Luke 16:19-31

What would you do if you unexpectedly received one million dollars? Would you automatically think of giving some of it away to others in greater need than you? On the Sunday TV program Songs of Praise a new definition of a millionaire was suggested as “someone who gives a million dollars away”. Today we thank God for all those around us who have so generously supported the ministry of our Church to the poor and needy. In the Early Church the poor were called “the treasures of the Church” because in helping the poor, Christians were helping Christ Himself who meets us in the poor and needy.

The focus of Jesus’ ministry was on those in greatest need of His help. Jesus deeply and warmly loved those on the edge of society or those who were looked down on with disdain – the weak, the sick, the disabled and outcasts. Jesus reminds John the Baptist that His mission was to bring good news to the poor. By this, Jesus also includes those suffering from spiritual poverty, of which there are so many here in our own community. In today’s parable, Jesus focuses on the needs of poor people like Lazarus.

Children and grown-ups like hearing this parable. In this story it seems that for a moment, the curtain is drawn aside and we get a tiny glimpse of the hereafter, of heaven and hell. The other thing that pleases a child’s imagination and perhaps many adults, is to see how this rich guy, who had it so “good” in this life, gets what’s coming to him in the next life, while poor Lazarus, who had such a hell of a life on earth, at last receives the joy and consolation of heaven.

But by focussing on that aspect of the story, we’re missing its central point. The real point of the story is not so much about the rich man or about Lazarus, but rather about what Abraham says to the rich man about his five brothers still at home on earth and their need to hear God’s Word. The sin of the rich man isn’t that he was rich but that he was indifferent. It’s not bad to be rich, nor is it a sign of goodness to be poor. But it’s wrong when a person is so wrapped up in his possessions and affluent lifestyle and is so thoroughly selfish that he is totally indifferent to the needy person placed at his gate. The rich man’s terrible sin isn’t that he never helped Lazarus, but that he did nothing at all, feasting while Lazarus died at his gate. In the time of Jesus, affluent people used bread as we use serviettes – to wipe their fingers. Hungry Lazarus would gladly have fed on such scraps, but the rich guy pretends not to notice Lazarus’s desperate need for food.

What’s more, he pretends not to notice God, His Maker and the Giver of all the gifts he enjoys. These two realities go together – if you love God, you will love your neighbour and have a special compassion for a neighbour in need. At the other end of the scale, indifference to your needy neighbour is a reflection of your

indifference to God. God’s Word says to you, “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen (1 John 4:20).”

 Let’s focus on being different now. Lazarus certainly was a different person in the next life. In contrast to the rich guy in our parable who is unnamed, Lazarus has a name. His name is a very important clue for understanding this story, because his name means “God is my helper.” His name shows that despite all his poverty and misery, he has put his trust in God. He believed God is his Helper. And when he dies, what he has always believed comes true. In heaven he discovers the joy of being with the God in whom he trusted.

The rich man is certainly a different person in the next life. For him it is a “riches to rags” story. In the next life he finds himself in hell. What is hell? To be separated from God. And what is heaven? To be with God. In this life the rich man separated himself from God; in the next life, the separation from God becomes absolute. So now he’s a radically different person – no more enjoying the comforts of this life, but enduring the discomforts of hell. Another thing is different about him in the next life. For the first time he thinks of someone other than himself. He is concerned about his five brothers left on earth and asks Abraham to send someone from the dead, lest they also come to the place of torment.

He thinks that there’s only one thing that will change his brothers on earth and make them different, that is if someone comes from the dead to warn them and then they will believe. “Not so”, Abraham tells him. “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” And if they won’t listen to them, that is, if they won’t hear God’s Word for them, then they won’t listen even if someone comes to them from the dead.

Although this is only a story told to us by Jesus, nevertheless what He said actually happened. There was a brother who did come back from the dead, and would you know, his name was Lazarus! Remember how Jesus raised Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus from the dead. And what happened after Jesus raised Lazarus? Those who already believed, believed all the more. But those who didn’t believe immediately began plotting to assassinate Jesus. There were times like the feeding of the five thousand when people saw the miraculous things Jesus did and still didn’t believe in Him. Seeing is not necessarily believing.  Rather, faith in Jesus gives us super-sight. Jesus says to Martha at the death of her brother Lazarus, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God? (John 11:40)” Faith enables us to see God at work in our lives and around us, things those without faith cannot see.

So who are we in this story? We’re the ones still alive. We are the five brothers. And like them we have Moses and the prophets. In fact, we have even more, because not only do we have Moses and the prophets in the Old Testament, we also have the Gospels and the Epistles, the New Testament of our merciful Saviour Jesus Christ. We have the life-giving good news of His grace that can make us different, and can make us dare to live differently. What an incomparable blessing that is. It’s all about the Word who took on human flesh and lives among us, full of grace and truth.

Our Lord Jesus Christ became poorer and more wretched than Lazarus was so that by His poverty we could become rich in the things that matter eternally. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you, through His poverty, might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).”

After His birth, where Jesus lay in a borrowed manger in a lowly stable, He was rejected, scoured, despised, tortured and crucified for us. Jesus gave up everything for us and our eternal benefit and blessing. After Jesus rose from the dead He became Lord of heaven and earth and the real owner of everything on this earth. He now says to you and to me: “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands – all that you can hold (Luke 6:38).” Or as the prayer of St. Francis puts it, “For it is in giving that we receive” the joy of knowing that we are blessing others with what God has given us. Jesus says to you “Blessed are those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice (Luke 11:28).”

It’s not hard to put ourselves in the rich man’s place and imagine what he might think, looking at Lazarus, all covered in loathsome sores: ‘But if the doctors cannot do a thing for him, what am I expected to do? He is as poor as the stray dogs themselves. But surely it is not my fault that he is poor. I never robbed him or stole from him. God knows the streets are full of beggars. There are plenty of others as badly off as he is. But what can one man do about it? They would have to bankrupt the government to make any noticeable difference. If one lone beggar finds his way to my door, does that give him more claim on me than the others have? I have let him live exclusively, for weeks and months, on the discarded scraps from my table. Surely that is something I am doing for him. What more can I do?’

When we suffer from donation-fatigue like that, we need to pray to Jesus, “Thank You for loving me so much more than I could ever deserve. Through Your Word and sacraments, continually fill me with a love that overflows into the lives of others.” 

People who love each other want to be together and hear each other speak. When we love our Lord, we want to be where He is with us in a very special way, that is, in the Lord’s Supper, where He gives Himself to us in an awesome act of love. He does this to continue making us more and more like Him. More and more we will become eager to love others with Christ’s life-transforming, life-renewing love.

We give to God because God promises to multiply with His blessing whatever we give, whether to Him or our needy neighbour. “God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).”

For souls redeemed, for sins forgiven, for means of grace and hopes of heaven,

To you, O Lord, what can be given? You give us all.

We lose what on ourselves we spend; we have as treasure without end

Whatever, Lord, to You we lend – You give us all.

Amen.

Luke 16:1-13

The guest speaker at a pastors’ conference handed out a paper containing ten statements for the pastors to think about during the course of the conference.  He called them ‘The Ten Deadly Delusions’ because they were statements that at first glance seemed to be true, but each contained a dangerous or misleading idea or attitude. 

Three of them related specifically to the parable that is before us today.  Let’s see if you can see what is wrong or misleading in each statement.

1. “God wants us to give him a percentage of what he has first given us. If only people would practice tithing!”
2. “God has blessed this country with many wonderful things to enjoy.”
3. “This country offers many opportunities for people to achieve success for themselves.”

In the light of Jesus’ parable of the shrewd manager let us consider a response to these three so-called ‘delusions’.

