{"id":10027,"date":"2021-02-07T19:49:43","date_gmt":"2021-02-07T19:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=10027"},"modified":"2022-10-03T07:39:11","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T05:39:11","slug":"luke-1232-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/luke-1232-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 12:32-40"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased
\nto give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
\nProvide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in
\nheaven that will not be exhausted where no thief comes near and no moth
\ndestroys. For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also.
\nBe dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting
\nfor their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes
\nand knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good
\nfor those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I
\ntell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline
\nat the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those
\nservants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second
\nor third watch of the night. But understand this: If the owner of the
\nhouse had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have
\nlet his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son
\nof Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n

LOOKING FOR THE CENTER OF LIFE<\/strong><\/p>\n

One morning a middle-aged woman sat in the office of a psychiatrist
\nbecause for too long she had been dealing with daily depression. It
\nwas the third session for her and she had been struggling to find the
\nsource of her problem. Together they had addressed many of her concerns
\ndealing with her relationship with her husband and her parents. There
\nwas a lack of satisfaction with her job and her daily activities with
\nfriends. She found no pleasure in any of her hobbies nor did she take
\ninterest in the news or the activities taking place in her community.
\nShe was always concerned that she wasn\u2019t getting enough sleep
\nand she tended to fear that she wasn\u2019t eating the right foods
\nor that sooner or later a serious illness might result from an imbalance
\nin nutrition. The psychiatrist proposed experimenting with some medication
\nto help her refocus, but she was afraid of that. What seemed to make
\nthe most sense to her was his concern that she was consumed with issues
\non the periphery of her life, but unaware of what was going on at the
\ncenter. Together they began a quest to find out what was going on at
\nthe center of her life, the place from which everything else was ordered.
\nWhat could it be, she wondered, as she left the psychiatrist\u2019s
\noffice that day? The center of my life: what could it be?<\/p>\n


\nKnowing how real it is to lose our focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

This question is at the heart of a recent book, become a movie, by
\nAndre Dubois, The House of Sand and Fog. In the story, a number of people
\nare trying to identify the meaning in their lives. It seems to be centered
\nin a house. A recovering alcoholic woman loses this house given to her
\nby her father because she has failed to pay the taxes and the county,
\nin error, sells it at auction. A former Iranian colonel who hasn\u2019t
\nfound meaningful work in this country and whose wife is always depressed
\nbecause she can\u2019t forget her former lavish lifestyle buys this
\nhome as an investment on their way to recovering the life they have
\nlost. Complications set in over the house, the two families become pitted
\nagainst one another, and tragedies occur. The Iranian couple\u2019s
\nson is shot and killed. The colonel in despair kills his wife and commits
\nsuicide. The recovering alcoholic\u2019s lover ends up in prison and
\nthe movie closes with the fog surrounding the woman who decides she
\ndoesn\u2019t want this house after all. Playing on the old children\u2019s
\nrhyme, for want of the house, the kingdom was lost! A material object
\nbecame so important that several people lose the meaning of their lives.
\nThey are concerned with peripheral things, not things that matter. They
\nceased, if it had ever been true in their cases, to be concerned about
\ncentral issues without which life gets lost, despair sets in and everything
\ngoes haywire.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s text is dealing with such central issues. Because the
\ntext results from the fusion of a number of elements found in differing
\nplaces in other Synoptic writers, the various points seem confusing.
\nHowever, Luke combines them here to make a point within which we are
\nto locate the center of our spirituality, the ground of our being, as
\nPaul Tillich liked to put it. He uses some teachings of Jesus as well
\nas a little parable to take us away from all the details of life in
\nwhich we can so easily lose ourselves. He takes our head in his hands,
\nas my father used to do when he was pointing out something to me and
\nI couldn\u2019t seem to see it, and focuses us in the right direction.
\nCombining these textual elements for us, Luke shows us how not to get
\nlost in peripheral issues, how not to miss the center of our lives.<\/p>\n

Watching out for border issues and goose turds<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the words he quotes from Jesus, it is clear that many are preoccupied
\nwith border matters. A friend of mine who is currently in Iraq working
\nwith the U.S. government to help train Iraqi communities in the art
\nof running local governments tells me that border details prevent them
\nfrom getting their jobs done. If it weren\u2019t for the enormous amount
\nof time spent during the day going through security checks at the borders,
\nthey could be helping the Iraqis learn how to develop policies, work
\nout community meetings with rules of order, and structure a society
\nusing input from everyone involved. Border issues are usually the problems
\nin our lives when things aren\u2019t going right. In our text, people
\nhave been busy acquiring possessions and finding safe receptacles and
\nstructures in which to store them. They have been running around preoccupied
\nwith daily details, forgetting why they are doing what they are doing
\nin the first place. Jesus reminds them that the larger issue is to ask
\nwhat your real treasure is because if you miss the point there, you
\ncan be busy buying Gucci bags and prestigious houses in which to store
\nthings that ultimately don\u2019t really matter. And you can be filing
\nyour life with drama and detail that have nothing to do with \u201cwhose\u201d
\nyou are in the first place.<\/p>\n

Martin Marty, church historian and frequent editorialist in the Christian
\nCentury, has pointed out that this is not just a problem for those who
\nlive on the edges of poverty, as may have been the case with a lot of
\nJesus\u2019 hearers who were lucky to have one purse (which could wear
\nout) and one cloak (which could be eaten by moths). In Seattle, Washington,
\nwhere multi-millionaires in the computer industry have their mansions,
\nthere are other menacing threats to holding on to value (if, in fact,
\nthis is a central concern in their lives!). There the concerns have
\nto do with a problem that is goose-turd green. Vast flocks of geese
\nflying in from the sea strut over acres of well-manicured lawns and
\ndriveways, dumping 30 pounds of doo-doo daily on treasured terra firma.
\nWhat to do? Hire dogs or boys to chase them away? Get electronic systems
\nto jolt them or honk them away? Nothing is working in Seattle and the
\nwealthy are preoccupied with finding contemporary \u201cpurses\u201d
\nto preserve their possessions. Marty wonders whether his readers are
\nseeing a connection between this and Luke\u2019s Gospel.<\/p>\n

