Sermon: St. Monica – 2023

27 Aug 2023

Text: Luke 7:11-17 (1 Sam 1:10-20, 1 Tim 5:3-10)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

You may have never heard of Monica of Thagaste.  She died 1,636 years ago at the age of fifty-five.  She was not a famous actress or athlete or ruler of a country.  She didn’t invent anything or break some kind of glass ceiling.  But by the standards of our current culture, she was a rebel.  She changed the world.  And though the world doesn’t remember her, we do, dear brothers and sisters.  We call her Saint Monica, and today is her feast day in the church year.

Monica grew up in northern Africa under the Roman Empire.  She was married to an adulterous, pagan man with a violent temper.  Monica was a devout Christian and mother.  She prayed constantly for her husband and her children – and her husband, Patricius, found her annoying, but respected her for her Christian life. 

Their son Augustine was brilliant, but lazy, had bad morals, fathered a child out of wedlock, never married the child’s mother, and joined a cult.  What did Monica do?  She prayed.  And prayed.  And prayed.  In time, Augustine would become a teacher in Rome.  He began to doubt the teachings of the Manichaean cult.  Monica moved to Rome with her son, and then to Milan, where they both heard the preaching of Bishop Ambrose: a faithful proclaimer of the Scriptures, of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, of Jesus.

The Lord was compassionate toward Monica, and her prayers were answered, as Augustine converted to Christianity, as had Monica’s husband years earlier on his deathbed.  Saint Augustine went on to change the world as a Christian pastor, bishop, and theologian – one of the original four “doctors of the church.”  He wrote many books on the Christian faith, and is respected even by non-Christians as a philosopher.  For hundreds of years, monks dedicated their lives to a religious order that followed in his footsteps.  One of these Augustinian monks who lived a thousand years later was a preacher named Martin Luther.

The world today does not respect either prayer or motherhood.  When a tragedy happens, our own modern pagans make fun of the idea of prayer.  But prayer truly changes the world – unlike protesting, dying your hair, and screaming profanities on social media.  Motherhood also truly changes the world – unlike sexual promiscuity and gender confusion.  St. Monica boldly lived out the Christian life.  As we might say today, St. Monica was “based.”  And she secured the love and respect of her husband and children, and ultimately, of the entire Christian church.

Monica makes us think of many other women of faith, and how their prayers were answered.  In our Gospel, we call to mind the widow of Nain whose only son had died.  “When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’”  And Jesus proceeded to raise her son from the dead.  Jesus did the same thing for Monica, whose son was lost, but then was found.  Her prayers mattered.  Her love for her son mattered.  Her daily work as a wife and mother mattered.  And Jesus had compassion on her and heard her prayers.  Jesus promises to raise all who confess Him on the Last Day: children of mothers and fathers.  For Jesus hears our prayers and has compassion.  Dear mothers, your prayers for your children are heard by your compassionate God.  Your prayers are not in vain.  Your prayers matter, no matter what our mocking, pagan world says.

In our Old Testament lesson we call to mind the great woman Hannah, who wanted children, but was barren.  Hannah prayed fervently.  She wanted to present her husband with a son.  She wanted her shame taken away from her.  Her prayers were so unusual that Eli the priest first thought that she was drunk.  She explained to Eli, “I am a woman troubled in spirit… I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.  Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”  The Lord had compassion on Hannah.  She gave birth to a son named Samuel: a great prophet of the Lord.

St. Monica reflects the godly widow that St. Paul talks about in our epistle reading: “having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and devoted herself to every good work.”

Monica lived to see both her husband Patricius and her son Augustine baptized.  She died shortly after Augustine’s baptism.  But God continued to answer her prayers even after her death, for indeed, we know that Augustine became a teacher of the faith, was ordained a priest, and became the bishop of Hippo, near where Monica raised him in northern Africa.  Bishop Augustine’s sermons were written down by secretaries, and we still have many of them today, along with his books and spiritual writings.  Augustine debated the heretic Pelagius, and Augustine’s teachings – drawn directly from the Scriptures, that we are saved by grace and not by works – were the official teaching of the Roman Church for hundreds of years, a teaching that was recovered at the Reformation.  For just as Monica faithfully prayed every day, attended the Divine Service and heard the Scriptures read every week, and centered her entire life on the Christian faith and the nurture of her family, so also did Augustine devote his life to Jesus and the church.  Augustine’s sister Perpetua likewise became a devout Christian: a nun and a writer.

