Neill Morgan

³²“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ³⁵“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; ³⁶be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. ³⁷Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. ³⁸If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. ³⁹“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

It is funny how sometimes the scheduled readings through the Gospel seem to comment on the news headlines. Last week, the headline in the International Herald Tribune was “Investors shift from Fear to Greed” and in the gospel reading, Jesus warned against greed with the parable of the rich man who decided to build bigger barns to store all his stuff and then found that his stuff owned him. This week, that same newspaper blared the headline, “Liquidity crunch replaces Greed with Fear,” just as the gospel reading begins with Jesus’ words, “Do not fear, little flock.”

Apart from the market jitters for those who pay attention to such things, fear is a persistent human emotion, and something the gospel addresses again and again. From the “fear not” of the angel Gabriel when he appeared to Mary to this “fear not little flock,” the gospel assures us that there is something going on much more important and much more powerful than anything that can scare us. God is at work in the world. Therefore, we need not fear.

“Do not fear,” Jesus says, by way of encouragement, “for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” I wonder if the original text had the word “give” in italics for emphasis – a reminder that God wants to give us the kingdom, not sell it to us.

The one thing that Jesus says is truly important to treasure, the Kingdom, is not available for money. We don’t need a loan in a credit-tight market in order to receive it. “Sell your possessions and give alms,” he says, and that is something that truly requires us to overcome fear. What if I need that money? Then what? It is a fearful thing to give away our hard-earned dollars. In the economy of scarcity, it puts us one down.

Jesus has a very different economy in mind when he says to sell possessions and give alms, that is, give to the poor, in order that we may have treasure in heaven.

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The implication, of course, is that putting our treasure into alms is an investment in heaven, or an investment in the eternal residence of God.

Taking this seriously first requires an honest answer to the question, “What do you treasure?”

Most of us know each other well enough to know the answer to that question. We treasure our wives and husbands, children and grandchildren, our parents, grandparents and friends, our church friends and work colleagues – the people first of all;

Then, the intangibles such as memories of good times in the past, our education, our health, our faith, the values inherent in our nation’s constitution – liberty and justice, order and decency;

Then, the truly important material goods, a home, a photograph album, a family Bible, or a piece of jewelry or art inherited from an ancestor, the kind of things we would gather up first if the house was on fire and we could only get out with one armload of stuff.

We treasure our time. We treasure time with our loved ones, time pursuing the things that make us happy, whether art or music or sports or literature or travel. We treasure experience, so we treasure time. And, whether we like it or not, in this society, in this economy, time is money. So, we treasure money, even if we are not greedy misers, because with money we can buy time with our loved ones, healthcare for a longer more comfortable life, and the freedom to pursue all those things that make us happy.

How can we not be afraid, then, when what we treasure is threatened? It is natural to circle the wagons, hunker down in our positions, and defend what we treasure.

Jesus’ antidote to our fear, then, is not what comes naturally. “Sell your possessions and give away the proceeds.”

It sounds so unlikely, so impractical, and so ineffective. If we fear losing the treasure that gives us a sense of security, how can giving it away make us less fearful? It makes no sense in this world we live in.

And yet, I have seen people do exactly what Jesus says and find that their entire lives shift from fear to joy when they embrace a life of service and discipleship.

Millard and Linda Fuller found themselves in a crisis when they reached their financial goal. Millard had decided when he was young that he would be a millionaire by the time he was thirty, and at 29, through hard work, luck, and entrepreneurial courage, he and Linda had turned their mail-order business and a real estate venture into a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Had they chosen, they could have begun a comfortable life of leisure without ever working again.

But, their marriage was in turmoil. His health was suffering, and more than that, he felt spiritually empty. He had reached his life’s goal and it tasted like ash on his tongue.

These crises prompted Fuller to re-evaluate his values and direction. His soul-searching led to reconciliation with his wife and to a renewal of his Christian commitment.

The Fullers then took a drastic step: They decided to sell all of their possessions, give the money to the poor and begin searching for a new focus for their lives. This search led them to Koinonia Farm, a Christian community located near Americus, Ga., where people were looking for practical ways to apply Christ's teachings.

With Koinonia founder Clarence Jordan and a few others, the Fullers initiated several partnership enterprises, including a ministry in housing. They built modest houses on a no-profit, no-interest basis, thus making homes affordable to families with low incomes.[1]

Here’s the hard part for most of us. Our giving of time and money for the sake of the kingdom of God is rarely as effective as Millard and Linda Fuller’s. For all kinds of reasons, when we give time to help a person in need, it very often does not work out the way we planned.

Our attempts to help a homeless person find an apartment and a job that will pay the rent fail to pour motivation into a depressed and defeated man.

Or, our attempts to help a struggling couple of friends mend their marriage, become better parents, and get their lives on track fail to have any effect. The couple separates and their children suffer.

What do we do when we put our treasure of time, energy, and money into the least of these of God’s children, and we do not see the results we hoped for?

Here’s where the parable comes in. Jesus tells of a master who goes to a wedding feast, an occasion that can last for several days or a week, and his servants never know when he will come home.

When he comes home at an hour they did not expect, he finds his servants awake and at work, ready to welcome their master as soon as he knocks.

It is the Father’s pleasure to give us the kingdom. If it depended on us earning it by our success and effectiveness in our service, we would all be up the creek without a paddle.

Jesus does not say “Blessed are those servants whom the Master finds who have finished all their work and put everything in perfect order.” Instead, he says, “Blessed are those whom the master finds alert when he comes, dressed for action, lamps lit.”

This saying of Jesus, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” is used as a bit of wisdom for fundraisers of all kinds. Fundraisers understand the truth of this – get people to give a bit of money to the church and their hearts will follow. College development officers know that if they can get that first contribution of a senior who is graduating and they will not only likely be donors for life, they will tell every 17-year-old they know how wonderful their college is and that they should consider applying.

Political candidates know, get someone to donate to their campaign and they’ll not only vote for their candidate, they’ll encourage their friends and family members to do the same.

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” is a valuable bit of wisdom for those who want to strengthen churches and other organizations.

But, I think Jesus had something deeper in mind. Jesus was speaking to disciples and potential disciples when he said this. He was not talking about strengthening the church, though Jesus is in favor of that – here he was talking about strengthening disciples, teaching disciples how to get closer to God.

And that is where this passage finds us. If we want to overcome our fear of the future, our insecurity about our health or wealth, our children, anything we treasure, here’s what Jesus recommends: give stuff away. Whatever stuff we treasure, give it toward God’s purposes, and we will find our hearts will follow, and we will be closer to God. And when we are close to God, we have nothing to fear, not even death itself.

[1] http://www.fullercenter.org/site/PageServer?pagename=MillardFuller

[2] Author unknown. “How Firm A Foundation,” “K” in A Selection of Hymns, 1787, John Rippon, editor. No. 361, verse 2 in The Presbyterian Hymnal. Westminster/John Knox, 1990.

Luke 12:32-48