To the first ‘delusion’ we must ask: How can we give God what really belongs to him anyway?  Don’t the things we use in this world still belong to God? The Old Testament practice of making tithes and offerings was given, not as an end in itself, but so that people would not forget that God is the owner and giver of all things.  We cannot begin to assume that we own or deserve any of the things we have.  Think about the manager in Jesus’ parable.  He had nothing of his own.  His job was on loan to him only for as long as the rich man saw fit.  His employment was totally in the hands of his master.  He had been living in a house provided by his master, eating food and wearing clothes provided by his master or bought with his master’s wages.  Now, when accused of wasting the master’s possessions and left to consider his future without a job, the reality began to hit home.  He really owned nothing at all. Without his Master he was completely unable to provide for himself.

Isn’t that true for us also?  Apart from our Master’s goodness we have nothing.  The one who owns all things graciously loans some of them to us. We confess in the explanation to the first part of the creed that everything we have from God is ‘purely out of his Fatherly and Divine goodness and mercy, though we do not deserve it.’  Our life itself is on loan from God. Every day of our time on this earth is entirely in God’s hands.  Our food, clothing, money, talents are ours only as long as our Master loans them to us.  Apart from his goodness to us we have nothing and are incapable of providing for ourselves.  The Scripture says: We brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out if it (1 Tim 6:7).  When God speaks of his ‘giving’ to us or our ‘giving’ to him we must always see it in this context.  The Psalmist says: The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (psalm 24:1).

Like the rich man in Jesus parable, the Master owns everything.  In reality we cannot give ‘a percentage’ back to him because it’s all his anyway – 100% of it.  In our tithes and offerings we honour God’s generous loan by returning the first percentage to its rightful owner.

Like the manager or steward in Jesus’ parable we are simply managers of what our Master owns.  When God created the Adam and Eve he gave them ‘dominion’ or ‘management’ over the things he had made, not ‘ownership’. That is why we have traditionally used the word ‘stewardship’ in relation to our management of time, talents and treasures, rather the word ‘giving’ – because giving presumes that we own these things – and we don’t!  As God’s ‘stewards’, we are simply employed to ‘manage’ and distribute what belongs to our Master. 

Jesus’ parable leads us to look at the second ‘deadly delusion’: “God has blessed this country with many wonderful things to enjoy.”  To that statement we must then respond: We are certainly blessed by what God generously loans to us, not just to enjoy for ourselves but to use to his glory and in the service of others.  Think again of the manager in Jesus’ parable. He knew he owned nothing but he also knew something else; he had his master’s goods at his disposal.  So he used his remaining time, his talents as manager, and the goods that belonged to his master to serve others and to secure his own future. 

Jesus makes no bones about the fact that what the manager did was dishonest, but he does commend him for his shrewd or clever use of what was placed under his care.  Jesus’ point is that if non-believers can be so clever in their use of worldly goods then we should ‘take a leaf out of their book’ when it comes to our management of what we have on loan from God.  Jesus is by no means promoting dishonesty; he is talking about the wise use of our Master’s time, talents and treasures while we have them at our disposal.

Like this manager we have all been given notice that our time on this earth is limited and that we must give an account of our management.  We know that we can’t take anything with us into the next life, so the challenge is to use what we have to wisely to serve others and prepare ourselves for life in the eternal dwellings. 

The questions we must ask are: How can we wisely invest our time, our talents and our treasures to ensure our own eternal life and that of our family remains secure?  How can we use what we own to make friends for God; people who will also be our friends in the eternal dwellings?  How can we use the Master’s goods that are now at our disposal to serve those who live in hardship or oppression?

Nowhere in the Scriptures are we called to accumulate things for our own enjoyment.  Instead we are called to manage, use and distribute them wisely for the glory of God and the good of others.  ‘We live in a world where 6% of the people receive half the income, 50% are constantly hungry, 60% live in shanty-towns, and 70% are illiterate’.  There is even a greater percentage who are Biblically illiterate and spiritually hungry and who know nothing about the eternal dwellings.

Now we can also see what is wrong with the third ‘delusion’: “This country offers many opportunities for people to achieve success for themselves.”  While that statement is true in one sense, we must ask: Is material success what we’re really here for?  God reminds us that real success is not determined by the size of our house, our land, our possessions or our retirement nest-egg, the type of car we drive, the type of clothes we wear, or who our friends are, but by whether we are God’s friends.   Real success is not about accumulating riches but seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness. 

