Gnostic America

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.

This week’s Gospel is very raw. It’s short. It’s poignant. It strips theology bare and gets to the heart of the Gospel. And not just the heart of the Gospel as understood in the obvious, in the reference to the “thing that make for your peace” and the “time of your visitation,” phrases we’ll soon meditate on.

It’s raw also in its presentation of the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Only two times is it recorded Jesus wept, here and when His friend Lazarus died. Everyone knows that moment – the shortest verse in the Bible. Many forget this one, when He wept over Jerusalem.

It makes you wonder. What was the nature of His weeping? Why did He weep? In the case of Lazarus, He knew He would raise him. In this case, was His weeping over Jerusalem far more profound, because though He would try to gather them in, they would not listen? Was He prophesying His own weeping about Jerusalem when He said, “And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Did He Himself, as a Jew, bear some of that weeping and gnashing of teeth?

Here’s another interesting detail speaking to the mystery of the incarnation. Jesus doesn’t start weeping until He arrives at Jerusalem and can look over it. That’s strange. Jesus is God. He’s well aware at all moments of the profound sadness of any given situation. Yet, here Jesus is triggered, by a sight, a sight of Jerusalem.

Of course, Jesus “emptied Himself” of His divinity, as Philippians 2 tells us, so though He could claim such divine perspectives on things, He submitted to the burdens of being human. And how wonderful is that. As the book of Hebrews tells us, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Tempted here is more the sense of “tried.” It’s a trial to see people falling away from the things that make for their peace, and still take up the cross for them. But Jesus did not sin. Sin here is more the sense of “being unfaithful,” that is, being unfaithful to the call to take up the cross and follow the Lord.

Jesus sees Jerusalem and weeps over it. He knew its future. He knew what was to happen to His people. Weeping is born from deep love, and Jesus certainly had that for His people; yes, these were His people He’d been nursing along since Abraham, for He is the Lord who appeared to Abraham. That’s the divinity at work – Jesus never emptied Himself of the divine capacity of love.

But still, it was the human sight of Jerusalem that triggered a very human reaction. Divine love conspired with human emotion to lay the foundation for this week’s Gospel. This is one of those week’s when one can only ponder how hard it must have been to be Jesus.

We are at one of the most peaceful times in our history. There is no greater place and time to be in existence than an American living in the 21st century, or for that matter, most people of the world. Every pleasure available within several miles. In a subtle sense, we have everything modernity has to offer in its promise that we can be our own gods. We have “god” at our fingertips! An omniscient device availing to us every marvel and power, a little “place of light,” as one person once called it.

For the most part we’re safe and secure, at peace. Sure, there are mass shootings. But that is completely a media induced fear. Way more people die on a daily basis from homicide, suicide, auto deaths, and choking for that matter. Life is good when the only anxieties you have need to be manufactured on a screen.

The fact is, we are at complete peace…that is, if peace is defined as the lack of external conflict. But yet, we see headlines like “Major depression is on the rise among Americans from all age groups.” Or “Suicide rates are at the highest levels since World War II.” There was a 64% increase in depression among 12-17 year olds between the years 2013 to 2016.

What oh what could that be? I can’t imagine it has nothing to do with the astronomical rise in screen time and fantasy-engagement, coupled with the decline in community and, most importantly, church attendance. No, it has nothing to do with that.

In the Old Testament reading for this week, Jeremiah describes in Israel which believed itself to be at peace, but in fact didn’t know the pending war arrayed against them. They didn’t know they were at war with their Lord. The way Jeremiah describes Israel is shockingly relevant to how we might describe our culture today.

They lacked self-awareness. “They hold fast to deceit, They refuse to return. I listened and heard, But they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, Saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course…” When one keeps on running up against the same problems over and over again, but can’t get to that point of saying, “What have I done?” That’s a problem. Both the prodigal son and the shrewd steward were noted for having that self-awareness. We are a culture extremely lacking in self-awareness.

They “turned to their own course,” as we see at the end of the above referenced Jeremiah passage. Hmmm, that’s not our society at all! That’s not just our society; that’s our national religion! And that gets sanctified by our advertisements and messaging. You’re your own god! That, of course, is the source of our lack of self awareness. We’d sooner accept the depression and suicide than face up to the real problem and lack of peace going on.

There was covetousness going on. “Everyone is given to covetousness; From the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely.” Covetousness, as St. Paul says, is idolatry, and what a subtle process that is. Covetousness is the fuel of idols, which are projections of human desire, which itself arises from discontentment, which goes hand in hand with covetousness. We want what we don’t really need, because God has made everything in our world to be good. What more do we need? Well, we’re Adam’s children. Like him, we can have all the goodness of the world, but there’s that one little area, around a certain tree, where “and evil” is introduced into our thinking. And we want it!

Finally, they had no shame. “ ‘Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; In the time of their punishment They shall be cast down,’ says the LORD.” As St. Paul says, their consciences are seared. No shame happens when sin becomes one’s identity. You go from confessing sin, repenting of it, feeling shame for it, to being prideful about it, celebrating it, and feeling no shame.

No, that’s nothing like our society.

And, so, we have a society depressed and getting depressed-er, suicidal and getting suicidal-er. And we’re starting to see violence on the rise, political conflict. No wonder. Whatever peace we think we have by our own devices cannot hold. It’s doomed to fail and end up in a bloody mess.

In Jesus’ day, in the Gospel for today, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. One of two times He weeps. He weeps because they didn’t know what made for their peace. They didn’t know the time of their visitation. Visitation means, “Someone being present to help.” It’s what the widow’s gaggle rejoiced in when Jesus raised her son: “God had visited His people.” She understood the incarnation.

The incarnation defines where and when is the presence of God to help, where and when is that visitation.” A visitation isn’t self-induced. It needs and “other” to make it happen. It needs Jesus’ flesh and blood, to make the presence of God truly “present.”

Israel, and we today, forget the incarnation. The line where God ends and we begin gets fuzzified, so that we ascribe powers to our own abilities to make a “visitation.” Instead of God being present to help His people, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Yes, “we are the ones” who will bring about the kingdom of God on earth. Israel had this disease, as we do today. As St. Paul said of Israel in this week’s epistle, “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

There is a zeal for God not according to knowledge, a zeal in which we establish our own righteousness, and it’s what happens when the line between God and man becomes fuzzified, so we live under the deceit that what we’re setting up is really God in us doing it. Again, Israel had a “zeal for God” while “establishing their own righteousness.” How does that happen, but by that confusion of where God ends and I begin?

And again, that manner of being always ends up bloody and conflicted, without peace. It’s how the millenarian cults ended, how fascism ended, and how communism ended. All these movements are divinized mass movements, endowed with “God” because that line becomes fuzzified, because Christ, the true visitor, becomes abstracted out of His flesh and blood and reconstituted through political movement

Jesus is our visitation. In Jesus alone is the true peace that passes all human understanding. His body and blood. “The peace of the Lord be with you always.” At His birth, the birth of His flesh and blood, the angel announced, “Peace on earth.” “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity.” In His flesh.

We still may end up in a bloody mess – martyrs and all – but we’ll be singing hymns on the way there. Yes, that truly is a peace that passes all human understanding.

“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

What’s so “either/or” about mammon?

This is a different question than “What’s so dangerous about mammon?” This question can be answered easily with all sorts of biblical references.

There’s Jesus’ words about the rich man: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” This was in the context of the rich man asking Jesus what he must do to enter eternal life. Jesus said to give up everything to the poor, take up his cross, and follow Him. The rich man couldn’t do it, because he didn’t want to give up his riches. Here, riches represents love of this world, the heaven on earth people dream they can possess. Ultimately the rich man didn’t really believe there was an eternal life, a heaven. He “trusted in riches.” To do what? To create his heaven on earth – he never really believed in a heaven on heaven.

Then there’s Jesus’ words about covetousness: “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” The danger here, perhaps, is pride, the status one derives from having lots of stuff. Or else it’s that phantasmic illusion we’ve referenced several times when it comes to covetousness. Covetousness animates desire and projects phantasms of an alternate existence. Again it’s similar to the “heaven on earth” temptation referenced above. Getting that new car will give you the phantasmic existence portrayed in that commercial.

Finally there’s St. Paul’s words about money: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Here, the danger is what love of money leads us to do in other areas. It leads us to attack others, hoard wealth, not relieve debtors, not be hospitable, not be generous or liberal, and that does not reflect a God who wants us to faithfully use His riches for debtors.

So, there is much support for the principle that money is dangerous. But what is the “either/or” aspect of it? In those above three cases, the situations described are not “either/or.”

There are rich men who have riches but have no thought that they are building a heaven on earth. Their riches are kept from being dangerous, as they use it to help others, finance charity, care for their children, and so on.

There are rich men who have no desire to make more and more money. They receive their money as a fruit of their labors. Their goal is love of their labors and use of the talents God has given them, not the accumulation of wealth.

And there are rich men who have no love for money, so there’s no trace of nastiness in their dealings with other people. By contrast, there can be poor people who have such a love for money they in fact do become nasty. (And in fact, in both those other cases above, the poor can be possessed of mammon’s dangers as readily as the rich.)

But there is an either/or aspect of mammon Jesus speaks of. What is it?

Perhaps it’s that concept we’ve been alluding to, that the “rules” of mammon are incompatible with the “rules” of God. God is about limitless abundance and goodness. There is no scarceness of His grace, mercy, love, and life. He fills all things. He is all in all. He gives without measure. Seventy times seven. “[P]ressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” This is our Lord.

By contrast the rules of mammon arise from economic scarcity. (It’s interesting that the word for “steward” in Greek is the word from which “economy” comes – “oikomenos.”) While it’s a communist misconception that an economy is a “zero sum gain” situation – so that if one person gains another must be losing; therefore the two need to be equalized – it’s also simply a fact that the economy is rooted in the principle that there is a limit to resources.

Jesus talks about “serving” mammon. The one who “serves” the principle of limited resources doesn’t see the abundance that is possible with his Lord, a Lord who over and over again – particularly in the Trinity Gospels so far! – teaches limitless goodness and grace. He takes four loaves and feeds four thousand, with baskets left over. He wants His disciples to be about giving – they as true prophets bear fruit after all! He teaches the proper use of “true riches,” to be about giving debt relief. He wants parties for the finding of lost sons, coins, and lambs. He fills nets so full of fish the boats sink.

What a contrast to the rich man inaugurating the Trinity season – in the story of the rich man and Lazarus – is a big no go; he can’t even feed the beggar at his gates. He served mammon.

Who served God? Well no greater example is there than Jesus Himself, who in the two action Gospels so for this season caused abundance to happen – fish, bread, and more fish. What’s going on with fish? From Ezekiel: “And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes.”

As explained in Revelation: “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.”

Those who reign in the everlasting home are they who live by other rules than those of mammon. They live by the abundance of grace and life flowing from the Lamb, by the Holy Spirit. These are they who reign, for if they were faithful in what is least, they will be entrusted with heavenly riches.

Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?

This is probably the most confusing passage of a parable with many seeming twists and turns of logic. Up to this point Jesus seems to be equating “being faithful in unrighteous mammon” with “make friends with debtors.” All along that seems to accord with the logic. We have been concluding that the “heavenly meaning” here is that we should trade the mammon rules of “tit for tat” (the rules of economic scarcity) for the rules of “be generous to debtors,” or, we should be liberal with God’s grace in all areas of life, from money and hospitality to forgiveness and patience and everything in between.

But then Jesus says the words of our passage for today. We scratch our head wondering where the unfaithfulness or faithfulness was in the parable. Was the steward unfaithful because he squandered the rich man’s goods? Or was he faithful because he made friends with debtors? He seems unfaithful because that seems to be the whole point of the parable as an earthly story. But he seems faithful because Jesus commends him and gives his behavior positive heavenly meaning.

Clearly Jesus says, “[M]ake friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.” Here, the “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon” parallels being “faithful in what is least.” If we follow that flow or meaning, and Jesus goes on to say – “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?” – then He seems say that the shrewd steward was being faithful by running around and cancelling debts. But in the mind of the rich man, did that really make the steward faithful?

Perhaps there’s some exegetical detail eluding us. Maybe the steward was faithful by getting the debts paid off in situations where otherwise they never would have paid debt. Maybe that “cut” he was giving them was previously the cut he took in his wasting of his master’s goods. Maybe his behavior made the rich man look generous and good, which is certainly a good and faithful thing.

Whatever the case, Jesus uses the parable to lay down the principle that Christians befriending debtors and alleviating their debt corresponds to them being granted “true riches,” the riches of heaven. That’s actually a wonderful concept to contemplate, because how many of us are placing ourselves in the parable as the steward, thinking what we ought to be doing? But how many of in fact are very much the debtors? And Jesus lays down the “heavenly rule” that true riches must be used for debt relief.

Perhaps, then, the parable is about ministers? This brings us back to our first fly-by interpretation, that the steward is the apostles or ministers in general. They should seek out debtors and be generous with debt relief. As Jesus told them, “Freely you have received, freely give.” Don’t hold back, He says, when it comes to little mammon things, and most certainly not when it comes to “true riches.” (The confusing part of this interpretation is it suggests apostles and ministers will be judged by the poor and debtors. It’s not a bad thought, but it’s hard to find corresponding passages that support that interpretation.)

At a minimum, I think we can at least conclude with this point: Jesus teaches it is the faithful use of His riches to use them for the relief of debtors. He wants His people to be that sort of steward with His grace. This fits what St. Peter wrote, referenced before but worth repeating, “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’ Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

 

And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.

Jesus tells us to make friends by unrighteous mammon, so that when we fail we may be received into an everlasting home. Then He says, “He who is faithful in what is least…” This builds off the previous statement and implies that “being faithful” in “what is least” is making friends by unrighteous mammon. The “being faithful” part would go with the “making friends.” The “what is least” would go with “unrighteous mammon.”

So two things we have to explore. What does it mean to be faithful? And what is unrighteous and “least” about mammon?

What does it mean to be faithful? To make friends. Make friends with whom? Those in debt to the rich man. A parable is an earthly story with heavenly meaning. Who are the heavenly debtors? Sinners, the poor, those indebted to God. We’ve contemplated how Jesus fulfills the debtor, which is why to befriend the debtor is to befriend the one who has power to receive you into an everlasting home.

And this we do with unrighteous mammon. Yes, that could be money. You give to charity because in a sense you’re depositing to your heavenly account. Why not? Is it wrong to give expecting reward? Does not St. Paul say “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

And for those who say, “I have nothing to give,” Jesus gives the widow’s mite.

But there’s a bigger picture here. Those faithful in the least will also be faithful in much. That is, the one generous with his unrighteous mammon will also be generous with spiritual things. He will be hospitable, loving, generous, forgiving, and patient, all those gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Who hasn’t noticed that very often the same people who are stingy with their money are also stingy with other more spiritual gifts? They may not be very patient, forgiving, or hospitable.

But Jesus is clear. To be faithful is to be generous with debt forgiveness. That motivation may be to secure a place in heaven, but Jesus seems to say this is fine.

The thing is, once the mind has changed, the heart begins to follow suit. It’s sort of like the prodigal son in the parable that comes up immediately before this parable. He has a change of mind – he comes to himself – and comes up with a “save your skin” plan to go back to his faith and ask to be a slave in the household. But when he goes back, he’s received as a son. Now the heart must follow suit, as the younger son relearns what it means to be in that family. Shrewd thinking toward the good eventually yields a good heart.

So also with the steward. He too had a change of mind once faced with his accounting for wasting the rich man’s goods (same word describing what the prodigal son did, by the way). So he changes his mind toward the debtors. What were previously fools to be exploited now become his best friends, even if for self-serving reasons. But he is going to be received into their homes! He’s becoming part of their world. Surely he too will grow into that role, and his heart will follow suit.

Why all this talk? Because when we do good, or are generous toward this world’s “debtors,” whether that be a literal poor person or a poor sinner, it may begin in a “tit for tat” manner: “I’m giving because hopefully Christ’ will pay me back one day.” Jesus after all teaches this very thing when teaching charity. “When you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.”

But though this at first be done shrewdly, the heart will follow suit, and soon the soul will be “all in” as far as generosity goes. The steward left a world of “tit for tat” mammon behind and entered into a world of debt forgiveness. That new world will leave its mark on him.

Now, why is mammon called unrighteous? Jesus doesn’t make a distinction between mammon used for unrighteous purposes and mammon used for righteous purposes. He just calls it “unrighteous mammon,” as if there were never any other kind. So why is mammon by nature unrighteous?

Because mammon by its very nature is a measure of limited goods or services. It only exists because of scarcity. We don’t sell air. It’s available to everyone without bounds. But almost every other thing we need to live is limited, and therefore has a price.

But the things of the Holy Spirit are without limit. He gives without measure. As Jesus says, “for God does not give the Spirit by measure.” And His righteousness, which comes from above, by the Holy Spirit, flows from the eternally abundant gift of Christ’s death and resurrection. There is not limit to it.

The steward left this world behind once he realized he was facing judgment, and that’s what made him shrewd. He began to see a new world of a new sort of measurement, the kind that begins to cut debt even by half.

This is the sort of world St. Paul speaks of when he speaks of the righteousness of God. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.”

The world of works and debt are a world the steward left behind. He needed, and entered into, a world created by grace, the grace of those who could receive them into their homes.

Jesus teaches, those who treat unrighteous mammon generously – not according to its innate rules of limits and measurableness, but according to rules of abundant debt forgiveness – will also be liberal in their use of spiritual things, like hospitality, forgiveness, and generosity.

It’s the day of accounting that got the steward to this point. We all waste the rich man’s goods. We all will fail. When we do, and we come to awareness of this fact, it leads us to be faithful, which is to be generous both with what is least, and with what is greatest.

“So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”

Jesus says, “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” When you fail. Jesus says this to “you,” meaning, His disciples, meaning, us. We concluded in our last meditation that

If we take it as axiomatic that it’s not a question of if, but when we fail, this leads to the next conundrum, how is it that we, like the steward, react to our accounting by directing our thoughts to the debtors?

And Jesus is pretty clear. “Make friends” equals go find the debtors. Just as the steward hunted down the debtors to ease their debt, so should we “make friends” with some parallel to the debtors. Why? So that “they may receive you into an everlasting home.”

So, who are the parallels to the debtors in the heavenly realm – parables are earthly stories with heavenly meaning – who can receive us into our everlasting home. That seems to be the biggest conundrum in the text.

Let’s begin by stipulating the obvious and absolute: Jesus is our final judge. So, somehow we have to bridge the gap between Jesus our final judge and the debtors in the text. There are five possible texts that can bridge this gap. Let’s look at them.

The first texts come from Proverbs. “He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker, But he who honors Him has mercy on the needy.” And again, “He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker; He who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.” Here, we see a connection between our Maker – who by implication is our judge – and the poor, or the indebted ones. If we oppress the poor, we will have to answer to our Lord. By implication, if we befriend the poor, the Lord will commend us.

The second text comes from the Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.”

This verse somewhat parallels Jesus’ “make friends” with those who have the power to judge you. Here, clearly, the brother with whom we’re not reconciled has the power to hand us over to the officer, who can put us in prison. In a bit of a stretch, the brother that has something against us is like the debtors who have been overcharged and oppressed. On the last day they will have their recompense, and woe betide those who are in the cross hairs of that recompense.

The third text is “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Here, Jesus says the disciples will judge Israel. Implied is that everyone who has left family and “lands” will be involved in that judging. Matthew 10 fills out some of the details, where we learn these disciples will be without money, much clothes, food, or clothing. They will be indebted to others, in other words. And at the end of Matthew 10, we learn, “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.”

So, the “indebted one” is the one Jesus sends out. To receive that one is to receive Jesus, and at the judgment, they will testify how others treated them.

The fourth text follows from this one. It’s the parable of the sheep and the goats, in which Jesus says, “Whatever you have done to the least of these my brethren, you’ve done it unto Me.” Which brethren? Those who are without food, drink, clothing; who are weak and imprisoned. That is, the apostles, those sent out. As in Matthew 10, they are sent out indebted to others. Yet, those that provide for them are providing for Jesus, and He will judge them on that basis.

The fifth text from St. Paul. “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” Here, the saints will judge based on how they were treated by others. As they were sent out indebted to the world, so to speak, who had mercy on them? How did Christians treat one another?

If these texts provide some guidance on understanding who the debtors are in the parable, we get a range of possibilities. It could be the poor in general. It could be all Christians. It could be apostles and ministers.

Yet, we run into a problem. If the rich man is God, which he likely is, then how are the poor, Christians, and ministers indebted to God? All people are indebted to God – forgive us our debts, we pray.

Of course, Christ took on our debts. He became a debtor. And he has the power to judge us.

And Christ bids us to take up our cross and follow Him, so we share with Him His debt-bearing, so to speak. We struggle under the burdens of the Gospel. We struggle with sin. We confess sin. We are mocked for the Gospel, and many are killed. We become the poor.

And yet, we will judge the earth.

The key point, it seems, of the steward – whoever he is – is that when faced with his day of accounting, he switches gears in his thinking. The prodigal son had a similar switch in gears when he “came to himself” after wasting his goods. The steward went from thinking about enriching himself to befriending debtors. If debtors are Christ first and His followers, this would suggest the steward went from the “all about me” team to the “debtor” team, Christians. He’s living with them now!

If calculation seems cold and too “tit for tat,” Jesus seems to say, so be it. Sometimes being a Christian is about saving your own hide. Indeed, isn’t Christianity about this for all of us? Befriend those who on judgment day will be sitting on thrones. Who is that? It’s the person sitting in the pew next to you.

He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’”

The rich man. The steward. The accusation. The wasting of goods. The accounting. Earthly concepts with heavenly meanings. The earthly concepts are easy. The heavenly meanings are more difficult.

The rich man, we could comfortably say, is probably God. Although some don’t think so. They claim the rich man was himself corrupt. Some argue he was charging interest, and when the steward erased the interest percentages, he couldn’t go back on it because he’d be exposed as a law-breaking interest-charger. So, the rich man’s praise was that of one dishonest character praising another for his dishonesty.

I”m going to go with the “God” interpretation, because God is almost always the highest character in a parable – I can’t think of one off hand where He’s not.

The steward is someone God puts in charge of His “goods.” The word means “what belongs to someone,” or “property.” The whole world belongs to God. This would make Adam the premier steward, and all born of him. The wasting of goods would then be original sin. We turned a perfect world into a place of sin and death, a desert. Our accounting is death.

A big support for this interpretation is how Jesus interprets the parable later. He basically says we’re all the steward. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.” Notice the phrase, “when you fail.” He’s talking to all of us and He says, “when you fail.” Not if you fail, but when. We all will fail. We all will have to give an account of our wasting of goods.

The “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon” basically means, use the mammon-based principle of tit for tat when considering those who will have power to judge you. Now, we know that Christ is the final judge, so He is the one we must befriend. And yes, the “tit for tat” way of looking at Christ is an earthly way of looking at things, but isn’t that exactly what Jesus is saying? But, look at Acts 2. Peter preaches the first Christian sermon, climaxing his message with the truth that Jesus sits at God’s right hand and will come again to judge the world. The people are terrified and say, “What must we do?” They’re looking for a tit for tat solution!

So, we need to befriend Jesus. But in the parable, the steward befriends the debtors. How are the debtors Jesus? We’ll leave this for a later devotion.

For today, if we run with this interpretation, our focus is on the wasting of goods. As we see, we can’t really get a handle on one concept without fleshing out all the other details. Jesus says, as far as interpretation of this parable goes, everyone fails; everyone’s the steward. That puts cosmic significance onto what it means to “waste goods.” It’s original sin. It’s our sinning. Sinning is a wasting of goods.

Well of course it is! Isn’t that the massive downside of sin? Instead of tending to a beautiful garden and participating in the abundance of life, sin is a wasting away of life. Godlessness, pride, rebellion, hatred, anger, lust, adultery, theft, lying, slander, and covetousness. Do these things not corrode the human soul? Do they not waste the precious life God has given us?

And there is an accounting for these sins. In the parable, the “hero,” so to speak, has a switch in how he perceives the indebted ones. Before he took advantage of them; now he befriends them. He does it for tit for tat reasons, to save his own hide. But at a certain profound, if perverse, level, he’s submitting to the “rules” of the world set up by the rich man. He’s not abandoning this world. He’s seeking to make things right within the parameters of this world.

It’s like the hearers of the Sermon on the Mount, just having been pounded on with some of the most difficult teaching in Scripture, recognizing in Jesus the divine authority. The thinking is, “I’m not so sure about all these teachings – whether I or anyone can live up to them – but this Jesus guy is where it’s at. I’d better stick with Him.” Tit for tat.

The emphasis on this parable cannot be about the wasting of goods. Jesus assumes this for all of us: when you fail. The emphasis should be about what this leads us to do. If it leads to a change in heart about how to approach the indebted ones, then we’re on the right track.

 

There was a certain rich man who had a steward…

As we get into the details of this parable, perhaps certain themes will emerge that help us understand the whole parable. The whole concept of “the steward” or “stewardship” is a promising area to begin, because it’s clearly foundational to the greater meaning of the parable.

Interesting, but Luke’s presentation of Jesus’ teaching on stewards all begins in chapter 12 with the episode of the man asking Jesus to tell his brother to divide his inheritance with him. Jesus says, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” At which point Jesus added, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

From there Jesus teaches the parable of the man who build extra barns, hoarding his wealth. That night his soul was required of God. Jesus concludes saying, “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” The interesting detail here is that, to be rich toward God is to not “lay up treasures” for oneself. To be rich toward God is to be rich toward others. Or more generally, God gives wealth to be given to others. It goes back to Jesus’ other words in Luke, “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Immediately after that parable, Jesus begins teaching about worry. We don’t have to worry, He says, because “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Seek first the kingdom of God, and all the things we see will be added unto us. This section He concludes saying, “Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So, a quick check on learning. Instead of worrying about what we possess through covetousness – like the brother worried about not getting the inheritance – we should seek first kingdom of God. We should have a giving attitude about our goods, giving them away to the poor (alms), while having money bags that don’t grow old, a treasure in heaven awaiting us. This is what it means to be rich toward God.

Next, Jesus now talks about stewards. The steward should be found ready as they wait for their master to come back from the wedding. They should be awake and alert. We wonder what this means to be awake and alert, and Peter asks if Jesus intended this parable for all people, or just for them. So there are two questions hanging.

Jesus then teaches about stewards who are set over the household, suggesting strongly that Jesus was in fact just talking about the apostles, those sent out. Or in today’s terms, He’s talking about ministers. The “faithful and wise” steward, apostle, or minister is the one who, as Jesus says, will “give them their portion of food in due season.” The faithless steward, by contrast, because he believes the master is delayed in his coming, “begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk.” At the accounting, he will be cut in two.

So, to be alert and awake is to be faithful in administering the master’s food and goods for the whole household. This follows the context of “being rich toward God” rather than laying up treasures for oneself. The minister is to be abundant with the heavenly riches Christ has attained for His “household.” That’s what it means to be a good steward.

This merely supports everything we’ve been studying during these first nine weeks in the Trinity season. It parallels Jesus’ teaching that the altar must be a place of abundant forgiveness. It echos the behavior of the father who operated by non-mammon rules when he gave his son his inheritance before his death, only to have it squandered, but then embraced him in abundant grace. The feeding of the household with abundance, stewarded by the disciples, is exactly what happened in the feeding of the 4,000. Finally we have the whole teaching on “be merciful, judge not, condemn not, give, and forgive.”

St. Paul was a companion of St. Luke, so it shouldn’t surprise us if he uses the idea of “steward” similarly – to refer to the apostolic ministry – when he writes, “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.”

To Titus he describes the steward, “For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable.” We note here the parallels to what Jesus teaches about stewards. Not greedy for money and drink, or self-willed (like the foolish man who build treasures to himself), but hospitable, giving, and open with the Lord’s gifts.

Finally, we have St. Peter, who perhaps has the best general teaching on what exactly a steward is and does: “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’ Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

Even if apostles and ministers are the “first” stewards of God (in order of grace delivery), we are all stewards of God’s “manifold grace.” Good stewardship means being hospitable. It means having fervent love for one another. What sort of love? The love that covers a multitude of sins.

The love, in other words, that forgives debts.

And that brings us back to the shrewd steward. Do we have any doubt about who or what he is, what he was stewarding, and to whom he was stewarding it to? Jesus could be teaching about ministers, or He could be teaching about any Christian, or perhaps even a specific church. The debtors are those indebted to the rich man, who is likely God.

Jesus commends the shrewd servant for erring on the side of generosity and debt-forgiveness toward the debtors. In fact He describes this as a faithful use of the situation. The servant didn’t beg or dig holes – he wouldn’t live by his own resources – but shrewdly set up networks of grace that he could fall back on, with the rich man’s generosity.

Perhaps Jesus is reminding us that sometimes the Christian faith is truly a “save your skin” religion. We might over-spiritualize or over-theologize the faith, thinking mundane emotions should be superceded by lofty sentiments about Christ or God. But sometimes the faith does come down to gross calculations.

I remember a convert from Catholicism to Lutheranism once helping out cleaning a church before Easter. After a hard day’s work, she exclaimed, “I wish you people had Purgatory so I had something I could be working out of!”

Perhaps that’s what Jesus is thinking of with the shrewd steward. If, out of gross calculations about our eternal security, we begin spilling forth with good gifts to others, gifts of our time, resources, and talents, are we still not reflecting our gracious Lord? Perhaps our motives are “shrewd,” but aren’t our motives always skewed by sin somehow? As Jeremiah the prophet says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

If that’s the case, and we muster our deceitful heart in the cause of giving to others for selfish intent, because we know in the end we have to give an account to God, and we know He’s a giving God and expects that of us, is that necessarily a bad thing?

Or, should we wait all day for our heart to be perfectly pure and rightly situated before doing good to others? And because we’ll be waiting forever for this moment, we never end up doing good.

I’m reminded of the theologian who said, “Puritans took people off the treadmill of indulgences and put them on the iron couch of introspection.”

In our context for today, the error of the “treadmill of indulgences” would be not realizing we have a gracious God. The error of the “iron couch of introspection” would be overthinking sanctification and doing good. The happy middle ground might be the cold calculation of the shrewd steward: Judgment Day is coming when you will give an account to a generous God; reflect that generosity!

Sometimes I like to dub this Sunday, “Hardest Gospel of the Year Sunday.” It’s just a strange Gospel. It has lots of seemingly disconnected thoughts. It articulates odd ethical teachings, like “Make friends by unrighteous mammon.” It has an element of worldliness uncharacteristic of Jesus.

Yet, even if no whole seems to be able to be assembled from the various parts, still, it has several various parts that in themselves are quite strong and profound. It’s like we’re given a pile of parts with no directions: most of the parts make sense, but the few that don’t, combined with the lack of directions, leaves us confused. Perhaps if we put together the parts we can make sense of, we can see where the missing gaps are, and fill in the more confusing details. Let’s do this.

We begin with the moment of accountability. The steward was wasting the rich man’s goods; an accusation is brought against him; he is called to account. We know Jesus is assigning eschatological meaning to this accounting, because later He talks about being received into “eternal homes.” So, whatever the parable is about, it’s talking about the final judgment and the placement of the judged afterwards.

What were the goods? What does wasting these goods mean? Who is the steward? Answers to these questions will remain for the moment, but at least we can conclude that the rich man is most likely God, the judge of us all.

Based on that premise, we get some direction about what made the shrewd steward shrewd and someone to emulate. When confronted with judgment day, he began to think about things. That’s actually a huge point to consider, for how many people know death awaits them, but they don’t think one bit about how they’re going to face their Maker?

But not the shrewd steward. This in turn invites some other texts to play. Jesus says, “Seek, and you will find.” Jesus lauds the woman who used His words “against Him” in order to get grace. Israel means “wrestle with God.” Is there an element to our faith whereby we “strive” almost “against God” for our salvation? God is a judge. Goodness, this is a terrifying thought and none of us is worthy. Don’t we all have start getting crafty with how we plan on slipping through into heaven?

I’ve done funeral sermons where I’ve felt like I was battling for the person’s soul, throwing everything up from God’s Word building a case to have confidence in his eternal home. You get quite crafty doing so! Crumbs falling from the master’s table! That’s a strange argument to make for God changing historical course and including the gentiles into His plan, as if salvation history turns on the dime of a woman’s witty repartee. But in a sense, we do this all the time, don’t we? I’m not going to hell, so whatever the Gospel is, it’s expansive enough to include me. And watch me as I build the case to make that so. Crafty. Shrewd.

And Jesus praises that.

By way of analogy that actually kills two birds with one stone as far as this parable is concerned, I’m reminded of our meditation on the Parable of the Sower. Jesus told the disciples that to them it had been given to know, but to others, they would not understand. Yet, after telling the parable, Jesus had to rebuke the disciples for not understanding. What was the difference between the Pharisees who did not understand and the disciples who did not understand? The difference, we concluded, was that the disciples stuck with Jesus. Jesus eventually explained it to them. They did what Jesus bade them to do: they followed Him. They took up a cross that included confusing parables, denials, small faith, doubts, sleeping faith, and all sorts of other spiritual struggles. But yet they got up every day and followed Jesus.

So on one hand, as far as this parable is concerned, we just have to stick with it until we “get it,” which will likely be our whole lives. Sticking with Jesus isn’t a bad thing, is it.

On the other hand, in a sense, the shrewd steward reflects this attitude. When confronted with his day of accountability, he didn’t plot a rebellion; he didn’t re-frame reality. No, he wrestled with the realities as given. Within the framework of the universe in which he was situated – a universe created by the rich man – he was going to succeed. He was going to struggle with that reality.

So what does he do?

He goes to all the debtors of the rich man and cuts their debts in half. Why? Because after his negative judgment, he might be received into their homes. Through his shrewdness – his unrighteous mammon – he would create the situation by which he might be received into the heavenly home.

Things get very strange here.

Let’s start with the debtors of the rich man. If the rich man is God, then who are the debtors? If the Lord’s Prayer is a guide, the debtors are those with a debt of sin. Does God have debtors? Are there sinners? Well, of course.

So, how does the shrewd steward have the power to cut the debt of sin – which is absolution – in half? What stewards of God have the power of absolution to cut a debt in half? And furthermore, what sort of situation exists in which a steward giving forgiveness to another results in the forgiven having the power to grant him into their eternal homes?

Well, we have some parallels here from other parts of the Gospel. Jesus does teach, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Jesus also teaches His stewards that they’d better be about forgiveness, and that if they aren’t, this will be paid back to them on judgment day. And as to the debtors judging the steward, we have some parallel in that the saints will judge the earth.

We also have scriptural texts that say, if we give to the poor, we lend to God, and He will pay back. So, if we expand the meaning of “debtor” to include those who are simply poor, we can invite new theological concepts to play, for instance Jesus’ words on Judgment Day that whatever you do to the least of these his brethren, you do to him.

On these terms, the debtors are Jesus, which is also supported by the fact that Jesus bore our debt of sin. To receive Jesus as He comes to us in His sin-laden, impoverished, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned, indebtedness, weakness is to set ourselves up for entrance to our eternal home.

But after this part of the parable, as far as I am concerned, the parable goes off the rails. And even commentators can’t settle on what is the actual end of the parable – what theological concepts go with the parable, and which ones introduce new teachings.

Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon. Huh? But here again, at the “micro” level we can extrapolate some truths, while still being foggy at the “macro” level.

For instance, there’s the idea that, when faced with his pending judgment, the shrewd steward’s thoughts were directed toward debtors. He didn’t run to the rich or the powerful. He ran to the debtors. This certainly reflects a teaching whose Teacher directs our thoughts to the poor widow, the impoverished, and who Himself didn’t have a place to lay His head. Theologically, the church driven by eschatological urgency will more shrewdly run to the debtors and poor than they will run to the “health and wealth” Gospel.

Or again, there’s the idea that Jesus is the “friend of sinners (debtors).” So, when Jesus says, “make friends for yourself by unrighteous mammon,” perhaps He’s revealing His own character a bit. He befriended debtors. But did He do it by “unrighteous mammon”? Kind of, I guess. Our salvation is sort of God “cooking the books,” is it not? The devil thinks he’s got us with his accusations of our debt; but then God puts forward Jesus the debt-forgiver into the equation and that takes care of everything.

Then Jesus extrapolates from this mundane parable about unrighteous mammon into higher “true riches.” He teaches that those who are not faithful in the smaller issues of dealing with mammon will not be entrusted with true – presumably spiritual – riches.

How, again, were we supposed to be faithful in smaller issues dealing with mammon? By forgiving debt. By being generous. By giving to the debtors. The heart dealt with generously will be generous, or so seems to be the teaching lurking in the background here. Those generous at the level of mammon will be generous at the level of “true riches,” which are forgiveness, life, salvation, and all the administration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Here, we begin to get something of a hint of a “macro” theme. Jesus is talking about generosity – forgiving debt to a radical degree. That’s what it means to be faithful. Faithful doesn’t mean stingy. Faithful means being forgiving, even if it looks sketchy.

The commentators all focus on the rich man and his character. The steward couldn’t execute his plan, they claim, without assuming a certain generosity of the rich man. That’s certainly true and should be remembered as well.

For, how else could cutting debt be classified as “being faithful with another man’s riches” unless the rich man was in fact himself generous?

Finally, Jesus concludes with the statement, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” In Matthew, Jesus says these words in the context of teaching about worry. Here, obviously, it’s a different context. But it actually might be the capstone of a strange passage that brings clarity.

