Luke 13:22-30
A bystander said to Jesus, “Master, will only a few be saved?”
He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.’
“You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known you all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with his abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about me.’
“That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.”
Today is the second Sunday in Lent. Last week I stressed that Lent is a time for slowing down. A time to take a deep breath and just listen to God’s voice. A time to spend some time with God.
It’s been a noisy week with so much going on that it’s not been an easy week to hear God’s voice over all the racket. We’ve been filled with sick rage over the massacre in New Zealand and forty-nine, so far as we know, perfectly decent people murdered by sick-minded racists.
We’ve been filled with righteous indignation over the obscene actions of the rich buying elite college entrance for their own children with no qualms at all for the more qualified ones they shoved off the ladder to push their own privileged and unqualified darlings ahead.
I myself had a fairly hellish week with school board stuff that I don’t need to go into, just suffice it to say that it was grim and I made myself sick from the stress. And then family news about a death in the family.
And I’m sure you each have had issues too.
So listening for God’s voice was hard. Weeks like this week, even God’s voice sometimes sounded hard.
If we just read today’s reading at face value, it can sound pretty cold and harsh. But if we read it more carefully – remember, listening is the key word here – what we hear is not harshness, but freedom. Freedom from any teaching that says it is our job, our responsibility to judge who is saved (it’s not, it’s God’s job). Freedom from any teaching that says that we are somehow guilty ourselves if we don’t bully people into heaven (never was, never will be). Freedom from thinking that anything we may think about another person has any bearing on God’s love for them.
This has become the core of modern day Pentecostalism and much of evangelical teaching – that getting into heaven is our only job. And, furthermore, if we feel “saved” ourselves it is still our responsibility to get others saved as well – and if we fail, and even one sheep is lost, it will be our fault and God will be ticked off at us.
What I am told in this reading is that it’s none of my business. Now, that does not mean that I can just turn my back on another person in trouble – that IS my business. To care for each other – to clothe the naked and feed the hungry and take care of widows and orphans and strangers – all that is exactly my business.
Who gets into the kingdom is not.
And I suspect, although, once again, this isn’t my business, that a lot of folks who make it their business every day to guard the gates of heaven may well be surprised one day to find that was never their job.
I proof-read my husband’s sermon every week* – at the same time I’m writing my own – and once in a great while he hits me with a phrase that I just can’t improve on, so I “borrow” it from him. (That’s so annoying) This is what he has to says on “minding my own business”:
This story today is one of the many times that Jesus foretells a Great Reversal – that’s what this story is called in biblical circles – the Great Reversal where Jesus promises that those who think they should automatically be first shall be last and those who’ve been shoved to the end of the line will be moved directly to the first.
This is not a matter of punishment, this is a matter of correcting our mistaken assumptions as to what constitutes good or bad, important or unimportant. Jesus’ sayings as to “if this, then this...” situations have long been read by most church people as punishment based – you will suffer because you’ve done something wrong and deserve punishment.
But Jesus doesn’t speak of punishment, he speaks of consequences – as in, “if you drop that 5 pound weight on your foot it’s going to hurt” – not as a punishment but simply as a law of the world.
Humans think in terms of transgression and punishment. God does not. God speaks in terms of love and reconciliation.
Lent is a time for uncomfortable questions and hard truths, and, as writer Kathryn Matthews puts it, for taking a close look at the obstacles between God and us -- obstacles, by the way, that God didn't put there. All such obstacles are either our own doing or placed there by those who raised us and trained us to be afraid, and if the obstacle is not placed by God then it can be discarded.
The glorious, happy news for us in this reading is that it tells us what will happen if we DO NOT “put our minds on our life with God,” as instructed. Therefore, if we DO put our mind and our efforts where they belong – with God -- then none of this happens, none of these dire predictions come to pass.
If our minds and hearts are where they should be, then we will be doing God’s will and we will be living the lives God wants from us – lives that value others and serve God to the best abilities that we have – the abilities God has given us.