Both the master in the parable and Jesus himself commended the shrewd manager because he looked to the life beyond.  While still in his tenure as manager he prepared for life beyond his job.  He used his limited time and his master’s possessions to make friends for himself so that when he had nothing left they might welcome him into their homes.  Jesus encourages us to use our remaining time and all the talents and treasures at our disposal to make friends with God – to make sure we are reconciled to him.  If we are friends with God through faith in Jesus we know we will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.  We know that real success is finally achieved the very day we are called to leave all our worldly possessions behind.

We don’t have to accumulate riches here because, in our friendship with God through Jesus, we have everything we need. We are already rich.  In fact, Jesus warns that when the things of this world become the object of our loyalty, at that point we become spiritually and eternally poor.  We simply cannot serve two masters.

So let’s re-word those three ‘deadly delusions’ into three ‘living truths.’

1. “God wants us to acknowledge that we own nothing and that everything we are and have is graciously on loan to us. If only people would manage and distribute God’s gifts wisely!”
2. “God has provided the people of this country with many wonderful things, not to live comfortably but usefully for God and for others.”
3. “Life in this world offers many opportunities for people to prepare ourselves and others for the life in ‘eternal dwellings’.”

And may the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

The Text: Luke 15:1-10

¹Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were drawing near to Jesus to hear him. ²And the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were murmuring and saying “This man receives sinners and eats with them!” ³And Jesus told them this parable, saying ⁴“What one of you having a hundred sheep and having lost one of them, does not leave behind the ninety-nine in the desert and pursues after the one being lost, until he finds it? ⁵And finding it, he lays it upon his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶And coming to the house he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them ‘Rejoice with me! For I found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷I say to you that in the same way, there will be joy in heaven over one sinner repenting than the ninety-nine righteous who have no need to repent. ⁸Or what woman, having ten coins, if she has lost one, does not light a candle and sweeps the house and carefully seeks until she has found it.” ⁹And having found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying ‘Rejoice with me, because I found the coin which I lost.’ ¹⁰In the same way, I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

There are ‘Lost and Found’ departments everywhere―in shopping centres, hotels, public transport offices and schools―where people can go and claim that which is valuable to them they have lost. I remember when I was in primary school the lost and found department was a giant cardboard box with piles of shirts, shorts and jumpers to sort through, which I did once, hoping to find my lost drinker.

A drinker is not so bad but when we lose something that is valuable or necessary to us, and we still can’t find it after turning the house upside down, then we know the feelings of frustration, desperation and perhaps even despair: it might be our keys, a wedding ring, that critical part to a tool or toy, our watch, our wallet, an earring, important documents…

There’s a sense of that in today’s Gospel reading where Jesus tells a parable which we tend to refer to as the ‘lost coin’. Jesus says: “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” Speaking of turning the house upside down, here is this poor woman searching frantically for her lost coin―not just a lost coin, but one of ten coins. The ten coins probably represents this woman’s life savings. One of them would therefore be incredibly significant amount of money―who of us wouldn’t be worried if we had lost a tenth of our life savings! And without the social security services in those days, a tenth of this woman’s life savings was all the more important! So she lights a candle and sweeps the house hoping to brush it out of the cracks and hear it tinkle on the floor, so that it can be heard and seen and found.

This parable is of course searching for something far more important that money. Jesus’ parables use earthly realities to show us how God works in his grace. The initial audience of Jesus’ parable are the Pharisees who grumble about Jesus welcoming sinners into his presence. They think that if Jesus were really God, he would not make himself ritually unclean by associating with them. But the Pharisees have not understood. Everybody is in need of God’s grace!

That’s precisely what God says in today’s Psalm:

The Lord looks down from heaven
    on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
    any who seek God.
³ All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
    there is no one who does good,
    not even one.

⁴ Do all these evildoers know nothing?

 They devour my people as though eating bread;
    they never call on the Lord.
⁵ But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
    for God is present in the company of the righteous.