We live in a day and age where children are seen as a nuisance, where Christianity is seen as a silly superstition (or a threat to our modern American way of life), where women are told that unless they have a career, they are unimportant.  We live in a culture that denigrates motherhood, and encourages women to make their mark in the world by imitating men.  Monica lived in not only a pagan culture, but a pagan family.  But she was a Christian, and boldly practiced her faith no matter what anyone thought about it.  Monica loved her family, did not give up on them.

St. Monica is not just a role model for mothers, or for women, but for all parents and all Christians.  St. Monica teaches us the importance of prayer, of the faithful day-in-and-day-out practice of the Christian faith and life.  Monica confessed Jesus, and did so boldly.  She threw herself into her vocation as a wife and mother.  And indeed, it is a brave calling to be a spouse and a parent, and to be a confessing Christian in a pagan culture.  Our modern pagan culture despises women like Monica – and in fact, despises womanhood.  But we know better, dear friends.  We know just how powerful women are: bearers of life, nurturers of the family, and faithful Christians whose prayers arouse the Lord’s compassion, changing the course of history.  Let us honor St. Monica, all Christian women and mothers, and the prayers of all Christians.  For even as the world mocks, God uses this great power to change and shape the world through His own power and compassion.  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Wednesday of Trinity 11 – 2023

23 Aug 2023

Text: Luke 18:9-14

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Jesus tells the story that we know today as the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  Even without knowing all the ins and outs of what first century Jews thought about Pharisees and tax collectors, you can figure it out.  The Pharisee’s bragging, and his passive-aggressive denigration of the tax collector, speaks for itself.  And also the humility of the tax collector, who simply asks God to be merciful to him, once again makes the lesson in this story clear.

But Jesus wants to be very clear, and so he tells us the moral of the story: “This man [the tax collector] went down to his house justified, rather than the other.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exulted.”

It’s interesting that the Pharisee begins his prayer-that-isn’t-a-prayer with a thanks-that-isn’t-a-thanks.  “God, I thank you,” he says, just before launching into bragging about what he doesn’t do, and what he does.  God really doesn’t have anything to do with this.  But it is an opportunity for the Pharisee to try to impress his audience – even if it is only one lowly tax collector – or perhaps he is trying to impress himself as well, and also even God.  This is a form of blasphemy and misusing God’s name.  And notice that his “thanksgiving” is closely related to praise – which he offers to himself.

For thanksgiving and praise go together.  They are inseparable to the Christian.  Interestingly, in the chapter before this one, St. Luke records an incident with ten lepers.  This is not a story, but an actual occurrence.  Ten lepers come to Jesus, crying out, like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  And Jesus does.  He heals them.  They all go off to see the priests to be restored to the community.  “Then one of them,” writes Luke, “when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.”  And we also learn that this grateful healed leper was a Samaritan, an outcast – the very opposite of a Pharisee.

It’s hard to imagine that this incident was not on our Lord’s mind as he crafted His story, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  For the lepers in the real world prayed for mercy.  They knew their condition.  They knew that they were without hope except by God’s mercy.  And upon receiving mercy, the grateful leper responded with both thanks and praise.  In fact, we have a hymn that we often sing for Thanksgiving called “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise.”  For the two are inseparable to the Christian.

The Pharisee is not only exalting himself, he lacks actual gratitude toward God.  He doesn’t think to give God actual thanks for cleansing him, nor does he give God actual praise in response.  Rather, he is so self-centered that he brags about himself, and then praises himself.  His behavior is comical, except in real life, this isn’t funny.  It is a pathway to death and hell.  So beware, dear friends.  Jesus is warning us.

