32‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell 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. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Watchful Slaves
35Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 37Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. 39But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
There is the voice of a little Yoda in me.
When Luke Skywalker insists that he is not afraid, it is Yoda who says, “you will be.”
Faith and anxiety have this mutual journey they travel together. Wherever faith is, anxiety or fear is not far behind.
“Fear not, little flock,” Jesus said, and then went on to talk about selling possessions and not fretting the small stuff about money. And money is what these disciples were most anxious about.
What then did Jesus say when his disciples were worried about money? He told them not to be anxious about it. He told them to sell their possessions. Well, I can’t imagine much of that happening today, except by way of a few garage sales where people are really only parting with the possessions they no longer want. He told them to give alms to the poor. Maybe we’re doing a little better here, but nothing to brag about in the wider church on benevolence as a whole. He told them to not to make purses that will wear out. I don’t think that’s a problem for the money we may put into purses, along with many other such possessions.
But he did speak about the moth and the thief as threats to treasures that people, even his disciples, have great anxiety about losing.
Martin Marty once told a fascinating story that he read about in the Wall Street Journal. It was an article entitled, “The Bane of Billionaires.” It was about people with oodles of money living in Seattle who built mansions—fortresses really—to keep any and all thieves from possibly breaking in or any unwanted guests. Ah, but it didn’t keep out the moths, the pesky creatures that were able to penetrate these fortresses of money. Canadian geese flew over their fences and dropped geese manure all over their meticulous mansions and lawns. On average, 28 pounds of manure per mansion per year. The billionaires tried everything to keep them out. One billionaire paid a woman $30,000 a year just to walk around with her dogs to chase the geese away. It didn’t work. They geese kept coming.
Unless you are a billionaire, this story is amusing. But it is amusing because super-riches could not buy perfect happiness—only make your estate a laughing stock.
What is no laughing matter is when this same kind of anxiety gets the best of us.
What does all of this mean for us, little flock?
I’ve done some number crunching this week. I’ve done this numbers crunching because I want to get a better picture of this enduring pattern in this congregation. What I discovered is that every year we have given and given in great abundance as a congregation, above and beyond our budget. We have done this every year except two: 2001, where people did not give according to the budget, perhaps because of anxieties stemming from 9/11, I don’t know. And our current year, 2007, where we are currently running $10,000 behind in our giving. Why, I don’t know.
What I do know is that anxiety contributes to other behaviors. Is it in part because we are accommodating of our own sense of being a “little flock” with our budget, our expenses and our debt, wringing our hands wondering what will happen to us next, and not giving thought to the fact that we’ve let our anxieties get the best of us.
One of the most difficult behaviors is when we quarrel and hurt each other. I share with you a story I have never shared publicly before. When I was young, 11 or 12 or so, I was deeply angered with my father. I don’t even know the substance or circumstances of what it was that he said or did that angered me so. But I do know that when some of my friends were with me at my home, I expressed my anger, and I expressed it clearly and firmly, even saying, “My dad is a dumb-expletive!” What I didn’t know is that my dad was just six feet behind me when I said it. And when I turned around, I saw on his face hurt.
One can imagine the same on the face of Jesus as he was the target of all the anxieties, all the anger, all the desire for people to try to hold on to what they had even if it was, as the high priest said, expedient that one should die for the nation.
Yet the irony is that this Jesus does love this little flock. He loves us and takes all our anxiety. He takes all our selfish individualism. He takes all our bad behaviors and words and actions that grow out of our anxieties about the morrow.
And instead, he gives us the riches, the treasures of his kingdom. When the slaves labor, he comes at the last and there is the surprise: he has them sit at table as he dresses to serve them.
We who may fear the moths and thieves have the promise of the One who finally comes, the Son of Man. We know that he is the One who speaks to us, who invites us trust and to see that even if all is lost, even life itself, nothing is really lost. If your visions are on kingdoms of wealth and security, yes, these will all pass away. But my Word, says Jesus, will never pass away. The gospel is a firm rock in the midst of all troubling waters and currents. And it costs you nothing to have it. It is Jesus’ gift to you.
In our anxieties about the morrow, we miss the gift and the promise that Jesus gives. Author and pastor Garret Keizer mentioned a similar case with Abraham, the father of the faith. He reminded us that God did not tell Abraham to look at his sperm count, but to count the stars. What are the possibilities when all else is lost? How are we dreaming for a future together? How are we hoping to spread the promise to nations?
The geese may overtake the mansions. These little creatures, like even Yodas, sent by God to keep us humble. But the promise and life that God gives, that’s riches beyond our wildest imagination.