Year C, Pentecost 12
August 11, 2013
By Thomas L. Truby
Luke 12:32-40
That Jesus Is So Clever!
Do you find comfort in Jesus’ first sentence? “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” I do. I often feel we are “a little flock” on the edge of survival and a spasm of fear shoots through me. But then I hear Jesus saying, “Do not be afraid, little flock” and my pulse slows.
It’s interesting that Jesus refers to us as “his little flock”. It suggests we are like sheep who don’t know what to do until a shepherd comes along directing us to the green pastures for which we hunger. Without a shepherd, we herd together, each looking to the other for guidance, but all of us are lost. Individually we feel vulnerable and small; defenseless in the face of all the wolves we know want to eat us. Our only hope, as we ban together without our shepherd, is that our neighbor will be eaten instead of us. Is that too cynical? But Jesus says “Do not be afraid, little flock” and we wonder how he could say that in view of our vulnerability.
Maybe the answer lies hidden in how Jesus completes his sentence. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Your Father has something he wants to give you and there are no strings attached, no hidden clauses, no quid-pro-qua requirements. It’s for his good pleasure, just because, no other reason. This is not a business transaction and functions outside our usual way of living.
And whatever it is our Father wants to give us, it is contained in “the kingdom.” We often say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” We are only a few verses beyond where Jesus taught this prayer to his disciples. Is all of this a follow-up to his prayer instructing us on how to be on the inside of what God wants?
What is the kingdom? We know itcomes from a place other than here. We know it to be profoundly different and outside the possibilities we can even imagine were it not for Jesus. Could it be a place of peace, a place not characterized by rivalry, a dwelling place where all is well and we know it? Could it be a place where we feel safe; where there is no “in” and “out” and humans do not feel in peril of being damned for all time? If this is what it is, it is a very good place. We think Oregon is a good place to live but this would be even better. Maybe it would be worth moving to live there? But how do we do that?
“Sell your possessions, and give alms.” What! I knew there was a catch! If I sold everything I own and gave all the proceeds to those in need, how could I help anyone, including myself, thereafter? This makes no sense! But what if we took a less literal meaning and translated it as “sell all that possesses you and give away the proceeds so that not even a monetary remnant of your bondage remains? What would that look like?
Our possessions are anything from which we attempt to grasp our worth, value ourselves, and reclaim our flagging self-esteem. They constitute attempts at giving ourselves worth in lieu of living in the worth we have already been given as children of our heavenly Father—the Father as who wants to give us his kingdom for his good pleasure. It is only by letting go of those things upon which we depend for self-esteem that we discover we don’t need them and have room for something different. In fact, it is our needing them that has us in bondage.
Ah, I reveal my age and era in so vividly remembering Tennessee Ernie Ford’sdark rhythms that said it so well. “You load sixteen tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt, Saint Peter don’t you call me cause I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company store.” What is your company store? Get rid of it. Let it go. Sell that which possesses you and remove all traces of bondage so that you can enter God’s kingdom of peace.
“Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out.” What an interesting image. “Make purses for yourselves.” We let all that holds us in bondage go and we find ourselves liberated to be creative. We get to make containers that hold treasures for ourselves and these containers never wear out. We are talking about an active life that has a self-serving motive to energize it. This is not a dull, self-effacing, goalless empty-shell kind of life. It’s just the opposite. It is vivacious, engaged, goal-oriented and imaginative.
My wife bought a beautiful, finely-made leather purse at the Portland Art Museum store. I think it would be fun to make one of these. That’s the kind of life we get to have and the purse we make will never wear out. The coinage these new purses contain is of a different order than dimes and dollar bills. They are “an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Our peace deepens when we know what we work so hard to obtain cannot be taken from us by another who desire it or by any natural process of decay, flood or fire.
The next sentence gives us a huge hint on how to move toward “the kingdom” but to see it we will have to change how we think about ourselves. Here is the sentence. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Paul Neuchterlein, at Girardianlectionary.net, helped me understand this.
The “romantic” view is that our hearts define our treasure. I want that late model Corvette because that is what my heart desires. I want it and that want comes from deep inside me. Jesus would tell me I am utterly and totally mistaken. I want that Corvette because I know other people want it and if I have it and they don’t, they will envy me. My heart’s desire does not come from the center of my being; it comes from someone out there. Someone has given memy desires. They are not generated from within.
So Jesus comes along and he knows our desires come from a place outside ourselves, either from our neighbor or from heaven, that place from which the kingdom comes. Since the other we choose to follow is the source of our desire, that other is our treasure and will determine what we want. Our desires come from the model we choose and not from some place deep inside. Jesus has just reversed our usual way of thinking and opened the door to great hope and good news. If I want to participate in the kingdom, I don’t have to change my desires by trying harder to be good. All I have to do is decide to follow Jesus with as much of myself as I can muster and the rest will take care of its self. Gradually my desires will just naturally change because of who I am following. I don’t have to burn the candle at both ends to make it happen. I am free even of this. Now do you understand, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?” Do you see how it is good news? Make Jesus your treasure and your heart will just naturally come around causing you to desire the particular way of being human that Jesus called “the kingdom.”
If we want to make Jesus and his kingdom our treasure, how do we live minute-to-minute in a way that keeps that fire burning? This is the question I think the following sentence responds to. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.” We maintain a sense of preparedness in line with his hidden, present and coming kingdom. We are pregnant and our Lamaze bag sits by the door ready to go. We have the light on in the bathroom in case we have to get up in a hurry and find our way. It is a kind of inner orientation that keeps us alert and forward looking. If wehave this attitude we can’t fall into disarray and lethargy, allowing our lives to drift toward rancidness.
There is excitement in the air for the master is coming back from a wedding banquet; not a funeral, a church potluck or a Fourth of July parade. No, a wedding banquet! Weddings are about new relationships beginning, families joining other families in celebration and dancing. Something new and creative happening and it behooves us to be prepared to let it in.
The next line goes, “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes.” Does Jesus deliberately use the word “slaves” because he knows we don’t belong to ourselves? We belong to Jesus and his kingdom and we serve himor we will serve some other, other but we all are slaves to someone. Jesus knows this. This might be a bit depressing except for what happens next.
Those of us “slaves” who are still alert when the master comes get a special reward contained in the surprising thing the returning master does. Here is now Jesus put it. “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.” Jesus servesus. He nurtures us. He puts on his apron and givesus food. You don’t suppose that food is his body and his blood and maybe more? They are on their way to Jerusalem as he says these things! Could all of this be part of the Father’s good pleasure?
Finally, blessed are those who persist in waiting but the waiting is not about being good for a long time, it’s about patiently waiting. After all, “if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house be broken into.” Suddenly Jesus’ image makes Jesus into a burglar coming at night and with this shift he subverts any attempt to make following him into being better than one’s neighbor. It’s not about being good, it’s about following Jesus. That Jesus is so clever!
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