Luke 12:32-40
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Federal Election in 13 days time
Since I was booked for this service today,
some one went and called a Federal Election for this month.
This changes our lives as we take personal responsibility
for choosing among those on offer to govern us for the next three years.
We come to this and other decision-making
each from our own personal perspectives, aware that there is no size fits all.
It’s good that we have our lectionary readings before us to help guide us
when we make these decisions.
1.2 The Lectionary Readings
These edited readings strangely enough fit into a pattern this week.
Psalm 50 starts appropriately with worship and sets it properly into context.
Everything we offer up to God belongs to him in the first place.
Nothing we can do in worship
can excuse us from responsibility in our relationships.
Isaiah chapter One describes a nation that has already fallen into this trap of believing that the more one puts into worship
the less one need deal with ethics and justice and compassion.
The Gospel reading from Luke reminds us that we remain accountable to God through Jesus Christ.
The famous Hebrews ch 11 shows us how we achieve this accountability.
Accountability is a timely theme, as not only do we have to vote,
it’s also tax time.
2 PREPARATION FOR DISCIPLESHIP (Luke 12:32-40)
2.1 Sustenance Living
We don’t have the time to go over all the juicy bits,
particularly as, after worship, some will be preparing to meet their fete,
and anyway, these readings feed into the Gospel, so we’ll focus there.
Last week, we looked at the Parable of the Rich Fool,
and this reading follows straight on from that.
We know how preoccupation with accumulating money
and what money can buy is the greatest distraction from getting on with life.
Here, Jesus promotes to his disciples sustenance living.
They have to travel light or they will be bogged down.
I still remember my Mother’s 2 large suitcases for going away for a weekend.
It took some years for me to unlearn that habit.
Pity my poor children who have to dispose of what I have after I have gone.
Don’t laugh, your turn will come.
This congregation, fortunately, has proved generous in many things
so I shall move on.
2.2 Tap on the shoulder
Some years ago, we were warned to be alert but not alarmed.
Jesus thought of that first.
We all know what it is like when we are expecting visitors but not sure when.
Before emails and mobile phones, even before telephones themselves,
we had even less warning.
The rich man last week had little warning,
not even enough time to think about writing his will
before that tap on the shoulder interrupted his plans.
We are possessed with the status quo of immortality,
that things will always be the same
or that they will grow and grow without end.
Those of us who have been burgled in our time
know what can happen to what we cherish when our back is turned.
3 “TRUST ME” (Heb 11:1-3, 8-16)
3.1 Something to show for our efforts
Life is not a matter of being successful but of being faithful.
That is something I wrestle with because, being human,
I am drawn into wondering what I will leave behind that is tangible.
They pulled down the hospital in which I was born,
the little church I grew up in is now too beyond repair to use,
and all my handiwork as a draftsman has all long been superseded.
I was warned that ministry is not something you can easily measure.
How many people still awake at the end of the sermon
is not necessarily a good sign.
Doubtless, in what everyone does there is that hankering
that we’d like to have something to show for our efforts.
3.2 Abraham
This is where this passage from Hebrews comes to our help.
What hits me about Abraham
is a man who had nothing really to show at all.
Everything that came to fruition was after he had passed on
so he never saw what was promised to him.
All God really said to him was, “Trust me”,
and Abraham took that risk of trusting some one whom he couldn’t see,
who wasn’t yet written about in a book (think about that one),
and who had to convince his wife that he was making the right choice.
3.3 “Who do you think you are?”
Perseverance is the word.
I have an admiration for British TV commentator Gryff Rhys Jones
who has been on our ABC TV screens recently,
particularly after he appeared on the BBC program
“Who do you think you are?”
He discovered ancestors of his who lived and died
in a 19th century poorhouse in the most Dickensian of circumstances.
I think a lot of tissues were used during that particular program.
I wonder did they often think at the time that they were miserable failures
with nothing in the future to pass on.
If only those ancestors could see that a descendant of theirs
has become internationally known
for his breezy, well produced TV documentary presentations.
Did Abraham ever think that his long journey was amounting to nothing
with even Sarah laughing behind his back at what was yet to happen?
3.4 My only sporting trophy
In my youth, I was visited by debilitating migraine headaches,
and found that taking up some sport lessened these attacks.
I joined a church hockey club
and found myself making up the final numbers
in the third senior male team in C grade, C2 to be precise.
In the words of the spin-doctors, we experienced negative improvement,
and found ourselves relegated to C3 grade, known as the basement.
One year we did so badly, we finished bottom of the ladder
so when the club met to make its presentations at the end of the year
our team felt that we didn’t deserve anything.
Lo and behold, there was a presentation,
and my mouth gaped wider when my name was called out.
The prize was a butter dish on an uninscribed silver plate.
The prize was awarded not for best player, of course,
but for being the most faithful in turning up for training.
Years later this, my only sporting trophy,
became the bread plate for Holy Communion in the Gosnells Uniting Church where I was minister.
3.5 Our leader forever
I mention this just to show that Jesus calls us not to be successful
but to be faithful.
We meant what we said.
We said what we meant.
A disciple is faithful 100%
That is our accountability to him.
It’s not what we can measure to ourselves that counts
but what measures with him, love of God and neighbour.
We are called not to be taken in by all the promises of this coming election
or to have unrealistic expectations tickled.
The real promises come from Jesus who is our leader forever.
AMEN