In our natural condition humanity is so darkened by sin and in fact dead in sin, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, that rather than seeking out the one true God, the human race has all turned from God, become corrupt, and are not capable of even making a choice to believe in Jesus. Jesus says in John’s Gospel “you did not choose me, but I chose you”. There is not even one in the entire human race that is able to do good―sure, people do good works, but this is speaking of living each day with God.

Today’s Psalm says: “God is present in the company of the righteous”. This is the sticking point for the Pharisees in the Gospel reading. It is why they grumbled that Jesus welcomed sinners and had table fellowship with them. They reckoned that if Jesus were really God, he wouldn’t―and shouldn’t―be in the company of sinners. They, the Pharisees, were the righteous ones (or so they thought).

Herein is the problem and Jesus’ own issue with the Pharisees. It was not that they revered the Law. After all, God’s law is holy and righteous and good and he does want all people to keep it—and to keep it perfectly—even as we promise that we will strive daily to lead a holy life just as Christ has made us holy. The issue is that they were self righteous; they revered their own efforts at trying to keep the Law according to their interpretation of it and they failed to see nobody is able to perfectly keep God’s Law. They established thousands of man-made rules for how to live out that interpretation in daily life. In the process they obscured God’s own commandments, and they rejected his saving help in Jesus as the Christ, and made them look to themself as being somehow able to earn righteousness before God. The parable of the lost sheep brings this out―Jesus in effect is saying that the Pharisees, the shepherds of Israel, have lost their sheep through leading them astray with false teaching, and yoking them with the crushing burden of trying to earn righteousness before God, for as James says in James 2:10: “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” So the Pharisees had set themselves up with a burden impossible to bear. They had failed to realise that everybody―including them―needs God’s grace. It is actually those who recognise that they are unrighteous and helpless to help themselves and see their only hope in Jesus’ good works who are the very ones in a right relationship with God.

The sheep in the first parable offers no service to the shepherd and in no way earns or deserves its rescue. Jesus tells these parables to teach the Pharisees that they are among the lost. Like the coin in the parable, a lifeless object which doesn’t even know it is lost, so too are the Pharisees, for they trust in their own works to earn God’s forgiveness and favour.

Yet the central message of the parables does not lie in that which is lost but the ones who are searching. [I thought this was a most appropriate picture for God’s ‘Lost and found’ department, and it is precisely what Jesus would have us see as central to these two stories]. The woman and the shepherd are the central and active figures. They search for what is lost because it belongs to them, and they search until it is found. These characters represent Jesus―he is the Messiah who comes to seek and save the lost sheep of Israel. He is to be seen as the woman, lighting the lamp, sweeping the house carefully. Each parable highlights God’s grace in searching for the lost and his joy at restoring sinners back to him. Jesus never actually called these parables ‘The parable of the lost sheep’ or ‘The parable of the lost coin’―they’re names that scholars and commentators have given them over the years.

I wonder if they would be better called: “The parable of the searching God” because they are about God in Christ searching out lost sinners in his gracious and extravagant love. He sent his Son into the world and to the Cross to seek and save the lost, to pay the price to buy us back by taking our sinfulness upon himself and ransoming us with his own blood, that we would be his own, alone, forever. All this is a reality for you in your baptism. It was in your baptism that the God who searches for and finds the lost found you even when you didn’t know you were lost. It was there that he washed you, forgave you and united you with Christ and his own death and resurrection so that you may belong to him as his alone. It was there he gave you his Spirit to make you spiritually alive; to daily die to sin and rise with him to newness of life and see with the eyes of Jesus and love others with his heart. It was there that heaven was filled with the resounding noise of the angels rejoicing over you. It was Jesus who was lost for a time; abandoned and forsaken by his Father on the Cross so that you wouldn’t be lost to God.

