Year C. The tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Luke 12: 32-40 (32-48), August 12th, 2001
Title: “How to plant eternal seeds of charity in the course of our daily lives.”
Jesus is pictured as giving instruction to his disciples as he is journeying toward Jerusalem.
The material in this section comes from “Q,” the source Luke shares with Matthew and from “L,” material only Luke has. These are really isolated sayings of Jesus that Luke has put together, giving the impression they were delivered as one sermon. These sayings all reflect one theme: the eternal attitude or, as Jesus might put it, the kingdom attitude. Jesus instructs his disciples on what this attitude would look like in action. Their behavior is to reflect the eternal perspective. Jesus applies the eternal attitude to the topic of money in verses, thirty-three and thirty-four, and then to vigilance and fidelity in verses thirty-five to forty-eight. Good teacher that he is, Jesus uses contrast to illustrate the difference between the earthly, temporal attitude toward life and its eternal rival.
[Jesus said:] "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "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. 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. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. "But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
In verse thirty-two, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” This is a fairly typical teaching of Jesus regarding the eternal attitude. He knows that his imminent departure is going to evoke the emotional reaction of fear on the part of his disciples. He is telling them to keep the goal, the big picture, the end time in mind. In the light of that awareness, namely, that God has accepted them into his kingdom, they have nothing to fear. In the light of eternity all that happens in between is temporary.
In verse thirty-three, “Sell your possessions, and give alms. In the light of eternity the only value money and possessions have is to be given away to help others. In the light of the shortness of time between now and death the only sensible thing to do is to treat material things as means to a greater end, not as ends in themselves.
“Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out.” In the light of eternity the only currency that has any redeemable value is the currency of charity. Cash is good as trash. “Where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Clothing was a sign of wealth, but the little moth could destroy it and the cloth purse that holds the money to buy it. If a thief does not get one’s material wealth, natural corrosion, corruption, rust or crust will. Heavenly trust, the eternal attitude, is not subject to such things.
In verse thirty-four, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” A person’s heart, the concentration of energies and interests, is always with the things he or she treasures, what he or she values most, and reveals his or her true character; quality of life.
In verse thirty-five, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” Garments, long robes, were worn loosely when at home relaxing, but tied up with a belt around the waist when going out or working, like putting on a coat as a sign of departure or an apron as a sign of beginning work. Lamps would be lit at night to enable work to proceed- cooking, reading, sewing, etc. These are images for readiness and watchfulness. The eternal attitude translates, on earth, into a sense of urgency about only having a limited amount of time to accomplish a task, a sense of cleverness to use whatever means necessary to overcome obstacles, flowing and obstructive robes or physical darkness, and a sense of alertness to one’s present surroundings and future possibilities.
In verse thirty-six, “be like those who are waiting for their master to return,” Jesus uses a typical human situation of master, servant, to describe his own return. It will be inevitable, but imprecise. While it is to be expected, it will also be a surprise as to exact timing. So, constant vigilance and preparedness is the only sensible approach.
In verse thirty-seven, “he will come and serve them.” This most unlikely human scenario, a master waiting on his servants, is a typical Semitic exaggeration to indicate reward beyond human imagining.
In verse thirty-eight, “during the middle of the night, or near dawn,” the The point is no matter how late the master is and how long the delay is the master still expects faithful vigilance.
In verse thirty-nine, “the hour when the thief was coming,” the tone of the previous parable of the master’s return was one of encouragement to faithful service and promise of reward. Now the tone changes to one of warning for those not ready for the coming of the Son of Man. The previous parable stressed the delay, this one stresses the sudden and unexpected arrival under the image of a thief.
In verse forty-one Peter: Luke has Peter inject a question. Is this teaching just for them, his close disciples, or for everyone? While the teaching is for everyone Jesus stresses that those who have received more instruction or have been entrusted with more responsibility for his flock during his absence will be held accountable for their failures, as they will be rewarded for their fidelity.
In verses forty-two to forty-eight, in answer to Peter’s question Jesus depicts the scene of his return in parabolic fashion. It is a judgment scene whereby the servant is held accountable for his behavior in the interval of the master’s absence. The standard of judgment is the same for all cases. However, since not all had the same responsibility, those “in charge” will have more to answer for. This is not a higher standard than that of the rest. Since the Twelve and their successors, have been entrusted with more knowledge of the will of God they will be expected to have lived that knowledge more faithfully than one unaware or uninformed. The severe and light beatings Jesus refers to remind of the familiar Old Testament teaching about sins committed wittingly and unwittingly. All wrongdoing has negative consequences whether consciously intended or not. The “light beating” or punishment refers to the negative consequences. They are bad enough. They impact negatively on the external environment; including other people. But witting sin impacts negatively on the person intentionally doing so and thus the “beating” is more severe. Such a person has done wrong knowingly and willingly and done harm to self and others before, and against God. So, Jesus is saying that no wrongdoing is inconsequential, but deliberate sin involves much more serious consequences because it threatens a person’s eternal destiny.
Sermon
Jesus instructs his disciples, including us, on the absolute necessity of maintaining the eternal perspective and applying that perspective to this life in all matters great and small. Letting that light shine on our questions, problems, doubts, fears, challenges and moment- to -moment consciousness reveals the way God sees them. It also provides the power, the grace, for us to deal with them as God would have us do.