What are the “rules” of mammon, that we cannot serve? Are they not the rules of limitation, scarcity, and measurableness? Money is always a measure of something, the delineation of limitation in a world of scarce resources. “You owe this debt. Pay up.” The shrewd steward shatters the rules, and he does so based on what his understanding of the character of the rich man. He knows the rich man will not go back and undo the steward’s debt forgiveness program.

At a minimum, that is one thing we can extrapolate from this Gospel at the macro level. There is an assumption of generosity going on. Cutting debt is a generous thing. It leads to joy. The fact that the rich man praises the shrewd steward for his shrewdness shows us he’s in on the act, the generosity act.

And if that’s all we get from this Gospel, that’s not a bad thing. Our Lord is generous. He’s a debt forgiver. At least He supports debt-forgiveness. That’s good for me, because I have some debts!

And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

The subject of lawlessness has come up several times in our devotions, but it’s a subtle topic deserving frequent attention. At least three times lawlessness goes hand in hand with a discussion of false prophecy.

First, it comes up in the passage above.

It comes up again when Jesus speaks of the end times. He says, “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” How is it that lawlessness leads to coldness of love? It’s just as Jesus taught in our Gospel for this week. It leads to thorns.

It leads to thorns because lawlessness is all about the self, and one’s selfish needs. The Law teaches love of God and love of neighbor. It’s the antithesis of selfishness. The lawless prophet projects out the desires of the Self and imbues it with divinity. To engage in such a one is going hurt at some level; it’s a coldness of love.

Third, it comes up with St. Paul. He writes of the “lawless one,” the Antichrist.

“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion…”

St. Paul doesn’t get detailed about what “lawlessness” entails. But we learn it’s a mystery. We learn that it comes along with false signs and miracles, as Jesus also taught us. And finally we learn it comes with unrighteous deception. Then we learn of this “strong delusion” the Lord sends to deceive those who don’t love the truth, (which I wonder might be evolutionism).

So, those who don’t love the truth develop a subtle, mysterious teaching which denies the ten commandments, and this comes with false signs, wonders, and miracles. Gnosticism fits this description perhaps more than any other movement, as it is the mother of all heresies.

Gnostic lawlessness is the denial of the need for law. God’s law only makes sense in a material world of distinctions and beings with substantial properties. Gnosticism is about the denial of matter and substance. How, for instance, can there be a “God among all other gods,” unless there are beings that can be divided up in substantial terms? Gnosticism is all about oneness, lack of division. That’s why there can be no such thing as “God,” because “God” raises the question, “What else other than He? What about not-God?” Their God is just “the all” or “nothingness and everything” and such nonsense (literally).

The same is true with God’s name, His day, the notion of parents and family, bodily existence, marriage, property, verbal truth, and covetousness. Language only arises from a material world – if everything is one, what is there to name? So God’s name is a perversion as well as speaking ill of others. The death of the body is salvation. Property is the definition of perverted, as it is the most blatant example of material stuff being divvied up. Marriage traps us in a reproductive biological shackle and all that entails – motherhood, fatherhood, family. Families delude us into thinking our identity is with other material beings other than our inner selves.

So, all the laws protecting these truths – these truths rooted in a created order and a Creator – but be overthrown. As we’ve contemplated recently, because the created order is seen as evil, the false prophet has a ready foundation upon which to proclaim his lawlessness: “The created order is evil! Look at the wars, the famines, the disease. I will teach you to be freed from this. Abandon the world. Abandon marriage and foods. Abandon your physical life in this world – who cares from whom you were born, or what tribal deities you worshiped; God is above names; don’t get caught up into all those rituals. Abandon your property (to me, I’ll take care of it for you). Why can you trust me? Because God is in me; the ‘Christ’ spirit is in me – and no, don’t get so walled up and rigid in your thinking to lock the ‘Christ’ into that flesh and blood person named Jesus. Jesus was just a body the ‘Christ’ used.”

As if to arise on the scene just at the right time, giving credence to the Gnostic view that the material world has no real meaning, the theory of evolutionism comes along and “proves” the world is plastic, always changing, with no essential being. Given the “truth” of evolution, how can anyone not be a Gnostic? What is man? What could a “Jesus” possibly be – goodness, there’s a homo sapiens sitting at God’s right hand. Can you imagine how weird that will be a hundred million years from now when homo sapiens has evolved to something greater and higher? It would be like us saying a monkey is God! The ascension of Christ has “locked in” Jesus to what He was in 33 AD, that is, unless we take a view of Christ in which His flesh is distinct from who He is, which is what Gnosticism does and what St. John calls the teaching of the Antichrist.

It’s all a lie. It’s all a deception. It’s a denial of the obvious truth, of the world’s creation and redemption, a creation witnessed by everyone, a redemption witnessed by 500 at first, and everyone who is baptized. But it’s a lie that came up just in time (mid-1800s) to substantiate a philosophical worldview of a plastic world unbound by any eternal laws – funny how that happened!

And yet, people will entrust their entire existence over to a theory they spent three days learning in high school and have never really checked out, believing there is no real good and evil, believing everything is just random. Believing everything is lawlessness.

And then follows the coldness, the bullying, the mass shootings, the divisiveness, the hatred, the physical violence. What did these people expect?

When Jesus returns, He promises to remove everything that “causes sin,” that is, that causes us to stumble in our faith or sin. How wonderful. Among those He will remove are those who have become the practitioners of lawlessness. May they come to know the truth before it’s too late, when He declares that He, in turn, never knew them.