All four of our Gospels eventually end in Jerusalem. Jesus may begin his ministry in Galilee, calling his disciples from fishing boats in the harbor as well as from spreadsheets and an abacas on a desk in a storefront window.
He may wander about the region with his chosen twelve and a growing group of hangers on - telling stories, preaching sermons, dining with prostitutes, tax collectors, and other assorted sinners, healing the sick, and even on rare occasions raising the dead. Though he certainly makes a name for himself in Galilee, his destination was always Jerusalem, the Holy City.
In the Gospel of Luke, this wandering section of his sacred chronicle is sometimes referred to as the “travel narrative.” In it, Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, taking him more or less ten chapters to do so.
And in those chapters are quotable quotes that you find most often nowadays on church signs. Many of these pithy phrases are couched in some of Jesus’ most memorable parables and stories, many unique to the Gospel of Luke: Lost sheep, Good Samaritans, Prodigal Sons, “Let the children come to me”, “The last shall be first, and the first last.”
However, some of these catchwords are more of the stand-alone type. They are bits of helpful advice and nuggets of profound wisdom that Jesus shared along the way – blatant, direct, not buried in story or vignette. We find two of them in the passage we just read. They are: “Do not be afraid, little flock” and “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
I want to mull over those two remarks a bit this morning. You see, I think they shed light on where we are – muddled and unfocused - as a nation but also as individuals today.
“Do not be afraid, little flock”: Easy for you to say, Jesus. As one blogger I read this week noted, “through the twenty-four-hour-a-day newsfeed and strident political voices, specific fears have been cultivated in the hearts of Americans, and the effect has been devastating.”
We fear climate change and the growing number and severity of tornadoes and floods and hurricanes it stirs up. We fear an international financial melt-down as the result of a tariff war, or we fear the outbreak of some uncontrollable pandemic making its way to us across oceans from Africa or by a wayward mosquito traveling northward. We fear domestic terrorism, or we fear an invasion by Spanish-speakers. We live in an Age of Anxiety.
“Do not be afraid, little flock”: Easy for you to say, Jesus. You never needed to wonder if the person sitting next to you was packing a concealed gun. You never needed to be concerned about road rage and someone forcing you into the breakdown lane because he had a difficult day at work and you tried to pass him at the wrong time.
“Do not be afraid, little flock”: Easy for you to say, Jesus. You never had to worry about sending your kids to school and wondering if they would be safe. You never needed to think twice about going into Walmart to pick up a few last minute items.
“Do not be afraid, little flock”: Easy for you to say, Jesus. You never needed to worry about whether you had stashed enough away for retirement. You never had to be concerned about whether there were enough hours in the day and enough energy in your soul to be the kind of person that the preacher tells you that you should be – kind, generous, leading a life that signals abundance rather than scarcity. “Do not be afraid, little flock”: Easy for you to say, Jesus.
And yet, that is exactly what Jesus says. Like Mary when the angel confronted her about becoming pregnant, like Moses standing before the Egyptian pharaoh demanding the release of the long-enslaved Hebrew people, like Abraham striking out at God’s behest with his wife and family and all his worldly possessions to claim an unknown land and found a nation: Do not be afraid.
Why? Because, as the Gospel writer of Luke tells us emphatically, because God is pleased to give you the Kingdom. God is pleased to give you God’s holy promise that we do not live in the best of all possible worlds, that there is something better and, in the end, sacred, just sacred about this crazy jaded world we live in. God is pleased to give you God’s dream for this world to forge into a far more satisfying reality than you have ever known. God is pleased to announce that justice, inclusion, and reconciliation are all within your grasp. God is pleased to give you the Kingdom.
That is why Jesus says you should not be afraid. You should not worry: There can be a whole new world out there. God’s dream is palpable. We do not need to build walls to keep out those who are different than we are. God’s dream is close. We can love our neighbors rather than gun them down. God’s dream is possible.
And so Jesus says, to start the whole Kingdom business off, “sell your possessions, give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Sell your possessions, give to the poor.
