To Grace How Great a Debtor

Even though the scholars have the opinion that the more difficult the saying, the more likely it is that it represents Jesus' true teaching, nevertheless, we would rather that some of them were not there.

I'm guessing that many might rate today's gospel reading as one of those we would just as soon skip.

It sounds as though Jesus is commending deceitfulness, doesn't it?

The slippery steward changes the accounting books so that people's debt is wiped out.

Why is the master so understanding?

Why doesn't he have the cheater thrown in jail?

There must be something else going on in this story for Jesus to have told it.

The landowner had prospered; Jesus doesn't say that he had done things unfairly.

He had done well, but a number of people owed him money through their various business deals.

The man's steward, who was supposed to be looking after the master's affairs, was goofing off and squandering funds entrusted to him.

When the owner decides to kick out the steward, the steward finds a way to ease his way into unemployment by altering the books so that the money owed to the owner are reduced for each of the debtors.

Perhaps one of those grateful debtors will take in the steward when the owner makes good on his threat to toss him out.

The owner realizes what the steward has done.

Those actions were clearly illegal and could be reversed, but the owner chooses not to do so.

The owner values his relationship and good name with the community more than he values the money.

The steward's record book is full of red ink at the master's expense, but the master chooses not to see red ink but rather the joy of the community that a burden has been lifted from them.

He values friends more than he values money.

So now the connection of this story with us becomes clearer.

We are the stewards who have been squandering the property put in our trust.

We have treated the debts we all owe to God in a very cavalier manner.

God could decide to get even, and demand a full restitution, which we cannot pay.

The only thing we can do is ask “Lord, have mercy on us.”

And miraculously, he does.

He values his relationship with us more than anything else.

What great Good News this is!

He is still the maker and owner of all that is, but he is determined to entice us into a positive relationship with himself, despite what it costs him.

Here we are at the beginning of a new school year, a new season, a day when we celebrate renewal of the baptismal promises in the rite of Confirmation, a fresh start in several ways.

What are we going to do with the things, the person, and the opportunities entrusted to us?

About a hundred years ago, a German-language writer by the name of Franz Kafka wrote a short story entitled A Hunger Artist.

It is a tale of a man who put himself in a cage on display and starved himself for periods of time as people paid to watch him.

His manager discerned that they could whip up public interest for about 40 days, and so that was his maximum fasting.

They traveled from city to city, putting on this spectacle.

After some time, people tired of the act, and he lost his manager, and had to sign on with a circus freak show.

People tended to rush by without noticing how many days his latest hunger scheme was going.

Even the circus people gradually forgot about him, until they discovered him near death.

With his dying breaths he told his secret to the one who found him.

“I have to fast,” he whispered, ”I can't help it. I couldn't find any food that I liked.”

He squandered his life for that!

The scholars say that the story is in some senses autobiographical of Kafka.

He was sickly, depressed, and gloomy.

He was not a Christian, neither had he embraced his Jewish heritage; he had nothing in which to hope.

He was spiritually starving, in this sense a life being squandered.

He died at a young age, suffering with tuberculosis and other ailments.

O Lord, have mercy; preserve us from such a despairing course of action and life.

Teach us to recognize your gifts set in front of us, and to make use of them.

We've regularly used the terms “time, talent, and treasure” and to that we can add several more words, “persons, relationships, and opportunities.”

What will we do with them: use them or squander them?

Let's contrast two persons:

The first one I remember from about 25 years ago.

She had cared for her mother who was well-advanced in years until her mother's death.

She became bitter and angry, and curtly dismissed me with the pronouncement that she would never again come to church since her mother's funeral was held there.

And she cut herself off from friends, church companions, worship, social connections, etc. and I never saw her again.

That next chapter of her life was squandered.

In contrast, there is one of our folks with a body not so strong anymore, but still of active mind.

Recently I met a person who is excruciatingly lonely and needs a friend.

I asked our member to go and meet her, and see where the conversation might lead.

She immediately said “yes, of course.”

Hers is a life invested in what can be done with and for others, in the name of Christ Jesus.

What a difference between these two cases,... for the individuals, for the church, for the community!

I remember an elderly lady from my first parish who lost mobility and finally lost her leg to a circulation disease.

She was so sad; “I'm useless” she said.

“You most certainly are not,” I told her.

“You cannot do what you did years ago, but you can do several things just fine.

You can remember each member of the congregation in prayer; start through the directory and remember them all, the happy ones the grumpy ones, the ones who are drifting, the ones who are passionately involved.

I'll get you some cards, and you write a little note and send to ones whom you think need a positive word from one who has the time and the opportunity to pray for you and write to you.”

And she brightened up and for the next many months before her final illness, she was very busy with prayer and with cards.

What a gift to the parish that was!

And yes, we have several people in St. Mark's who are doing similar tasks.

Thank you for your encouraging work of the Gospel.

The hymn which we sing next [LBW#499] praises God for everything, and especially for the gift of Jesus' promises.

The 3^rd stanza begins: Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be....

And it also recognizes that we tend to go off-track very easily: Prone to wander; Lord I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.

But it ends with a confident prayer: Here's my heart, oh, take and seal it for thy courts above.

Yes, it is fancy poetic language, but we understand where it is pointing:

Lord, break through to us and do not let us squander things, opportunities, people, or your promises.

Let your last word be the best word: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let all who trust this word says Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.