deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”  (1 Timothy 1:15 ESV)   Since we live in a world that has been broken by sin, that should be your confession & mine   every moment   of every day. 
At its core, sin is the attitude of my heart.   Of all the horrific sins being committed each day by every human being that is alive, the only ones that are relevant to me are the sins I commit.  Those are the only sins that have separated me from my Creator.   Regarding my salvation, I am the chief of sinners.  No other sins matter.   I am a lost & condemned creature. 
Nevertheless, those are not the only operative words in the sermon text.  Paul also wrote: “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners…”  (1 Timothy 1:15 ESV)   All of us are sinners & all of us are the chief of sinners & that is why Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  He gave up the glories of heaven in order to rescue each & every one of us.  The words of St. Paul expose our negotiations in measuring our niceness or naughtiness relative to our neighbor.  When Paul confesses that he is THE G.O.A.T., that Word of God  busts us down to the bottom of the line every time.  Our sinful nature rejects that, but by God’s grace, our saintly nature believes it. 
Sinners who soberly face their sin have no place to run but to a savior, & the Savior to run to is at the cross.  The cross is where sin goes to die, but we go there only by the power of the Gospel.  The face staring at you when you see the law is the face of Christ Jesus on the cross.  In effect, Jesus says, “Come to me at the cross & I will kill your sin.” 
With St. Paul, our faithful response is not guilt or repayment or going back to measuring, but simple doxology, as V. 17 says, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor & glory forever & ever.  Amen.”  (1 Timothy 1:17 ESV) 
 
 
 
Chief of sinners though I be,  Jesus shed His blood for me,  died that I might live on high,  lives that I might never die.  As the branch is to the vine, I am His, & He is mine.  Oh, the height of Jesus’ love, higher than the heavens above, deeper than the depths of sea, lasting as eternity! Love that found me – wondrous thought!  Found me when I sought Him not.  Only Jesus can impart balm to heal the wounded heart, peace that flows from sin forgiven, joy that lifts the soul to heaven, faith & hope to walk with God in the way that Enoch trod.  Amen.  LSB 611:1-3.