postID: 6848; title: The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 20)
Array
(
[date] => 2016-09-18 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1260
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-09-18 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-09-18postID: 6743 (Edward Bouverie Pusey)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6743; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: September 18
fixed_date_str (mod): September 18 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-09-18
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6743
displayDates for postID: 6743/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-09-18
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6848 (The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6848; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6848
displayDates for postID: 6848/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-09-18
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-09-18 with ID: 6848 (The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost)
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Array
(
[date] => 2016-09-18 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1260
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-09-18 11:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-09-18postID: 6743 (Edward Bouverie Pusey)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6743; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: September 18
fixed_date_str (mod): September 18 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-09-18
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6743
displayDates for postID: 6743/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-09-18
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6848 (The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6848; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6848
displayDates for postID: 6848/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-09-18
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-09-18 with ID: 6848 (The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost)
The reading_id [73499] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): Luke 16:1-13
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Luke 16:1-13
✛
Charity signifies a turning toward the kingdom of God and its subjects.
Array
(
[0] => 60757
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60757
)
] (reading_id: 73499)bbook_id: 60757
The bbook_id [60757] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
The late, great Jesuit spiritual writer, Anthony de Mello, once described the idea of riches by reflecting on a newly married couple:
Husband: “I’m going to work hard, and someday we are going to be rich.”
Wife: “We are already rich, dear, for we have each other. Someday maybe we’ll have money.”
We hear some uncomfortable words in today’s Gospel reading: Jesus says to his disciples, “You cannot serve God and Mammon”. What does this Greek word ‘Mammon’ mean? Some modern translations of the bible translate it as ‘wealth’ and even ‘money’ as if it were a commodity like a portfolio of shares. The parable of the dishonest steward who loses his job does seem to suggest that Jesus might be talking about money, but the word may actually have a deeper significance – referring to riches or worldly things in which we put our trust.
The Gospel of Luke is a very beautiful Gospel; I have heard it sometimes described as the ‘Gospel for the Poor’ – clearly, Luke has a particular interest in the marginalized – in the poor, in women and in children. His Gospel is one of hope for those who are desperate and there are numerous references to the poor having the Gospel preached to them and being raised up. (Next Sunday we shall hear another story about wealth, status, and poverty.) In Mary’s Magnificat the proud are scattered and the lowly are lifted up. Interestingly this ‘scattering’ of the proud is the same word used in today’s parable to describe the actions of the dishonest steward who has been fired by his master. The steward has been ‘wasting’ – or ‘scattering’ – his master’s goods.
This parable of Jesus can seem uncomfortable and especially here in a church that is beautiful, with its own school, extravagant liturgy and relying on a large endowment to pay its bills. But note that Jesus is not condemning wealth creation here – his concern, as we always see in the Gospels, was about those who were in need – rich or poor. No, here as we often see in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is trying to get across the importance of knowing where one’s priorities lie – where one puts one’s trust…in ‘mammon’ (worldly things) or God?
Biblical Commentators have had a field day trying to understand this particular parable of Jesus. The poor old steward who has been wasting his master’s goods has been found out and he’s been fired. What is puzzling is that he then quickly calls in his master’s debtors and reduces their debts significantly. On the face of it, he is now defrauding his master or, worse, showing his boss’s clients that he had been overcharging them and, yet, his master praises him. It cannot be, surely, that the master is praising the steward for stealing his money! There must be something else happening here. We know that, even in biblical times, people took commission for services rendered and it could well be that what we are reading here is a description of the steward reducing the debt by removing his own commission. If so, this would explain why the master is pleased (he hasn’t lost what was owing him) and why Jesus then talks about making friends with ‘mammon’ by being shrewd in this world and making friends for the future.
By relieving the debts, the steward has changed the relationships between himself and those indebted to his master. He has turned the values of the economic system upside down – but, as we know, this is something that we find in Luke’s Gospel time and time again. You could say that what the steward was doing was living a ‘Magnificat moment’ when the proud are scattered and the rich are sent empty away. Only, in this parable, it is the steward who effectively makes himself poor and empty. These ‘values of the Kingdom’ are at the heart of the Gospel of Luke and we do well to ponder them today.
In 2013, in the centennial year of this current glorious church building and preaching on this same Gospel reading, Father Mead, our Rector Emeritus, said these words:
“We are not saved by pure motives. That’s a good thing, when you start being honest about your motives! But helping the poor, doing good works, giving money to good causes, opening the hand to the appeal of human need certainly helps. It wins friends in heaven. Charity signifies a turning towards the kingdom of God and its subjects, so that when time is up and worldly goods are left behind, we may be received into eternal habitations.” (September 22, 2013)
Charity signifies a turning towards the kingdom of God and its subjects.
The word ‘charity’ of course has the same root as the word for ‘love’. Our charitable work at Saint Thomas Church is built on the example given by the Lord Jesus himself – the love that he showed to all people and the love that he gave as a new commandment to his disciples and, therefore, to us.
The Lord expects us to do everything in love and charity; the Lord expects us to work out what our values are and to test them against the values of the Kingdom. These are hard words of Jesus but the promise he gives is the promise of eternal life.
Coming back to wealth and money itself, this means that the way we conduct ourselves also matters. It is not enough to be philanthropic or generous – we have to do it with love. Now that really is a hard saying of Jesus! Writing to the Corinthians in that most famous passage, often used at weddings, Paul writes: “though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Notice: without love there is no ‘profit!’
Today’s parable is apposite for us here as we meet in this amazing church amid the Fifth Avenue shops and, as we worship, thousands of people are walking by our church with their credit cards poised for use. Jesus challenges us and them to work out what our true treasure is; to work out what counts as ‘mammon’ for each one of us, for it may not be money at all.
The way that we live and the way that we love will change us and prepare us for our heavenly inheritance where we might find that what we counted as ‘mammon’ on earth has no value whatsoever.
(We brought nothing into the world…we can take nothing out of it. 1 Timothy 6:7)
Or, as our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, said at a meeting of the House of Bishops last week, “We are looking at changing from a culture of fear, mistrust and resentment to the Jesus Movement culture of loving, liberating and life-giving communities.”
