Category: Lectionary Meditations

“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.”

How in the world does Jesus tell a story where a liar and cheat gets praised? That is the question that has vexed generations of moralists concerning the story of the dishonest manager. The problem comes in when focus on the story so much that we don’t listen to Jesus. He tells us what the point is – the dishonest manager is shrewd, while so often Christians are not.

Consider – that rotten cheat was utterly honest about his situation. He had played things fast and loose, and now the noose was around his neck. He was stuck in a pit, and there was no way he was going to dig his way out – so he didn’t trust in his own power. Instead, he sponged off the master’s name, wealth, and credit, and that is how he survived.

Now, consider us Christians. Here we are, people who have received the gift of life and salvation from Christ Jesus. We are baptized children of God… and yet, what so often is our gut reaction when we have gotten our hand caught in the cookie jar of some sin or vice? We deny that we did anything wrong, or we blame our neighbor, or we promise to do better, or we make vain promises about how we’ll behave in the future. All of these are foolish things. So often we try foolishly to talk our way out of our sin.

This is why Christ Jesus calls us to be shrewd – this is why we are to fix our eyes upon Christ Jesus and remember that we live only by the forgiveness, life, and salvation that He gives. We don’t need to posture or plot; rather we confess our sin and He is faithful and just to forgive us. God grant us wisdom and shrewdness to remember this!

“You will recognize them by their fruits.”

You’ll know them by their fruits. That’s what Jesus tells us – that false prophets will be easy to spot by their fruits. Here’s the problem; we hear “fruits” and simply think “works”. If someone is nice or does something neat, surely they’re spot on theologically, right?

Yet, right after mentioning “fruits” Jesus talks about folks who are able to say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name” and says that they are condemned! What in the world is going on here?

You tell a tree by its fruit. If you see an apple, you know it came from an apple tree. You see a peach, it came from a peach tree. And if we are looking for a Christian, the fruit we’d expect is Christ Jesus. Christ’s forgiveness and love and mercy – or even all the fruits of the Spirit that Paul mentions later on. The fruit that comes from Christ should give you Christ and His mercy.  It should be the fruit of the Cross.

The false folks pointed to themselves and their own works – see what we did! See all that we did in Your name and for You, Jesus… look at MEEEEE! That’s not good fruit; that’s the selfish, self-centered and self-praising trash sin always produces. But the fruit that we ought to seek that we should long for is this: Christ Jesus died for you, and so your sin is forgiven. The fruit we ought to seek sounds like, “take and eat, this is My Body; take and drink, this is My Blood.” That way we know we are getting the real deal.

Because that is the will of the Father – that Christ Jesus wins you salvation from sin, and that this salvation is given to you again. God wills that mercy and love from Christ be poured into you over and over again by His Word and Spirit, that you are returned again to your baptismal grace. That’s the good fruit – Christ, not our works. Listen and look for Christ, and ignore the works righteous bragging of the ravenous wolves.

“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.”

They were stupid. They were the wrong race. They were just the worst of the worst. That is how one could be tempted to view the crowd gathered in Mark 8. Jesus had been preaching in the Decapolis, among the gentile nations. And they had followed Jesus out into the wilderness to listen to Him, but they hadn’t brought enough supplies. Now they were hungry, on the verge of fainting. Even the disciples themselves were running low – Jesus had preached so long that they were down to seven loaves.

Jesus, though, doesn’t see foolish people. He doesn’t see them as “other” or any of the many myriad ways we in our sinfulness can come up with to denigrate people, especially when they are inconveniencing us. No, Jesus has compassion. Literally in Greek, His guts are wrenched, twisted. He sees them not on the basis of any sin or strife or folly, but Jesus sees them as people who have been with Him for three days. And He cares for them, so He feeds them.

How does Jesus see you? Does He see you with a harsh and critical eye, like the one that we use to judge our neighbor? Does Jesus look at you and facepalm over the repeated stupidity you show (because let’s be honest, we all have our pet stupid sins that we repeat)? No – He has compassion upon you, because you have been with Him three days.

Paul writes, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” You too have been with Jesus three days. You have been united to Him by baptism, and He cannot but have compassion on you. He cannot but help to care for you and forgive you your sins. You have Jesus’ love all of your days, even unto the life of the world to come.

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” – Luke 5:8

Simon Peter may have been a sinful man, but he was no fool. When there was the amazing catch of fish, he knew this wasn’t just a quirk of nature or a bit of random chance – this was Messianic. This Jesus in the boat with him, this boat now filled with fish and sinking, was the Messiah. And so Peter does the only logical thing – he begs Jesus to leave.

This isn’t because he hates God or is an unbeliever. Oh no, to the contrary. Peter is a pious man, and he is well aware of his own sin. And he knows his Scripture well enough to know that sinful men who wander into God’s way get dragged down into death. Quickly. And so at that moment he begs for God to be merciful – and he thinks God’s mercy means God will just go and leave him alone.

That’s not why Jesus had come. He came to put an end to the separation between God and man that sin had brought about. Mercy would not be God stepping away and not smiting sinful man; mercy would be God Himself becoming man and taking up all the sin of the world and smiting it in His own body upon the Cross.

And so Jesus, Peter’s Savior, simply looks at Peter and says, “Do not be afraid; from now one you will be catching men.” Not only am I not sending you out of my presence, Peter, but you will be bringing more and more people into My presence – My merciful and forgiving and saving presence.

And that’s where we are. We are those who have been caught up by God by the power of the Word. And now, we enter His presence knowing that our sin is forgiven by Christ Jesus. And Christ in His true mercy continues to come to us in His Word and in His Supper, so that we would be forgiven and live with Him eternally. Jesus does not depart from you – He catches you and makes you His own!

