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Follow me and have blessings, long life and prosperity or don’t and have curses and death. The choice offered in Deuteronomy 30:15-20 is a no-brainer. We all want blessings and life not curses and death. But in Luke 14:25-33 the choice seems to be follow me and give up all those blessings: family, possessions, even life.
Does choosing God means choosing life or does choosing God mean giving away our life? It means both.
Luke’s gospel is addressed to a community which is fragmenting under threat: families, congregations and communities were closing ranks. This is a common human reaction to perceived danger or scarcity: we protect our own and what is ours. We see this happening across the world from Trump raising tariff barriers to Reform targeting asylum hotels.
When God promised the people of Israel life and blessing in Deuteronomy it was a communal blessing: for all people to share the land and the blessing it offered. Jesus is not opposing this promise; he is re-offering it to us: the blessing is for the many not the few. Jesus is reminding us that all that all that we are and all that we have comes from God, it does not belong to us. Our lives are not about us they are given by God to be used for the well-being of all.
The choice we are offered is to let go of our small lives and become part of the expansive life-giving mission of God. To choose to practise justice, honour creation, protect the vulnerable allows our lives overflow and bring life to the world around us. Then we will be blessed by being the blessing.
This morning’s gospel, Luke 14:1, 7-14, starts out looking like the kind of etiquette lesson we find in Proverbs and Wisdom: it is bad manners to seat yourself at the head of table. Instead, we should “know our place”. Then Jesus takes it further: we should not only know our place but also the place of others, “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”
If we do, Jesus tells us, we will “be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous”. But what exactly does this mean? Does it mean that we still expect a reward for our generosity only from God rather than our peers?
Yes and no. Jesus is not suggesting that any of us, rich or poor, have anything to offer God. He acknowledges that in the world’s economy some of us are valued more than others but not in God’s economy. We are all equally in need of God. If, instead, we believe that we have more to give and less to receive we will separate ourselves from others and from God. In the words of Ecclesiasticus 10:12-18 “the beginning of pride is to forsake the Lord, the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.”
If we think that we are the ones with all the gifts we will miss the chance to let others give us the gifts God is offering through them: we are not the hosts in God’s economy we are the guests and, if we let them, our fellow guests will teach us, heal us, love us, and remind us that we are all equally in need of God’s grace.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. In Isaiah 58:9-14 the people are rebuked for “trampling the Sabbath” and, when Jesus is criticised for breaking the Sabbath, in Luke 13:10-17, he claims that his accusers are the ones who do not know how to observe the Sabbath law.
So, what exactly is the Sabbath for? The Sabbath commandment was given after the people of God were liberated from slavery. It was indeed a day of rest to allow slaves and bonded labourers to have time free from toil. In broader terms the Sabbath was to be kept holy, set aside for God to use. The Sabbath is observed, Isaiah says, when you “offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted”; not when you do no work but when you do God’s work, a weekly reminder of who we are and what we are for. It is, then, the ideal day for “a daughter of Abraham… to be set free from bondage”. Observing the Sabbath is what will allow all God’s people to be freed when they actively engage in the work and mission of God instead of “serving their own interests”.
God’s interests are also our interests. Today we are increasingly aware of the interdependence of human lives across the globe: how lack of investment in one place can lead to high food prices in another; how lack of health care locally can spread sickness globally; how conflict and poverty in far off places leads to increasing numbers of refugees and migrants at home. God has made us one, by keeping the Sabbath and unbinding others we discover that we too have been freed.
I came to bring fire to the earth” Jesus tells us in Luke 12:49-56. For Luke’s contemporary audience, who had lived through the sacking of Jerusalem and the burning of towns and villages, this fire was all too literal.
Yet fire has many uses both literally and metaphorically. In Jeremiah 23:23-29 the word of God is described as fire. The people have been listening instead to deceitful words offering false comfort and security, telling them just what they want to hear. In contrast the fire of God’s word burns away what is false and reveals the reality of their situation. The truth will set you free but first it will first piss you off.
As Jesus points out, when the truth is contested, the result will be division. Although this feels like the opposite of peace it is a necessary prelude to building a just peace. The peace that earthly powers is too often an unjust peace bought at a price borne by the world’s poorest and weakest. The peace that Jesus offers is not “of this world”, it requires the destruction of structures and practices that lead to suffering and inequality. As Luke’s community knew all to well, taking a stand against injustice often incites the anger of those who have vested interests in the status quo.
How did God’s people then, and how do we today, test the words we hear? How do we distinguish between hearing what we want to hear and hearing the uncomfortable truths that we need to hear? Are we willing to open our ears to the cry of the prophets, old and new calling us to change in order that the world too may be changed and God’s kingdom may come?
Do not be afraid. Both of our readings today start with these words. What is it that we should not be afraid of?
In Genesis 15:1-6 Abraham is afraid that he will die childless and that a slave will be his heir. In Luke 12:32-40 the disciples are afraid of many things, of persecution, of loss of community, of lacking food and clothing and the necessary things of life.
In each case the real fear is lack of a future: Abraham’s name will not pass into the next generation; the disciples may not survive this generation.
Abraham is assured that he will have a son, the disciples are assured that they will be given what they need but more than this they are not to be afraid because God will give them God’s very self: “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.
