Luke 12:1-12

Luke 12:1-12

In Western and American culture teaching generally works toward the purpose that the student can say at the end of the class or lesson, "This is what that means." Teaching in Jesus' day was more enigmatic often leaving the students to say, “What does that mean?” Such teaching requires the student to think things through. There is a conclusion to be reached and sometimes it is provided, but along the way there is some thinking to be done and this thinking fills out the conclusions. That is the case here. We move from the evil of hypocrisy to being led by the Holy Spirit by way of the value of sparrows.

There's a common theme that we can extract. There is something that will allow us to escape religious and moral play-acting like the Pharisees. It will keep us from being afraid of having our life’s secret revealed. It will cause us to fear God in such a way that we will not be afraid of men. It will cause us to be faithful witnesses even before a hostile audience. It will make us sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading and conviction. The sayings of this passage are not tidbits thrown randomly together, but the out working and manifestation of an underlying and unstated truth.

Our tendency is to want a cut-and-dry packaged answer convenient for mental storage the way we file trivia for later recall. But as disciples we need to wrestle through the implications and mysteries of our faith.

What is the thing that we will discover? It is the loving intimacy with God the Father through Jesus Christ under the promptings of the Holy Spirit, to love God with our whole being and to do so intentionally, tenderly and passionately. Intellectual assent is not enough. We can play mind games with ourselves. Ritual expressions of love are beautiful, but without love they are only noise. The disciple knows the Lord better by meditating on these things rather than just by being told them.

“Lord, protect me from shallowness of thought and faith. AMEN”