And obviously, our tax collector is the opposite.  He humbles himself, and Jesus says that such men are “justified” and “exalted.”  The tax collector’s prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” is answered by Jesus, God the Son, by shedding His blood on the cross.  Jesus doesn’t finish the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  He leaves it off here, with the tax collector’s prayer.  But within our Lord’s moral at the end of the story, we know that salvation has come to this household, to the humble tax collector (who will be exalted by God), who is justified – not by his works, but rather by the exact thing for which he prayed: God’s mercy.  “For by grace you have been saved, through faith.” As St. Paul teaches us.  “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

And boasting is what the Pharisee does, as he focuses on his works, thinking that this is the cause of his salvation, when it’s really the opposite.

Dear friends, let’s be honest.  We are the sin-sore lepers.  We are the sin-laden tax collector.  And, in fact, we are also the sinful by self-deluded Pharisee, as we love to be praised by men.  We are obsessed with ourselves, which is exactly why we recognize this and pray the very prayer of the tax collector in our liturgy: “Lord, have mercy upon us.”  And indeed, gathering here as the leper colony known as the church, we see the leprosy of our sins, we cry for mercy, and Jesus absolves us, and He promises us that we will go down to our houses justified.

And in this house, we confess, we cry for mercy, we are absolved, we hear His Word, we receive His sacrament, we are healed, and we do indeed sings songs of thankfulness and praise.

Let us never forget, dear brothers and sisters, that we are poor, miserable sinners, that we are helpless in our sins, that we have nothing to boast about, and let us also not forget the blood of the Lamb that atones for us, by means of holy baptism: the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covers all our sin.

Let us call to mind the words of our catechism: “All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.  For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.  This is most certainly true.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Meditation: Trinity 11 – 2023

20 Aug 2023

Text: Luke 18:9-14 (Gen 4:1-15, 1 Cor 15:1-10)

Note: This was read by the Deacon

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Cain killed Abel out of jealousy.  They had both made offerings to the Lord, and “the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering He had no regard.”  Cain became enraged in his envy, and so he murdered his brother. 

God accepted Abel’s offering because it was offered “by faith,” as the author of Hebrews tells us.  We see this play out again in today’s Gospel, in which our Lord tells us the story of two other men: one a tax collector, and one a Pharisee.  They both make an offering of their prayers to God from the temple.

And it is important to understand that the Pharisees were looked up to, and the tax collectors were hated.  The Pharisees were devout and religious, and the tax collectors were thieves.  The Pharisees were respected men of the nation, and the tax collectors were seen as traitors.

The Pharisee in the story stands “by himself,” and he prays a prayer giving praise to himself: “I thank you that I am not like other men.”  He mentions the tax collector nearby, and points him out to God as an example of someone he is not like.  For unlike most people, the Pharisee fasts twice as often as usual, and gives massive donations of money to the temple.  And that’s it.  That is his prayer.

On the other hand, the tax collector stands far off, too humble and ashamed of his behavior to “even lift up his eyes to heaven.”  He does not praise himself, but rather asks for God’s mercy, calling himself “a sinner.” 

“I tell you,” says Jesus, “this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.”  So like Cain and Abel, we see two men, two sacrifices, one accepted, one rejected.  And the one who was accepted and declared righteous by God was the sinner – not the guy who fasts and gives money.  The one who was rejected was the Pharisee.  And why this was, we can figure out from St. Luke’s introduction: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.”

And it was the Pharisees – in cooperation with other groups – who murdered  Jesus out of jealousy, men whose sacrifice was not accepted: men who trusted in their works and looked down on others.

But Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by the Lord.  And His sacrifice covers the sins of the real tax collectors who repented, as well as the sins of the entire world.  And God applies this sacrifice to us, dear friends, when we receive this gift of grace by faith, when we believe that this sacrifice applies to us.  And when we realize that we are saved by the blood of the Lamb, there is no place for us to boast – like the Pharisee.  We are unworthy recipients of a gift – like the tax collector. 

