Choosing our Master: A Meditation on Luke 16, for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:

and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon,

who will commit to your trust the true riches?

And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's,

who shall give you that which is your own?

 No servant can serve two masters:

for either he will hate the one, and love the other;

or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

 

 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous,

heard all these things: and they derided him.

And he said unto them,

Ye are they which justify yourselves before men;

but God knoweth your hearts:

for that which is highly esteemed among men

is abomination in the sight of God.

 

The first 15 verses of Luke’s 16^th chapter are hard to hear, and perhaps even harder to understand.  Jesus’ teaching began with a parable of an unjust steward, who after being fired by his employer, used the last vestiges of his positional authority to write off the debts of his employer’s debtors, so they would take care of him after he was finally cast out.  Jesus did not commend the embezzlement and fraud, but noted that the evil people of that generation were more shrewd in their practical wisdom than those who purported to follow God.  He further explained that no one to whom earthly riches were committed should hold those riches in higher esteem than the God who gave those riches to them—for as in all things, the heart will only have one chief loyalty, either the Creator or the creature.  Since every creature set before God becomes an idol, what Jesus declared is absolutely true:  no one can serve both riches and God.  A person who loves money above all things cannot be a disciple of God, who calls all people to love Him with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind.  Just as no creature of itself is created evil, money is not the problem—only the heart and mind who set up those riches as the highest goal in life, and thus make money an idol they will pursue even against the Word of God.

 

The Pharisees, of course, derided Jesus for what they must certainly have thought was naivete, being covetous in their lust for wealth and power.  Such hearts and minds were already slaves to creaturely idols no matter how religiously they presented themselves, and thus their self-justifications were really just self-delusions.  Jesus pinned them down hard before the crowds, pointing out that their religious theatrics before men which gained them so much political and monetary advantage, were abominations before the only God whose opinion truly mattered.  Jesus’ challenge remains in full force for every generation to receive, since there is no accolade or applause of men that can overthrow or outweigh the perspective of Almighty God.  No matter how august the company, how revered the fellowship, or how ostentatious the surroundings, men are still just men, and by their nature they can never be more than creatures.  In any human gathering even at its best, the honors and certificates and awards and privileges bestowed by men among their confreres can never be equal to the grace given by God; and at their worst, when human conventions conflict with God’s Word, they become abominations of idolatry and unfaithfulness.

 

The Church has much to learn from Jesus in this regard, particularly in our age.  Perhaps because our technology and our society has become awash in information and we have the ability to broadcast every voice and visage to instantaneous audiences of millions, the cults of personality, power, celebrity, and wealth are easy sirens to heed.  Some groups will lavish awards upon each other for cinema or music or theater or the arts, while others will serenade each other for works of political action, academic research, or corporate citizenship.  It is not evil that men make for themselves associations, but when they substitute the awards and recognitions of men for the approval of God, they become twisted caricatures of what was once created good.  The Church is not immune to these temptations, either, and in many areas has fallen headlong into them.  Consider how many ecclesiastical leaders have abandoned the biblical witness to human sexuality, marriage and divorce, the murder of children, or adopted the ideologies of Marxist communism, Darwinian evolution, or secular humanism.  How many Christian fellowships, synods, or church bodies have muted their messaging to avoid losing members or reducing the flow money into their bureaucratic coffers?  How many have aligned with political leaders that despise them so as not to be publicly persecuted in the near term for fancifully created hate laws?  How many pastors bowed down to secular governments by shutting down their churches during the relatively tepid COVID plague, when their forebearers braved truly horrible plagues with churches open as a testimony that the life to come is of infinitely more value than our brief pilgrimage here?  How many Christian seminaries have bowed to secular certification in order to preserve the flow of federal aid dollars into their bank accounts, adding unbiblical teachings to their curriculum or removing curriculum that offends governmental watchdogs?

 

The truth is, our guilt is manifest as much today as it was among the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, only we pretend to be more technologically sophisticated about it.  And today, the solution to our own most grievous fault is the same solution that has been needed in every age:  Jesus Christ.  Only Jesus has been truly faithful in the lesser things of this world, so that the true riches of His Father’s Kingdom might be fully given to His charge.  Only Jesus passed through this world’s temporal treasures without sacrificing the glories of the Kingdom to come.  Only Jesus could become the New Adam and succeed where our first parents failed, fulfilling all righteousness and yielding to no evil.  Only Jesus could take that perfect life, and march up the hill of Calvary to bear the sinful failures of every man, woman, and child who would ever walk through this world.  Only Jesus could take the sins of all unfaithful stewards like you and me, and in paying our infinite debt, return to us grace, peace, forgiveness, and eternal life.  What we could not do on our own, He has done perfectly, that as He rose triumphant from the grave, He might also raise us up in His image to abide in His Word by the power of His Holy Spirit, all to the glory of God the Father unto ages of ages without end.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, convicting you rightly of what you have failed to do, and giving to you by faith the grace to rise up in a new life, born from above by Water and Spirit.  Hear the Word of Him who declares your idols defunct, and gives to you instead the true riches of His Kingdom, and a loving trust in the only God who is and has always been your Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier.  Set aside the twisted affections for things that pass, that your heart and mind might always dwell upon the One who seeks and saves you, that no creature might arrogate in your mind to the throne which belongs to God alone.  Hear Him who calls to you this day, that you might have only one Master, and that it be He who alone loves and saves all who put their trust in Him.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.