Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor. x. 12) Last week we spoke about the Divine Providence of God and how we ought to be intent upon ordering our lives with the Divine Wisdom. This week we remind ourselves that His Wisdom is dead to us if it is not always God’s way of making good out of a bad situation. We must think about God’s always making good because the Christian journey is all about our ongoing assimilation to the goodness that Jesus Christ brings into the world. It is out of a bad situation because we are always in danger of forgetting that we are sinners who are always too capable of becoming worse. That God desires always to make us good and then better means that He intends to work His Word and Wisdom into our fallen state in order to save us. And for this work to be what God begins, continues, and finishes in us, we must always and honestly confess that we are in a bad situation so that we might turn and desire to be made better by His Grace. Of course, some people would maintain that what I am recommending amounts to an insurmountable task for the common lot of men. If we cannot admit that we are in a very bad situation, then there isn’t much reason to desire what would make us better. Objectively speaking, of course, such is a recipe for disaster in any realm of life. The painter who doesn’t need and desire to paint a better picture won’t! The farmer who has no need or desire to raise more and tastier vegetables in a more efficient way won’t. The doctor who stops looking for cures for diseases will only ever prescribe medication management. So too, the Christian who doesn’t think that he needs to be made better will never see God’s Kingdom! For, when we are driven by our own reason and the limited natures, sooner or later we settle for less because we have ceased to believe that we can find more. What I am trying to say is that we are made for God and our hearts ought to be restless until they rest in Him. The Christian believes that man is made to know and love God forever. But he knows also that he cannot do any good thing without [God]…and that only by [Him] can he be enabled to live according to [His]will. (Collect Trinity IX) Yet, many Christians fall into trouble when they fail to surrender their bad situation to God’s Grace. St. Paul reminds us of this danger in this morning’s Epistle. He gives us the example of the ancient Jewish people whom God had delivered from bondage and slavery to the Egyptians. He tells us that, all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. (1 Cor. x. 1-4) The clouds and the sea reveal to us the natural and spiritual limitations of fallen human nature. Fallen human nature, as experienced by the Ancient Jews, is limited and dragged down by the demands of the body and sensual temptations. Fallen human nature is constrained and held back from the clear vision of God’s Word, Jesus Christ, and so must move forward under the cloud of unknowing until the Incarnation. In faith, the ancient Jews must move forward, acknowledge their sinful alienation from God, and repent. In faith, the ancient Jews must hope also for the fulfilment of God’s loving salvation that would come to them at last in Jesus Christ. The clouds and seas reveal man’s powerlessness and yet at the same time God’s Grace that stirs the ancient Jews to hope for the promise of a much, much better situation. And yet what do we read next? But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. (Ibid, 5) And why? They did not discern the spiritual meaning and purpose of the clouds. They did not unlearn their old natural and earthly ways. They thought that God was merely freeing them from temporal slavery and servitude to an earthly enemy. So, they fell into indulging the old bad situation of their sinful condition. They began to murmur, moan, groan, and complain, wondering all the while why God had delivered them from earthly slavery into what must have seemed a much worse earthy situation. Their obsession with earthly comfort then turned to lust, idolatry, and fornication. God fed them in the desert and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. (Ibid, 7) God began to make good out of a bad spiritual situation by calling them to become a spiritual people whose ultimate hope should rest in their coming salvation. They did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. (Ibid, 4) St. Paul tells us that the ancient Jews were fed spiritually by the Word of God, or Christ the Rock. He warns us that if like them we should tempt Christ we too shall fall and be destroyed. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (Ibid, 12) The ancient Jews were not mindful about how God was leading them forward through faith and hope into a much better spiritual situation. In this morning’s Gospel Parable of the Unjust Steward, Jesus teaches us how to move from a bad earthly situation into a much better spiritual one. In it, Christ tells the tale of an earthly businessman who had misused money lent to him by a wealthy creditor. The creditor summons him to his office not only to dress him down but to fire him. He says, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. (St. Luke xvi. 2) And without missing a beat, perceiving the storm clouds looming above, the earthly underling thinks fast: How can I make good out of this very bad situation? What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. (Ibid, 3,4) The unjust steward is proud, but he is also prudent. He knows that he can never repay the loan to his boss. Yet, he is determined not only to survive but to thrive. If the big boss won’t have him, he’ll at least respect him for having the wisdom and prudence to become a little boss. And more than that, he will not only make good out of a bad earthly situation for himself but for the big boss’ other debtors also. He’ll go into the debt-consolidation business! So, he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. (Ibid, 5-7) The long and short of it is that the big boss is impressed. It is not clear that the big boss had much hope in ever recalling any of his loans, and so he praises the earthly prudence with which his steward has secured this financial settlement. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely…(Ibid, 8) Jesus concludes the parable by saying that the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. (Ibid, 8) Of course, Jesus tells the parable not to commend unjust stewardship. What is most instructive in the parable is the prudent due diligence and determination that can be found in the earthlysteward’s detection of the clouds and the need to reform and redeem his life in their shadow. Jesus suggests that unjust or fallen earthly man is often wiser than his spiritual counterpart when it comes to discerning the clouds and making the best out of bad situations. Like the unjust steward, we are in a bad situation, in that we can never repay our Lord, our spiritual creditor, what we owe Him. Like the unjust steward, we are unjust by reason of our spiritual negligence. Monsignor Knox asks, Who is the Unjust Steward?...He is you and I and every one of us; we are all, as children of Adam, unfaithful servants who have been detected in our delinquency. By rights…we have forfeited every claim. (Pastoral and Occasional Sermons, p. 170) Under the clouds of our fallen existence, Christ insists that He cannot feed us until we identify with the unjust steward. We resist the comparison. But if we are honest, we know that we are tempted to be like the unjust steward with his unrighteous mammon. St. Paul reminds us there hath no temptation taken us, but such as is common to man. (1 Cor. x. 13) Perhaps the unjust steward is more common that we admit. Jesus says, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. (St. Luke xvi, 9) Are we not all, by nature, the friends of the mammon of unrighteousness? Unjust mammon is that earthly treasure that is a friend to all men because we have some need of it to live. And the temptation to hoard and love money are common to man. Hoarding or loving it can only make us worse and never better! But perhaps we can use the temptation to make us all the more industrious and prudent in our pursuit of that better spiritual mammon that Christ the Rock has in store for us. God is faithful, who will not suffer [us] to be tempted above that [we] are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that [we] may be able to bear it. (1 Cor. x. 13) With prudence we shall discover that the way we escape and bear the temptation is by sharing the mammon of unrighteousness with all other men. The unjust steward helped his friends. So, why can’t we? Then, when we fail, or when we die, they -the poor and needy whom we fed because Christ the Rock has fed and clothed us spiritually, shall welcome us into everlasting habitations because we have allowed God to make the best out of our bad spiritual situation. (Idem) Amen. ©wjsmartin Comments are closed.
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