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This Week's Sermon The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost 23 September 2007 "God Knows Your Heart" Luke 16:1-15 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Money is not a possession, even though we are accustomed to speaking of "my money, my possessions." Money is a trust. God entrusts property to people and expects that they use it for his glory and the good of others. Money, in the context of today's Gospel, points beyond itself to something else; it points to true riches, the riches that await the faithful in the life to come. Yet, it is of greatest importance that we know the difference in this life because if we do not, then we will not have the true riches in the life to come. And so, faithfulness enters into the equation, how we use these God-given possessions as an indication of our spiritual health. "God Knows Your Heart"; do you?

This is now the second time we hear of the Pharisees listening to Jesus speak to his disciples. At 15.2 they grumbled that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. Now they go beyond grumbling to scoffing at what Jesus has just said. They were lovers of money and knew that Jesus had been speaking about them. They were hypocrites and liars, and Jesus has just exposed them once more for what they were. Earlier Jesus had said of them, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness." (Luke 11:39, ESV) Jesus exposed their hypocrisy then, and was doing it again now. Then he spoke the Law to them in a way that should have brought terror to their hearts. He said, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God." (Luke 16:15, ESV) No matter how often they had fooled other people, they could not fool God. God saw their hearts for what they were, desperately corrupt and sinful. Yet, it did not drive them to repentance.

The parable which began our Gospel reading is perhaps the most difficult of all the parables Jesus told because he seems to commend dishonesty, but that's not really the case. The point is the manager's shrewdness in knowing where real riches lay. He gave up his profit in order to save his skin. He relied on the master's good will toward others. He was shrewd enough to let go of the money in order to save his life.

For many people, money, mammon as it comes from the Aramaic, means "wealth, possessions." Wealth can be a killer. If you are in the habit of reading the news everyday online, you'll find that perhaps half of the stories deal with money in one way or another. And I don't mean just the financial page, but most of the crime stories have love of money as an underlying theme. The love of money causes people to do some really stupid things. O. J. Simpson's latest troubles with the law focus on money. Money is sometimes called "the mother's milk of politics," and there are constant reports of illegal financial activities on the part of candidates for political office. Neither party has a monopoly on virtue because no candidate can survive without money-lots of it. When do gifts become bribes? When is it wrong to use other people's money to make money for yourself? And we haven't even considered the robberies, burglaries, and all the other ways that getting money is at the center of plain old wrongdoing.

Contrary to some, money itself is not the problem. Wealth in itself is not bad. Wealth can build churches, endow educational institutions and medical centers, fund mission outreaches of churches, help people who are victims of natural disasters, and the like. Our attitude toward wealth, however, is most likely the problem. "The Pharisees . . . were lovers of money," Luke tells us here. They heard what Jesus said about money being a master that excludes them from God and that made them angry. They believed that they could serve God as the Law required and pursue wealth as the highest good in life. Jesus had said, "No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (Luke 16:13, ESV) It is not the first time he has said this. In the Sermon on the Mount he said exactly the same words, so important it is for us to hear them.

This brought Jesus ridicule from the Pharisees. No longer content to grumble as they had done when Jesus welcomed and ate with tax collectors and sinners, their complaint rose to the level of open hostility with vehement replies. And Jesus responded, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God." (Luke 16:15, ESV)

On one of our trips to Germany we ate in a restaurant that featured a dish called Maultaschen. These are essentially very large ravioli, German-style. Literally, the name means "mouth pocket." Because Roman Catholics were forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, these clever Bavarians stuffed the meat inside the Maultaschen. It was explained to us that since the meat was inside the pocket, God could not see the meat, so one was able to fool God!

In a sense, that's what the Pharisees were doing. They thought that by keeping the Law outwardly God would be satisfied. They thought they could fool God, but Jesus tells us that God sees not merely what is on the outside, but what is on the inside as well. He sees our hearts. Not only that, he knows our hearts! He knows what is in them and condemns us for our failure to keep the First Commandment, "You shall have no other gods before me." It forbids all idolatry. It forbids us to have any other loyalties in place of God. "We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things," is the way Luther explains it in the Small Catechism.

Love of God above all things leads to "the true riches" of heaven. And so, it is all about the First Commandment, even for us, isn't it? How goes your love of God these days? Your stewardship of God's gifts is certainly a barometer of what is in your heart. You can fool the church, you can fool your spouse, you can even fool yourself, but you can't fool God. Indeed, the Apostle Paul warns:

"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap." (Galatians 6:7, ESV)

Ask yourself these questions! God already knows the answers because "God Knows Your Heart!" You may not want to admit the answers, but you should! In meditating on the Ten Commandments, penitents coming to Private Confession and Absolution are to ask themselves these questions:

My God is that which I love, trust, and fear most in my life. I expect my comfort, good, and delight from my God. Have I loved, trusted, or feared other things or people more than I love, trust, and fear God?

Have I committed idolatry by seeking comfort, good, and delight from my own efforts rather than from God himself?

Do I look to my heavenly Father for all love, good, and joy? Is everything measured by what pleases me? In all things am I self-centered and selfish?

Do I see my worry and fretting as sin against trusting God?
Do I practice living for God? On what things does my attention focus?

Do I complain about the troubles, people, work, and suffering which God lays on me? Do I love the things God gives me more than I love him? And do I cling to what God takes away, even though he gives me himself?

Ahh, you see at the very end of that a reference to "the true riches" of which Jesus speaks. Anything which pulls you away from him puts your soul in danger. Anything which you serve as you should serve God is idolatry. Somewhere along the line serious repentance is called for. One danger I see is that many see other sins as more serious than this sin but the sin against the First Commandment renders all the rest of them void, useless. If you do not have God as he wishes you to have him, then you have nothing, regardless of how many possessions you have. You cannot serve two masters, your wealth or your own pleasure and God. This is not to say that God will not give you things, but it speaks to priority. Jesus said, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:33, ESV)

What shall you do when you feel yourself torn between these two masters? You must do the only thing you can do: confess your sin and repent, throwing yourself on the mercy of God in Christ. Christ is the only one who has atoned for your sin by his innocent life. Jesus never put himself first. His heart was always directed to his heavenly Father. He kept the First Commandment as God wanted it kept. His heart, soul, body, and mind were perfectly in line with God's will.

It would be foolish to say to you that you should be like Jesus because you and I will never be enough like Jesus. That would be directing you back again to the Law and your own resources. You would simply fall deeper into your sin, like the Pharisees. No, look to Jesus who is the Fulfillment of the whole will and Law of God for you. Come to him for Absolution, for your forgiveness. Return to your Baptism by daily repenting of your sin and letting Christ raise up the new man. Let the love of Christ rule your heart and mind!

The key to understanding this parable and really, the rest of the chapter, is faithfulness. To be faithful in your use of the possessions God gives you, faithful to God rather than money, faithful in your heart and not just in your outward actions, faithful to the kingdom of God which was begun in Christ Jesus, you will need Christ's faithfulness as he distributes it to you in Word and Sacrament. Here in these means you will find his faithfulness. In Christ God will make you faithful in your use of his gifts.

May God grant it for the sake of Jesus!