Everyone to Be Saved

Apokatastasis, by George Kalokairinos

Lections: The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 25), AD 2025 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

God our Savior … desires everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

So writes St Paul in his First Epistle to Timothy.

God desires everyone to be saved. There is no predestined damnation here, no vessels of wrath made for destruction. The will of God is the salvation of all. And does anyone truly believe that in the end God’s will shall not be done? The good and gracious will of God is done with or without us, writes Luther in his Small Catechism. But we pray that it be done in us, that we be part of His salvation, rather than part of the problem.

In other words, Jesus is going to steamroll right through hell. You can be behind Him, or you can be in front of Him, but one way or the other, He will bring the light of truth unto the darkest pits of Creation, into the abyss beneath the world. And some shall be “saved as through fire,” writes Paul: purifying the good within us, the image of God within us, whilst burning up our dross, the sins we think we are, until we are like silver refined in a furnace seven times.

That’s how truth works. Truth is the fire of the love of God. Truth is perfect mercy and perfect justice together blazing brighter than the sun. And to some it will feel like heaven, while to others it feels like hell; but ultimately it is nothing less than the presence and power of God, making us one in Him, making us one in Christ. This is the judgment: that at the last there is no place to hide, for God shall be all in all. Fight how you might, His mercy shall outlast you. His grace shall run you down.

Death couldn’t stop Him. Hell couldn’t stop Him. Satan couldn’t stop Him. What chance do you think you could have? Christ is inexorable. We shall look in the eyes of the one whom we murdered, and weep when we hear His forgiveness.

This must be kept in mind—this must be our endgame—whenever we read parables of judgment. For there is a final reckoning, demanding our last farthing. But that gives way unto a final grace, when death and hell are cast into the lake of fire. “Your Father in heaven,” Jesus proclaims, “does not want even one of these little ones to be lost.” And Christ will go to any length to do His Father’s will.

Of all the parables told by Christ, today’s might be the most baffling. The unjust steward, as we have come to call him, is employed by a wealthy man to manage his  accounts. Yet charges arise that he has squandered his master’s property. Thus the employer, rather than jailing him, tells him to turn in his books, for he can no longer be trusted with the wealth of others.

Note that Jesus, in His story, gives to us no indication as to whether the charges are true. But if the steward hadn’t cooked the books before, he certainly starts to do so now. “What am I going to do?” he says. “I’ve gotten too used to the good life. I am not strong enough for manual labor, and I am too proud to beg.” Somehow he has to feather his nest, to provide a golden parachute.

So he sits down surreptitiously with his master’s many debtors, and dramatically slashes their bills. What do you owe, 100 jugs of oil? Cut it in half, make it 50. And you, 100 containers of wheat? How ‘bout we turn that to 80? You get 20% off. Interpreters have tried to moralize this, to speculate that perhaps the manager eliminated usury, or took out his own commission. But that isn’t part of the story. He’s forgiving others’ debts, with his master’s money, so that they owe him.

Alas, he is immediately caught. Either this guy has lousy luck or he’s simply terrible at crime. And you’d expect the wealthy man to be enraged, wouldn’t you? Before he had dismissed his manager based on reports of abuse. Now he can see, quite clearly, just how much has been squandered. The steward doubled down. But the twist is that the master seems amused. He commends the steward for his shrewdness, for making friends by means of dishonest wealth.

What happens in the end? Does the master take him back? Does he go off in the good graces of those whose burdens he had lightened? We do not know. If Jesus told a further end to the story, we have not recorded it here.

Luke frames the parable as an admonition to use whatever worldly wealth we have in order to liberate the needy, anyone burdened by their debts; and also as a warning that wealth brings with it great temptation and a tendency toward idolatry. You may think that you can play the game, that you will be the one to get your riches fairly, to become the mythical ethical billionaire. But the children of this world will game the system, Jesus says, and they shall prove themselves the shrewder.

Jesus, in Luke, always looks out for the poor. And if at some point you should find yourself not numbered amongst the poor, then you must look out for them as well. Every little bit matters, Jesus says. No kindness goes to waste, not even a cup of water. For he who is faithful in little, shall be faithful also in much. Jesus talks a lot about money—much to my chagrin—certainly more than He ever speaks about topics like sex or hell. And Jesus’ economics may be summed up thusly: If you have money, set people free.

Ultimately, however, this parable remains a tale of judgment, of a man whose sins are brought to light before his master. And seen in that light, the purpose of the story isn’t just a moral lesson; the point of the parable is surprise. The unjust steward knows he’s sinned against his lord. He has squandered his property, decreased his debtors, cut his credits. The time has come for him to pay the due. Yet he is met not with anger, not with sternness, but with amusement, with commendation. His judgement is not what he thought that it would be.

The master’s concern isn’t really for the balance sheet. He has too much money for that to be his fear. Rather, he’s concerned with his steward’s magnanimity, with the grace he has managed to spread around, in spite of his mercenary motives. Everyone has benefitted here. He alleviates the debtors of their debts. He provides for himself new friends in unemployment. And frankly he even makes the wealthy man look good, because the wealthy man forgives them all these debts.

He looks to be judged. He looks to the final accounting. Instead he finds forgiveness, even mirth. The master has surprised him. Tolkien called this sort of thing a eucatastrophe: a sudden unexpected happy end.

So by all means, take the lesson to heart. Beware the pitfalls of wealth. Never place the love of mammon before love of neighbor. But also remember that judgment is not what we assume that it will be. God does not balance our account. When we stand before the throne, He won’t much worry about our theology, or our ritual, or our observance of the holy days—though obviously I find all those important. No, God will reveal how we acted toward our neighbors, whom we set free.

And we will be surprised. We will be surprised at the good that God has wrought through us, some without our knowing, some even in spite of ourselves. We will be surprised at the inadvertent friends whom we have made, of the love that came unto us unawares. We will be surprised by the fruit of the smallest of our kindnesses, because God was there.

And we will be surprised, when our wrongs shall be revealed—when our sins are laid bare, even the ones we brushed aside, on which we didn’t think—we will be surprised at the graces given unto us, the mercies ladled out, the opportunities to heal all we’ve harmed. For perfect justice culminates in mercy, and perfect mercy lets us right our wrongs.

We will be surprised by the forgiveness, the grace, the affection of our God, who loved us eternally before the world was made, and who laid aside His life to bring us home. His love will burn and cleanse like fire. And He will save us all.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout

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St Peter’s Lutheran

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Nidaros Lutheran

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