Moving Forward

Luke 12:32-40, Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16, Genesis 15:1-6

This morning we take a look at the life of faith as a pilgrimage – and my apologies for choosing a song many feel is overdone – along with a political slogan accused of the same!

But as Graeme spoke last week of the perspective we gain, at the end of our lives, looking back…this morning’s readings start where we are now and encourage us to keep moving forward. Our Luke reading gives us three quite quirky pieces of advice; to make everlasting wallets, to stay permanently dressed in work clothes, and be on constant watch.

A few years ago I worked with a lovely man…very charismatic in his expression of faith. One Sunday morning he invited a couple forward for prayer who had just had a baby. “It’s all wonderful!” said the bleary new father, “though… we are up a bit. At the moment she’s having four or five sleeps a night.” So my colleague launched in prayer, “Oh Lord, thank you for this blessing you’ve given our brother and sister, And, Lord, you’ve heard their prayer, Lord. Yes, Lord, turn those 5 sleeps into 4 sleeps, and turn those 4 sleeps into 3 sleeps, and turn…

At this point the combined gasp of the congregation alerted my friend to the fact his prayer had gone a little awry.

You might have responded to our passage from Luke this morning with a similar gasp. Perhaps you heard verses 35-40 as parables, stories told to illustrate some spiritual truth, but what of verses 33-34; does the life of faith require us to embrace radical poverty? (read verses?)

There is a story about a missionary in Kalimantan, who received a gift from the chief of a local people group of pigs….

That implication had not occurred to the missionary.

The author of Luke frequently draws attention to the oil and water mix of accumulating possessions and giving generously.

In Luke 12:33,34, to put it into contemporary political speak, Jesus tells us how to weather the earthly financial crisis. Don’t base your future financial security on assets that depreciate or can be stolen, says Jesus. Instead you should examine the eternal financial forecast - and build up capital in heaven. After all, your investments reveal where you are invested.

Like the ‘Parable of the Rich Fool’ Graeme preached on last week, we are not being told that private property or engaging in business is inherently evil or unethical, but reminded to plunge more into the eternal market. Faith challenges our natural tendency to seek our own comfort, to hold possessions tightly and give sparingly. Faith requires us to hold possessions lightly and give generously.

In Luke 12, Jesus moves on to challenge our desire to be relaxed as well as comfortable, telling a story about Middle Eastern servants waiting up late into the night for the return of their master from a wedding banquet.

The same lack of complacency is found in the stories of Abraham’s faith that we also read this morning.

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called – the sense here is that the obedience accompanies the calling, they are side by side – to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.”

Philo of Alexandria exegetes the passage this way:

“Impelled by an oracle calling him to leave his native land and family and paternal home, and move to another country, he made eager haste to do so… in fact, it looked as though he were returning to his homeland from foreign parts and not leaving his homeland for foreign parts”.

And then – like the servants waiting for their master – Abraham showed persistence. “By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, in a foreign land, living in tents....”

The same is said, in Hebrews 11:13, of all who moved forward in faith; that they persisted, knowing their status as strangers and foreigners on the earth – as far from being ‘relaxed and comfortable’ as you can get.

Finally, Luke 12, reminds us – as perhaps recent political events in Canberra remind us – moving forward in faith means expecting the unexpected – and sleepless nights! Here the parable suddenly reverses on us, and we no longer have servants waiting for a master, but a house owner waiting for a thief. In an ironic twist our master is now a thief, and we are warned that not paying attention to his intrusion into our lives will be to our cost.

When I was 10 years we lived in a Quonset hut, left over from the war in West Papua, and my father heard, from the men he worked with, that a man was coming to rob us.

That night Dad stayed awake, all night, but no one came.

The second night, he was nodding off when he heard a crowbar working at the back of the hut. He crept down the central aisle and as he reached the last curtain, my doorway, saw the back door swing open. At this point he decided a yell – the masculine version of a scream – was in order! And it had the desired effect for our thief dropped his crowbar and ran.

Now the third night, Dad tried and tried but could not stay awake, and eventually he prayed, “God, I can’t do this. You need to help me.” Now hanging in the alcove of the window in my room was a hideous mask with long coconut husk hair. It was my souvenir from Bali but, as it offended the local Indonesian Christians, was in my room. We are not entirely sure what happened that night. But in the morning, the outside panel of the alcove had been torn off, and the mask turned around to face our thief - who was never heard of again.

Moving forward requires watchfulness and trust in our God whose arrival in our lives, along with his rewards, is unexpected.

But how is it possible that we abandon personal security and comfort to embrace the life of faith that Luke and Hebrews and Genesis set out for us?

We do it – according to Luke – because faith gives us eyes to see the real economy: that God has given us the kingdom!

We do it – according to Hebrews – because faith gives us eyes to see the real nation: that there is a better country and a city designed and built by God.

We do it – according to Genesis – because faith gives us eyes to see the real future: that the incredible creative energy of God that has been with us since the beginning of time will be with us till the end of time, bringing teeming life from apparent death, a future as bright and as various and as uncontainable as the stars.

We do it because faith gives us eyes to see the real God: the God who comes to us, and finding us waiting, ready to serve him, tucks his own robe into his belt, tells us to sit down at the table and waits on us.

John 13 says that Jesus, knowing what was real; that God had put all things under his power, that he was from God and returning to God, got up, wrapped a towel around his waist and began to wash his disciples’ feet.

This is real God who accompanies us, as we move forward in faith, in simplicity and giving, in obedience and persistence, in watchfulness and trust. This is our real God who welcomes us to our true home.