Jesus\u2019 parables invite us to take up residence for a while in their imaginative world, and see things from a different point of view. But the parable in today\u2019s gospel reading is at first glance a fairly unpleasant affair. It asks us to imagine ourselves as slaves. Slaves who are tempted to laziness and who risk a beating if they\u2019re found shirking their tasks. It doesn\u2019t sit comfortably. It\u2019s a jarring metaphor, but I think appropriately so \u2013 because the whole thrust of the Gospel reading, and of the Hebrews passage, is to shake us out of our complacency, to literally take us out of our comfort zone. I\u2019m going to return to the parable later, but for now let\u2019s wind back to the start of the passage:
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Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father\u2019s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Today\u2019s theme is \u2018Be ready\u2019. It\u2019s about being ready for the kingdom of God, and the barriers to that readiness. Our texts have a lot to say about the life of the disciple, and much of it is really challenging and counter-cultural. By counter-cultural I mean that as we begin to take them seriously in our own lives, and in the together-life of our church community, we will begin to look different, to be somewhat at odds with \u2018mainstream New Zealand\u2019. <\/p>\n
Everything in this reading hangs together, so it\u2019s difficult to pick out the particular aspects and talk about them in isolation. But I\u2019ll have a go anyway. Jesus\u2019 first challenge to us is don\u2019t be afraid. Do not fear, because this mysterious thing called the kingdom is being given to you. The kingdom of God that Jesus was proclaiming and enacting \u2013 it\u2019s about wholeness, healing, restoration, right relationships between God and humanity, between people, and between humans and the rest of the creation. The kingdom is the world put back the way it ought to be. That\u2019s what we\u2019re expecting, and why Jesus tells us not to fear. But fear, particularly in the form of worry and anxiety, do tend to characterise us and our society. Depending on our personality and stage of life, we\u2019re worried about looking cool and fitting in with our peers; worried about exams; worried about our children, or our parents; about our health, or our spouse\u2019s health; about having enough money; about crime; about whether we\u2019ll be able to retire comfortably; worried about the climate; about the state of the oceans; etc., etc., etc. <\/p>\n
The fear and anxiety all come because of the gap between the reality we experience and the glorious kingdom that\u2019s supposed to be being given to us. The kingdom has come near to us in Jesus, but hasn\u2019t fully come. The world is still full of misery, hatred, brokenness and sin. What we need is a sort of double vision \u2013 the eyes of faith. This is what the Hebrews 11 passage we heard read is on about. There Abraham is commended as an example for us. Because he could see something better on its way, he and Sarah were able to look beyond the surface appearance of their circumstances, and set out for a distant country, not knowing where they were going. Faith here means holding on to the vision that God is somehow working all things for good. The vision we need is a mysterious perception of what\u2019s really going on, beneath the surface of events, or just beyond the horizon, if you will.<\/p>\n
For myself, I need to remember this deeper vision particularly when I\u2019m thinking about or dealing with the big-picture environmental troubles our world faces: it is, for instance, difficult to be optimistic about the nations of the world making the drastic cuts in emissions that seem to be necessary to avoid serious alterations the world\u2019s climate. But optimism isn\u2019t what\u2019s called for \u2013 it\u2019s hope. Hope that God is going to renew the heavens and the earth, and that God cherishes faithful efforts in the right direction. Each of us has our own window on the world\u2019s pain; for you it might be something else \u2013 a terminal illness, a marriage that isn\u2019t working, or the number of Maori in prison. Whatever it is, we need to look with the eyes of faith, and hold on to the promise that God will do for the whole world what he did for Jesus in the resurrection.<\/p>\n
The awareness of what\u2019s really going on has very concrete implications for discipleship. Jesus\u2019 second challenge is sell your possessions and give to the needy. This is continuing a theme that appears all over the Gospels, namely that God and money are rivals for our loyalty, and that we have to make a choice about whom we will serve. Our possessions give us a feeling of security. I know for myself, if there is plenty of money in the current account, at some quite deep level I feel safe, like there\u2019s breathing space and everything is going to be okay. If money is a bit tight, I feel constricted, and insecure. But Jesus is saying that those gut feelings of mine are not telling the truth \u2013 they\u2019re instincts that need retraining along kingdom lines. <\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 third challenge extends this further: 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. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Being ready for the kingdom is all about priorities. Surely this challenge of Jesus should prompt us to evaluate our own priorities, or even more straightforwardly and uncomfortably, to look at our own finances. Could we get by with less? What percentage of our spending could be fairly described as investing in the kingdom? Jesus talks about swapping earthly purses for heavenly ones \u2013 that is, rather than storing up wealth in the illusory hope of securing our lives in a shifting world, we\u2019re to do something else with it \u2013 to invest it in the kingdom. But what does that really mean? I admit it\u2019s not immediately obvious what exactly it looks like. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re talking only about say giving to the Church Missionary Society, though that\u2019s definitely part of it. Perhaps one way of thinking about it, following St Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, is to imagine that God has restored the world, mended all the broken relationships and healed the earth, and then ask yourself, does what I am spending my money \/ time \/ energy on fit well in this setting? <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not trying to give the last word on what it means to live further from money and closer to the kingdom \u2013 this is a beginning; and something I think we probably need to talk more about as a faith community.<\/p>\n
As well as priorities, it\u2019s also about identity. As I understand it, in the Bible, the \u2018heart\u2019 means something different than it does for us now. We talk about the heart as the metaphorical site of affection and emotion, but in the Bible the heart generally refers to the deepest core of a person, the integrated centre of your self. Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. We think we need status, respect, a good salary, a nice house, etc. to be really fulfilled, but following Jesus is a process of learning to do without the things we tsought we needed to be okay. It\u2019s losing ourselves and in the process being caught up in a much bigger adventure called the kingdom.<\/p>\n
I started by noting the parable in this passage that at first glance is not very agreeable. It does, however, reward careful reading. According to Kenneth Bailey<\/a>, lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament studies, the climax or key point of many of the parables occurs in the middle of a block of material. This is in contrast to the way Western story lines work, where the key event generally happens at or near the end. In this case, the climactic point is really great. When the master comes back from the wedding feast, he ties up his long robes with a belt, becoming like a slave himself, so that he can serve the slaves dinner! This is a dramatic reversal of expectations. Even in our culture it\u2019s very hard to imagine say the father of the bride slipping out of his daughter\u2019s wedding to serve dinner to the kitchen staff. This subverts the whole master\u2013slave dynamic, and tells us something wonderful about the character of the king whose kingdom we await. <\/p>\nIn the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
St Michael\u2019s Anglican Church, Kelburn Sermon for 8 August 2010 \u2013 Be ready Psalm 33; Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2; 8-19; Luke 12:32-48 Jesus\u2019 parables invite us to take up residence for a while in their imaginative world, and see things from a different point of view. But the parable in today\u2019s gospel reading is at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}