“SONS OF LIGHT”
Saint Luke 16. 1-9
The Ninth Sunday after Trinity: 13 August Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
Jesus told a story; a very interesting and perhaps disturbing story. It was a parable; a so-called “Kingdom Parable” as it illustrates a truth about the Lord’s flock; about His sheep and their “everlasting home.”
He used a “bad example” to make a truthful point; an accurate observation about your own sinful nature.
First the “bad example:” The Lord does not condone stealing, wasting, or frittering away another man’s property or goods. Taking what doesn’t belong to you, or by your inactivity letting it be squandered when you could have prevented it, is a sin; it is one of the Ten Commandments. Thieves will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. You are not to emulate the dishonest steward by stealing subsequently to being “discovered” so that you can either pay off the original debt or simply show your “shrewdness” hoping the authorities will be equally impressed by your ingenuity or presumption of their inexhaustible goodness and grace.
The Lord’s point is be what you are; use what you have been given; steward the gifts poured out to you. Though you are stilled attacked daily by your “old sinful self,” though the world and the devil try to win you over to their side permanently, you are no longer dead in sin and damned by nature. You have a new nature. The fact that, in reality, you do steal every day (read your Catechism again, the explanation… you do!) it is no longer held against you. Christ Jesus lived a life perfect in stewardship, care and concern for people’s goods, possessions, reputations, belongings, and property. The Lord never broke the Seventh Commandment, and because of it, you are given the credit. When the Judge of all the Earth looks at you, at your “record,” He sees not the petty criminal, the embezzling “cutpurse” that you are, but instead He sees only the Lamb. You are in the Lamb: innocent, not guilty. This perfectly honest and totally good Man, a Man like you except He is also God, then went to the cross and suffered and died for your thieving. When you think that cheating on your taxes is no big thing; remember the spikes. When you assume that taking home a few office supplies is minor; remember the minor beatings and spit Jesus endured. When you think that not giving your employer your best most honest efforts is just what everyone else is doing; hearken back to Christ hanging there bleeding, His best efforts for your kleptomania; rather your sinomania.
Because of Jesus’ life and death; because He has given all its benefits to you, you are no longer dishonest stewards but new creations, new Saintly Stewards in the Spirit.
So what now? He tells you: “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.” The world is fallen and its Prince is Satan. Satan’s sons are those who do not belong to the Lamb. Yet, as the Lord has told, even the evil seed can use more evil (what they have; what they have been given) to seemingly get along; or do quite well. You brethren are not just my brethren but also brothers and sisters of this Lamb who (as Saint John informs us) is also the Light of the World. You have been made “sons of Light” by being drenched in the Waters of + Life, saturated with the Blood of Jesus and cleansed cleaner than light.
So again, what now? “I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”
Rest easy, the Lord is not telling you to earn or win your salvation by your money, works or gifts to charity. But He is correct; all that you have, all that you exercise “stewardship” over in this world is unrighteous. Only Christ saves. Only the Blood of the Lamb of Light rescues.So yes, of course you are to love your neighbor as yourself. You as a Christian use your resources to feed the hungry, comfort the sick and clothe the naked. You are all, as “Gospel lights,” shining Jesus in the dark world every time your mission giving provides pastors the opportunity to do in other areas what they do here for you.
But the Lord isn’t about you doing. He is the doer. So even before you can reflect His light and love to others, you yourselves are constantly bathed in His Grace. The Lord uses earthly “means” to give you Himself. By themselves grapes (and the wine they produce), wheat (and the bread which comes from the heads), water, paper and ink are all merely “unrighteous mammon,” that is, neither good nor bad in themselves, but certainly not salvific. It is when the Word of God is added to the wine and bread; when the Word of God is connected to the Water in the font; when the Word is prayed, sung and read from Holy Scripture that Jesus is bodily present with you and for you. It is in Him that you have your everlasting home. Jesus is the Offering, the Priest, the Host, the Meal, the Tabernacle, and the Heavenly Mansions themselves.
You are here at His feet. Take your bill which says you owe everything, that you are the greatest debtor, greatest thief, greatest sinner, and drop it. The indictment against you has been paid in full. The real oil of Baptism marks you; the real Bread of the Sacrament feeds you... Welcome Home.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost