Jesus is Coming after Your Money
Luke 19:41-48
August 24, 2025 anno Domini
Hold on to your wallets, savings account, and Social Security checks. Jesus is coming after your money.
Luke 19 begins with Jesus meeting Zacchaeus of wee little man fame. Zacchaeus worked for the Roman office of the IRS. There’s nothing easier to do than spend or steal other people’s money – and Zacchaeus was good at both. However, it did not do for Zacchaeus what he had hoped. His conscience was burdened. His thievery isolated him and his slight stature led to mockery. He wanted forgiveness. He wanted to be loved, but he wasn’t loveable. Then he heard of Jesus and all Zacchaeus wanted was a glimpse of the man – instead Jesus became a guest of Zacchaeus. But it was Jesus who did the serving. He served Zacchaeus forgiveness, salvation, love and with that came dessert – tthe communion of saints, the fellowship of the church. Do you remember how Zacchaeus responded to the visitation of Jesus? He took out his checkbook and wrote out half of his account balance to charity. Then he looked at his secret tax books and repaid every one he robbed four-fold. For those of you fifty and under he used Venmo and Paypal to accomplish the same thing.
During dinner at Zacchaeus house Jesus told the parable of the 10 minas, in which the master gave ten servants each one mina. A mina was three months wages, so imagine opening your mailbox tomorrow and President Trump tripled your social security check. The mina wasn’t a gift to do with as the servants pleased. The master said, “Engage in business until I come.” If Jesus gives you a generous gift He expects you to engage in Kingdom business with the gifts. He has given you His Word to hear and Sacraments to receive for your forgiveness and salvation – He expects you to use Sundays for that Kingdom business. If He has given you a job to earn your daily bread, He expects you to work hard, respect your boss, be kind to your fellow workers. If He has given you a family He expects you to lead them and raise them in the fear and knowledge of the Lord. He wants you and your family to believe that every good thing in life comes from your Lord and Master Jesus. It’s all His and you are to put it to use for His business.
Do you remember how the parable ends? One servant comes back having earned 10 minas and he is commended and rewarded with overseeing 10 cities. Another comes with 5 and he is commended and set over five cities. One kept his mina all to himself because he was afraid of losing it and the Lord treated him accordingly. He lost his mina to the servant who gained 10 minas.
Jesus ends the parable with the paradox – to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. He is speaking about faith and money. The servants who believed their master and used his money for his business were rewarded. The servants who kept his money for themselves lost the very thing they tried to keep.
In between those stories and the text is Palm Sunday. Then we meet Jesus, drawing near to Jerusalem, seeing the city of God and the temple — the place where the Most High chose to visit, forgive, and love His people. Jesus weeps over the city because they have no faith. They do not see the things that make for peace. They do not realize the Lord is visiting – they do not see Jesus.
Jesus wants them and you to be like Zacchaeus – welcoming Jesus, receiving His forgiveness, bearing the fruit of repentance by being generous and making amends with those you wronged. Instead, the people in Jerusalem are like the last servant in the parable – they thought that what the Lord had given them was theirs and theirs alone, so they held on to it with all their might.
We don’t get a lot of detail about what upset Jesus in the temple courtyard. Were the worshippers opting for convenience? Buying their animals on the spot instead of sacrificing their first and best from home. Did God’s Holy House smell like a feed lot? Did the temple grounds sound like a three-ring farm auction?
The problem is money. It is the problem throughout Luke 19. Zacchaeus wanted to be rich. The servant didn’t want to lose his one mina. Israel welcome Jesus because they wanted a new age of prosperity under their Messiah. They didn’t want salvation. They wanted earthly security – for them and for us that means we put our faith in mammon, the money and possessions God has entrusted to our care.
Mammon and your sinful flesh are not a good match. First, because your sinful flesh is selfish and wants to grab as much as it can. Second, the last thing your sinful flesh wants to trust is Jesus and mammon seems to offer the most security. (p. 75 Christ and Church by Andrew Richard) What do you worry about most on a daily basis? Your money and possessions or the forgiveness of your sins? The problem for your sinful flesh is the same problem in Jerusalem – you know not the things that make for peace.
There is nothing wrong with wealth and possessions. No one is kept out of heaven because they are wealthy and no one gets in because they are poor. Your possessions play absolutely no part in whether you get into heaven or not, whether you live eternally or die eternally. You’re in because of Jesus alone. You are saved for Christ’s sake alone by grace alone through faith alone.
Those alones rule out anything you have, do, or are. Christ goes to the cross alone. He alone bears the sins of the world. He alone rose from the dead declaring the sin of the world forgiven, all sinners justified before God in heaven. He did the work and by the generosity of the Triune God this is offered and given to you by the preaching of God’s Holy Word. All of Christ, His life, death, and resurrection credited to your account. You’re forgiven. You’re living forever right now. The greatest days of your life are ahead of you in the resurrection.
Your house could burn down tonight. The stock market could crash tomorrow. President Trump could end Social Security payments, and nothing would have changed about your future, your hope, and your certainty. That is not easy to believe, but it is as true and certain as the death and resurrection of Jesus in which you believe.
The problem is your old sinful flesh operates with its eyes and hands and not by its ears. You can see your possessions. You can hold your latest toy or treasure in your hands. Your financial advisor can you show you how secure you are. Those things do not make for peace. This visitation of Christ does.
Your mammon is not yours. It is the Lord’s. It cannot save you. Christ does. That’s what Zacchaeus believed. That’s what the faithful servants learned. That’s why Zachaeus gave away half of his bank account and why the stewards didn’t hold on to their mina but put it to work.
So let me ask some hard questions of your faith. Has your faith in Christ affected your bottom line? Think of the last big purchase you made – did you have to scale it back because of your offerings? Did you have to limit your vacations or buy used instead of new or cut back on eating out because of what you put to use for the Lord’s work? Among people of similar wealth has your generosity kept you from doing anything they are doing?
Those questions are important for your faith because your old sinful self trusts in mammon and it won’t save you. You have been saved as a gift. Chist did all the work. Those questions are important because the preaching of the Word and the administering of the Sacraments are the way in which the Holy Spirit delivers the riches of Christ’s forgiveness to the world. Right now you’re getting what Zacchaeus received that day in Jericho. You’re being visited by Jesus. If you want to leave a legacy for the generations to come – provide for the preaching of God’s Word to continue. The only gift you can pass on to your children that will do them any good is Jesus. For all those reasons Jesus goes after your money in Luke 19. In His name. Amen.