Luke
12:32-40
Someone
once asked me if I thought heaven would be one massive, interminable church
service, where we sing every verse of every hymn and say really, really long
prayers. I must confess he did not ask the question with the most positive
spirit. Fortunately, I was able to reassure him: “No, no, heaven won’t just be
singing hymns and saying long prayers. There will also be a sermon — that goes
on forever.”
Is
the final goal of religion just more religion? I don’t think so. More to the
point, the Bible doesn’t think so. At the very beginning of his book, in the
passage we heard today, the prophet Isaiah points out that, actually, God is
not very religious, at least not in terms of outward observance: What to me is the multitude of your
sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings . . . trample
my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to
me . . . Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have
become a burden to me.” Strong language, but clearly Isaiah does not see
religious ritual as being an end in and of itself. God has greater things in
mind than that: Cease to do evil, learn
to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for
the widow. The goal of religious practice is to transform us and transform
our world.
That’s
crucial to bear in mind as we approach the Gospel. Jesus did not start a new
religion: he lived and died a Jew. He was not especially interested in
religious rituals: he says very little about them. And what we now call the
Church did not, properly speaking, begin until after his resurrection and the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. What Jesus lived and proclaimed was
a loving and intimate relationship with God, a reality that he called the
kingdom of God. In that kingdom, everyone is welcome, justice prevails for all
people, and the light of God’s love outshines the darkness. All worship, all
religious practice, has value only to the degree that it helps us live in that
kingdom, experiencing it now, sharing it now, while we wait and pray for it to
come in all its fullness.
The
passage we heard today contains one of my favorite verses from Luke’s Gospel: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is
your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. That one verse tells
us so much. It reminds us that we don’t make the kingdom happen: God gives it
to us as a gift. And the Holy One does not give it grudgingly, but freely and
generously: it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. And we
don’t have to be great and powerful to receive it: Jesus is addressing a small
flock of relatively powerless people. But what really strikes me today is that
opening admonition: Do not be afraid. It
is the most commonly repeated commandment in all of Scripture: people are told
not to be afraid hundreds of times in the Bible. As much as anything else,
living in the kingdom means trusting in God and not living in fear.
Last
weekend, 32 people were massacred, dozens were injured, and a countless number
of lives were shattered in a couple of horrific shootings. Mass shootings have
become all too familiar to us, and more than a few of them have been motivated
by racial and ethnic hatred. It is heartbreaking to read how two parents in El
Paso died shielding their baby from gunfire, a baby who is now an orphan. It is
heartbreaking listening to my own children this week wonder if they will be
mowed down someday in an act of senseless violence or if their parents will be
mowed down. It feels like a terrible world we are creating and tolerating.
But
it is in that world that Jesus speaks those words to us: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure
to give you the kingdom. We are followers of the Crucified and Risen Lord,
filled with the Spirit of Christ: it is not our mission to cower in fear. And
in light of that, two features of this Gospel are critical for us to remember.
First, as he is wont to do, Jesus encourages people to sell their possessions.
We instantly defend ourselves against that, but the core of the message is that
Jesus does not just want his followers to take care of poor people: he wants
them to identify with poor people. Jesus identifies with everyone who is poor
and needy, everyone who is hurting or grieving. The people who continue to die
in mass shootings could be our parents or our children, but they are most
definitely our sisters and brothers. We cannot ignore or forget their
suffering: Christ doesn’t. And with Christ, we need to feel their pain.
Second,
Jesus tells us to be dressed for action. Only God can make the kingdom happen,
but we are the agents through whom God works. And we must be ready to do what
we can do. I was thinking about this two weeks ago when I attended Friday
prayers at the masjid with our Muslim neighbors. I walked by the police guard
they have to hire because of the threats they get, and shared in their worship.
Afterwards, several of them hugged me and thanked me for being there. It’s a
little thing, but it’s something. We cannot by ourselves save the world and we
cannot do everything, but for Christ’s sake we can do something. We can be
servants, dressed for action, and not afraid to act. This week, I urge you to
be agents of the Kingdom of God. I don’t know how Christ will call you, but
Christ will call you to do something: be kind to someone who needs it; visit
someone who is sick; volunteer to help those who are hurting; give money to
groups actively working for peace and reconciliation; get engaged politically;
somehow, some way, make a difference for good. The ripple effects of all of our
actions are incalculable: who knows how God will use them to further the
kingdom? So whatever else you do, pray. It is God working through us that will
change the world.
Which
leads me back to worship. We are not here because God wants to us to enact some
ancient and arcane religious rituals to entertain God or stroke God’s ego. God
doesn’t need to be entertained, and she has no ego to stroke. We are here, in
those marvelous words of the Prayer Book, to give thanks “for the splendor of
the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and
for the mystery of love.” We are here to eat and drink Jesus Christ and let his
Spirit flow mightily through us. We are here to affirm that love is the
greatest power in the universe. We are here to remember that it is God’s good
pleasure to give us the kingdom, and that we don’t need to live in fear.
But
we are here for only one hour. May each of us have the grace to use the other
167 hours this week to increase the amount of love in this world and bear
witness in our own lives to the kingdom of God.
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