Take, for instance, money, possessions, wealth or the desire for it. Craving for money and wealth and “spending” our time on earth accumulating money and wealth is a real waste of time, the very short time we have on earth to show God we want to be with him in eternity, that his values are our values. Ascribing value to money it does not have will put money in the place of God. What could be more foolish than to spend a lifetime accumulating a commodity like money, that is not permitted into the place or state where one will spend eternity? What is the point of that? Who would be so foolish to do that? Only a person who does not have a clue about eternity or who has forgotten about eternity. No wonder Jesus stresses the absolute necessity of living one’s life on earth from the perspective of eternity. He knew how easy it is for humans, even humans who intellectually know about eternity, to forget about it and let time and time-bound values rule the day.
Money is a time-bound commodity. There is not any need for money in eternity. Indeed, in eternity money is taboo. The only way cash can be converted into the “currency” of eternity is to “exchange” it by giving it away to those who can use it for the necessities of this life. In other words, only charity, using money for charity, can redeem cash. It is its only legitimate use in the country of Eternity. The King of Eternity will not recognize the bank accounts of Earth and will not give us “credit” unless we converted it into charity before seeking entrance into his country.
Jesus then broadens the principle to include our entire lives, not merely our economics. If money is to be put at the service of others, so is one’s whole life. To see ourselves as servants is only demeaning if we do not have the eternal perspective. In that realm even the master is glad to be a servant. “Servant” is a title of honor if, and only if, “faithful” can be attached to it. In the eternal perspective a “faithful servant” is greater than an “unfaithful” king, queen or any other title. The kingdom of Earth stresses the noun, servant, while the kingdom of Eternity stresses the adjective, faithful. It is the kind of person we are, not the kind of title, job, position we hold, that matters in the eternal scheme of things. And that kind or character of person is seen in our routine lives.
Without the eternal perspective time can seem to drag on, to repeat itself endlessly, to be empty of meaning, causing one to grasp at any offer of excitement or novelty no matter how destructive to self or others. Time is our worst enemy because we are made for and most at home in eternity. Jesus knew this and so cautions us against thinking, erroneously, that we have all the time in the world. This leads to procrastination of the worst sort. We begin to behave as though our visa here will never run out. We lose the healthy sense of urgency that comes from knowing we only have so much time here to accomplish our purpose and we will be held accountable not only for our use of money but of time too. How we make and spend our money matters, to God, and how we use and spend our time matters too. Since we are servants, we are accountable to the Master who will come one day, inevitably yet unexpectedly, and force us to see whether we were faithful or not. The time to get ready for this event is now. It is always. Later, tomorrow, eventually, one day- are all synonyms in the language of Eternity for “too late.”
Assurance that we are heirs to the Kingdom of God, in his will, changes our relationship to earthly money.
Charity is the currency, the “legal tender,” of heaven.
We should live each day, indeed each moment, as though it were our last one on earth.
Constant awareness of eternity and our inheritance does not release us from earthly responsibilities.
Heirs of the Kingdom of God need to behave as heirs even while still waiting to receive the full inheritance. Indeed, it is the condition for reception of it.
The Eternal Perspective: In revealing to us that we will continue to exist forever and that those of us who truly accept him on his terms, Christ has assured us that we will not only exist, but, fully live forever. We have only begun to live while here on earth. There is a big difference between merely existing and living, merely surviving and thriving. In teaching us to constantly be aware of eternity while still living in time, Jesus has given us not so much a map for taking the next step or steps in our lives as he has given us the light by which to really read the map correctly. He has left it up to us to interpret the details of life by using the light of eternity. When we do that things we might have thought to be urgent really are not, things we might have thought to be of paramount importance really are not even important at all, things we thought we could delay, need to be done now and things we thought needed to be done right away should even be done in the first place. That is what the eternal perspective can do for us now. It does not release us from the necessities of life. We still need food and shelter, honest work and carefree play. It does release us from what we erroneously think are the necessities of life, like accumulating wealth for wealth’s sake. However, the eternal perspective can be merely an intellectual belief, a belief we bring forward in our consciousness only when a loved one dies or a tragedy occurs. The Lord tells us that it must be THE permeating and penetrating basis for our ordinary consciousness, as well as our extraordinary consciousness. The eternal perspective is not something we bring out of our mental closet on special occasions to look at and help soothe our pain. It is an everyday, every minute, phenomenon, requiring a disciplined and determined effort to keep it green. This teaching is given in the context of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, where in Chapter nine verse fifty-one, he “resolutely determined to journey” to his goal, and not merely meander. Our consciousness is like a plot of ground with both flowers and weeds. The weeds, the time-bound perspective, constantly threaten to crowd out and destroy the flowers, the eternal perspective. If we let that happen we become only weedy, greedy for the things of earth. We plant no eternal seeds in the course of our daily goings. We do not really grow; we overgrow and destroy beauty and goodness. We take up room and deprive others of their rightful place and space. We meander from one place to another, simply trying to survive the moment or the day. We do not thrive. We ultimately pay the price, eternally, for putting a price tag on everything only to find out eternity is free, God’s free gift to those who freely give themselves and their lives to him.
The Will: We not only do God’s will, we are in God’s will. When we write our own last will and testament we leave to others all earthly possessions. Not only cannot we take them with us, we would not even if we could. Where would we put them? What would we do with them? This awareness sheds a new light on the possessions we now have. They are not bad in themselves and they are not useless here. Indeed, we need them. However, we probably do not really need all of them. If we give them away to others who can use them and who need them, we are writing our last will and testament already. This is not words on a piece of official paper. It is our living will, expressed in charity. And charity is our character, because it is the very character of God, his “name,” who is our Father, who put us in his will. Amen.
