The Devil, the Key, and the Steward

When I think about people that I have been told I am like in my life, the most frequent is my dad, and after him my granddaddy, and after him the Devil.  Now, typically I have tried to deny these comparisons, but it seems I am about to have to admit the similarity to the Devil.  I have plenty of sins but that is not what I am thinking of.  I am about to do his job.  He is the Accuser of God's people, and I have a monster of a charge to bring against them.

It was about seven years ago now when it started.  I got a call from my bank, or a letter I don't remember which, but they said they thought there might have been fraud on my account and they needed me to come up there.  When I got there they showed me a check with my signature on it, only it wasn't my signature.  It said my name but I hadn't written it.  Strange but it got even stranger.  I looked at the check, it was my check, for a bill I had paid, with my signature, obviously written by someone else.  After a minute I started laughing and then it began to dawn on me that something serious was happening here that was significant even if it wasn't what I thought.  I told them that I had written the check and that the signature was mine.  Why?  My wife had signed my name on the check.  And after I thought about it a minute I realized that she had a perfect right to.  I gave her my name.  It is hers to do with as she pleases.  She can conduct any business in my name that she wants to.  And that is my beef with the church.

²¹ So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” ²² And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20

The Power of the Keys, the power to forgive sin, has a long history.  Its abuse in the selling of indulgences, and the requirement of confession to a priest was one of the main complaints of Martin Luther and protestants since against the Church of Rome.  And so all too many protestants deny the Power of the Keys altogether.  It is common to be told that only God can forgive sin, the same complaint the Pharisees leveled against Christ right before He healed a crippled man to prove His power to forgive.  But the truth is that Christians of all stripes are using this power all the time, and that is my complaint against them.

Anyone who has been in an evangelical church knows what it is like to try and get them to let go of a sin.  They have the power to release men from sin and the power to bind them to it.  And they choose to bind them.  The truth of the charge is too notorious to need proof.  Denying the Power of the Keys is their one defense, that they aren't really doing anything, that they have no power.

But is that who Christ is, someone who says He is giving us something and the something is nothing?  Is He a big talker, with nothing to back it up?  No.  He was speaking the absolute, plain truth.  The Bride has power to conduct business in the Bridegroom's name, just like my wife does in my name.  The Church is given the power to heal, physical and spiritual, disease.  And the power to cast men into Hell on Earth.  And we have chosen to hang onto their sins.  I can't let go of my sins or anybody else's.  But I want to.  I want to be different than I am.

16 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. ² So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’

³ “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. ⁴ I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’
⁵ “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶ And he said, ‘A hundred measures^[a] of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ ⁷ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ ⁸ So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.
⁹ “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. ¹⁰ He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. ¹¹ Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? ¹² And if you have not been faithful in what is another man’s, who will give you what is your own?
¹³ “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Luke 16

Does this parable fit me?  I have been wasting God's grace just like the steward wasted money.  But more to the point I have been made a steward of the Lord's business-which is the forgiveness of sins.  And so have you.  What am I suggesting?  I am suggesting that the Pope's problem is not that he forgives sins but that he charges for it, and that he retains some sins.  I am suggesting that if the store is going out of business all the inventory must go.  Let's forgive all sins.  Let's forgive sins that no one has ever forgiven before.  Let's charge less for it than anybody has ever charged before.  I have already screwed up my own life about as badly as I can I assume that "what I have coming to me" will be here before long, I am the devil after all.  So I am going to use my power and position while I still can.  You forgive me and I'll forgive you.

How Can It Be?