“Woe to the complacent!”

A lifestyle focused on comfort, entertainment, and enjoyment leads to complacency, that is, a selfishness because of which we don’t care that much about other people’s lives and salvation (see Am 6:4-6).

Complacency is only one of the side effects of a pleasure-seeking lifestyle. A self-centered lifestyle gradually causes a spiritual blindness and deafness through which we become so hardened that even someone risen from the dead would not be able to touch our hearts (Lk 16:31).

Because we naturally want a lifestyle that is as comfortable as possible, we are doomed to be complacent and hardhearted unless we receive a new nature (see Jn 3:3) and live in that new nature.

The Holy Spirit is our Hope, for He will strongly oppose the desires of our flesh, that is, our fallen, selfish nature (Gal 5:17). Through His Word, the Holy Spirit will crucify our “flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24) and give us a new nature and a new birth (Jn 3:5; see also 1 Pt 1:23). The Holy Spirit gives the possibility and the power of living the Christian life and being freed from the death and damnation of our self-centered lifestyle. Come, Holy Spirit!

 

The parable of the dishonest steward, with which the reading begins, is perhaps the most difficult of all the parables of Jesus. How could Jesus suggest to us as an example a man who is clearly dishonest? The answer to this question comes in verse 8, at the conclusion of the parable, when the steward’s master praises him ‘for his astuteness’. We are not called to imitate the man’s dishonesty, demonstrated both before and after his dismissal, but his shrewdness. The steward quickly grasps how desperate his situation is and immediately seeks a solution. Jesus challenges us to do the same.

 

Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke contains three parables: the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. The first two parables are given above and we will focus on these. The parable of the prodigal son was read this year on the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

The evangelist gathers these three parables together because they all teach us about the joy of God at the repentance of the sinner. The opening verses tell us about those among Jesus’ hearers who were severely critical of his welcome to sinners. They ‘complained’. The Greek word in the original text of the gospel also means ‘grumble’. Those who complain here are like the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son who refuses to join the celebration of his younger brother’s return.

The first two parables are rather startling. Would a shepherd really leave the care of ninety-nine sheep to search for one? Would a woman who found a lost coin really put on a feast to celebrate? The lack of realism in these parables teaches us that God’s behaviour goes far beyond human normality. God forgives in an outstanding way. In giving us a Saviour God shows a love far beyond any human love. The scribes and Pharisees found the forgiving love of God hard to accept. But what about us?

 

TEAM JESUS

“None of you can be My disciple if he does not renounce

all his possessions.” —Luke 14:33

Thousands of football players across the country are doing whatever the coach wants in order to make the team. They’ll drop everything and move across country, change their diet, learn challenging positions, run sprints in full uniform in burning heat, and get clobbered by powerful men. They abandon their bodies to pain and injury for the chance to make the team. “Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things” (1 Cor 9:25).

Similarly, soldiers renounce civilian life “in order to please [their] commanding officer” (2 Tm 2:4). They sleep in foxholes, exposed to bombs and bullets. They go without food and water, get cold and wet, endure loneliness, misunderstanding, and even rejection. At times, they are portrayed as brutal villains. Yet their focus is to please their captain and serve their country.

What about those who bear the name of Christian? I’ve heard Christians get upset with God because their washing machine broke down and their clothes were dirty! Dirty uniforms and renouncing possessions are part of daily life for football players and soldiers. If we Christians understood renouncing as well as athletes and soldiers, we would be pleading with God for every opportunity to get off the spiritual bench and onto the field of battle, as did young David (see 1 Sm 17:32ff).

Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus? Do you want to make His team? Are you focused on pleasing Jesus, your Captain? Then get serious and renounce your possessions (Lk 14:33).

 

“He who humbles himself shall be exalted.” —Luke 14:11

“Conduct your affairs with humility” (Sir 3:17). “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are” (Sir 3:18). We who are disciples of Jesus and have been baptized into Jesus are called to be the most humble of all people, for Jesus “emptied Himself” and became a human being (Phil 2:7). Then He “humbled Himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross!” (Phil 2:8) Therefore, “in your relations with one another, clothe yourselves with humility, because God ‘is stern with the arrogant but to the humble He shows kindness’ ” (1 Pt 5:5).

Jesus invites us: “Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29). Jesus has taught us that we humble ourselves when we take the lowest place (Lk 14:10). Jesus did this by being born in Bethlehem; growing up in Nazareth; becoming a carpenter; choosing to be poor (see 2 Cor 8:9), persecuted, even a slave (Phil 2:7); choosing apostles and disciples who were “lowborn and despised” by the world (1 Cor 1:28); washing the feet of His apostles (Jn 13:5); freely letting Himself suffer crucifixion, the most disgraceful way to die; and remaining with us under the appearance of bread and wine.

Jesus humbled Himself to the extreme. He was then highly exalted and given “the name above every other name” (Phil 2:9). In the name of Jesus, humble yourself to the extreme.