Sermon delivered Sunday, September 19, 2010 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. There is no audio file for this sermon.
Lectionary texts: Jeremiah 8:18-19:1; Psalm 79:1-9; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What is the Human Condition?
Good morning, St. Andrew’s! There is nothing sadder in this life than losing forever the chance to turn a wrong into a right. We see it happen all the time. For example, two people become alienated and then one of them dies before they can be reconciled, even if perhaps both had the desire to be reconciled. But they failed to act and now it is too late. I know when I was young and stupid, I did not spend much time with my grandparents and then they died before I realized what a dumb thing it was to ignore them. But their death prevented me from doing anything about it and left me feeling terribly guilty about my behavior for several years. That is why hearing stories like we heard in today’s OT lesson is so heart-wrenching. We can instinctively relate to the prophet and his Lord as they grieve over God’s people who have stubbornly refused to repent of their sinful and rebellious ways, and who now have lost the chance to do so. It is too late for Judah. Judgment had been brought on their heads and they had reached the point of no return where there was nothing they could do to change it.
That is why we must take seriously the lesson in Jesus’ parable today about the dishonest manager and use our spiritual and physical resources wisely while we still have the opportunity to help ensure our spiritual future. It is true that we are saved by the grace of God and that there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. But as both Jesus and Paul make clear in today’s Gospel and Epistle lessons, that doesn’t mean we are to kick back, relax, do as we please, and then wait for God to do everything for us. No, we must respond to God’s gracious gift of life to us in Jesus Christ in a variety of ways that are pleasing to God to help us grow in our relationship with him. This morning I want take a cue from today’s Epistle lesson and talk about one way to do that. I want to talk about being good stewards of our prayer life because the kind of stewards we are will always reflect the value we place on our relationship with God.
This was at the heart of Judah’s problems. The people of Israel had failed to be good stewards of God’s blessing on them. They had been blessed by God to be a blessing for others (Genesis 12:2-3), but they had forgotten this and instead chose to see themselves as being privileged. This led them to become proud and arrogant, which in turn caused them to be stubbornly rebellious, the way pride inevitably causes all of us to be. All of this, of course, affected their stewardship of worship, an essential part of being good stewards of God’s blessing. Judah turned to the worship of false gods, in part, because they did not see the need to worship the One True God who was the Source of their blessing and they refused to repent of this evil despite the constant warnings of God’s prophets. They didn’t take care of business when they had the chance and finally the time came when they no longer had the chance to repent and accept God’s gracious offer to heal and forgive them. This lesson applies not only to the people of Judah. It also applies to us today because the human condition remains unchanged. Without the saving grace of Jesus Christ, we too are destined to be lost in our sins and alienated from God, both in this life and the next.
Where is God’s Grace?
But that is not God’s intention for us. He created us to have a relationship with him rather than to destroy us. He knows we are weighed down by our body of sin and that on our own we cannot attain the kind of sinless perfection that is required to be able to live directly in God’s perfect and holy Presence forever. So God became human and allowed himself to be nailed to the cross so that we could be made fit to live with him forever, washed clean by the blood of Christ. It is a wondrous gift of love offered freely to each one of us and if we truly understand the human condition and God’s gracious gift to us, we, like Paul and countless others, cannot help but break out in praise and thanksgiving for what God has done for us. We do so because while we cannot explain it completely, we know that God has done the impossible for us and given us the gift of life forever. He has done so not because of who we are, but because of who God is.
Where is the Application?
And, of course, what we believe about the human condition and God’s response to it in Christ will also determine the kind of stewards we are of his gifts. If we really understand the desperate plight of the human condition and what God has done about it in Christ, we cannot help but be humbled and give thanks for God’s act of sheer grace toward us. We remember that we bring nothing into the world nor will we take anything out of it. We realize how fragile life is and how mortal we really are. We begin to understand that God is God and we are not, and we attempt to respond to his wondrous love toward us by trying to live faithful and obedient lives. We want to put our faith into action so that we can please him because of what he has done for us in Christ. All of this takes time and none of us gets it right perfectly, but as God’s Spirit lives in us and helps us grow in grace, we eventually start to get it more often than not.
Consequently, we try to do things that please the Lord and we try to do it now because we are not guaranteed that we will have a tomorrow in which to act. As there is always a sense of urgency in any great love affair, so there is a sense of urgency in our love affair with God because we know our days on earth are numbered. As Paul tells us in today’s Epistle lesson, one of the things we can do to show our love to God is to be good stewards of our prayer life. He urges us to take the time and make the effort pray for everyone because doing so is pleasing to God who wants everyone to be saved. And while in the context of this passage Paul was talking about the corporate stewardship of the church, it applies to us as individuals as well.
This ought to make sense to us, especially if we truly grasp the human condition. When we grasp it, we remember that we are saved not because of who we are but because of who God is. We remember that without the grace of God made manifest in Christ, we are without hope and a future. And because we know that we are to love God and neighbor, it makes sense for us to pray for others because we want everyone to enjoy the gift of life that we enjoy.
Paul does not mean that we should literally pray for everyone, something that is impossible for us to do, but rather that no one should be considered to be unworthy of prayer. That is why Jesus and the NT writers tell us to pray for our enemies. God loves us all, unlovable as we all are, and wants everyone to be saved. If that is what God wants for humans, why should we who claim to love God not also desire this as well?
For example, when you pray for our nation, do you pray for only one political party or do you pray for all leaders, especially those you do not like? Praying for everyone means that even those we do not like should be included in our prayers. We pray for them and trust God’s good will and knowledge to use our humble prayers as he sees fit. Doing so also helps us see those we do not like as laboring under the human condition, desperately in need of Christ, just like us.
Do you pray for those outside of the faith or for the various enemies of the cross as readily as you do for you and your loved ones? Excluding no one from the possibility of prayer suggests that we do this because it is pleasing to God. Again, it is impossible to pray for everyone outside of the faith because we don’t know who that entails, but we can pray for those about whom we are aware. For example, as part of my prayer ministry I regularly pray for Muslim extremists, sometimes by name but mostly by group. I ask God to turn their hearts and minds, to lead them into the Light of Christ. If that happens, we would never have to worry about terrorism again, at least from that group. But I also ask God to turn his face against their darkness if their hearts are too hardened to be open to his great love for them in Christ. Neither am I opposed to human justice being served on them. Notice that I do not presume to tell God how or when to turn their hearts and minds, only that I ask him to do so and I am content to leave it at that. I pray for this particular enemy of our country, not because I am some swell guy, but out of a profound sense of gratitude for what God has done for me and because I have great confidence in the redemptive power of Christ. After all, if he can claim the likes of me he can claim the likes of anybody and this motivates my prayer stewardship.
Moreover, when we attempt to be a faithful stewards of our prayer life, we are also taking advantage of the time and opportunity given to us right now. We pray for others, in part, because we believe it pleases God and we want to please God. In other words, when we pray for everyone we are also working on developing our relationship with God through our prayer life, which ultimately will help us learn to pray better and to desire God’s will over ours. If we did not value our relationship with God, or still believed in the delusion of self-help to free us from our sins, none of this would matter and we likely wouldn’t waste our time in prayer or anything else related to having a relationship with God, including how we use our physical resources.
Summary
We have been given a wondrous gift of life in Christ. God has condescended to love the unlovable (that would be us) and to redeem us from the terrible cost of sin. When we understand our predicament and what God has done about it, it naturally leads us to respond in praise and thanksgiving. We desire to please the One who has given us such a wondrous gift and this desire is always made manifest in action, of which our stewardship of prayer is a part. As we pray for others, we remember that this is pleasing to God who wants everyone to be saved. We are thankful that he desires this because it is further confirmation that we really do have Good News to share, even in and through our prayer life, now and for all eternity.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.