FINDINGS II
Proper
14 - C - August 8, 2010
Luke 12: 32-40
Luke 12: 32-40 Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock,
for it is your Father's joy to confer his rule upon you that you may observe
and teach it. Here's how you will do that: sell what you own and give the
proceeds to the poor. Make wallets for yourselves, which will not wear out, to
carry the unfailing treasure of that rule, in which, because it is immaterial,
no thief will be interested in
stealing and no moth in eating. If you bury that treasure, you will also bury
your heart. Meanwhile, keep your work clothes handy and have your lamps ready
to light as would those who would be waiting for their master to return from
the wedding supper, that you may open the door for him when he knocks. The
slave who is ready is a happy slave for he will be served as if he were not a
slave. It's like this: you have to be ready for anything because The One Like
Us is coming when you least expect it. (Translated and
paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)
 By Harry T. Cook
8/2/10
RUBRIC
It may be true that time, often said to be "of the essence,"
is, in fact, just that. Such is the leitmotif of the passage above. It mocks
the notion that religion is a static thing, that one can come and go from its
observance or study and find it just as it was when one's attention was
diverted elsewhere. The trouble is that most appreciation of religion treats it
as an antique worthy only of preservation in mint condition.
This is not to suggest that the religion which emerges from
the gospels is apocalyptic in nature, or that the fundamentalists' rapture is just
around the corner or that we should all decamp to the mountain top to await
transport. It is merely to say that the way of thinking found in the gospels is
dynamic in nature, always appreciating and seeking to understand as much of the
present as possible, paying attention to the truth that how what one does or
does not do today is certain to have consequences for either good or ill tomorrow.
A psalmist said it this way: "Teach us to number our days that we may get a
heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12)
WORKSHOP
It is no settled community to which this passage speaks or
in which it may well have had its origins. For this community, it is not what
has happened, or even what is happening but what is about to happen. The
attitude and deportment mandated are appropriate to a time and condition that
is temporary. The customary rules do not apply. Material possessions are now
only incidental to the main purpose of life, which it to be ready for the
arrival of a new dispensation.
This probably reflects a real urgency that was felt in some
quarters of late first century Jesus Judaism to the effect that something would
occur almost any time to resolve the chord set up by whatever happened to the
Jesus figure and the resultant confusion of the community that had gathered
around his countercultural teaching.
The passage begins with Luke's singular assurance that the
"little flock" need not fear because a new rule or dispensation based on that
teaching will be conferred on them. How, is not clear, but it is safe to say the
dispensation will have something to do with the idea first enunciated by Hillel
the Great to the effect that the rule of life spelled out in excruciating
detail in Torah and further excruciatingly parsed in Mishnah and Talmud centers
on how one treats another. If one does not do to another what one hates or
would hate to have done to himself, a community would need fear less. Or as the
epistoler John will later write of that ethic, "There is no fear in love, but
perfected love casts out fear" (I John 4:18a).
One aspect of that ethic is illustrated by the counsel Luke
gives his Jesus to speak with regard to the divestment of possessions for the
sake of being able, through liquidation, to give alms. One sure thing about it is that it
bespeaks a culture of freedom. To be liberated from the conservation and
maintenance of much wealth would be to enjoy the rule which it has been the
Father's pleasure to confer. Yet it is not as if the community is not to be
rich. The community is to be rich in a way that is not liable to the erosion of
time (moth and rust). Its treasure is not to sequester for the sake of compound
interest but to be shared by way of love.
This is because a time of crisis is upon the Jesus
communities. As the first century drew to a close, there was a longing for
resolution and a fear of what might befall their little minorities. The advice
of Luke's Jesus in that situation is to be ready for anything at any time,
keeping their work clothes at hand and their lamps ready to kindle. This means
that "now" is the time, not "then."
This passage is saying that in every moment, in every face,
in every event and development there exists the potential for the new
dispensation to emerge in its fullness. The community will not then wish to be
encumbered by many possessions and concern for their security. When "the master
comes" it must be a time when the community is ready individually and
corporately to enter wholeheartedly the new dispensation.
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
Among the homiletic opportunities here is the proposition
that the church needs to find ways to divest itself of institutional burdens
that keep it from being effective as a herald and practitioner of the new
dispensation. The church's heart will be wherever its treasure is: whether invested
in attention to administrative minutiae, or in quarrels over matters of
authority, or sunk in stocks and bonds, in excess bricks and mortar rather than
in real work among real people with real needs.
If the church could discover, claim and know the truth about
its raison d'etre, it would be free to be what the gospel envisions and maybe
what its Galilean hero may actually have been: i.e. an embodiment of humanity
at its best, existing to bid love and care for people rather than for things
which are subject to the depredations of moth and rust and will never matter in
the long run.
|
|