“Be Merciful, even as your Father is merciful” – Luke 6:36

So what is God like? If someone asks you what God is like, what do you say? You might say mighty or powerful or omnipotent (if you did well with vocab in Confirmation Class). But that doesn’t really say much about what God is like – lots of people are strong, some for good and some for ill. You might say He’s the Creator – but if someone thinks their life stinks on ice, they might just be rather angry at their Creator. We could say He’s awesome or that He’s love – but what does that mean?

Jesus gives us a better and more direct answer. God is merciful. If you want to understand God, if you want to know what makes Him tick, the answer is mercy. His strength, His might, His creation and awesome love are all tied and focused together into this great truth: your Father is merciful. And everything that He does is shaped and formed towards showing you mercy, towards forgiving your sins in Christ Jesus.

And if you don’t look at God as merciful, you won’t understand anything. You’ll turn the Bible into a judgy-condemny book. You’ll be a blind man just dragging other people into pits with you. You’ll be a busybody complaining about specks when you have a log in your own eye. But when there is mercy – when you see how great a log has been forgiven you, then you will be ready to show mercy, to live in the mercy that God has for you.

Because Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn it but to save it, to show it mercy. And likewise, we are shown mercy by God not so that we can be arrogant jerks to the sinners, but so that we can show them mercy. So that we can show them Christ crucified for them, for their sin, to give them life. If you want to know what makes God tick – the answer is mercy, the mercy shown forth by your Crucified Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

“… his father saw him and felt compassion…”

God is full of foolish love. That’s what the three parables in Luke 15 tell us. Each is an example of God’s foolish and joyful love. God loves you so much that it doesn’t make sense.

Consider the lost sheep. Jesus asks who wouldn’t abandon and risk 99 sheep to go and find one lost sheep. That’s bad business, Jesus! Don’t you know that sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on? In your case, Jesus says, “Never!” You will never just be a loss cause to be written off. That’s foolish love.

Or consider the lost coin. When it is found, the woman celebrates. She celebrates not because she found 1000 other coins or won the Powerball, but she celebrates because she finds that one coin she had all along. Likewise, God’s love for you never grows old, but is always joyful and new. Jesus never stops delighting in being your Savior.

And the kicker. The crazy dad. He gives half his estate to his younger brat, and then runs to meet him (which wasn’t dignified) and throws a wild party when the younger boy finally comes home. And then this dad actually leaves his party to go find his lost and bitter older son who is pouting in the field. Always gladly loving his sons, even when they are greedy or self-righteous buzz-kills,

Those are pictures of God’s foolish and joyful love for you. The world might think God is crazy for loving you, and when you see your own sin you yourself might know that God is crazy for loving you… but guess what. He does. He has won you salvation in Christ, He has baptized you and brought you into His family, and His House always has His joyous feast of victory for your benefit. This is His foolish and wonderful love for you.

“And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’” – Luke 14:17

There were so many excuses given for why they couldn’t come. There were new animals to look over, or a new field. One fellow was newly-wed and even blamed his wife for not being able to come (which is literally the oldest excuse in the book). Over and over the blessings these folks had received were pitted against the wonderful blessing of the feast.

This is what sinful people do. We pit blessings God has given us over and against the blessings of life and salvation He gives in His church. We turn these other blessings into idols over and against God. I suppose sometimes for farmers it might be fields or flocks (can’t come, gotta work in the field!). Often we will throw up our family as our excuse. Or there’s the job, or the hobby/sport, or we’re just too worn out from last night’s partying to get up in the morning (as though we didn’t know Church was coming). And all these good things – work, family, leisure and celebration – these good gifts from God are tossed right back in His face. This the temptation which we face.

Christ Jesus had a more difficult path to the feast. His was not a simple invitation, for He had to make ready all things for the feast. He would not simply get to come and enjoy, but He would have to become man, suffer, and die. If anyone could have made excuses, you would think it would be Him! I might have to get up early and spend an hour or so at Church; He had to be crucified to make it happen! But there are no excuses from Christ – instead He goes to the cross and dies and rises.

Why? So that He could say to you, “Come, for everything is ready.” Our God is a giver. He gives us blessings of both body and soul, and even our abuse of our physical, earthly blessings won’t cut off the feast. Instead, He will bring in poor, miserable sinners like us and fill us with His good gifts and Spirit. God grant that He continually bring us to His feast, both now and eternally!

“If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man is one of the most vivid ones we have in the New Testament. There’s a lavishly rich man, miserably poor and sick Lazarus, and then even unquenchable fires of hell. And as such, it can be easy to go very much fire and brimstone this week. It can be easy to turn this text into a giant law bomb about how horrid the Rich Man is.

And that would be right – partially. If you have read Moses and the Prophets, you would know that the disdain and ill treatment of your neighbor in need is about as bad it gets in terms of “wickedness”. James and 1 John both echo this idea. There is indeed serious law to be heard in this text. However, there isn’t just one main character in this text; there is also Lazarus.

Salvation in the story doesn’t happen because one suddenly jumps through hoops and becomes more generous. We hear nothing about what Lazarus does, but rather he “receives” good things from God. That’s what faith is, trusting in God to provide for you for your earthly days (even if they are rough) and for your eternal salvation. That’s what Jesus has won for you.

And the sad thing is the Rich Man had received all that he had from God, but because there was no faith it all became an idol. He worshiped his stuff instead of using it for his neighbor, trusting that God would provide. Because that is what God does. He provides. He provides the things that we have in this life (things we use to serve our neighbor). He provides the forgiveness that Jesus won upon the cross. Indeed, the day will come when we will see that Jesus risen from the dead and face to face, and we will be fully comforted.