We are God's stewards our whole life long: each day of our lives, therefore, claims its own account; each year, as it passes, suggests to us naturally such reflections, since we reckon our life by years. To many thoughtful men their own birthdays have been days of solemn self-examination. To many, the last day of the civil year brings a like reminder. Indeed, popular language recognises in it something of this power.
I. While our life is full of vigour, such anniversaries, however, invite us to look forward as well as backward. The end of an old year is the beginning of a new one. To look back is for a Christian to repent, since the best of us is but a sinner before God; but repentance should bear fruit in new life. And if we have abused God's gifts in the past year, the approaching festival of Christmas with the whole train of holy seasons that follow one after another, and bringing manifold reminders of God's love to man, tells us that there is help in heaven, help ready for us on the earth, if we will even now turn to God and amend our lives. Advent, Christmas, Passiontide, Easter, Ascension Day, are not only thankful commemorations before God of glorious things done for us in past time; they are not only settings forth before man of great events of which we might neglect to read, or read carelessly, in Scripture. They serve to remind us also of a God, ever-living and ever-present, able and willing to renew to us daily those great blessings which our Lord lived and died on earth to win for us all.
II. But as anniversaries multiply upon us, as the years behind us are many, the years to come few in comparison, my text has a meaning for us which deepens continually a meaning which cannot but force itself on the attention of those who avoid generally serious thoughts. The end of life is in very deed the end of our stewardship. We know little of the existence appointed for us between death and judgment. Little has been told us, except in brief and momentous outline of that which is to come after the Judgment Day. But we have no reason to think that in either there will be room for further probation for use or misuse of gifts and opportunities. As we draw near to the end of this earthly life our thoughts are apt to retrace the space which we have crossed. We find that we have done little, far less than we might have done, because our own indolence made us decline the task, or private aims warped and marred our public action. And yet another question remains which we put to ourselves as we look back on our past life. How have we done our duty to God in it? Ability to know God and to serve Him is one portion assuredly of our stewardship; and as we draw near to the end of life, we cannot but ask ourselves how we have used it. We alone know I do not say that we ourselves know perfectly whether we have sought to draw near to God, to know, serve, and love Him in real earnest. In the retrospect of which I have been speaking, there is more of sadness and less of hope. Little time, little opportunity, remain for amendment. But there is hope for us still. God's love, God's mercy, is inexhaustible. Humbly, trustfully, lovingly, we must cast all our sins before the throne and commit ourselves to God's mercy in the Name of Him who heard and accepted the thief upon the cross.
Archdeacon Palmer, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,Dec. 4th, 1879.
References: Luke 16:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., No. 192; E. Cooper, Practical Sermons,vol. i., p. 64; F. O. Morris, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 276; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 91; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. ii., p. 77; H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxii., p. 353.Luke 16:3. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiii., p. 111.Luke 16:5. J. M. Neale, Occasional Sermons,p. 132.Luke 16:5-7. Ibid., Sermons in a Religious House,2nd series, part i., 231.