4th Saturday of Lent (April 5). GOD KNOWS YOUR HEART

Prepare to Listen.  I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
 
Prayerfully Read Luke 16:13-17
13‘No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.’  14The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.  15So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.  16‘The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force.  17But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
Sandwiched between two parables, both beginning with, ‘there was a rich man’ (vv 1 & 19), is this odd assortment of Jesus’ sayings.  What did you think about them?  What most challenged you?
 
Wealth and poverty are frequent topics in Luke’s Gospel and always Jesus sides with the poor, the have-nots.  He lived what Mary sang—“he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Lk 1:53).  These short sayings are directed at the Pharisees whom Luke accused of being “lovers of money.”  They developed a theology that joined God to money, justifying their love of money, and ridiculed Jesus’ teaching.  They thought they had the law on their side, since Moses implies that prosperity was God’s blessing on the obedient and suffering God’s curse on the disobedient.
 
This view about wealth still makes the rounds today, and it’s easy to fall into the temptation of thinking we can serve God and wealth, join God and money.  Jesus warns against this: “God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.”  We might think we can find biblical justification for our love of wealth, but God knows our hearts, where our true love is.
 
Jesus hasn’t cancelled the law.  It won’t pass away.  The law and the prophets “are a true signpost to what God is going to do, even though they cannot themselves bring about the new day, the new world, that God is creating through Jesus.”[1]  God, in Jesus is doing a new thing, building on what has gone before.  Our task is to read and understand the law rightly, prayerfully discerning where and how our views are the exact opposite of, or even in conflict with what God requires.
 
God knows your heart.  What about this comforts and/or challenges you?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, help me to get it right about money, wealth and loving you.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  God knows you heart.
[1] Wright, N. T.  Luke for Everyone.  Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press.  2001, p. 197-198.