Luke 12:32-40
Several years ago…I met a man who was inspired by Jesus’ directive to leave everything behind…
- Carrying not even a purse…and to follow Him.
- And so…nearly fifty years ago he did exactly that.
- It was…for him…a personal challenge of faith.
- If Christ were really his master…then Christ would sustain him.
- And so…for the next fifty years…this man wandered in India…on foot…
- Accepting only the food and clothing which were freely given to him.
- The Lord be with you…
I found him to be a sane…good-humored…keenly intelligent…gentle-spirited man.
- He was also in incredibly good health.
- It made me think of modern society’s constant effort to find support systems and guarantees in life…
- Which promise to maintain a certain material standard of living.
- We hear a lot of talk about a social safety
- Sort of a wall of fear that Jesus was trying to help people with.
- Because…what we really mean by safety nets and security is fear.
Deep down…we know that there is no such thing as material security…
- And that the idea of a social safety net is a straw in the wind.
- That is…because forces beyond human control forge the conditions of our lives.
- Try as we may to create a social order in which serious things do not go wrong…
- In which people do not fall into the pit…
- We really know this is self-delusion.
- We really know this is denial…a refusal to face an obvious fact…
- That we really do not have the ultimate say over what happens to us.
And so…my elderly mendicant friend jumped.
- The ground vanished beneath him and he found himself borne up by invisible hands.
- He did not starve to death…
- Or die of plague…
- Or get waylaid by robbers…
- Though if any of these things had happened…he would have accepted them as Christ’s will.
- But he learned to live without the net.
- That net which is our fear of the unknown and the uncontrollable.
- He learned that when he had nothing left…
- But the recognition of his own helplessness…
- He was helped.
When Jesus said: Sell your possessions and give alms.
- He did not mean that possessions are sinful…
- But that the possibility of losing them is naturally fearful.
- And Jesus focus was on removing fear.
A friend of mine who lives in a very large city bought a very expensive car.
- This purchase symbolized…for him…his coming of age economically.
- He had pursued a risky career with great determination…beaten the odds…
- And now…wanted some recognition.
- He wanted some payoffs.
- He wanted some comfort.
And then he was informed that the insurance premium for that car…
- In his part of the country…
- Would be so high as to cover the cost of one less expensive car.
- Well…he had tried to buy a sense of substance…strength…and security…
- And instead…was informed by his insurance company that his automobile put him at tremendous risk.
He had only owned the car a very short time…
- When he came out of a restaurant to see that a long…
- Very fine scratch had been cut into the paint along the side…
- The kind of scratch a kid could make brushing against the vehicle with his bicycle.
- An act of idle vandalism.
- But the cut was all the way down to the metal.
Now he was faced with choices…
- Does he report the incident…
- And run the risk of his insurance rates going up?
- Does he pay for it himself?
- Does he let it go?
- But letting it go was out of the question.
- The whole point in having a car like that is to have it in perfect condition.
And suddenly a terrible sense of vulnerability crushed in on him.
- He had bought the car to make himself feel substantial…powerful…successful…
secure.
- But what happened was that it increased his insecurity and sense of powerlessness.
- The car was putting him at greater risk in a universe where kids come along with bicycles…
- Brush against you…and cost you thousands of dollars.
So…when Jesus said: Give up the things you are attached to in life…
- He was not so much giving a moral teaching…as a practical…spiritual teaching.
- It was not in outward adherence to a rule…
- But in coming to an inner reckoning with the things and forces in life that entrap us…
- And keep us prisoners of fear.
Jesus was saying:
- If you keep your mind on me…
- If you have that kind of fixed attention that a good servant has for his or her master…
- Then you will be more and more freed from the traps of the world…
- And become more and more oriented around the true reality…which is me…and the life I bring.
Anyone who has experienced moments of great danger knows a curious thing:
- As long as there is something to be done…there is no fear.
- There is only attention to the act which must be performed.
- Fear comes after…
- When we have time to think.
- And from this we learn:
- Fear is the result of thought and imagination…
- Fear is the result of anxiety…worry…and dread.
Jesus taught us the main source of this kind of fear is our attempt to try to control the uncontrollable.
- By building up fortunes on earth and then having to defend them.
- But if our attention is engaged elsewhere…on Jesus…
- Then…even if we were to have a fortune in our possession…
- That fortune will not be able to possess us.
My Christian friend recently returned to the United States…
- To live out his remaining years in a small house he inherited from his sister.
- He is now in his eighties.
- He shared…with me…some observations about poverty and fear one day.
He said to me:
- People keep asking me…
- Isn’t it difficult over there?
- Aren’t the people suffering from all that poverty?
- And I want to tell them…but how can I?
- How will they understand that the worst suffering I’ve ever seen is here.
- Where there is so much.
- The worst fear is here.
- Where it seems…there is the least to be afraid of.
- The most happiness I’ve ever seen is there.
- Where people have so little.
- But they have their faith in God.
- It is something that anyone can see for themselves…just by looking at their faces.
Living beyond fear is Christ’s gracious invitation to us.
- Living beyond fear is our way to new life…new hope…new joy.
- And so…we pray to live our lives day by day…beyond fear.
- Covered with God’s grace and joy!