OK, I know that right now is when you folks in the pews always get a little antsy. Here we go again. She is going to talk about money – right here in church – and it is not even stewardship season yet.
We know, you whisper to yourself, we know that most uncomfortable pithy phrase that we wish Jesus had never uttered is coming right up: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In other words, your heart will always be found with what you value most. Easy for you to say, Jesus. You do not live in our world of fear and scarcity.
However, you can breathe easy this morning. I am not going to talk directly about money. You know to what extent the state of your personal finances is what you value most. I do not need to tell you. Instead I want to reflect on “treasure” in a broader sense and, more than that, I want to focus on its relationship to that first phrase we talked about – “Do not be afraid” because God is pleased to have given you the Kingdom.
As Lutheran pastor Karoline Lewis writes, “That is where it starts, right? (God is pleased:) The certainty of God’s favor, revealed, lived, died, raised, and ascended in Jesus. It is only after this promise that we can imagine any kind of concept of what our treasure might be….(It is only after this promise that we can) imagine treasures beyond self-driven determination, self-assessed success, and self-obsessed security.”
If we take seriously the certainty of God’s promise, if we have even the tiniest bit of faith in God’s dream for the world and the part that we can play in its becoming our reality, oh, what magnificent vistas are opened to us. As Lutheran pastor David Lose reminds us, “If this is true, then (we) can, indeed, resist the seduction of wealth, not fall prey to constant anxiety about worldly needs, share what they have with others, and wait expectantly, even eagerly, for the coming of the Son of Man.”
He goes on to share an example: “The point of almsgiving, (he writes), is not to elevate poverty - circumstantial or chosen - but rather to extol generosity as a mark of the Christian life.” The point of almsgiving then is to trust that you have more than you need. The point of almsgiving is not only for you to help the less fortunate but also for you to live generously. The point of almsgiving is to live in faith that there is enough rather than in fear that there is too little.
UCC pastor Molly Baskette once offered her congregation in Somerville, Massachusetts such an opportunity. She and her Church Council challenged members of the congregation, when they pledged, to tithe, to give 10% of their income (in whatever way they chose to define it – gross, net, one income in a two wage earner family, etc.) but to give that amount to the church. They challenged folks to tithe for three months and, if their lives were not changed for the better, the church would return that money and their pledge would revert to its former amount.
I always found that an intriguing exercise because it involved putting aside fear and scarcity and instead embracing faith that Jesus’ Gospel message could actually transform one’s own life. You see, in this passage, Jesus is calling us to lives of abundance and faith rather than scarcity and fear. As David Lose continues in his blog post, “faith that frees one to be generous; faith that enables one to leave anxiety behind; faith that creates in one confidence about a future secured not by human endeavor or achievement but by God alone.”
And so you see, these two phrases are not about money alone. These phrases are about countering our fear with faith. They are about making a conscious and intentional decision to live our lives generously and abundantly – to do so on a wing and a prayer - and just see what happens.
It may mean giving away more of your possessions than you have in the past. However, this passage also means not worrying whether you have enough time and energy and passion to give away in order to live a more satisfying life than you do now, to be, as our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith challenges us: “a servant in the service of the whole human family.’ This passage means: Try it. “Just do it.” Take a risk. You do not have to be frightened. Be more generous that you have been before in the time and energy you give to this church if this is the place where your heart lies. Be more generous of your time and energy than you thought you ever could be to whatever matters most to you. This passage means be unafraid to live your life with passionate generosity.
“Do not be afraid, little flock.” Do not fear the world as you know it. Do not fear living out in your own life God’s promises of a world founded on compassion and forgiveness and justice. Do not fear being a servant, for there is always enough love in your heart to go around.
Live into the Kingdom God has given you and watch how, with faith, as Methodist pastor Dale Miller wrote, “forgiveness can triumph over revenge, hope over despair, joy over sorrow, generosity over stinginess, and love over apathy.” Live into the Kingdom God has given you. It is in doing those things – loving more, welcoming more, giving more when it seems like you have no more of yourself to give that you will finally lose the tight grip of fear and find your heart – and your treasure – and your life renewed.
No comments:
Post a Comment