{"id":441,"date":"2019-09-22T14:45:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T14:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=441"},"modified":"2019-09-22T18:49:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-22T18:49:43","slug":"fifteenth-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/22\/fifteenth-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke 16:1-13<\/strong>, 1 Timothy 2:1-7<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally,\nI don\u2019t want to make friends by means of dishonest wealth, no matter what Jesus\nsaid. Though I have to admit, I\u2019m not exactly sure what that would be and where\nI might get this dishonest wealth, but it doesn\u2019t sound like something that I\nwant to do. The treasurer who embezzled from my former church, before we knew that\nhe was stealing from the church, gave to my son a signed Pete Rose baseball,\nwhen we found out what he had done, I almost felt like throwing it back at<\/strong>\nhim, but it was my son\u2019s and he was young and it seemed contrary to the way I\nhear Jesus\u2019 words. Earlier on, this same man helped me find a place where I could\nbuy a piece of furniture, a rattan stand, should I have considered it to be\ntainted, even though I bought it before I knew what he did? As a pastor, even after\nI knew what he did, I held out hope that he might restore to the church what he\ntook and then be restored himself, I even continued to provide pastoral care\nfor his parents, was I right to do these things? Is this what Jesus meant by\nmaking friends for yourself by means of dishonest wealth or was I simply doing\nministry? I can\u2019t say that I made friends with him; I can\u2019t say that I benefited\nfrom him, other than getting the two things I mentioned. Even ministry gets\nconfused by life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nthis passage? Honestly every pastor that I know struggles with how to explain what\nthis passage is telling us to do; it sounds like Jesus is condoning something\nabout dishonest wealth. One way of looking at this passage would be, the church\nusing for good, money that was donated to the church by those who came by their\nwealth by dishonest methods. I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve ever done that, but I know\nthat the Roman Catholic Church has at times been questioned about its willingness\nto receive offerings from known mafia members. Are they making friends by\ndishonest wealth? By doing so are they supporting crime, do they open the door\nto dishonesty within the church or are they keeping the door open for those\ndishonest men and women to maybe someday clean up their acts and become law abiding\ncitizens and respectable members of the community of the faithful of Christ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndon\u2019t like today\u2019s reading; I can understand respecting the dishonest steward\u2019s\ncunning; cleverness is at the heart of creativity; we all have something we can\nlearn from such cunning, though hopefully in an honest way; but maybe we would\nbe better off were we to concentrate on making friends by honest wealth, if\nwealth is to be involved. Or is the suggestion here that no wealth is honest? Then\nI probably have some answering to do, though I did not intentionally accumulate\nthe limited wealth that I have by dishonest means; I\u2019m not poor; I\u2019m not rich,\nbut I\u2019m certainly better off than many; we are, pretty much all of us wealthy\nby the standards of the world! Is wealth, all wealth, tainted? It seems so, no\nmatter how loving the intention of the individual who comes to wealth seems to be,\nwealth is tainted; for you see not everyone from whom wealth comes has had such\nloving intentions; wealth it seems moves back and forth from the hands of those\nwho are more or less dishonest, even to those who are pure in their intent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nalso don\u2019t understand the whole premise behind using wealth, honest or\ndishonest, to make friends; real friends are not made with money and if in some\nway I made friends by wealth, why would I want someone with dishonest wealth to\nwelcome me into their eternal homes. Is it that Jesus said all of this, \u201ctongue\nin cheek\u201d? Maybe Jesus was suggesting that making friends by dishonest wealth,\nwill secure our welcome in an eternal home, but not the place we might want to\nspend eternity, the place in his mind is where God\u2019s punishment would be\nforever felt. That, I believe, kind of, makes sense; it sounds a lot more in\ntune with our understanding of who Jesus is, loving and as honest and obedient\nto God\u2019s will as can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke\n16:1-13 is not an easy passage for us to understand, but verse 11 may give us an\ninkling of understanding: \u201cIf then you have not<\/strong> been faithful with the\ndishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches.\u201d A person once wrote\nregarding wealth that there are no luggage racks on a hearse. With God real wealth\nis not about things. True riches cannot be stored away in a bank. A person who\nis loved by family and friends, and loved by Jesus has true riches and is often\ndescribed as a rich person. We have all heard the stories of very wealthy\npeople who are unhappy; how many stories of very successful people have we heard,\nwho have committed suicide, or have needed drugs or alcohol to make them feel\ngood? True riches are what we find only in relationships, good relationships,\nrelationships that are loving, relationships with other people and with Jesus. These\nriches bring us what we want in life and take us to Jesus\u2019 home, to which we will\nbe invited, where joy and celebration, not suffering and punishment are experienced.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None\nof us deserve such happiness but Jesus made it possible for all those who\nfollow him, who love and are loved. In 1 Timothy we read, \u201c\u2026 there is one God;\nthere is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself\nhuman who gave himself as a ransom for all \u2026\u201d Jesus makes it possible by his\nsacrifice on the cross. Knowing, believing this, we seek after honest wealth;\nwe seek to live lives obedient to God\u2019s will; we seek to live loving lives, not\nbecause we fear God\u2019s punishment but because we love our Lord and want to\nplease Jesus. Though true obedience to God and perfect love are beyond our\nability, we still strive to be worthy of Jesus love, forgiveness and salvation.\nWe do this as a way of showing our love and showing our thanksgiving to Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 16:1-13, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Personally, I don\u2019t want to make friends by means of dishonest wealth, no matter what Jesus said. Though I have to admit, I\u2019m not exactly sure what that would be and Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}