Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 16:1-13

Sometimes, when we listen to Jesus teach in parables we hear a clear command:
“Go and do likewise.”

Today isn’t one of those times. While the parable we hear in Luke’s gospel leaves us with a lot of questions, I can confidently say that Jesus doesn’t want us to loan money and charge outrageous interest, steal from our employers, or manipulate others so that they will be indebted to us.

So, we’re left with confusion about why Jesus tells us this parable at all.

The best explanation I have heard is one offered by Julian DeShazier (Dee-Shah-Zee-Ay), a pastor and faculty member at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. He thinks that “[Jesus] is talking to two different audiences.”[i]

This conversation follows his telling of the parable of the lost things that we heard last week and the parable of the prodigal son.

Jesus is talking to his disciples, but we know they are also surrounded by all these other people who Luke tells us are tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees and scribes. (15:1-2) So “Jesus talks to the crowd, pauses, talks to his disciples, and then talks to the crowd again.”[ii]

A few weeks ago, when my daughter got married in Boston, the ceremony was in the Boston Public Garden. There were about thirty of us at the wedding, but it was a large public park so there were also a number of people on the periphery of where the ceremony took place. People we didn’t know. But they could hear and see everything that was happening.

That’s seems to be what’s happening here. Jesus has two audiences.

This parable isn’t about imparting a life lesson or teaching good behavior.

Instead, I think Jesus tells the people in the crowd who have made dishonest gains or treated others unfairly to change their behavior and redeem themselves.

I think he is challenging all of his followers to see the abundant gifts God has entrusted us with and ask how we can be good stewards.

What does it look like for us to be found trustworthy with what we have been given?

We shouldn’t underestimate the wealth we’ve been given.

The true riches we have are

our very lives, lived in response to God’s love.

We have boundless grace from God and forgiveness for our sin.

We have an inheritance with Jesus as children of God.

And, we are entrusted with the Good News of God’s love and empowered by the Holy Spirit to share that Good News with others.

That is wealth that cannot be measured in dollars and cents.

But we, especially here at Grace Lutheran Church,
are also stewards of wealth that can be measured in dollars and cents.

This week I sat in with board members from the Grace Foundation as they evaluated funding requests and made decisions about the grants to distribute later this year. There is more than $120,000 available for grants and scholarships because the foundation has been a good steward of what they’ve been given.

And recently, Deacon Kimberly has been in meetings with social ministry as they make budget recommendations for next year, deciding which ministry partnerships to continue and where investment is needed most. This year, they gave nearly $60,000 in support for our neighbors, including helping address housing and food insecurity, and care for our children and vulnerable neighbors.

Individually, in the stewardship mailing that may have already arrived in your mailbox, and that Jen Heilemann from the stewardship team described in this morning’s ministry moment, each of us here is also being asked, “How will you respond to God’s abundance?”

One aspect of your stewardship is financial giving. As a former fundraiser, I am not going to shy away from asking you to invest financially in Grace’s ministry and mission for the coming year. Not as something you “have to do” but as something you “get to do.” In our partnership together, you have an opportunity to see God’s love in action through our work as the Church and experience the joy of seeing God’s love transform our world.

Another aspect of your stewardship is your relationship with God, so we ask how you will respond to the invitation to grow deeper spiritually. Maybe you will take time to be quiet and study or read, listening for God’s voice, or to get loud and sing, celebrating all God has given us.

And thirdly, we invite you to reflect on your service in the congregation and community. What does love in action look like for you?

One of the joys I have where I sit is getting to see all the people from Grace who are involved in the community apart from Grace’s initiatives. Independently from Servant Saturday, food drives and the other opportunities we provide, many of you are connected to our ministry partners because you have responded to their needs with your time, skills and knowledge. In the many ways that you are God’s hands and feet in the world, you are being stewards of all that God has given you.

We are all stewards of what we have been given in abundance by God, and God calls us to be faithful and trustworthy in matters large and small.

May it be so in our community.

Amen.

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[i] Julian DeShazier . “Living by the Word”, Christian Century, August 27, 2019.

[ii] ibid

"Being the Beloved" Midweek Reflection (Week 1)

Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved began as a letter to a dear friend. He had met a man named Fred Bratman years earlier when Nouwen was teaching at Columbia University, and they had many conversations about spiritual and secular life. Bratman, a secular Jew living in New York City later asked Nouwen to write for him and his friends, an audience unfamiliar with the language and traditions of the Church and Christianity. He told Nouwen, “You have something to say, but you keep saying it to the people who least need to hear it.” (21)

Over the next seven weeks, I’m going to reflect on Nouwen’s book and what difference it makes that God calls each of us “God’s beloved”, and we are called to live a life based on that fact. 

Nouwen begins as we did last Wednesday with God’s words to Jesus at his baptism:

“You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you.” (Mt. 3:16-17, Mark 1:10-11, Luke 3: 21-22)

To each one of us, God says, “You are the Beloved.”

And, I wonder, what images come to your mind when you hear the word “loved” or “beloved”?

God chooses each one of us and loves each one of us with the same heart with which God loves Jesus. (Abiding Together podcast)

In our lives, sometimes we have other voices that tell us a different message; the message that says you are “no good”, “a failure”, “worthless”, “ugly” or “a nobody”, and those negative voices can be so loud or persistent that they are easy to believe.

But God’s voice is louder still.

This reminds me of Martin Luther who, as the story goes, would face temptation by saying, ‘I have been baptized, I am a Christian.”  (Works of Martin Luther (WAT) Volume 6. no.6830; 217, 26f.)

We need to listen for God’s voice calling us the Beloved.

We need to remember that God speaks truth, and, as Pope John Paul II said, “We are not the sum of what we’ve done but of the Father’s love for us.” (Apostolic Letter to the Elderly (October 1, 1999))

And we need to remember, as Deacon Kimberly reminded us on Sunday, and we heard again in tonight’s reading from Romans, that nothing separates us from the love of God.

Listening for God’s voice is a central practice of our faith and spirituality. This is the work of prayer, not only talking to God, but leaving space for silence and active listening for what God says and how God responds. It is easy to listen to loud and intrusive voices, to streaming media and news, and even to friends and family, but listening to God’s voice “with great attentiveness” is different.

As we continue with worship and go about our daily lives through the coming week, I invite you to stop each day and take time to listen to God who calls you the beloved. Amen.