This is the Good News that we heard from St. Paul, “by which [we] are  being saved.”  And like St. Paul, we confess: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain.”  For “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”  And  what is important is that Christ’s sacrifice has been accepted, and that God has regard for us.  Thank be to God!  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Trinity 10 – 2023

13 Aug 2023

Text: Luke 19:41-48

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“When [Jesus] drew near and saw the city, He wept over it.”  Jesus is coming to Jerusalem to be crucified.  But He is not mourning for Himself.  He is mourning for the city.  He is mourning for whom the city represents.  He is mourning for the very people who were plotting at that very moment to kill Him.  He mourns for Judas.  He mourns for the priests and scribes and the council.  He mourns for His nation, led astray by wicked leaders.  He is mourning for the unbelievers.

This not only shows us that He is God – for He knows what is coming in Jerusalem’s future (its destruction forty years down the road), but He also has divine compassion for the very enemies that He has come to save by means of His blood.

And our Lord’s own statement shows why He is so filled with sorrow upon reflecting on Jerusalem: “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace.”  Jesus is reflecting on the name “Jerusalem” – which means “City of Peace.”  In fact, the “Salem” part of the word – which means “peace” – is where our church got its name in 1871, only six years after the end of the War Between the States.

But just as we Americans are no longer at peace with one another, neither was Jerusalem as our Lord approached it.  And in fact, Jesus is the Prince of Peace who has come to restore peace: peace between God and man, and peace between men: peace between nations, and peace between individuals.  Jesus has come in the likeness and image of God His Father to restore that likeness and image, which we lost at the Fall, back to us, to heal the separation between God and His beloved creatures (which is why the temple curtain in Jerusalem was torn in two when Jesus died, restoring our broken unity, and making peace). 

And so the coming of Jesus to die violently on the cross as a bloody substitutionary offering is the greatest act of peacemaking in the history of world.  And in fact, after our Lord dies and rises again, He will greet the disciples with the words: “Peace be with you.”  God has visited the world for this very purpose – to come to Jerusalem, and to be sacrificed for the sake of a New Covenant of peace.

And this peace is offered not only to Jerusalem, but to the entire world.  “For God so loved the world,” says Jesus, “that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”  This Good News is first given to His own nation in its capital: Jerusalem.  And Jesus tells the church to spread this Good News from there, to Judea and Samaria, and from there, to the very ends of the earth: to Jews and Gentiles the world over.  For the peace prophesied in the very name “Jerusalem” is a peace that transcends all nationalities, languages, and borders.  God has not only visited Jerusalem, but also the world.  But it will be in Jerusalem, the place where God planted the temple, where this outbreak of peace will begin – with the planting of the cross, and the planting of the Seed of the body of Jesus into the tomb, from which He will re-emerge as the reigning “King of Salem,” the Prince of Peace, saying “Peace be with you” to His disciples – which includes us.

But yet, our Lord weeps.  For though many of His own nation will indeed follow Him, as will many Gentiles – even to this day there are a couple billion disciples of the Prince of Peace – there are many more who do not.  Though the gift was offered to each person on the planet, there are many – including those in Jerusalem itself, “who [do] not know the time of their visitation.”

As for Jerusalem, Jesus knows what is coming.  Forty years after His death on the cross, His resurrection from the tomb, and His ascension back to the Father, forty years after His apostles begin preaching this Good News of the visitation of God to the world, forty years after our Lord’s coronation with thorns and the establishment of the kingdom of peace, the Jewish nation will rebel against Rome, and their cruel Roman overlords will besiege the city, starve its people, and level its temple, with “not leave one stone upon another” in this City of Peace.

And again, this judgment from God will come, “because [they] did not know the time of [their] visitation.”

Dear friends, what does it mean to “know the time of [our] visitation”?  It means we know who Jesus is.  We know that He is God and man.  We know that He is the Prince of Peace who has visited us.  But even the demons know this much, “and shudder.”  We also know – and believe – the purpose of this visitation, “the things that make for peace.”  We know who Jesus is, and why He came.  And we recognize His continued coming to us in His Word and in His Sacrament.

