NRS Luke 12
32 "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell 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. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
35 "Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36 be 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. 37 Blessed 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. 38 If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
39 "But 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. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
41 Peter said, "Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?" 42 And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 44 Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 45 But if that slave says to himself, 'My master is delayed in coming,' and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful. 47 That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

Dear Friends in Christ, may the Lord keep all your days and deeds in God's grace and peace; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.

Jesus spoke often on money and riches, and for the third Sunday in a row we hear Jesus address his disciples on how to relate to the goods of this world. In today's gospel Jesus tells his followers to sell their possessions and give alms to the poor, and thereby make for themselves purses that do not wear out. Last Sunday, in the parable of the rich fool, Jesus warned of the dangers of storing up riches for ourselves while being poor toward God. And from two weeks back, when Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, there's even an economic edge to the Lord's Prayer, where in the fifth petition we ask God to forgive us our sins, "for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us" (Luke 11:4; cf. Matthew 6:12).

Wealth and riches are pretty hot topics for us today, but in Jesus' day they were practically radioactive. Jesus grew up in a land whose rulers were economically raping the people under their big, fat thumbs. Herod Antipas ruled Galilee as a client king of the Roman Empire. That meant he collected taxes to pay tribute to Rome for keeping him in power, and then collected more taxes to support his own excesses and extensive building programs. What's more, the Temple's high priests, who were also Roman clients, extracted tithes from everyone before they were allowed to offer sacrifice. So between Herod, Rome, and the Temple, Galilee's subsistence farmers and fishermen were paying taxes at a rate of somewhere between 25-30%.

Now think for a minute what that meant. Subsistence means that you're producing just enough to provide the essentials for you and your family. With a tax rate of one-fourth to one-third of your total output, you might be able to hang on to house and home for a couple of years before having to borrow to cover your taxes. Then, of course, when your credit was exhausted, you lost your homestead to the creditors who were typically agents of the royal family. In other words, the richest 1 or 2% got incredibly richer, while the poor masses were reduced to day laborers, living hand to mouth by the sweat of their brows. It's no wonder that when Jesus was still a baby there was a huge uprising in Galilee, and guess what they burned first? Right, the tax records! The Romans, of course, crushed that revolt with massive force. They crucified thousands, so that when Jesus was a boy there were still crosses all over the hills and up and down the roads of Galilee. And by the time of Jesus' public ministry, the same old system of exploitation was back in full swing. So you see, when Jesus talked money, people listened very carefully.

Now Jesus was not, you know, an economist, any more than he was a politician. He didn't give speeches on tax policy, and he didn't organize protests for debt relief. But as a child of Abraham, Jesus spoke to the oppression of his people from the perspective of God's covenant with Israel. Openly opposing either Herod or Rome would have meant instant death, but behind all of Jesus' words on wealth and riches there lies a very pointed question: If the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24:1), and if God has created a world with blessings for all, then why are there some with so much and so many with so little? If God's bounty extends even to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, then why are there children going to bed naked and hungry while men, like Lazarus in Jesus' parable (Luke 16:19), dress in purple and fine linen and dine sumptuously every day?

To the people of Galilee, Jesus did not propose economic reforms, but much more radically, Jesus preached the Kingdom of God. And as he preached that Kingdom, Jesus was not just telling people that they would get theirs when they got to heaven. Rather, Jesus preached that heaven, meaning the rule of God, was coming to earth where God would overthrow the schemes of men and establish God's justice forever. And since God's rule was coming to undo this world's injustices, Jesus exhorted his followers to let go of the stuff that would fold when the Kingdom came. In other words, if the house is about to come down on top of you, then don't hang around polishing the silver. Get out! That's the logic behind Jesus' admonition to sell your possessions and give alms to the poor. In a way that's code for get out before God brings the house down. Don't tie yourself to an order that's destined to perish, but instead, be rich toward God, whose kingdom will never fail.

Many of the world's people today live under the same kind of economic oppression Galilee suffered so many centuries ago. They have no opportunity for advancement. They have little or no access to education or medical care. Their governments care only for advancing the interests of the rich while exploiting the desperation of the poor. For the hundreds of millions of people living that nightmare, Jesus' teaching on wealth and riches doesn't need a whole lot of interpretation. Their preachers don't have to explain life in ancient Galilee because they're living that life right now. For them, the message of the Kingdom lights the fire of hope, and it's that hope that strikes terror in the hearts of their oppressors.

For us in our setting today, however, the problem is not so much economic rape as economic seduction. All across the church people are asking, "Why aren't our pews as full as they were twenty or thirty years ago? Where are all the kids that used to fill our Sunday School? Where have all our members gone?" The short answer: They've gone shopping. They've gone to the mall. In previous centuries, the world's great architecture was found - where?-- in cathedrals and houses of worship. In our day, though, our most elaborate buildings are shopping centers, where people flock not just to buy life's necessities, but rather to buy those things that we used to go to church to find, like meaning, and purpose, and a sense of worth. For many people this great, incredible economy of ours has become like a god, whose goods and services can provide whatever is needed to live the good life. Is it any surprise that we're both the wealthiest nation on earth and the most indebted?

For us, Jesus' command to sell our possessions and give alms is really a call to freedom. Jesus is not demanding that we be reckless and irresponsible, but he is calling us to abandon the false gods that can only betray us and break our hearts. Not so many years ago I was visiting with a young man about his plans for the future. He said he was going to college. In what he wasn't sure, but he added, whatever it was it would be something that would make him a lot of money, to which he then added, "Because you know, pastor, money talks." Yeah, I guess, but what does it really have to say? I mean, when you're standing at the graveside of a loved one, or you're waiting to hear from your doctor on those biopsy results, does money have a lot to say then?

It's like what Jesus said: "If the owner had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into."

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.