Finding the real core values<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, it is possible for us to lose our focus in life and pursue
\nmatters which have little to do with the central things with which we
\nshould be occupied. In fact, it is possible for us to become hysterically
\nconfident that the things with which we surround ourselves at the periphery
\nare in fact the most important things in the world to us. The recent
\nenthusiasm of the crowds, shouting and rejoicing over the challenges
\nand promises of the speakers at last weeks\u2019 Democratic Convention
\nin Boston, is a case in point. Delegates knew, they certainly hoped,
\nthat a series of speakers would be primed to address significant issues,
\nto speak to their compelling needs, to lift them up and give them new
\nhope. A variety of people with differing approaches, from Al Sharpton
\nto Barak Obama, from John Edwards to John Kerry, gave them reason to
\nbelieve that \u201chope is on the way!\u201d \u201cAmerica can do
\nbetter,\u201d promised John Kerry, the presidential candidate.
\nWe can have health care for all and reduced prescription costs for elderly.
\nWe can provide quality education for all children and tax cuts for parents
\nsending sons and daughters to the university. We can protect our country
\nfrom terrorists and make Americans feel secure. We can protect Social
\nSecurity and give middle-class tax cuts. We can get jobs back which
\nhave gone to foreign markets and we can get America to be respected
\nin the world once again. What a cacophony of enthusiasm followed these
\nwords! At least for the time of the speeches, this was a moment to celebrate
\nthe promise of the future. Was it, really, the central issue for their
\nlives? Would delivery in all of these areas bring the assurance that
\nthis is how life is meant to be? Were the promises of security and affluence
\nand reputation directed to the grounds of being in all of our lives?
\nThis is a central question, and a very profound one. Valuable as all
\nthe issues of which the speakers spoke are–and this is not a partisan
\nissues because the Republicans will promise more of the same– they
\ntend to be the kinds of things which belong to the periphery of our
\nlives, not to the most central matters. In Luke\u2019s Gospel for today,
\nJesus wants to tell us why.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid, little flock,\u201d says Jesus, \u201cfor
\nyour Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.\u201d Is this
\nmore than cheaper prescriptions and gas? Is this better than a $300
\ntax cut or an environmentally sound car? You better believe it is. Here
\nJesus is taking you to the heart of the matter, to the center of your
\nlife. And then he tells this little parable about servants who are busy
\nrunning around doing peripheral stuff, not giving a lot of thought to
\nthe master who has gone off to get married. But when he comes back,
\neven in the middle of the night, oh what a time this will be! This will
\nbe a celebration. He will dress up like a servant, get them to recline
\nat table and wait on them hand and foot. He will get them to share his
\njoy! They will become fellow celebrants. What a time this will be! Are
\nthey ready for it? Are they focused on the very reason why they live
\nand work in the master\u2019s house? To share in his joy? To belong
\nto him and to know his love? Or are they busy with peripheral matters
\nwhich keep them from understanding whose they really are!<\/p>\n

This is the point to which all of us need to come, in this story and
\nin our personal stories– including the middle-aged lady in the psychiatrist\u2019s
\noffice, the people in the mansions in Seattle, the marginalized with
\ncloth purses that wear out, the Iranian colonel and his wife, the Democrats
\nand the Republicans, and every one of us! We need to come to the point
\nwhen we ask ourselves whether our central concerns have to do with the
\nthings which really matter, or with all those matters which are just
\nthings– things which can so easily preoccupy us, but also make us depressed
\nor anxious when they aren\u2019t there for us. Jesus is talking about
\ncentral things like forgiveness, or the confidence which comes from
\nknowing we belong to God eternally. This has to do with basic principles
\nlike relationships with our fellows that are grounded in love, honesty
\nand a desire to serve. Here we are confronted with integrating beliefs
\nthat assure no one needs to make himself\/herself acceptable because
\nChrist\u2019s redeeming sacrifice took care of that! These are the
\nconvictions that there is no greater freedom than that which comes from
\ntrusting in Him whose Spirit rules our hearts in love.<\/p>\n

Living out the joy of your center<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are the real core values that cannot be established by the visioning
\nof a political party or the affluence that a strong economy may bring.
\nThey are gifts given when the Master comes into our lives, when his
\nkingdom comes. As his servants and followers, we know that we are not
\ntalking merely about the kingdom which comes at the end of time. It
\ncomes to us also in the here and now, just as surely as the King himself
\nis present with us through our faith in his love for us. For that reason,
\nthe center of our lives, the place from which our entire motivations
\ndaily arise, is joy, the joy that welcomes the Master on a daily basis
\nand keeps us centered, free from depression and useless avarice. It
\nis the joy which takes away fear and daily reminds us whose we are.
\nIt is the joy which makes us ready to take on the challenges of a new
\nday or decade. It is the joy which assures us that nothing can separate
\nus from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is the joy which makes us
\ngenerous beyond belief and keeps us expectant. It is always the joy!<\/p>\n

Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
\nConcordia University at Austin
\nAustin, TX
\ndzersen@aol.com<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,727,108,110,400,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-10027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lukas","category-archiv","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-12-chapter-12-lukas","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13821,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10027\/revisions\/13821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=10027"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=10027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}