Judas was at the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper, but he did not know his visitation.  He rejected the very peace that Jesus offered even him.  Jesus still comes, still visits, still invites every person on the planet to be restored to the image and likeness of God.  The risen Christ is still saying to us: “Peace be with you.”  He still calls us to reconciliation: with God and with other men.  He calls us to relent of our evil, to say, “What have I done?”  He calls us to reject the “lying pen of the scribes,” to stop listening to false prophets who pervert God’s Word, to reject the world’s wisdom and instead turn to the “folly” of the cross.  He bids us to reject the world’s abominations and its phony “peace, peace,” when “there is no peace” among those who do not know the time of their visitation.  He invites us to recognize where true peace is found.

Dear friends, on this day, yet again in His Word, Jesus is visiting you.  Jesus is inviting you.  Jesus is extending His gift to you.  Jesus is offering peace to you.  And Jesus is asking you to receive it “by faith.”  For “whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.”  Jesus invites you to “submit to God’s righteousness,” that is, the righteousness of God that is given to you as a free gift – a peace offering from the nail-scarred hands of God Himself, given to you in His flesh: a covenant of His body and blood that we eat and drink as part of the eternal banquet of peace.

“For Christ,” dear friends, “Christ is the end,” that is, the completion and fulfillment, “of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”  May you know and love this visitation, and may we all know and confess this Good News of the “things that make for peace.”  Peace be with you.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Funeral of Lloyd Chiasson – 2023

12 August 2023

Text: John 14:1-6 (Ps 121, 1 Cor 12:31b-13:13)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Dear Lloyd and Shannon, Marnie, Cassidy, family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and honored guests.  Peace be with you.

Fourteen years ago, we gathered here on the occasion of Helen’s departure after sixty three years of marriage to Lloyd.  We read the very same readings – the ones that Lloyd and Helen themselves chose.  And like his beloved wife, Lloyd knew that he was dying.  And like Helen, he faced our greatest enemy with calm clarity.  He enjoyed his last few months on this side of glory, knowing that eternal life was going to be even better.

For death is indeed our enemy, dear friends.  Lloyd did not sugarcoat it, and neither should we.  It is the “wages of sin,” and it is our legacy of rebellion against our Creator.  It separates us from our loved ones.  It causes us sorrow and makes us mourn.  It is not what God had in mind for us.  But it is also a defeated enemy.  For our Lord Jesus, God incarnate, took flesh for our sake, suffered for our sake, died for our sake, and rose again for our sake.  And when I say “our sake,” that includes Lloyd and Helen, who confessed this faith, lived this faith, and died in this faith.  And in this faith, they have defeated death, and they will rise again on the last day.

I had the honor and the privilege to serve as Lloyd’s pastor for eighteen years.  And the last few years, he was unable to attend church, so the church came to him, bearing the most precious gifts of all: the Word of God, and the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And I do feel a little selfish about it, because not only did I have the joy of sharing Holy Communion with Lloyd, but also the joy of conversing with him and getting to know him even more.  And when I say “joy,” there is no better word.  We always had such delightful conversations, and his home was always peaceful, restful, and orderly – with a beautiful view of the garden: the birds-of-paradise flowers that Helen loved.  In fact, I would sometimes wonder if I were overstaying my welcome in Lloyd’s home because I enjoyed my time with him so much.

Jesus speaks of a restful home that has been prepared for Lloyd and Helen and for all who receive this gift – “Let not your hearts be troubled,” He says, “Believe in God, believe also in Me.”  Jesus promises: “In My Father’s house are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”  This eternal home, the promised new heaven and new earth that will replace this fallen temporal life, including the restoration of our bodies in the resurrection, will not feature beautiful flowers that are merely in full bloom one day, but wither and fade, but rather will endure forever.  As the prophet Isaiah spoke of this eternal hope: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”  Dear friends, the Word is Jesus.  And His Word is true.  He prepares a place for us that is paradise – not merely a flower named after it.

What a joy to have celebrated the Lord’s Supper, the miraculous presence of Jesus in His Eucharist, while gazing out into the garden – a little reminder of Eden, and of the paradise to come.

