September 25, 2022
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
Found Faithful Series – Week One
1 Corinthians 4:1-2; Luke 16:19-31
Found Faithful
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
May we be found faithful.
The theme for our stewardship emphasis this year is “found faithful.” It’s based on the verses we heard earlier from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “Think of us this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”
The “us” Paul refers to are evangelists, people like Paul and Apollos and Timothy and Barnabas. These individuals had dedicated their lives to bring the message of Christ to communities throughout the Mediterranean Basin. They’ve been entrusted with the message of Christ’s saving works and abundant grace and life. They feel called – impelled, even – to share that good news with the world.
As one of these evangelists, Paul recognizes that God has entrusted this message of salvation with him. He sees this not as an obligation but as an incredible privilege. That God should believe in Paul enough to entrust this message with him, wow!
This message is not his own. He doesn’t possess it. Paul calls himself a servant and a steward. Both of these roles signify that someone else is the true owner of the possession. The steward is just momentarily given oversight of its welfare for a while. Paul hopes that he might be found by God to be faithful to that sacred calling.
In our time and in our place, we have a similar hope. We hope that we also might be found faithful to all that has been entrusted to us.
It’s been said that stewardship is everything that follows after you say “I believe.” That is so true! Our connection to God becomes the lens through which we view our lives. Our eyes were created with a lens. All of the light in front of us passes through that lens. The lens refracts and interprets that light and shines it onto the field of our retina. That eye lens becomes the medium through which all our visual sensory of the world is perceived.
The same is true of our faith. It’s the great lens through which we interpret this great big world and all that’s in it. We see and understand the world, ourselves, and all the people and creatures about us. It all filters through and is refracted by our faith in God. Everything that shines in goes through that lens of faith. And what comes out of it – our understanding of our neighbors, our own purpose, our actions, it all comes to us through this gift of faith. Faith makes sense of our lives. It clarifies our purpose, it magnifies our potential, it colors our world with joy and the sense of abundance in God’s goodness.
That gift of faith and resulting stewardship came to us first at our baptism. There we received a lit candle. As the candle was handed over to us, we heard the words, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
In baptism, we didn’t accept God; God accepted us. God chose us at baptism. And that candle tells us just how much God believes in us. Our lives can reflect the light of Christ into the lives of others. Through all we say, through our actions and our words, we reflect the goodness of God, the mercy of Christ, the justice of divine truth, the hope of the Spirit. Can I get an amen?
That baptism candle calls us to be found faithful. It encourages us to keep looking through that lens of faith to figure out what we can do with all that we are.
Pastor Rick Warren once said, “God’s plan isn’t a map for your life that you see all at once, but a scroll unrolled a little at a time, requiring faith.”
As we journey forward in faith, our life story is slowly revealed. Day by day, we see the situations we’re placed in, the possibilities for us to make a difference, to spread God’s light into the world around us. May we be found faithful.
We hear today a story from Jesus. And it’s a tragedy, really. It’s about a person who failed to realize his potential. He lost the ability to see himself as a steward of God. Instead, he saw himself as a master, the master of all he possessed. And he possessed a lot.
Jesus never gives him a name, but over the years he’s been dubbed as “Dives.” The name just sounds rich! It sounds like a purply aristocrat who lives high off the hog.
A very poor man, pitifully poor, camps out at the gate of Dives’ house. And in Jesus’ story, he does have a name. He may be poor and deemed insignificant by the rich man, but we know his name is Lazarus. And we find out that even the rich guy knew his name. Day after day he passed by this poor, wretched soul. He passed by and didn’t do anything to help him. All that while knowing his name!
Eventually, both men die. Lazarus goes to heaven and lies in the bosom of Abraham. Dives, well, he dives. He goes to Hades and now he lives in misery. He gazes far off and there in the distance he sees a familiar face. It’s Lazarus! And Abraham, too!
But even in Hades, Dives fails to see clearly. In Lazarus he doesn’t see his brother, he doesn’t see a son of Abraham. No, to him, Lazarus is still somehow beneath him. He wants Lazarus to come and serve him. Lazarus can go and fetch him some cool water. Lazarus is there to serve him.
The story is a tragedy. Here is a man who had been given so much! He had so much to offer the world, so much capacity to make a difference! But he did nothing with it. He kept it all to himself. He was found faithless, you might say. He had failed to see himself through the lens of faith. In his nearsightedness, he had come to see all he had – his wealth, his position, his privilege – he saw it as his possession, his birthright. He’d become blind to the reality that all these things had just been placed into his hands momentarily. They were his to steward throughout his lifetime.
Jesus doesn’t tell this parable as a judgment. He shares it as a wake up. He wants us to see clearly just how beautiful it is and such a privilege to be God’s steward. In all that we have, in all that we are, in all that we hope to be, may we be found faithful.