The problem is that we can only receive the kingdom, all that God desires to give us, if we stop chasing after all the things that we are afraid we may lose or will never have. No matter how hard we try, none of us can assure our future, not through family or status or possessions. But God can and will if only we can stop living in fear.
Everyone is rich in this morning’s readings: the teacher in Ecclesiastes, the brother speaking to Jesus, the landowner in the parable; they are all wealthy and they are all unhappy.
Despite their hard work and good fortune they cannot enjoy life, instead they are preoccupied with how to protect their wealth from others. None of them want to share their good fortune: the words “I” and “me” and “myself” are littered throughout the texts. The young man at least is talking to Jesus in Luke 12:13-21, the teacher and the landowner, on the other hand, are talking exclusively to themselves. Wealth has become a trap which isolates them from others.
They end up, not only resenting the others who may enjoy their success but their own lives too: The teacher in Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14 -2:18-2, resents his labour: “I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun.” The landowner works harder and harder but never gets to enjoy the fruits of his labour, to “relax, eat, drink and be merry”.
This is not so much about money and what to do with it as life and how we live it. How do we flourish and thrive? We expect too much of wealth if we expect it to provide us with a sense of purpose and meaning. What seems to be missing from the lives of these unhappy rich people is other people, community, an acknowledgement that they are interdependent, a sense of being a part of and contributing to something meaningful that transcends their own life and labours.
We are more than the sum of our labours, more than the size of our bank accounts, we are made in the image of a God. A God who teaches us that life is not transactional, life is relational. A God who gives us everything that we might enjoy it together.
This morning, in Genesis 18:20-33, Abraham is praying but it looks suspiciously like bargaining. Does Abraham assume that prayer is a means of influencing God? That if he is persistent enough, like the man who calls on his friend at midnight in Jesus’ story, God will give him what he asks for?
Jesus does indeed say, in Luke 11:1-13, that everyone who asks receives but what we receive is the Holy Spirit. He promises that God will give us the gift of God’s self. Prayer for Jesus then is not transactional but relational. It is not God who is changed by our prayer but we who are changed by entering more deeply into a relationship with the divine. Although Abraham’s prayer seems profoundly transactional (he wants something and he is attempting to persuade God to give it to him) it is also relational: a means of Abraham discovering more about the nature and identity of God.
What is beautiful about Abraham’s prayer is that he brings his whole self, he is honest and direct. In his prayer he explores how he relates to God, he who is just “dust and ashes” and yet “takes it upon [himself] to speak to the Lord”. A relationship requires both sides to show up, to be fully present and so does prayer. It is only when we come before God, just as we are (for better and for worse) that we can receive God just as God is.
It is interesting that both Abraham and the man in Jesus’ story are petitioning, not on their own behalf, but on the behalf of others. Discovering who God is helps us to discover who we are and so how we should act towards God, self and the world around us.
Hospitality, service, welcome is at the heart of our faith. Throughout scripture, those who fail to offer hospitality (the inhabitants of Sodom and Gommorah, the Pharisees, the elder brother of the prodigal son) are criticised whereas those who offer hospitality without hesitation or discrimination, as Abraham does in Genesis 18:1-10a, are blessed.
Why then, in Luke 10:38-42, is Martha, who opens her home to Jesus, criticised? Why is Mary, the sister who sat and listened whilst her sister did all the work, praised as choosing the better part?
Jesus does not criticise Martha for serving, he criticises her for attempting to limit her sister’s choices.
All human beings are dependent on the services of others. We are part of a web of interdependence. Many of those on whose services our lives depend: from farmers to ambulance drivers to bin collectors (like the slaves who prepare Abraham’s feast) have little choice. Perhaps we are called not only to serve as Martha did, but to reflect on Christ’s words as carefully as Mary did; and consider how we may change our choices so that they do not prevent others from being able to choose for themselves.
This is the point that the scholar in Luke 10:25-37 is missing. He regards the law as something to perform, something that defines others. He asks Jesus to define his neighbour, to categorise those to whom he owes an obligation. When Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan, he does more than widen the class of those who fall within the scope of the law, he asks instead who has the law within their hearts: who was a neighbour to the one in need. The story is not about who is the object of our care but who is the one who cares for us. Being a neighbour is our deepest identity: we act from love because it is who we are, who God called us to be. Choosing love, is choosing life, not just for the one who receives love but for the one who gives it. When we go and do likewise we too choose life and blessing.
Before they enter the promised land, Moses urges God’s people to keep the law (Deuteronomy 30:9-14). The blessings that Moses promises they will receive are not a reward for keeping the law, rather the law itself is the blessing. Following it is not a burden because it is what allows us to flourish, to “choose life”. It is rooted not in stone or ordinance but within us, on our lips and in our hearts. It forms our very identity as children of God.
This is the point that the scholar in Luke 10:25-37 is missing. He regards the law as something to perform, something that defines others. He asks Jesus to define his neighbour, to categorise those to whom he owes an obligation. When Jesus replies with the story of the Good Samaritan, he does more than widen the class of those who fall within the scope of the law, he asks instead who has the law within their hearts: who was a neighbour to the one in need. The story is not about who is the object of our care but who is the one who cares for us. Being a neighbour is our deepest identity: we act from love because it is who we are, who God called us to be. Choosing love, is choosing life, not just for the one who receives love but for the one who gives it. When we go and do likewise we too choose life and blessing.