There are still many who are lost who Jesus would have his church reach out to. Joined to Christ we are called to share in his mission as his holy priesthood, and made new in him in baptism, we are able to follow, albeit imperfectly. Through his word, the Spirit he gave us at Baptism continues to battle with our old spirit, the spirit of the Pharisees in which we think we’re really not that bad, not like those other people. He calls us not to wait for people to come back to church, but he calls us to be the church and follow him as his search party. When Jesus visibly walked this earth in his ministry, he did not wait for people to show up at the synagogue―it was often in his daily interactions with people in everyday settings that he taught them and showed them his love and grace. When Jesus ate with sinners, he didn’t just give them food on a plate. He gave them time in his day, he sat with them, he had conversation with them; he affirmed that they were important, he attended to their needs with his care. And that’s what we have all been called to as Christ’s church—not for the prospect of boosting our attendance figures and balance sheets, but simply because they are people who are lost and can’t find their way back home and they matter to him, so much so that he stretched his arms out on the Cross for them too.

It is a challenge―one that usually makes us feel uncomfortable. But we don’t have to search high and low to know who we should be engaging with―they are usually right before us. The lost are not necessarily always those who are the socially undesirable or trapped in terrible sin. There are the respectable lost, the law abiding citizens lost, the educated lost, the lost who contribute to society. They are our next door neighbours, the people in the supermarket queue, those we mix with in work and leisure. And after we’ve got to know them, and listen to them, we see that they are really not much different to us. They have the same needs, the same fears, the same longing for peace and hope. And they might even say: “There’s no way God would want a sinner like me”. That’s when we can say: “Let me tell you a story. There was once a shepherd who searched for one of his sheep. And when he found him he carried him home, and there was rejoicing in heaven…”

And as you retell that story, remember this is how joyful God and the company of angels in heaven is for you, for it was Christ who searched for and found you, and carried you safely home to God, rejoicing all the way. Amen.

Grace and Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.   The Psalmist David prayed with the words:     ‘O LORD, we lift up our soul to you;  in you we trust, O God, our precious Father. Show us your ways, O LORD, teach us your paths; guide us in your truth, for you are God our Saviour, and our hope is in you all day long.’ ^{(Psalm 25:1–5 NIV84)}

Let’s join with David in prayer: O God our loving Father, we are privileged to share our worship of You. By your Holy Spirit, in word and sacrament, be present in our worship and guide our time together that we may choose life in your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, express the joy of our salvation, and grow into the people you want us to be. Gracious Father, hear our prayer for the sake of our risen Lord,  Amen.

In the Gospel today, Jesus warns that a choice to let God’s Holy Spirit guide our lives to become disciples is not to be taken casually.  He relates two embarrassments that were evident around him in Jerusalem and the surrounds.  

When Jesus spoke of an unfinished tower, the listeners of Jesus would have recognised

 the aqueduct Pilate began to build that was never completed, and became an embarrassment for the Roman Governor’s reign.  Jewish history relates that the cost of that aqueduct became a burden the city could not meet.

And when Jesus spoke about the uncertain warfare of a king, the listeners of Jesus would have recognised the often short-sighted military operations of the Zealots as they attempted to throw off Roman oppression.  They could never muster the support or strength to make even a dent.

Jesus holds both examples up to public ridicule.  Examples of not being able or willing to finish that which was begun. But my question today is: why are we hearing these parables of failure to persevere?  I believe the answer is that Jesus knew the challenge ahead for his apostles, disciples, and even casual followers, alike. 

Jesus knows that even in Australia, as Christians we too will face opportunities and responsibilities that will witness our choices and our  perseverance. 

Those times when we choose to follow Christ Jesus.  And those times we allow the distractions of family, friends, work, or social responsibilities tempt us to set aside what God has started in us.   That is the message for all of us, especially the fathers among us whom we are celebrating today.

Faith in Jesus Christ brings us into the arena of a work begun.  Jesus sets the hard word before the huge crowd following him.  He says, “any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” 

As believers, we discover that in the final analysis, all we really have is our stubborn will.  Our soul already belongs to Christ Jesus.  Our heart is the home for God’s Holy Spirit.  Our mind remains the battle ground.  I’m not sure who said it, but the old quote, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” seems to apply here.

