C, Post-Pentecost 9, Proper 14 - Luke 12:32-46 "Forgetting the Faith"

Fear and anxiety are markers of faithlessness.  Faithlessness comes about when we forget God and his promises, seeking to work our own way through the wilderness.  Like someone whose car has broken down in the desert, they try to walk to safety, get lost, and die having been overcome by a hopeless situation.

Do you daily remember God as you travel through the wilderness of this existence?  Our modern society blindly blunders into the unknown having put aside the transcendence of God and all the gifts he promises.  Humanity forgets the gifts of God, because it has firstly, turned its back on God, and forgotten him. 

We Christians are no different.  If someone measured how much you remember God the Father in heaven, in every moment of your day, you may or may not be surprised just how much time you spend forgetting God to be absorbed in mesmerising and memorising yourself!

Imagine if after Jesus was crucified, raised, and ascended into heaven, that was the end of the matter.  Two thousand years after the fact, would you or I remember Jesus Christ? 

I put it to you that most of us struggle to remember what happened a week ago.  Can you remember all the names of your ancestors beyond your grandparents?  So why don’t we forget the holy figure of Jesus Christ, hidden from humanity’s sight two thousand years ago?

We receive faith so we do not forget.  The faith we receive is the faithful witness and work of the Holy Spirit.  God the Holy Spirit was sent, to help us be holy, after God the Son ascended into the hidden realm to the right hand of God the Father.  The Spirit was sent and still comes so we remember our humanity has been hampered and he helps us recall and receive the holiness of God’s heavenly kingdom.

While Jesus was resolutely working his way to the cross for us, he reminds us to, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:32–34 ESV)

We, the little flock of God, are gathered by the Holy Spirit into church, to where we are called as God carries us in his kingdom towards eternity.  Jesus is our prize purse that does not fail, that not even the thief of all thieves , the devil, can steal.  Nor can moth destroy Jesus’ many gifts!  Jesus promises it’s your Heavenly Father’s pleasure to give you, his kingdom.  Indeed, even so it’s Jesus’ pleasure too.  As we hear, he is “the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

 So then why do we fall into fear and anxiety?  Why do we forget this promise of God?  What happens to faith when we forget God?  What happens when I forget the faith given to me? 

Jesus tells us to be ready for his return saying, “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” (Luke 12:35–37a ESV)

Peter asks, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” (Luke 12:41 ESV) We might ask the same thing too, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?”

Jesus follows on with a parable teaching every hearer what happens when we forget God and are not ready for the return of our transcendent master.  He says, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.”  (Luke 12:42–46 ESV)

When we forget God, we forget he is master of all things.  Just like the servant in the parable, we forget the true master of our domain and pinch his place.  The servant who forgets God, tries to become God, powerfully abusing God’s other faithful servants.  A foolish servant forgets it’s God’s pleasure to give the kingdom and replace the gift of God with earthy debauched pleasures, like eating and drinking.

It’s here faith has moved from God to the self!  Jesus Christ, the founder, and perfecter, of our faith gets forgotten!  Although we might call on God for an hour a week in worship, maybe a bit more, we burden God with our actions that work against him, making our own kingdoms come.

But making oneself master is fraught with fear and anxiety.  One is constantly looking over the shoulder, in suspicion.  When one forgets God, they suspect every other servant is seeking the same, causing competitive fear and dread! 

Also, deep down there’s knowledge that the true master is returning and will put his household right and remove those who are unrepentantly wrong.  The servant who turns God’s house of holiness into a house of happiness for one’s own ego, rules with fear and anxiety making God’s house a house of horrors for every other servant.  As the old adage goes, “When the cat’s away—or forgotten—the mice will play!”

What makes it even messier is when all forget God is the transcendent master.  The results of this are easily seen everywhere today inside and outside the church.  The mice are at play, playing up in plague proportions.  If you’ve ever experienced the chaos of a mouse plague on a grain farm, you know how devastating it is when the plague is out of control in fear of famine.  The plague can destroy everything!  Humanity is much the same when faith in God is forgotten in favour of fear and human failure at being the master of their own dominion.

The Holy Spirit never strays away to play.  He calls, gathers, enlightens and makes us holy with the written word of God in Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.  As we travel through the wilderness of this world, the Holy Spirit mobilises the church to move in Christ.  Just as Moses and the Israelites moved in the wilderness only when the holy pillars of cloud and fire moved, we move and stop in faith given by the Holy Spirit, keeping us in the holy protective confines and convocations of Christ, so we are constantly remembering and returning to the means of grace. 

Allowing the Holy Spirit to work his work of making us holy, removes fear and anxiety for the future. He keeps us in the faith, so we stay dressed ready for action and keep our lamps burning. 

These actions are like the Israelites who ate the Passover, ready to roll into the wilderness at a moment’s notice, towards the land of milk and honey.  We remain ready for action,  ready to repent, forgive, and live—trusting in God as we are moved by the will of God.

The Holy Spirit also keeps the lamp burning, with the good oil of God’s word.  Without his word the Holy Spirit has nothing with which to keep us in Christ.  The church without the word—each of us without the word—forgets God, gets lost, and flounders in hopelessness. 

But abiding under the word of God, keeps us burning as the body of Christ.  The Holy Spirit keeps us moving through the wilderness of this world.  The Holy Spirit throughout history has done the same with many others, who in faith, did not forget God.  With them the Spirit gives us understanding to stand under him who is unseen, remembering the promise of God with determined Christ-like hope despite the hopelessness of all other things.  Amen.   