For Jesus continues, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  We have a home prepared for us because life extends beyond death.  Jesus died to give us His life and His righteousness, “of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”

Lloyd chose this passage from St. John’s Gospel because he understood the importance of home.  And while his peaceful, restful home with a garden was his and Helen’s beloved home, they both knew that it was temporary.  Jesus has prepared for them an eternal home, a perfect home, of which their temporal home was an imperfect preview.

Jesus did all of this for us out of love – the very same kind of divine love that binds a husband and wife for sixty-three years, a love of mutual self-sacrifice for the beloved.  There is no greater picture of God’s love and care for us than married life between a husband and wife who make their home together, and selflessly raise children in it.  St. Paul’s beautiful and timeless passage about love in First Corinthians thirteen is a picture of the kind of love that God has in Christ for His people – including Lloyd and Helen, who are now reunited in glory, secure in the love of God for eternity.

The Psalmist teaches us where to look for help in times of sorrow and loss, in times of illness and death, in times of an uncertain future, and times of change, as our forebears depart, and as we take up the baton and move into their positions of authority and leadership, as well the time of our own aging and mortality: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  And the Psalmist also writes: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  The Lord provides us with a rich and lush home, a home with a garden, shepherding us to the “green pastures” and “still waters,” and we will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  He leads us to this paradise, dear friends, “through the valley of the shadow of death.”  And He leads us, so that we have no fear.  “For Thou art with me,” we pray with the Psalmist. 

And the “table prepared before Me in the presence of mine enemies” (even the enemy of death) is the Holy Supper, the coming of Jesus, who comes to this place, to this altar, to Christian altars the world over, and even to the homes of the faithful when they can no longer come to this “house of the Lord.”  Jesus makes His home with us here in time and space, even as He prepares a home for us in eternity.

Lloyd and Helen chose Psalm 121 for you to hear fourteen years ago, and we are hearing it yet again today, dear friends.  And this Psalm ends with a blessing – a blessing that was spoken a thousand years before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd, and it is a blessing and a promise that endures today, and even unto eternity.  Let us hear the Word of the Lord, receive it, and take it to heart yet again, dear brothers and sisters: “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

Dear friends, peace be with you.

Amen

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Sermon: Trinity 9 – 2023

30 July 2023

Text: Luke 16:1-13 (2 Sam 22:26-34, 1 Cor 10:6-13)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Our Old Testament reading was written by King David as a song celebrating how God delivered him from King Saul.  And David reflects on how God seems to us poor, miserable sinners: “With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you deal purely, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.”

So in a way, how we see God is a reflection of how we are.  I recently heard a Christian say that everything that is fun is considered to be a sin.  And that is more a reflection of the person saying it than it is of God.  I also hear atheists claim that God is cruel – which is a strange thing for an atheist to say – even as this same atheist quotes Scripture to try to tell Christians to change and be more like the atheist. 

Yes, indeed, the way we see God is often how we ourselves are.  In other words, we sinners make God in our own image – and we have a lot to complain about.  So if you are angry with God, you’re probably angry at yourself.  If you think God is unfair, you might want to see how you are, in fact, being unfair.  Apparently Dr. Luther once said that we should “let God be God.”  And that is what faith is, dear friends: to see things as they are, and to trust that God’s will is being done – even in our fallen world.  “All I commit to Thy Fatherly hand,” as we sing with the hymnwriter.

God understands this character flaw that we all have according to our sinful nature: that we want to treat God as one of us.  And so, in order to save us, God actually does become one of us: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  And we see David’s observations in action.  The hypocrites accused Jesus of hypocrisy.  The gluttons and the drunks accused Jesus of their own sins.  The people who manipulated God’s commandments accused Jesus of that very thing.  The power-mad accused Jesus of being a false king.  Liars accused Jesus of deception.  Those who tried to cast out demons by means of demons accused Jesus of casting out demons by means of demons.  As God in the flesh, Jesus becomes an even clearer mirror of our own sinfulness.  We project sin upon the sinless one.  And God projects our sins and our guilt upon Jesus, so that the Father sees us as His Son really is: the Blameless sees us as blameless.