As Scripture encourages us, when we submit our will to God, we will never be embarrassed or ridiculed in his eyes. But not so in the eyes of the world around us.   When we set our passion on living for Jesus Christ, we will truly be disciples. But it won’t always be easy.   When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are well on the way to becoming the beautiful people that God wants us to be.  And that is the encouragement for living our faith.

At every stage in our development as disciples of our Saviour, and complete human beings, we are pushed and pulled, tried and tested, turned every which way but loose.  But not so much by the gentle and strong Spirit of our Creator.  All this happens to us as we live and grow in the broken world in which we exist. 

But our wondrous Father has an ultimate plan for us.  By his Son’s sacrifice, we have faith that will make all the difference.  By his grace and mercy, his Holy Spirit guards us from the tensions that try to destroy in us all that is so valuable to him, but considered worthless by the world.  If we choose life of faith.    

In the Epistle today, Paul wrote to his friend Philemon, who was well on the way to becoming the beautiful person that God wanted him to be.  Paul writes, ‘I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.  I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.  Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.’ 

Even though Philemon was becoming the person that God wanted him to be, there was still a challenge.    All through our lives, there will be challenges to face.  Challenges to our faith, to our sensibilities, to our life as Christians.  Challenges that call us to choose to yield our will to God our Father, as Christ Jesus encourages us.

You see, Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, did a runner.  He ended up in Rome, where Paul was held in chains.  It is possible that Onesimus was in chains there beside Paul, awaiting the fate of a returned slave. But we can’t be clear about that.  We can’t even be clear that Onesimus received the gift of faith before or while in chains beside Paul.  What we can be clear about is that Onesimus embraced the grace offered by God and the faith in our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

Faith that is the beginning of a new relationship with God, and  is the fulfilment  of our salvation for all of us.

This letter is Paul’s encouragement for Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a rebellious and obstinate slave, but as a dear brother.  A fellow child of God, and believer in Jesus the Savour of us all.  Faith that makes Onesimus useful. 

Paul writes, ‘Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.  I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you.’

I’m told that Onesimus, in Greek, means useful.  From Jewish history, there is evidence that Philemon followed the advice and  encouragement of Paul.  That he received Onesimus back with Christian love and charity.  Some scholars believe this Onesimus is Onesimus the Bishop of Ephesis, praised in a letter to the second-century church from Ignatius of Antioch.  It is believed that the position of Onesimus preserved Paul’s letter to Philemon in the cannon of the New Testament. And we have it to share today.

I suspect that we can discover aspects of our own journey in the life of Onesimus.  At times, rebelling against God, and running away from the reality of Jesus Christ.  Encountering a Saviour who says to our Father God, just like Paul writes to Philemon, ‘If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.’  And then Christ Jesus paid our debt for us.

We journey through life with faith in our Saviour who took our every wrong and sin when He was sacrificed on the cross.  We, who were once useless, have been made useful, in our baptism.  We, who were once rebellious, have been made obedient, as we receive the words of the Holy Bible.   We who were once blinded to the light of Jesus Christ, have been made to see the reality of the Gospel in the Lord’s Supper.  We who have ventured off on our own, have been received into the loving arms of our Father God in his mercy, by his grace, through his Son.

Like Onesimus, we can give thanks to a loving, forgiving, and accepting Father who will not turn his children away, ridicule them, or discard them.  And God encourages every person to live the example of our wondrous Saviour Jesus Christ.

We are God’s chosen people.  We have been gathered around Jesus and set apart from the world to be His disciples.  Jesus calls all of us his beloved brothers and sisters. Compassionate Mothers and Fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, uncles and aunts.

We are encouraged to enter the challenge to choose Christian living every new moment of our lives, with serious reflection.  But knowing that we will  make mistakes in our sinful humanity.  Be encouraged that Jesus is making us into the people He wants us to be.  The Holy Spirit is moulding us into the character and nature of a disciple.  Giving us the freedom to choose to love the Lord Jesus Christ our God and Saviour with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.   And then likewise to love our neighbor as ourselves.

In everything we choose, may the grace and peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the calm assurance of salvation in our living Lord, Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. dave Thompson.
Port Macquarie.