A Call to Action

 

Text: Luke 12:32-40

Focus: Letting our lights shine

Function: to help encourage people to want to do that Christian duty.

³²“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell 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. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

³⁵“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; ³⁶be 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. ³⁷Blessed 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. ³⁸If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

³⁹“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. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Last week, we learned about our relationship to money and we began to get a glimpse into the sin of greed. Greed keeps us from resting and trusting God to provide our daily needs.

Jesus continues the theme this week in following verses that we are to live by faith and to trust in Him for everything.

He reminds us that God’s wants us to succeed and that God will do whatever it takes for us to succeed.

We are called to live by faith.

So, Jesus says for us not to be afraid. Fear, again, is a lack of faith and it is one of the things that leads us to greed.

And then Jesus gives us a standard for our own relationship to wealth. He says, Sell your possessions and give alms.

I don’t believe, again, that He is commanding us to impoverish ourselves and then turn to begging for our substance, he didn’t say, sell ALL your possessions. Remember the context, He has just told the story of the rich fool who was greedy and God showed him the problem with greed by taking him home to heaven.

The parable is about greed and He says to us, if greed is your problem, remember to lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.

It is a call to action for us to live for our heavenly reward.

We can do that, as Jesus said, by being generous toward the poor.

Proverbs 19:7 says that when we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord. God will pay us back, and Jesus is telling us to seek our heavenly reward, not earthly gain.

Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount to lay up treasure in heaven where nothing can take them from us.

And then, verse 35 gives us an imperative: Be dressed and ready for action.

Preachers love to read and speak about verses like this because they are simple, straightforward and they give us something to do.

The promise is, if we are working hard for the Kingdom of God, then we we get to our reward, we will not be left out.

Remember how I said that greed is actually a lack of faith? It is often spurred by the fear that we will not have enough. And it might be more prevalent among those who have known loss and poverty. Fear, that is.

Jesus is speaking this sermon to a group of people who are also living in terrible poverty.

He is giving them the hope of a better future when they get to heaven. But Jesus didn’t come just to save us from our sins so that when we die we can go to heaven and then finally be happy. Jesus came to bring a new Kingdom that loves and cares for everyone. He came to transform cultures into groups of people that are passionate about sharing the blessing.

Jesus came to do much more than save us so that when we die we can go to heaven.

No. They killed Jesus because He stood against the status quo. The gospel is much more than when you die you get to go to heaven if you simply trust in Jesus. That takes away the whole three years of Jesus’ teaching and His call for us to live for the Kingdom of God instead of ourselves.

We live for the kingdom of God because we believe in the promise of God that God will eventually bring justice to this world.

And the action that we are called to is to be light bearers to the good news of Jesus Christ.

We are called to bear the light that Jesus shone.

Be dressed, ready for action and the action is to bear the light.

I am a preacher, to me, as a preacher, that means “Speak up! Speak out against injustice!”

For the early Brethren living in this very community who were involved in the underground railroad, it meant risking their farms and freedom in order to help out those who are being oppressed.

It is a call to action, not just words.

How far does it go? Well, He starts out by saying that if our possessions get in the way, then get rid of them.

The rich man came to Jesus and asked Jesus what work he could do to earn eternal life.

And again, Jesus told the man to sell everything give it to the poor and then he will have treasure in heaven. The man went away sad because he was wealthy and he didn’t want to give up his ease.

We think wealth brings ease. God it is God who provides for us, rich or poor, we are to live by faith in the provision of Jesus for us.

Now, evangelicalism has spiritualized Jesus answer to take away the meaning of our relationship to riches.

They tell us that no one can be saved by works. And that is true. We are saved by faith. And that faith will result in works and if the works to not ensue, then our salvation is in question.

It is a theological dilemma that we have between grace and works.

Jesus said that if we feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoners then we are counted as the sheep that will inherit the Kingdom of heaven and that if we don’t we will be cast out into outer darkness.

We can’t spiritualize these words and take away their meaning by saying that salvation is completely by faith and not a result of works.

Jesus’ point is that faith changes us. It happens, I believe, by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in everyone who trusts Jesus to save them.

When we listen to the leading and the prodding of the Holy Spirit we learn from God that even the least of these are worth the love and mercy that God has given to them.

So, let us shine our lights for Jesus. I think of a famous quote from a sermon in 1907, it has been repeated by Eleanor Roosevelt, it was picked up in Chinese culture and attributed to Confucius. But it comes from Christendom and it reads like this: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

Merely cursing the darkness does not help. It is easy to point out the problems in a society. And Jesus did that well. But the way to be effective to to shine a light for people to see.

It is a positive reaction, a loving reaction, a merciful reaction to the injustices we face so that we can be a witness to the unconditional love of Jesus Christ for others.