In other words, God sees Jesus as a sinner in order to save us sinners.  And we who are being saved, we whose sinful hearts have been declared blameless, we, in turn, see Jesus as blameless.  And this, dear friends, explains why the scribes and Pharisees saw Jesus as a crook, while the ones who were dismissed as sinners saw Jesus as merciful.  If you don’t think you need a merciful God, you won’t see God as merciful.  But if you know that you are in need of mercy, you will see God’s mercy in Jesus.

And this may help explain why Jesus teaches us about God’s kingdom by means of a story in which the hero is a crook.

In this Parable of the Dishonest Manager, Jesus introduces us to a man who is about to be fired for being “wasteful” with the boss’s money.  Managers are called to be good stewards, but this guy was only doing the job to serve himself.  Finally, his crooked ways caught up to him, and he was being let go.  And so, being the crook that he is, he cheats his boss even more.  He changes the contracts of the boss’s clients to forgive their debt.  He had no right to do it, but he figured that after he was fired, he could call in favors from the people he “helped,” and maybe land on his feet.  Of course, this is how a crooked person thinks.  He doesn’t act with honor, but is always looking to improve his own situation.  The boss looks at the audacity – the shrewdness of the dishonest manager – and he is amazed at how bold he is. 

And this is our Lord’s lesson: not that we should be dishonest, but that we should be shrewd.  Jesus says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.”  The dishonest manager was a crook, but we can learn a lesson from how clever he is, how he is willing to act boldly and take risks in order to get what he wants.

But we Christians often don’t even know what we want.  Do we consider God unfair because we want to sin?  Do we get angry at God because He doesn’t just do what we want Him to do?  Do we see God as tortuous because we ourselves are crooked?  What if we were to realign our wants with what God wants.  For God wants all men to be saved.  God wants the Good News of Jesus Christ to go out among all nations.  God wants all of us to live in harmony with Him and with one another.  God wants you to hear His Word, to be forgiven, to receive the Lord’s Supper week after week, and for you to see Him as merciful and blameless – and as you do, you will be increasingly merciful and blameless yourself.

God wants you to see Jesus the way grateful, forgiven sinners saw Him in the Gospels: as a lifeline, as a second chance, as your only hope in a crooked generation, in a world in which God is seen as unfair.  And in taking flesh and dwelling among us, in dying for us on the cross, in shedding His blood as a sacrificial offering for us, and in sharing His body and blood with us, Jesus is willing to become sin for us.  And God the Father sees Jesus bearing our sins, and accepts that pure offering on our behalf.  He sees us as blameless.  He sees us as righteous.  And He treats us mercifully.

And this, dear friends, is why we can pursue the good of God’s kingdom with the same shrewdness as our dishonest manager – taking risks and making the kingdom of God our priority.  Jesus teaches us to make friends in high places – even in matters of money.  That is being a good steward for the sake of God’s kingdom.  The dishonest manager’s problem was not his boldness, his audacity, his shrewdness – but rather his dishonestly, his love of money to serve himself.  And this is a second lesson from this story: “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.”

So let us be shrewd like the dishonest manager, but let us serve God rather than our own wants.  Let us not serve money, but make money the servant of God.  Let us be even more shrewd than the sons of this world, and let us see God for what and who He is: merciful, blameless, one who saves us for the sake of love, the one who is shrewd in dealing with the devil, the world, and our sinful nature.

So let us see God as “faithful,” as St. Paul teaches us.  He warns us not to imitate the wickedness of the Israelites in the desert, but rather, to look upon God knowing that He isn’t here to stifle our fun or to be tortuous, but rather to be faithful in His mission to save us, that He will provide a means of escape against all temptations.  And in seeing Him as faithful, He also sees us as faithful.

And as King David sang, so let us confess: 

For you are my lamp, O Lord,
    and my God lightens my darkness.
For by you I can run against a troop,
    and by my God I can leap over a wall.
This God—his way is perfect;
    the word of the Lord proves true;
    he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

 “For who is God, but the Lord?
    And who is a rock, except our God?
This God is my strong refuge
    and has made my way blameless.
He made my feet like the feet of a deer
    and set me secure on the heights.”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.