And, to quote Hilary one more time:
* Rev. Hilary F. Marckx, PhD, Pastor, Geyserville Christian Church
It’s been a noisy week with so much going on that it’s not been an easy week to hear God’s voice over all the racket. We’ve been filled with sick rage over the massacre in New Zealand and forty-nine, so far as we know, perfectly decent people murdered by sick-minded racists.
We’ve been filled with righteous indignation over the obscene actions of the rich buying elite college entrance for their own children with no qualms at all for the more qualified ones they shoved off the ladder to push their own privileged and unqualified darlings ahead.
I myself had a fairly hellish week with school board stuff that I don’t need to go into, just suffice it to say that it was grim and I made myself sick from the stress. And then family news about a death in the family.
And I’m sure you each have had issues too.
So listening for God’s voice was hard. Weeks like this week, even God’s voice sometimes sounded hard.
If we just read today’s reading at face value, it can sound pretty cold and harsh. But if we read it more carefully – remember, listening is the key word here – what we hear is not harshness, but freedom. Freedom from any teaching that says it is our job, our responsibility to judge who is saved (it’s not, it’s God’s job). Freedom from any teaching that says that we are somehow guilty ourselves if we don’t bully people into heaven (never was, never will be). Freedom from thinking that anything we may think about another person has any bearing on God’s love for them.
This has become the core of modern day Pentecostalism and much of evangelical teaching – that getting into heaven is our only job. And, furthermore, if we feel “saved” ourselves it is still our responsibility to get others saved as well – and if we fail, and even one sheep is lost, it will be our fault and God will be ticked off at us.
What I am told in this reading is that it’s none of my business. Now, that does not mean that I can just turn my back on another person in trouble – that IS my business. To care for each other – to clothe the naked and feed the hungry and take care of widows and orphans and strangers – all that is exactly my business.
Who gets into the kingdom is not.
And I suspect, although, once again, this isn’t my business, that a lot of folks who make it their business every day to guard the gates of heaven may well be surprised one day to find that was never their job.
I proof-read my husband’s sermon every week* – at the same time I’m writing my own – and once in a great while he hits me with a phrase that I just can’t improve on, so I “borrow” it from him. (That’s so annoying) This is what he has to says on “minding my own business”:
- What minding my own business doesn’t mean is leaving others to their own suffering because they have brought it on themselves by choosing not to follow Jesus. What minding my business does mean is to live into the grace that I am given, in my own way, and allow others to live into the grace they are given in their own way.
This story today is one of the many times that Jesus foretells a Great Reversal – that’s what this story is called in biblical circles – the Great Reversal where Jesus promises that those who think they should automatically be first shall be last and those who’ve been shoved to the end of the line will be moved directly to the first.
This is not a matter of punishment, this is a matter of correcting our mistaken assumptions as to what constitutes good or bad, important or unimportant. Jesus’ sayings as to “if this, then this...” situations have long been read by most church people as punishment based – you will suffer because you’ve done something wrong and deserve punishment.
But Jesus doesn’t speak of punishment, he speaks of consequences – as in, “if you drop that 5 pound weight on your foot it’s going to hurt” – not as a punishment but simply as a law of the world.
Humans think in terms of transgression and punishment. God does not. God speaks in terms of love and reconciliation.
Lent is a time for uncomfortable questions and hard truths, and, as writer Kathryn Matthews puts it, for taking a close look at the obstacles between God and us -- obstacles, by the way, that God didn't put there. All such obstacles are either our own doing or placed there by those who raised us and trained us to be afraid, and if the obstacle is not placed by God then it can be discarded.
The glorious, happy news for us in this reading is that it tells us what will happen if we DO NOT “put our minds on our life with God,” as instructed. Therefore, if we DO put our mind and our efforts where they belong – with God -- then none of this happens, none of these dire predictions come to pass.
If our minds and hearts are where they should be, then we will be doing God’s will and we will be living the lives God wants from us – lives that value others and serve God to the best abilities that we have – the abilities God has given us.
And, to quote Hilary one more time:
- Our question for this week is: Do we have enough trust in God, and in God’s process, to quit judging others by our own very small and very low standards and let them grow into grace by God’s very high and very loving standards?
* Rev. Hilary F. Marckx, PhD, Pastor, Geyserville Christian Church
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