PENTECOST 10

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 10
PROPER: 14 C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: August 12, 2001

TEXT: Luke 12:32-40 – “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.”

ISSUE: The passage for the day calls the Christian Community to a faithfulness, or loyalty, to God. It calls us to the appreciation of a new wealth and hope for the future, a new lifestyle. We must not allow the world to burglarize the Gospel of its generous love and compassion and our trust in the way of God, who comes to serve us as Christ serves his disciples and parties with them.

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Each of the readings for this day is really a call and reminder for the Christian Community to be strong in faithfulness, loyalty, toward God. They call us to trust the love and compassion of God as our way of life. Our lifestyle is to be one of faith, a grasping and holding on to the way of God. The Hebrew Scripture lesson is about Abraham believing and having faith in God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. His salvation is in his faithfulness, and even in his old age, Abraham becomes the father of many nations, whose descendants are as many people as there are stars in the sky.
The same call to faithfulness, and loyalty was a significant part of the early Christian Community. The reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews was again a reminder of the faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham & Sarah. Their faith brought them to a new land and to new hopefulness. Martin Luther’s teachings, which triggered the Reformation, were based on the fact that salvation comes from trust, loyalty, faith, in God, beyond anything else including good deeds. The impact of the teaching is that our life style as Christians is based on trust in God.
Jesus’ teachings were also clearly a call to faithfulness, trust, loyalty, and a constant union, alertness, and readiness for participation in the Kingdom, or Realm of God. It was believed by the early church that the Christ would come again to usher in that Kingdom for the faithful. The problem for the early church was that most people had very little sense of future. By the time that Luke is writing, there was concern that Christ had not yet come. For the people of this time, there was greater concern about the past, but things changed so slowly, and life’s imperatives were with the present. The great issue for these people was with getting their daily bread for this day. But again Luke’s Jesus challenges his followers to an on going anticipation of the future when the Kingdom of God would come. They were to remain faithful, loyal, and fixed.
The gospel lesson calls upon the disciples to be unencumbered, and be faithful to what God calls them to do and be. Jesus encourages his followers to be unencumbered. Sell all your possession and compassionately give to the poor. Recall and recover what true wealth is. Make for yourselves purses that don’t wear out, the spiritual purse of faith in the treasure that is God’s.
Jesus as was his usual custom, sets up a parable. Be ready for the Kingdom of God, the treasure of God, in the same way servants prepare for a bridegroom to bring home his bride for the great party and reception. Keep a watchful eye, be alert, dressed for action, and keep your lamps lit in the event he comes in the middle of the night. Have the house ready for his arrival. Be ready to open the door immediately when God’s the bridegroom comes and knocks. Like so much of Jesus’ teaching, here comes the great reversal in this parable and beatitude: “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.” What this beatitude is saying is that the coming of the Kingdom of God, the coming of the Christ is nothing less than one grand party for the faithful! “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Dump everything that gets in the way of that great gift of his compassionate love and grace.
The passage concludes with one more saying attributed to Jesus: “If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let is house be broken into.” That makes sense. If you know there is going to be a burglary, you protect you property. Now what is the meaning of all of these statements for the world today?
Let me suggest that we all have our cherished and firmly embraced life styles. Many of us enjoy a relatively affluent life style, especially as Americans. We like big houses and big cars, and big bank accounts. Some people’s life style is an all out devotion to their career. Some people choose a single foot-loose and fancy-free life style. Some people are very family devoted. We are quite adamant about finding that which makes us most happy and personally satisfied, and that life style is what we treasure. But the gospel address to our this world treasure is that it not exclude the love and compassion, and the incorporated life style of God that is revealed in the lifestyle of Jesus Christ. This is the lifestyle of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, which reveals a treasure that is at the very heart of the meaning of life. This lifestyle is the one that reveals that love of God is at one with the love of others, and the way of compassion, the way of forgiveness, which is the way of the Kingdom of God. What is at the heart of selling all you possession is a matter of dumping everything that keeps us from being the people of God and servants with Jesus Christ. This faithful servanthood and service is our basic treasure where our heart is meant to be.
Like the servants of the bridegroom, we as Christians in the world today are called upon to be faithful servants trusting and living in a way that facilitates the constant perpetual coming of the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ into the world. Morning, noon, and night we remain aware of what Christ brought and continues to want to bring to the world, that renewing love and faithful servanthood. In the parable of the bridegroom who comes to his servants you can’t help be startled by the fact that he serves and services his servants. He ties his girdle up tight and waits on them and turns the servants into the honored wedding guests. In the same way that Jesus who shares in that last supper with his disciples, ties a towel around himself, gets down on the floor, and begins to serve his disciples washing their feet. This action is not based on their goodness; they weren’t particularly good. But for the most part they were faithful to him. He throws them a party, gives them food and drink and washes their feet! Ever since that time, Sunday after Sunday for thousands of years now, the faithful have been invited to the Eucharistic party to be fed by the loving and compassionate Lord, Jesus Christ.
Be careful folks. If you suspect the thief is coming, you stand on guard to protect your property. You install a burglar alarm. You don’t want what you value to be stolen. We Christians today have to be care, alert, on guard, and committed in our faithfulness to Jesus Christ our Lord and the continual coming of His Kingdom, lest we allow the world to burglarize the Gospel treasure that we embrace to be so incredibly valuable. It is the Gospel faith that liberates the oppressed and demands justice and human dignity for all. It is the Gospel that calls for love of all people. It is the gospel that tells us we are never beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness and God’s undeserved grace. It is the Gospel that leads us to love one another, that is loving others, and knowing that we ourselves are valuable and loved.
This gospel gets burglarized by apathy, and by other values that seem to be important like consumerism and wealth, cherished possessions, and traditions sometimes. Jesus constantly challenged many of the traditions of the Pharisees and Sadducees of his time. Our obsessive infatuation with Prayer Books and rituals, and other such traditions have often stifled and stolen away our ability to see more important things. Our holding on to racial jokes and slurs, steals away the Kingdom of God’s love for all in our present world. Our desire to solve every national threat or problem with powerful weapons hardly contributes to peace without vengeance in the world. Our greed for more than our share of the resources of the world with gas guzzling cars and the castles that are built as single family dwellings steal away the awareness of our call to be a generous people of God. There are many community organizations, and athletic events that steal away our time to be in Christian community and our time with God. Fast moving technology steals away the time it takes to evaluate what we are really doing regarding human life, and where it will take us.
If we are faithful and loyal to God through Jesus Christ, be on guard, be watchful, and know what the real treasure is. Live in the Kingdom now, and anticipate the ongoing coming of Christ into our lives, that guides us, and desires to party and with us, lest we allow what is the world’s thievery to steal it away and leave us in the darkness of emptiness.