The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 16:1-13

This past week, we finished another year of family night. The theme of our Family Nights was stewardship. Coincidentally, the Gospel reading today is called the “Parable of the Unjust Steward.”

The purpose of Family Nights this year was to teach children how to be stewards in many areas of daily life, to care for their families through food, home, and resources, while reminding adults where true stewardship begins and comes from.

But to accomplish this, we need to understand what stewardship means.

The Greek word for steward is “οἰκονόμος.” The root of “οἰκονόμος” is actually two words, “οἶκος,” meaning house, home, or estate, and “νόμος,” which denotes law, rule, and authority. A steward is someone who is given or placed in authority to manage or oversee a home, estate, or even, in modern times, a business. 

Another ancient definition of the word, “οἰκονόμος” or “οἰκονόμia,” is economy. Perhaps this is why we often associate stewardship mainly with money, because of how we perceive and understand the word, economy today.

Today, we view the economy as a free market where we trade money and stocks, buy food, cars, and homes. Many believe that the economy depends on who is in power, who is leading the government, interest rates, and so on.

However, like many things we have come to accept as true, is this the best understanding of the word economy? Has this worldly definition misled us as Christians?

How many of you would describe your home as an economy?

Yet, in many ways, the home is the foundation of a Christian economy and a Christian understanding of stewardship.

Over the past month, we’ve learned that stewardship starts in the Garden of Eden, where God created man in His image, placed Adam in the garden, and trusted him with caring for all living things. God put Adam in the Garden to tend and keep it, making him its steward. 

The creation account shows that Adam was not meant to be lazy; he was a worker made in God's image. 

Adam’s perfect stewardship ended when he allowed his wife, Eve, to take from the tree they were forbidden to eat from. The devil led them to idolize something that wasn’t theirs to have—the knowledge of good and evil.

Like these two in the Garden of Eden, the stewardship of our homes and lives fails when we allow idols to take hold of our hearts.

What has turned into an idol in your heart?

Sure, we could list money, cars, sports, guns, school activities, clubs, and so on, but there might be a deeper question being asked here…

Where has God placed you—the home, church, and your community? What vocations and tasks has God entrusted to you in these settings? 

Remember, God created Adam, then placed him in the Garden, and entrusted him with caring for everything within that space and time. 

So, where has God placed you, and what has He entrusted to your care in these areas of life?

When you reflect on these questions and use these perspectives, you then realize how you have squandered and wasted the master’s goods.

Look around your home — sure, you see siding you haven’t repaired and a vehicle that still needs an oil change, but what about the child you’ve committed to and entrusted with raising in the Christian faith? Think about the scriptures you promised to read, the pledge you made to come, confess your sins, and receive the flesh and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of all your sins. 

What about these things? God’s Word, His Sacraments, His forgiveness?

Have you wasted or misused these gifts?

Are you wasting or squandering these gifts by not gathering around them, inviting others, and bringing those within your household to receive them?

You know, it’s easy for a church to lose its way, become idolatrous, and squander the gifts entrusted to it. Of course, we want more people to join us. The devil tries to tempt us into comparing ourselves to churches nearby. We complain when budgets aren’t met. We get distracted by small things like the color of the paint on the walls or the carpet on the floor.

Meeting the budget, gaining a hundred members a year, being one hundred percent in agreement on paint colors, or having the raddest youth group doesn’t define the church, nor does it, at the most basic level, mean that we are good stewards of the things and people entrusted to our care.

No, again, good stewardship starts with the Gospel, the good news of Jesus and the forgiveness of sin.

Reflect on Adam and Eve’s fall into sin. They failed in the stewardship entrusted to them, but the Creator also promised to provide a cure for this failure. He promised to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born of the flesh, born of Mary, to bear the sins of man, including mismanagement and especially the disregard we have for the relationships and people entrusted to us, upon the cross. 

It is through this death on the cross that humanity is redeemed and made new. As St. Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Every time you confess your sins and receive your Father’s forgiveness in heaven, you are made into a new creation and a renewed steward of God. 

And this is what the pastor is sent and entrusted with: the stewardship of the Gospel, of announcing the forgiveness of sins to those who confess their transgressions. As St. Paul says, pastors are to be “Stewards of the mysteries of God.” (1 Corinthians 4:1)

If this stewardship of grace is lost, then the church is also lost.

Alright, so how does the church move forward with this frame of mind and spirit of the heart?

We come to understand that we cannot serve two masters; there can only be one, and that is Him, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for you.

If you have failed in your stewardship of the things and people entrusted to your care, you need to repent. The Collect of the Day begins and guides us as we pray: “Let Your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of Your humble servants.” Humble yourself and confess how you’ve squandered God’s gifts: the people, the community you’ve been placed in, your finances, and possessions that have been entrusted to you.

Surely, you’ve all acted like this unjust steward in the parable today, but consider how the Master treated him; the Master was merciful.

He is merciful to you as well. He loves you, forgives you, and the amazing thing is that He keeps trusting you with the gifts of His Kingdom, especially the forgiveness of sins. 

As you leave here today, remember this and be as merciful to your neighbor as your Lord and Master is merciful to you. See the people in your lives as the gifts they are, given and entrusted to you. See the Church not just as your institution to manage but as the fertile garden where God’s Word can be nourished, care for you, and bring others to faith. Because this is how true stewardship begins, with the word and grace of God planted into your ears and heart.

This word and grace then sustain you throughout this life as the Great Steward, prepares you to receive a heavenly reward, prepared by Him through His death and resurrection.

This changes everything…

So go ahead and be a new creation and image of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Great Steward of man, forgiving, loving, and caring for all those who dwell within your house, church, community, and presence, supporting each other through these dark and latter days as you journey together toward the new heaven and new earth that await us all. +INJ+

Rev. Noah J. Rogness

Pastor, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

Tomah, WI

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Website: www.goodsheptomah.org

The Shepherd’s Voice Podcast: https://goodsheptomah.podbean.com/