Sunday: 11th Sunday after Pentecost 14C
Reading: Luke 12:32-40
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell 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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Let us pray: Gracious God, so send your spirit on us that these words once spoken might now speak again. Amen.

The people listening to Jesus were afraid. This is the third time in this twelfth chapter that Jesus has told his listeners not to fear, not to be afraid. Fear abounds. In our passage, Luke has Jesus making his way south from his home in Galilee to the fateful events of Jerusalem. He is talking here not only to his disciples, but also to thousands of people jostling to get close to him. And they are afraid. Both the throngs pushing to get a glimpse and hear a word and the disciples who by now are quite intimate with Jesus. But Jesus says, "Don't be afraid, God wants to give you the kingdom." Don't fear; the kingdom is yours. I can imagine that those words did have a calming effect. In a time of political fluidity and life under foreign rule, the idea of being given a kingdom would calm ones fears.

But I wonder though, if the fear of those thousands of disciples wasn't in part due to what Jesus himself was saying. Here is this incredibly dynamic preacher who really seems to understand the trials and turmoil of life and he is suggesting selling all possessions, giving it all away! That's enough to make anyone afraid. Selling everything, even if that was very little, must have been unsettling. Sure, that fear was mitigated by the reality that the majority of Jesus' listeners were at the bottom of the social pyramid. A promise of a kingdom where wealth wouldn't matter offered some comfort. For those of us closer to the top of the social pyramid there seems little comfort in the type of kingdom Jesus is offering.

God wants to give us the kingdom. Do we want it? A kingdom characterized by the selling of possessions and the giving of alms. Jesus is saying, Don't be afraid. Don't covet. Don't be anxious. Just sell everything and give away the money. No problem. Do we want that kingdom? You know that new iphone you have, just sell it, the signed 1st edition of "The Great Gatsby," put it up for auction, your 401k and your Roth IRAs, cash ‘em out and give the money to Bread for the World. What?! Does Jesus think we're nuts? It might be the father's good pleasure to give me the kingdom, but I don't know if I want it.

Throughout the Gospel of Luke, the Kingdom of God is characterized by this upside down thinking. Luke's Jesus is all about reversing fortunes. The societal structure we have with hedge fund managers and full, chaired professors at the top and undocumented immigrants on the bottom, Luke wants to flip it. Two earlier passages in Luke confirm this flipped notion of the Kingdom of God. In chapter four, Jesus' first adult public appearance has him reading from Isaiah, claiming that he was anointed to "bring good news to the poor...release to the captives...recovery of sight to the blind...freedom for the oppressed." And earlier, in chapter one, before Jesus even shows up, Mary, his mother, sings "[The Lord] has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." Jesus' urging of his listeners to stores up possessions in heaven is consonant with these earlier passages. In Luke's Kingdom of God, fortunes are reversed; wealth and possessions don't matter. They will be moth eaten and rust stained.

Yet, immediately after telling people to sell their possessions, Jesus tells them that they do need purses to keep their treasures-heavenly purses. So give away your Kate Spade bags, even your Louis Vuitton knockoff. Make a purse for yourself that does not wear out. When the Kingdom of God comes, when fortunes are reversed, only those with heavenly purses will be rewarded.

Thankfully, Jesus gives some advice on filling these heavenly purses. He warns us to think carefully about what we put in them because it will say a lot about us. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Our values are intricately tied to and revealed by our possessions. I don't know how many of you listen to the stock reports on the radio or look up what happened to the Dow Jones on the internet. But, I bet you are more likely to if you have money in the market. That's Jesus point-where you put your treasure is where your interests are. It seems obvious, but we don't realize it. In the churches I grew up in, teenagers would always be going off on missions' trips. They would send out these letters that spent paragraphs asking for prayer and then one little sentence, ‘oh yeah, if you can give me some money.' If the writer of those letters had heeded Jesus' words, they would have known that they should have started by asking for the money. If people's treasure was involved, they would almost certainly pray!! It must be why gambling is so popular, why friends that play golf together every week must still make small wagers on every hole. Life is more interesting when you have some flesh in the game! Where you put your energy is where you get your reward. In pointing this out Jesus suggests to his disciples and thousands thronging around him why possessions matter. Not because possessions are evil. There's nothing inherently wrong with these expensive chalices. But possessions can suggest where are hearts are, what we really value in life. Jesus wants those throngs listening to him to put their treasure in things that will not rot and cannot be eaten with moths. That way, when the Kingdom comes and fortunes are reversed and those on the top of the social pyramid find themselves on the bottom, they will have lost nothing.

Do not be afraid, for God wants to give you the kingdom. Sure, it's going to be disruptive, it is going to shake the foundations, but if we have filled our heavenly purses with treasures that do not rust, we have nothing to fear. If I treasure my wife and my child, it doesn't matter our social position. If we as a parish build bonds of mutual trust and interdependence, we could celebrate the Eucharist with clay mugs and it wouldn't matter. If as a community we put our energies into alleviating poverty and serving the released prisoner, it won't matter what happens to the stock market. For, the kingdom of God has been promised. And it is coming, soon and very soon. I'm both excited and afraid.
AMEN