Scripture Luke 12:32-40
“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 hour you do not expect.”
Sermon “Watchfulness”
Every once in a while, you may have a doctor’s appointment during which your doctor will say to you, “Now, what we do is move into a time of watchful waiting.”
This usually doesn’t feel like good news. The doctor is essentially saying, “Something may be coming. Or not. We’re not sure. But we’ll watch for it, and if it comes, we’ll definitely do something. Meanwhile, there’s really nothing we can do.”
And those of us who are watchfully, and possibly, impatiently waiting, aren’t thrilled. Really? There’s NOTHING we can do while we’re waiting? Nothing but watch?
Jesus talks today of watchful waiting, but, unlike our doctors, the Great Physician’s advice is filled with actions to be taken.
We pick up today exactly where we left off last week, immediately after Jesus has told the parable of the man who decides the best thing for him to do is hoard his wealth. His big surprise—the one he apparently wasn’t watching or waiting for at all—was that he would die unexpectedly, and all his attempts at controlling the future were futile.
Now, Jesus turns to the big picture, which, for him, is often about what we can do as his followers. But in this passage, he also speaks of himself in several different ways. He gives us metaphors for himself or God that can deepen our understanding of our relationships with the Divine.
The passage begins with one of the loveliest, most reassuring sentences Jesus utters in scripture: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” This must come as balm after that uncomfortable jolt of a parable he’s just told. He begins with the prophetic words, “Do not be afraid,” spoken so often by messengers of God when they have come to call God’s people into service. Why? God’s intention towards you is wholly good: God intends for you to have all blessing, all mercy, all love—in short, the Kingdom, or as some of us prefer to say, the kin-dom. The kin-dom is the beloved community, writ large. God’s people gathered in a collective of love, justice, and peace, which spills out of that collective and into a world so badly in need of it. Not only is this God’s intention for us: it is God’s good pleasure to give it to us. So beautiful, and so reassuring.
Here, Jesus reveals one of the ways he thinks of his relationship with us: He calls us his little flock, which makes him our shepherd. The image of shepherd in scripture is a powerful one, and it combines unstinting care and nurture with fierce protection, at all costs. The shepherd is responsible for the flock, for each individual as well as the group as a whole. The good shepherd, recall, even leaves the flock when one individual has gone astray, so that they may be brought home again. The shepherd’s care is sure, and their love is steadfast.
After that beautiful statement, Jesus describes the spiritual practices that can strengthen us and prepare us for God’s presence and call. Once again, he stresses the need to be in right relationship with our possessions. In Twelve step programs there is a concept of things—and ourselves—being “right-sized.” This has nothing to do with a scale or measuring tape, and everything to do with keeping things in appropriate perspective. Knowing what truly matters and knowing what doesn’t. For Jesus what truly matters is that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that we love one another as we love ourselves. That we care for one another. All the practices he outlines in this passage have those things as their goal.
As a result, we need to see wealth and possessions for what they are. Things, not God (or gods). Things, not people. Things, not our self-worth. Things, not our measure of success. Things, not what matters most.
I type this as someone who has a problem getting rid of things, whose piles of papers really do pose a problem. In fact, my friend Susan, who has been helping me declutter, was astonished to find that I had not one, not two, but three filing cabinet drawers packed full of greeting cards I had received. And, in my defense, what had me keeping those greeting cards, was the love expressed in them. Love that matters to me, from people who matter to me. But I had three filing cabinet drawers stuffed full of them.
So Susan, who is an artist, created an image of me, wearing my greeting cards like a heavy cloak. She saw how even these were weighing me down.
Our stuff weighs us down. It keeps us from lifting our eyes to what God wants us to see. The world around us. God in action. The image of God in friend and stranger alike. Jesus suggests we do something about this, so that we will never miss the image of God in another person again. Jesus wants to know where our heart is, what our true treasure is, and to guard that treasure carefully.
Jesus then prescribes watchful waiting to us. Keep your lamps trimmed and burning. But, as one commentator points out, it’s not passive waiting; it is preparation. Jesus tells a parable about slaves waiting for their master to return—they intend to be ready to serve. And in a stunning reversal, the master will be so delighted, he will put on an apron and cook and serve those who have been waiting so dutifully. Jesus cannot remind us often enough that the kin-dom really is upside down to what we expect “kingdoms” to be.
Still, for Americans, the metaphor of Jesus as slave-master is chilling. I don’t see how we can read it or hear it and not be troubled. The context in which Jesus is teaching is the Roman Empire, where enslavement meant something somewhat different than chattel slavery. For one thing, it was not based on skin color, nor did it include the hideous assumptions that the enslaved were sub-human. And remember: Jesus’ audience likely contained many enslaved people. And the gospels themselves were almost surely written down by scribes, who were usually enslaved people. This meant that significant portions of those who were Jesus-followers were able to see themselves in the gospel parable. It was a story that lifted up a dream of true equality and mutuality in all human relationships. Just as Jesus was thought to be a king like no other, he is a master like no other.
The last metaphor for Jesus or God is an unsettling one: in the words of Matt Skinner, “now something about Jesus’ return resembles an act of breaking and entering.” Which leads me to say, yes, this entire passage seems to be about Jesus talking about his ultimate return, what we often call “the second coming” of Christ. In a few moments we will read together a statement of faith by the Rev. Mary Luti, which is entirely about the day that “will be coming.” We will speak of God’s grace changing every human heart so that we can live as one, and Christ’s compassion filling the earth, and the Spirit unbinding our souls so that we can live in generosity with one another. It is one of the most beautiful, hopeful descriptions I’ve ever encountered about that day that we affirm every time we proclaim the Apostles’ Creed.
There is another way to think about Jesus’ coming that I want to propose. Our scriptures tell us that we are all made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27). They also tell us that, together, we are the body of Christ, and individually, members of that body (1 Corinthians 12:27). And Jesus tells us, in the parable of the Judgement of the Nations, that, when we care for the least of those who are our siblings—the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner, the sick, the naked, the foreigner—then we are caring for him (Matthew 25:31-40). There is a “coming of Christ” to us every time we see another human being. Period.
Jesus tells us, at the end of our passage, “You… must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Luke 12:40).
This is a poem called, “At an hour you do not expect.”
The Healer appears,
like that kid in the store
whose wondrous smile
pulled me back
from the edge of gloom.
The Multiplier of Loaves
comes, picking produce
for me and thousands,
without thanks.
The Crucified One is there
in the beggar I gave money to,
and the one to whom I didn't.
The Teacher speaks
in the refugee who shows me
more than I want to know
about my own displacement.
The Wandering Rabbi appears
in the homeless who remind me
of how I belong, and do not belong.
The Messiah appears
in whoever evokes my love,
for in loving, and loving alone,
I am saved.
We are called to watchful waiting, but it is a very specific kind of watchfulness. We are called to live, not as if every person might be Jesus, but knowing that, surely, they are. They are in lineage, having been birthed by God in God’s own image. They are in dignity, worthy of our attention. They are in holiness, inhabited by the Divine. In short, there’s absolutely no reason to discard or disregard—physically or mentally—anyone we meet, in person or via media. And like us, they are all broken. They are all flawed. They have had incredibly privileged and unbearably painful upbringings. They have had graduate degrees and haven’t finished high school. They are loners and extroverts, addicts and healers, monstrous and saintly. They are all precious in God’s sight. And that’s how we are to receive them, and love them, and pray for them, and hope for them. One way or another, they are how we meet God, here and now.
Thanks be to God. Amen.