C, Lent 1 - Luke 9:28–43 & 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Wealth in the Wilderness"

Romans 10:11–13 (ESV)  For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.  For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

When Jesus was confronted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus knew of a greater reality than Satan.  We might think, “Yes, he knew because he was the Son of God!”  But if it was because he had higher power as the Son of God, he could not be the Saviour of you and me, or any other person.  There would be an unbridgeable gap, between the greatness of the Son of God, and the weakness of humanity.

However, the greater reality to which Jesus was akin, was not his relationship to God as the powerful Son.  But rather, his human weakness and perfect trust, allowing him to put aside his divinity, and wander in the wilderness, knowing his Father in heaven would hear him in his human weakness.

Jesus was no less hungry than any person would be, having been wandering in the wilderness for forty days.  His desire for food would have made his stomach wrench in pain. 

As he wandered alone without kingdom or someone to talk to, the human desire for partnership and property, a place to call home, would have been made all the more painful by the searing heat of the sand and loneliness. 

And when Satan took him to God’s temple in Jerusalem, and challenged him with the Word of God, the temptation to justify the evil inclinations of Satan and listen to him rather than trusting God would have been just as enticing to Jesus as they would be for you and me. 

In all three temptations, Satan temps Jesus with the question, “If you are the Son of God?”  He tempts Jesus to reveal his power as Son of God, so Satan could use it against Jesus, and those Jesus calls through the Gospel.  Satan wants to demonstrate a divide between the divinity of God and the weakness of humanity.

But Jesus repels Satan, and because he does, we can too!  Like Jesus we need not tap into the wealth of our works, the abundance of our intellect, or the power of a higher lived life.

No!  Instead, we are called to “not” let shame, desire, or a need to prove ourselves worthy, lead us into temptation.  Rather, we are called to trust God with the wealth of weakness, just as Jesus bore his weakness as wealth in the wilderness.

After all, just like Jesus, you and I are travelling with the riches of God through this life.  Just like Jesus you carry his wealth of weakness in the wilderness.  How can this be?

When Jesus enters the wilderness, we hear he didn’t go by his own effort, but was led there by the Holy Spirit.  Mark’s Gospel says it even stronger, saying, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”   (Mark 1:12 ESV) Literally, the Spirit threw him out into the wilderness.

Jesus works with a greater reality, and we are called to do the same, even unto death.  He knows the suffering that this will bring to us. 

He says, “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.  Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation.  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.”  (Revelation 2:9–11 ESV)

Just as Jesus entered the wilderness, led by the Holy Spirit, you have been given the Holy Spirit and he will lead you in your weakness.  This is the richness of God’s wealth working for you, despite your human spirit desiring and scrambling to save face from the shame of being seen weak in the world.

Saint Paul tells the persecuted church in Rome, “For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.  For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”

So, what are the riches of God?  And how do we get them?

Firstly, Jesus himself, the perfect human man, submissive in weakness to our heavenly Father, is the greatest gift to all of us.  He is our wealth in the wilderness of our lives.  His love for the Father, trusting solely in him, and not in himself being the Son of God, is his gift to us.  However, because he is the Son of God who humbly submits in weakness and trust, makes this gift forever more profound and great!  

Similarly, as Jesus trusted in the Father, we are called to daily trust Jesus for giving us the gift of faith, and for the perfecting of faith within us, even as we have been made holy Sons of God in baptism.  We literally trust Jesus by calling on his name, and in calling on him we are saved.

Calling on Jesus’ name allows us to look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Secondly, the great wealth or richness we have is the Holy Spirit.  When we call on Jesus’ name the Holy Spirit is given.  The Holy Spirit and Jesus are inseparable and when we call on Jesus, we get the Holy Spirit as well.

Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit after receiving the Spirit in baptism, we too have received the Holy Spirit in baptism.  In fact, we not only receive the Holy Spirit, but also God the Father and Jesus Christ, God the Son, in all his risen power and glory.  Therefore, just as Jesus is the founder and perfecter of faith, the Holy Spirit is the worker of faith within us.

When the Holy Spirit works faith within us, he is working holiness in us.  If we were to work faith, we would work faith in ourselves and work our way out of the weakness Jesus worked beating all the deeds of the devil and his evil entourage.  In fact, we would work Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of ourselves.  Ultimately, we would do what the devil sought to do to Jesus when he sought to tempt him in the first place.

Thirdly, the great wealth we have is the richness of the written Word of God.  Paul tells us in Romans chapter two verse four, the riches of God are kindness and forbearance and patience, and are meant to lead to repentance. (Romans 2:4 ESV)

This gift is not to lead us to shame and hiding but repentance through confession.  Shame is replaced by belief and trust in Jesus.  We too, endure in weakness, with the wealth of the cross, and despise its shame, looking with trusting joy to the Lord our God. 

The gift of the written Word keeps us from becoming delirious in the wilderness.  The richness of the Word stops us from becoming transfixed on any mirages of fleeting earthly wealth.  All this kind of wealth will vanish the moment we leave this worldly wilderness and stand before the Father, on the day of judgement.

Hear how Jesus both disciplines and loves us in his Word, so we can be saved.  He says, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.  Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:17–19 ESV)

What is this gold, refined by fire, which we are to purchase?  It's the wealth of his weakness where he trusted his Father, all the way to death on the cross, descent into hell, and resurrection from the dead to the right hand of the Father.  This gold of God is the forgiveness of all our sins.

How much does this gold cost?  It costs you nothing!  This gold makes us rich in the righteousness of Jesus, and it opens our eyes in this wilderness to the wealth of love God has for us.

Therefore, be zealous for the weakness of Jesus!  Covet his weakness and call on his name!  It will not lead to shame!  Instead, you will be saved by his wealth in the wilderness. Amen.