Today's Devotion

Monday, August 10, 2026 (St. Lawrence) - 1 Cor 4:1-21

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Today the church honors Archdeacon St. Lawrence, who was martyred in Rome on this day in the year 258. One of his jobs was to manage the church’s property. There was friction with the imperial government, and the state demanded an accounting of the church’s “treasures.” In response, Lawrence brought forth the many poor whom the church helped and presented them to the prefect as those “treasures.” For this act of “trolling,” Lawrence was executed on a hot gridiron. It is said that he again “trolled” his captors by informing them that he was done on this side and it was time to flip him over.

Lawrence’s treasure was not only the charity of the church, but also the Gospel. Lawrence’s pastor was none other than the bishop of Rome, Pope St. Sixtus II, who had been martyred just a couple days earlier. Sixtus’s epitaph where he was buried in a Roman catacomb was written by a successor bishop of Rome, Damascus I, referring to Sixtus not as pope, not as bishop, but three times as “the pastor.” This honorific emphasized Bishop Sixtus’s devotion to shepherding his flock, even unto death.

St. Paul was such a shepherd to his flock of troubled Corinthians. In convincing them to respect their pastors as “stewards of the mysteries of God,” that is, as celebrants of the sacraments, they are not to factionalize and idolize them. For a steward is a servant, whether he is a deacon, pastor, or bishop. This kind of party spirit takes the focus off of Christ, who is revealed in the mysteries, and misplaces the treasure of the church onto one’s self, being “puffed up.” Paul asks (as he does so often) rhetorically, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

Paul reminds the Corinthians, distracted by wealth and worldly glamor, “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich!” Of course, we are all rich in the Gospel, but Paul is preaching the Law to the Corinthians for being caught up in the pursuit of mammon, even as those whom they are called to support are going without. And he is not “writing these things to make [them] ashamed. But to admonish” them as his “beloved children.” This is why pastors are traditionally given the honorific “Father.” For he is a pastor, that is, a “guide” who shepherds and leads those under his care. But he is also more than this. As St. Paul says, “I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” And Paul is also a spiritual father to his “faithful child in the Lord,” St. Timothy.

Fathers lay down their lives for their wives and children. Pastors interpose themselves between the wolf and the sheep. Deacons are servants, ministers, those who serve the ones who serve. St. Lawrence was not only a servant of the church and a servant of his pastor, but most importantly, a servant of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lawrence knew where the church’s treasures are, and he knew what his own treasure was. And that treasure of the Gospel and the good confession of faith was something that he treasured even above life itself.

Thanks be to God for faithful bishops, pastors, and deacons, and for all of God’s faithful people who serve their Lord, knowing where their true treasure lies. Our Lord Jesus says: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.