Sermon for The Ninth Sunday after Trinity, 2026

The unjust steward doesn’t merely hand back paid bills, no; rather, he changes them. And the master commends him for such shrewd dealings. What’s that all about? Here’s what I hear: the steward is the pastor. For indeed, every preacher Christ has ever sent has been exactly this: unjust, squandering what’s entrusted to him, still bound for the same exit as the rest of mankind. O, vanity of vanities, indeed! I, and all those whom Christ has called and ordained to stand in His stead, stand here under the sun: no less vain, no less wasteful with—and in—all that was mentioned at the first, and no less guilty of a hundred measures of the Law.

Be that as it may, the Master doesn’t wait for an honest steward before He lets his shrewdness reach you. “Both the Sacraments and the Word are effectual by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ, notwithstanding they be administered by evil men,” so we believe, teach, and confess. “He who hears you hears Me,” says Jesus. What Christ requires of a man in this Office is not that he be successful, charismatic, sociable, or neighborly, even; only that he be found faithful with what isn’t his. The pastor does not pay your debt himself, any more than the steward in the parable paid his master’s bills himself; the Lord Jesus Christ did that, in full, once. Rather, what the pastor does is speak the word the steward once spoke to his debtors.

Readings:

• Old Testament: 2 Samuel 22:26-34

• Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• Holy Gospel: Luke 16:1-13

Sermon: