Playing the Game...

The Rev. Tommy Thompson

Proper 20C

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

Ludwig's Corner, PA

18 September 2016

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

As you all may or may not know, we have a three-year lectionary that we follow as Episcopalians.  The point of the lectionary is to ensure that within a three-year cycle, we hear as much of the breadth and scope of salvation history as possible.  An unintentional benefit of the lectionary is that you are protected from the agenda of the preacher.  The preacher has to submit to the word as it is scheduled in the lectionary regardless of whether or not it is on her or his top 25 favorite passages for preaching list.  The lectionary stretches the imagination of the preacher…and that’s a good thing.

But you know what amazes me the most about the lectionary?  That it is always timely.  Certainly there are Sundays where I ask God, “How in the world does this relate to where we are as a parish? What is the good news for your people through these lessons?”  And there are times where it is more difficult to discern how God might speak to the contemporary gathering through the ancient texts.  But, more often than not, I’m amazed that the timing is just right.  So right that it must be God at work.

This Sunday happens to be one of those Sundays where I’m like, “Okay, God; I see you.”  You see, our Joyful Giving Committee planned to make announcements in both services about a wonderful way of going about this year’s pledge and stewardship campaign.  Little did we know, that this same Sunday where we would announce the campaign, that the Gospel reading would be the perfect lens through which to understand stewardship.  Joyful Giving committee, you have God, the church, and the lectionary to thank for such a profound lens into the work you are doing. 

In the Gospel for today Jesus tells a story about a very rich man who had a manager whose charge it was to manage his wealth.  It so happened that the manager didn’t do a very good job in managing the wealth.  As a matter of fact, he had been caught red handed mismanaging his master’s wealth.  So the manager calls him into his office and says, “What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.'  At the news of his imminent termination as manager of his master’s wealth, he has a “come to Jesus moment” with himself, if you will.  Oh know…what will I do now?  I am not strong enough to dig…I’m too proud to beg.  I know what I will do …

And so he did.  He summoned each one of his master’s debtors, one by one, and cut deals with them.  To one he said, “How much do you owe?”  “100 jugs of olive oil,” the man replied.  “Take your bill and make it fifty!”  To another… “How much do you owe?” “100 containers of wheat.”  “Take your bill and make it 80.”  And so forth. 

When his master heard about what he had done, the master found himself quite impressed with the shrewdness of this manager and commended him. 

What an odd story for Jesus to tell his disciples, right?  I can see them now…their wheels are turning…why did our Lord and Master just tell us a story about a master commending his dishonest manager for his shrewd strategy for the sake of self-interest?  Not the story we normally hear from him…where’s he going with this anyway? 

Well, he’s making one point and one point only.  “The children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light in dealing with theirs.” 

Much has been made of this story, but the simple point Jesus is attempting to get across is that those who belong to this present age know it well.  They know that to win the game, you must play the game.  The manager played the game and he played it well.  In a society where reciprocity was essential currency in the market of exchange, he played his cards well, winning for himself, friends who would be indebted to him in the very near future when he would need friends as much as ever. 

We all know what it means to play the game, don’t we?  There aren’t many places in the world where playing the game isn’t at least somewhat necessary.   Jesus gets that.  And that’s why he tells this story.  You are very good at playing the games you’ve been taught to play, Jesus says.  But I have news for you, just like every other game, so too, there will be a time when these games are over.  I have come to bring in a new age and a new way.  And I invite you to learn the ways of this new world even more than you’ve learned how to play the games of the age that is passing away. 

The children of this age know more about this fleeting world than the children of light know about the everlasting age to come.  We heard the story of the way wealth is managed in this world – largely for self-interest.  Now Jesus invites us to learn how to be managers of another master’s wealth.  And this master is God, the creator and redeemer of the earth.  The master in the parable may seem rich, but he is a pauper next to the creator of all that is, seen and unseen. 

We’ve learned the ways of this world well, and we are commended for it.  We’ve played the game for self-gain…   But what if…what if we used our time, energy, talents, and resources to know the new world that Christ has inaugurated well, and to live in that world which is much more than a game will end, but a world that will never pass away; what if we endeavored to know and live this new way of being human in the world with the same energy that we use to play the games that we play in the world that is passing away?

Now that is the question of true stewardship.

And it is a question that is impossible to fully answer, because the new age that Jesus has inaugurated is so vast that we could never begin to fully understand it.  But the most faithful among us are those who accept Jesus challenge to live in the spirit’s power and give their life’s energy to understanding and living this new way of being in the world. 

You know, I think I know where we begin to make sense of knowing and living this new world.  We see it every time we gather here for worship.  Just after we confess our sins, receive God’s forgiveness and mercy and exchange the Peace of Christ with one another, we then participate in something that we call the oblations.  Oblations are the offering of the people of God as a response of overwhelming gratitude for the gifts that God has given to us.  The oblation bearers represent all of us as they bring forward the bread and the wine.  This act of offering hearkens back to the Old Testament when God’s people would bring in the first fruits of their crops and joyfully offer it to God with the sentiment, “God has supplied all our needs.  Therefore, we offer to God these first fruits trusting in faith that there will be seconds and thirds and fourths and so forth.” 

This is the logic of the new world.  Jesus came among us as one who came to serve rather than being served.  He came and revealed the essence of God’s life to us as he poured himself out for the well-being of all.  This is the very heart of who God is – The Trinity is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit eternally emptying the self and receiving the fullness of the other.  And each time we gather here for the Holy Eucharist, we witness this essence of God’s life…of God pouring out his love and his life for the sake of us who stand in need of his redeeming love.  And once we have received such abundance, we cannot help but to join in the triune dance of emptying the self and receiving the fullness of the other. 

So we bring an offering of thanksgiving in response to God’s offering of Himself for us. That offering is then accepted by God who transforms that offering into communion with God’s very life.  And through that communion, we are transformed more and more to be representatives of the new age that Christ has come to inaugurate in and for the sake of the world that is passing away. 

This logic of the Eucharist is meant to be the logic of our lives.  To be in touch with this way in the world is to be children of light who understand their generation.  And Christ invites us to understand this new world even more than the children of this age understand their world. 

As we begin our joyful giving campaign for this year, my prayer is that we will do much more than check a box, much more even than increasing a pledge, but becoming true stewards of our master’s creation.   May we receive all of life and all of life’s blessings with gratitude, realizing that it is not ours, that we did not earn it, but it is gift from God.  And may we have a lose grip of all that we “have” and open our hands to offer our gifts back to God as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving for the welfare of the whole church and the whole world. Amen.