Luke 12:49-59

Luke 12:49-59

So much of Americanized Christianity is narcissistic and focuses on our benefits and blessings. We reserved concepts of judgment for others, for the bad people we know and do not like. We are aware of the Judgment reserved or pornographers or abortionist or those of another political party. But this passage wrecks our comfortable “bless me and judge you” bubble.

Remember the context and flow of this chapter. We begin with the rich fool who is not rich toward God. Then came the command to live in trust and practice radical generosity. Followed by a warning that we are to be held to accountable for that with which we are trusted. Now Jesus talks about judgment!

Jesus did not come to bring peace to the world He came to bring judgment. The picture of Jesus as a cosmic Guru that will help everyone coexist is bunk. He did come to bring peace to the individual by his reconciling work on the cross. But the world, the flesh, and the devil are not part of this peace. Faith in Christ divides because for those that follow Christ are loyal to Him above all else, beyond any natural affections, or family, or business, or political party. Jesus warns us, in the parable of verses 58 and 59, that we all are headed toward an appointment with a judge and we have a losing case. We are wise to settle up with the judge early rather than later.

That is not just a warning and call to conversion. In verse 1 Luke tells us these remarks were directed to the disciples. We will give an account of the life and gifts God has given to us. Part of our daily prayers needs to be a prayer in an old prayer book, "Imprint upon our hearts such a dread of Thy judgments and such a grateful sense of thy goodness to us as to make us both afraid and ashamed to offend Thee."

“Lord, imprint upon my heart such a dread of Your judgments and such a grateful sense of Your goodness to us as to make us both afraid and ashamed to offend You. AMEN”

Luke 12:35-48

Luke 12:35-48

Jesus describes every one of us in this passage. In this collection of short parables Jesus describes two categories that covers every disciple or supposed disciple. There are those who are faithful, loyal and good servants. These experience significant rewards at the Master's hand. Then there are those who fail their Master. They have begun to use the assets and resources of the master for their own agenda. They become petty tyrants and begin to act as if that which is the master’s is theirs. And in the last two verses of this passage we find a chilling warning for those of us who are servants or disciples of Christ.

We have often come to view being a follower of Jesus as a sort of perpetual, upward mobility, with our lives constantly moving toward better and better, richer and richer, more and more, greater and greater life. But Jesus’ picture is that the more you have been given, the greater your responsibility to give. The more you have learned, the greater your responsibility to instruct. The higher you are lifted, the more humbly you are to serve. Ignorance is no excuse if we fail and do not know better; there are consequences to be suffered. But when we have much to offer and we choose not to give we have more severe penalties.

We might be tempted to say, “That being the case it is best to never move in too deep and too serious a service.” But that fails on two points; first, our Master calls us to serve and to reject that call is to invite the most terrible treatment. That is the essence of refusing the Master’s will. Second, the servant who served well is rewarded in unbelievable ways. The description in verse 37 of a master serving his slave was almost unimaginable in the ancient world. That reward itself is too great to risk missing!

“Lord set me free from the gripping power of selfishness. AMEN”

Luke 12:22-34

Luke 12:22-34

It is passages like this that tempt us to want to pick and choose what we want or to take things out of context or say “this is a metaphor” when clearly it wasn't. Building on the negative parable of the rich fool Jesus gives us proactive teaching about wealth. There are three parts to this teaching. The first is a lesson of God's providential care for birds and grass and how anxiety is the ultimate exercise in futility. We are generally comfortable with this teaching. We may not obey it, but we like the idea of God's provision for us. The second part is verses 29 - 33 in which Jesus applies the first point and reinforces our Father’s providential care. The world being bad pursues the wrong things, but the Father has given us the Kingdom and is happy to do it. Again, we have a teaching we are happy to hear and receive.

But then comes the third teaching. While we agree that we should not be anxious and are happy to see the coming Kingdom we are less thrilled with the practical application Jesus makes in verses 33 and 34. The grammar of verse 33 is not vague. The verb is emphatic; in other words, it is a command. This super generosity of which Jesus speaks is optional for us as His other commands are optional. The moment we say this is a metaphor or this is for specific people with specific calling we do the same with the command to love God. If we're trying to find the loopholes that allow us to accumulate wealth, we are revealing that our heart is more committed to having wealth than committed to the Lord.

This is not a command to advocate poverty, laziness, or idleness. In contrast, we should attempt to acquire as much treasure as possible. We should work hard and become massive producers of wealth, the more the better. Not so we can hold it, but so that we can give it all away, except what is given to us by the Father for food, shelter and clothing.

“God, grant me a heart that is generous like Your. AMEN”

Luke 12:13-21

Luke 12:13-21

It is generally easier to see sin and vice in others than ourselves. This is especially true of sins that are culturally labeled as a virtue. In our culture we have relabeled a number of sins as virtues so completely that we as Christians have bought into those relabeling efforts and behaviors. Not only do we believe these new labels, we also practice them. In verse 15, Jesus warns us to be alert to “every form of greed”.

The Lord makes two points in these four words. First, the word greed means “abundance, more than enough, superfluity.” What is enough? We must have food, shelter, clothing, transportation, etc. But most of us are nowhere near inadequacy in any of these areas. We are often overweight, in large homes, which we use more to store our stuff than for sleeping, we sometimes donate unworn clothes to charity, and our cars are almost never, truly worn out. If we feel that more means a better life, we are part of the lie; we are greedy. And this is to say nothing of the non-essentials we collect!

Which brings us to the second point of Jesus' comment. Jesus apparently thought that there was more than one kind of greed. We generally associate greed with the excess of the super rich: mansions and yachts and outsized compensation. But there are other and subtler kinds of greed available to all of us. Every hobby has an insatiable appetite for consumption. While recreation is healthy and good it will not make life whole. Few of us aspire to a mansion in Beverly Hills, courtside seats for the Lakers, and a birthday party at a five star restaurant. But all of us imagine and aspire to an upgrade here and there and other places as well. Our consumer society and economy is built on the idea of constant, incremental upgrade. And that kind of greed will never, ever make a man rich toward God.

“Lord, open my eyes to the forms of greed that infect my heart. AMEN”

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”