Sermon for 15 Pentecost

September 19, 2004

St. Luke’s Church, Jamestown, NY

Eric M. Williams

“God’s gatekeepers”

There are many things I love about the Chautauqua Institution—

the lectures, the concerts, the people, and the surroundings.

But there is a necessary evil--well, annoyance is probably a better word,

and that is the gate.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not complaining.

99% of my experiences with the gate have been just fine.

And in the past two years several St. Luke’s folks have worked the gate,

Kaitlin K., Dorothy A., Peter D. and Russell M., to name a few,

and they’ve done a super job.

But, like many of you I’m sure, I have a few gate stories to tell,

experiences when things didn’t go smoothly,

when the gate became not an entrance, but a barrier.

It seems like everything we want to do in life involves some kind of gate

and some kind of gate keeper.

To drive a car, we must make it through driver’s ed and the driver’s test.

To get into college, we must make it through the SAT and the Regents tests.

We must get good grades and do the right extra-curricular activities.

To get a job we must make it through the right degree,

get the right experience, craft the right resume, get the right references.

We must first get through all of the hoops to make it to the right interview,

then we must make it past that important gate-keeper.

Whether it is buying a house, getting answers about retirement,

whether it is battling your health insurance company,

getting into a swimming class, or out of a parking ticket,

or even getting a date with that cute boy or girl in class,

there always seems to be a gate and a gate keeper.

Much of success in life involves knowing and working the system.

For most activities, it really is more about who you know

than what you know.

Some people seem to be naturally gifted at this.

They may not have the best test scores or the best grades,

but they always know how things work

and the right person to get things done.

That was the manager, the steward, in today’s gospel story.

He was the “go to” guy in the business—the Chief Operating Officer.

He handled everything for his boss,

including dealing with all of the accounts and clients.

He was the gate keeper.

If anyone wanted something from the boss or the business,

they had to go through him.

And he certainly knew how to profit from this arrangement.

He used his position to get kick-backs and favors.

Unfortunately, one day he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He had a quick moment of soul searching and vocational discernment

and realized that he was, on the one hand, not able to work for a living,

and, on the other hand, not willing to beg.

Then he thought about his master’s debtors

and he saw suddenly that the tables were turned.

Before he had been the gate-keeper for these clients and debtors.

If they wanted to succeed, they needed to cultivate him.

But now, he realized, if he wanted to survive, he needed to cultivate them.

So he hit upon an ingenious plan.

He would, at no cost to himself, win their friendship

by reducing their debt to the master.

In their gratitude they would reward him

by guaranteeing him a living after his termination,

They would be his gateway to a new and prosperous future,

a future free of both digging and begging!

This story is one of the most shocking and difficult ones to interpret,

because Jesus seems to be recommending dishonesty,

but I imagine that Jesus’ first hearers loved this story.

I imagine that when he told of this dishonest manager

he had the crowd rolling on the grass with laughter.

They could just picture this guy

because they had all met him, in one form or another.

They would have loved seeing how he got his come-uppance

and how he cleverly twisted things around to come out on top.

But what was Jesus really saying in this story?

What was his point?

Jesus was not really telling people to cheat to get ahead.

He was using humor to point out once again

that the Kingdom of God flips over the way things usually work.

In this world the gate keepers are the rich, the powerful, the well-connected.

If you want to get ahead in this life you need to talk to them.

But in God’s Kingdom, things are different.

The gate keepers there are the poor, the persecuted, the meek.

Listen to the words of the psalm:

“[God] raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the LORD!”

Remember the story of Lazarus and the rich man.

Every day Lazarus begged the rich man for help and never got it.

But when they both died, it was the rich man begging Lazarus.

Lazarus, the poor man, had become God’s gate-keeper.

Imagine now that you are waiting at the Pearly Gates for entrance into heaven.

St. Peter invites you in to an interview room

where God’s gate-keepers will review your life.

This committee includes poor people from Jamestown,

and as far away as Ethiopia.

On this committee are lonely residents from every nursing home you ever drove by

and even your great aunt Ruth whom you kept meaning to stop in and see,

but never quite found the time.

There are hungry kids and folks who needed blood of just your type.

You get the idea.

What if, Jesus is saying, these are the gate-keepers who really matter?

What if instead of spending all your energy

impressing the “right” people,

you put your time and energy into

impressing and helping the “wrong” people?

“Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth

so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

If you want to get into the right gate,

you’ve got to know the right gate keepers.

And, of course, these gate-keepers are agents of the one true gate keeper.

Whenever we feed the hungry, clothe the naked,

visit the prisoner, or comfort the sick,

we are ministering to Christ himself.

“Whatever you have done to the least of these,

my brothers and sisters, you have done to me.”

Christ is the recipient of our acts of charity, but he is also the source.

Like the master in the story, he entrusted us with his gifts

so that we might become good stewards

and learn to share what we have received for the good of all.

Christ is the gate-keeper, the one who welcomes all those

who have fed the poor, clothed the naked,

who have visited those who are sick and in prison.

And unlike the gate keepers on one or two occasions at Chautauqua,

Christ is the merciful gate keeper who desires all to be saved,

that none be turned away,

and who makes that promise good

in his own sacrifice on the cross.