Luke 12:32-40 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
32 “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Watchful Slaves
35 “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he[a] would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Well, this passage starts out great, at least! Those are very comforting words – it tells us that, no matter what happens on this plane of existence, we’re covered on the next one.
But then we read: “Sell all your possessions, and give alms”; and the smile begins to fall off of our faces in chunks. We might even shake our heads and say, “Oh, he’s at that again!” This is a hard saying. Hard to hear. Hard to digest. Very hard to follow.
F.F. Bruce agrees that this is a hard saying, because its meaning is all too plain and it “goes against the grain to put [it] into action.” When we hear the words “Sell your possessions, and give alms,” Bruce writes: “[N]ot even the assurance that this is a way of laying up treasure in heaven makes it altogether easy to comply with it.”[1] It really does run counter to our entire outlook on life.
Everybody wants to feel secure. We all want to make sure that we “have enough” – enough food, enough money to live on, enough shelter – and we devote a lot of time and effort to meet those needs. So the thought of actually selling our possessions makes us very, very nervous. In fact, it scares us to death. “If we were to do that,” we say, “how would we stay alive?”
That is exactly the point. Jesus is telling his disciples here that true security, real security, does not come from what we lay up in store for ourselves, but from trusting in God’s goodness. He’s telling us not to be distracted. He’s telling us not to lose sight of what’s really important. He tells us, in other words, to let go and let God step in, to relax.
Martin Hengel tells us “To understand Jesus’ attitude to property we must return to his messianic preaching of the imminence of the kingdom of God which … no longer stands under the sign of judgment but under that of the all-victorious love of God. Because men experience forgiveness of their guilt, they themselves can forgive; because they receive the assurance that God’s goodness supports and sustains their life, they must no longer fret about their everyday needs, but can pray like children, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Because they themselves have encountered the heavenly Father’s boundless love, they must not relapse into anxiety…[2] In other words: Relax!
Fr. Mark Link tells the following story: A man named Spriggs recalls his first night as a homeless person. Someone directed him to a shelter. There he found a lot of rough-looking men waiting in line. Finally, the door opened, and they all got beds – about a hundred men in all. Spriggs writes, “I was terrified….Then out of the darkness a voice said, ‘Our Father who art in heaven…’ and the entire dormitory joined in. At then end of the prayer another voice began, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’ Even now I get goose bumps thinking about it. That minute I realized that God…seems to be closer to the homeless. You could feel him in the shelter….My fears were replaced by peace.”[3]
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, isn’t peace – inner peace, peace of mind – exactly what we’re asking for, isn’t it? Aren’t we saying, “Lord, please give us today what we need”? And here’s the thing: He does!
Even though we also believe that “God helps those who help themselves,” when we realize that it is in God, and God alone, that we live, and breathe, and have our being, we understand that all of our efforts are only possible through God’s love and grace.
Jesus is not telling us to jettison our homes and send all our money to some worthy cause and then go live under a freeway overpass; he’s talking about putting things in their proper order. He’s telling us not to worry, because God’s got our back.
Think about it – we don’t have to worry. God’s there for us. God’s providing for us. If we really let the enormity of that promise sink in, it can’t help but change our lives. Daily life ceases to be a mad scramble to survive; our world goes from being a “dog-eat-dog” environment to one of limitless possibilities.
And then all kinds of good things happen. David Lose writes in this week’s post on his blog that “[t]he question for a Christian, you see, isn’t finally about some form of self-actualization but rather discovering that as we give ourselves away in relationship and service we find a deeper sense of self than we’d imagined possible. We are born for community and find a sense of self and meaning and purpose as we trust God’s promises and give ourselves away in love.”[4]
It’s one of the paradoxes of life – by giving, by supposedly “losing” something, we gain far more. Ask any teacher why they do what they do, and they will tell you that what they gain from giving of themselves can’t often even be put into words.
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
I love the way the translation “The Message” puts it:
“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.”
That really puts things in a different light, doesn’t it? As FDR famously said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” So relax!
RELAX! And put things in perspective. RELAX! And don’t let your things possess you. Remember, in the end, they don’t matter. RELAX! Let your worries and anxieties go, and feel the freedom! RELAX! Take a breath of fresh air! RELAX! And get ready for bigger things!
I’ll close with some of the words to a song written by Curtis Mayfield back in the 1960s:
People get ready
there’s a train a comin’
You don’t need no baggage
you just get on board.
All you need is faith
to hear the diesels hummin’
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord.
Sisters and Brothers: Let’s relax and get ready!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Bruce, F. F., Hard Sayings of Jesus, Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 1983, p. 178
[2] Hengel, Martin, Property and Riches in the Early Church, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1974, p. 29
[3] Link, Mark, S.J., Jesus: A Contemporary Walk with Jesus, Resources for Christian Living, Allen, TX, 1997, p. 354
[4] Lose, David, “Pentecost 12C: What Would You Do…?”, …in the Meantime, www.davidlose.net