Luke 12:32-40 on August 10th, 2025
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There are a lot of pieces to this passage from Luke, and while they kind of fit together, they don't really fit together seamlessly. We start out with a delightful verse. Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It's a warm and fuzzy. But the warm fuzzies don't last for long. In the very next sentence, Jesus tells us to sell our possessions, give alms, and secure our treasure in heaven. Does Jesus really expect his disciples then or now to give it all away? Then he tells a parable about slaves who are waiting diligently for their master. It's not passive waiting, but anticipation and preparation. There is the subtext of diligence in faith, but there's also the surprise of a master who comes to serve his servants. They've been prepared all this time, dressed for action with lamps lit, and yet the master is the one who serves. And last, Jesus wraps up this section with more readiness talk, but this time instead of a master coming, it is a thief, ready to break in and steal. You never know when it's going to happen. Constant vigilance, even 2,000 years later.
These verses seem awfully stern. Not necessarily bad, but just a whole lot of what we call law. It reminds me of one of my soccer games when I was in the 9th grade. We were down by one goal, and then while the game was still going on, the coach called me over to the sideline. Now this coach was a bit notorious, kind of like the coach for the bad guys in any kids' sports movie. He even had a black track suit and slick back hair. He was very direct and almost cutthroat about 9th grade soccer. Anyway, he called me over to the sideline and leaned close to my face and he said, put the ball in the blank net. Except he didn't say blank. Now I am not normally one who responds well to that type of stuff. Yelling and getting in my face, that type of stuff actually unmotivates me. But something, not sure if it was his confidence in me or him calling me specifically over to the sideline to tell me to do something about it or if it was the profanity, but something motivated me that particular time. And all I remember about the rest of the game was me getting the ball in the perfect place to just rip off this shot from about 25 yards out. And it was like a rocket when it left my foot. And it headed straight for that top left corner of the goal where it hit the crossbar and bounced out of balance. Like I said, I don't remember anything else. I doubt I ended up scoring a goal. We probably lost the game. But what I do remember is how unfun that was. I mean, not the losing. Remember, I don't remember if we lost. That didn't stick with me. It was the bearing down, the up to me, the in my face attitude about it. And I did give it a pretty good shot.
And when I hear Jesus say, sell everything, you must be ready. I can't help but wonder if some people hear Jesus the way that I heard my ninth grade soccer coach in your face demanding it's all on you. But that's not how Jesus motivates us. See, it's one thing for someone to demand something of us and then just simply demand it. But it's another thing for someone to demand something of us to have expectations of us if we know that's coming out of a place of love. If the message is relayed with care, relationship and intention, well, that makes a big difference. And that's why I think Jesus starts off the way he does. Have no fear, little flock. Do not be afraid. It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It is God's intention, God's plan, God's delight to give you good. That's the starting point, the anchor, the key ingredient for everything else in this passage. We don't need to convince or coax or earn favor from a grumpy old God by successfully living up to these demands. God's pleasure is giving us good things. So instead we can look at these statements by Jesus as ways that God helps us live more fully and more abundantly. They are less demand and more good coaching.
God's promise helps us see things differently. It helps us to see that our possessions and our wealth differently, it alms giving and tithing and giving it, it doesn't have the purpose of making us poor. Instead, this is lifting up generosity as a mark of discipleship. Generosity is a way to live better in tune with God. Giving in the promise that God wants to give us the kingdom, we can resist the seduction of wealth. Not be so anxious about worldly wants and share what we have with others for the mission that God calls us to. God's promise helps us see things differently. Along with that, the watchfulness that Jesus commands isn't an anxious anticipation for the end of the world and worrying about us or them or how or who. God's good pleasure is to give good things. So we're sure to that. So we wait on that promise, on the promise that God will bring a good completion to all things.
God's promise helps us see things differently. Jesus tells us to trust, to have faith that God will do what God promises. And that faith in God frees us. It frees us to be generous. It frees us to leave worldly anxieties behind. It frees us to be confident about the future that God brings, not the future that we bring about by our endeavors, our achievements, our goals, but the future that God alone can bring. God doesn't want us to miss when Jesus comes in ways that might surprise us in generosity instead of accumulation and community instead of looking only to ourselves in vulnerability and relationship rather than in strength. It's easy to miss the God who comes in love and grace when all we expect are laws and demands. And while our world works so very hard against God's promises, against faithfulness, spouting off greed and self and winning at all costs, we come back here, we in and week out to hear again God's word, to be encouraged and faith, to be fed with Christ and bread and wine to remember that we are named and claimed by God in baptism. God shapes us here, not with yelling or getting in our face or with ultimatums, but God shapes us with promise. The promise that it is God's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. The promise that God generously takes care of us so that we can be generous in giving and taking care of others. The promise that God has come is coming and will continue to come to us and that nothing, not a cross, not a tomb, not death, nothing will stop God. The promise that in God we have nothing to fear because it is God's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.