GOSPEL OF LUKE - Chapter 12

Luke 12: 15

Parable of the Greedy Farmer

“Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed.  Life is not defined by what you have even when you have a lot.”

Luke 12:15

         Jesus goes on to tell the parable of a farmer who had a large crop and thereby built bigger and bigger barns to hold his ‘wealth’.  Content to live the easy life, God showed up and took the man’s life.  Jesus said, “That is what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”   How much is enough?  The farmer had more than enough.  He had a bountiful crop.  Rather than build bigger barns, rather than buy another freezer, rather than upgrade to a newer, bigger home, could not the farmer and we today, share that bounty?  Fill our lives with God, not selfish greed. 

Luke 12: 25-28  God Reality

Luke 12:25-28

“Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers,.  They don’t fuss with their appearance – but have you ever seen color and design quite like it?....If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?”

We have spent the past few days driving north through the central part of PA and into southern NY, through rolling countryside hills ablaze with the reds and oranges of fall.  Then a hike at Watkin’s Glen where we were able to stop and look closely at individual leaves, individual flowers, pools of water and fall carved and molded by God.  God has wrapped each part of our world in wonder. Nothing escapes the attention of our loving God.  God is reality; God is present; God is attuned to our individual lives.  Trust in God reality.

Luke 12:29  Getting or Giving

”What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving.”

          I think I am on the receiving end of God’s giving right now.  We are experiencing a different view of heaven – all clothed in red and orange, green and yellow.  Mix with a little sunshine from the LIGHT and the world is transfixed. 

         When we release our worry for THINGS and concentrate on where and what God wants of us, we receive all that we need and more.  Life lived simply is life truly lived. 

Luke 12:33-34  Heaven Bank

Luke 12:33-34

“...Get yourselves a bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on.  …. The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”

         God is not asking those of us who are blessed to become the poor.  God is asking us to be grateful and content with our blessings and to share what God has given us.  God is asking us to focus on QUALITY not QUANTITY!  What is our treasure?  When it gets right down to it, most people will admit what they value most and most fear to lose is relationships.  Bank quality relationships with individuals, including many unlike ourselves, including time with God.  Make deposits of time spent in earnest conversation, direct service, and generosity.  Let those deposits accumulate and our wealth will be great in what really counts.  No one can rob us of that wealth!  A stock market crash cannot wipe us out. God will be our treasure.

Luke 12: 49-50  To Start a Fire!

“I’ve come to start a fire on this earth – how I wish it were blazing right now!  I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right side up – how I long for it to be finished!  Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice?  Not so.  I’ve come to disrupt and confront!

Luke 12:49-50

         God didn’t bring his son to earth to coddle or comfort us only.  While Jesus demonstrated abundant love, it is apparent his life and death were meant to bring about change – abrupt and total – in people’s lives.  Jesus WAS confrontive in his parables, challenging the many who came to listen.  He was disruptive.  Just ask the Jewish leaders as he overturned the money-changer tables outside the temple.  He challenged local authority. 

To walk the talk isn’t to just hug everyone and say ‘Jesus loves you’, but to make positive change happen.  To be a Christian means to be a force of loving disruption.  I think I like that phrase, ‘loving disruption’!  It reminds me of the song the youth sang, ‘The Rebel’.  Be a rebel against the status quo, be a rebel in Christ.