Preacher: Lisa Ramish

Scripture: Luke 12:32-40

Please pray with me.

Loving God, we know you are here with us as we read your holy scripture and find ways to let it change our lives. May my words, as well as the way we hear them and respond, be a reflection of your wisdom and love. Amen.

Our passage today gives us two ideas about how to live when we know that our time on earth is finite and brief. I’d like to talk about them both today and bring in a third idea that was actually left out of our reading. But before we discuss that, I want to address Jesus’s use of slave metaphors. I have promised myself that I will never remark on a passage about slavery without acknowledging the pain it can cause. And today, spending some time to really grapple with it gives us insight into the passage itself. It is my hope that it will leave you feeling a little more empowered to engage with parts of the Bible that concern you and that it will enrich the reflection you take away from our reading.

Slave metaphors are obviously deeply problematic for us in our context because we can’t help but think of America’s history of chattel slavery. Failing to acknowledge that history is unacceptable at a time when there is talk about defunding schools for how they teach black history, at a time when our systems and society continue to perpetuate slavery’s racist legacy. It is also unaccceptable when we know that the Bible was used to justify that slavery. If we don’t understand how that was possible, how will we prevent it from happening again? Even outside of the American context, the idea of slavery in Jesus’s time aches. I don’t see how we can be truly proud of our faith and wholeheartedly follow Jesus if we feel like there is part of the story we have to avoid. Let us try not to do that. Let us embrace our discomfort and trust that we will find God in it.

Jesus doesn’t endorse slavery in Luke but he doesn’t condemn it. It is a part of 1st century life in the Roman empire, and so it shows up in healing stories, parables and metaphors. Why didn’t Jesus challenge this? One way theologians grapple with this is to make a distinction between the 1st century slavery of ancient Rome and the 19th century slavery of America. For one thing, Roman slavery was not race-based. (This was actually the strongest Biblical argument against slavery right before the Civil war – Galatians 3:28, “You are all one in Jesus Christ.”  But white supremacy was so engrained in America that the argument that slavery offended God on the sole basis that it divided his children barely gained traction. Even so-called “good white Christian abolitionists” primarily relied on other, weaker Biblical arguments because they were so entrenched in their racism.) The Romans, on the other hand, enslaved any race they conquered. People of any race sometimes chose to sell themselves into slavery in order to pay off a debt. Manumission, the freeing of a slave, was relatively common, usually after an owner’s death through their will or because a slave could save money to buy their freedom. Most remarkably, freed slaves were automatically granted Roman citizenship which was a huge deal because it gave them status, rights and protection. 

Because of all of this, some people argue that slavery in Rome was more like the indentured servitude of medieval times or even simple contract labor. They argue that a better translation for the Greek word for slave, doulos, is servant or even just worker. Even if that is true, it doesn’t feel totally honest to change it in our readings. *

I have to tell you that explaining this – feeling like I am softening or rationalizing Roman slavery – feels totally gross. Slaves in the 1st century were still considered the property of their owner. They were still abused. It was evil oppression. I wonder if it was exactly this kind of whitewashing of the slavery in the Bible that allowed the slavery of colonialism to find a footing. So I am still left asking how Jesus could use slave metaphors as if slavery was not a system that should be overthrown.

The best way that I have found to understand this is by studying what Christian slaves in America understood the Bible to say about slavery. I have learned this primarily through the work of Brian K. Blount who is a black preacher, professor and scholar of the New Testament. For today, I paid special attention to his book, Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context. 

Professor Blount explains that American slaves understood that there was a clear promise of their own freedom in the story of Israelites’ exodus from Egyptian slavery – not just figuratively but literally. We can hear this in African American spirituals – the same songs that were codes to help enslaved people escape from the South: 

Go down, 

Moses, 

way down in Egypt’s land, 

tell old 

Pharaoh: 

Let my people go. 

Blount writes that if Moses was seen as the great liberator then Jesus was seen as “an even closer companion because Jesus suffered as the slave suffers.” The theology of the enslaved people of America was absolutely a liberation theology in which the death of Jesus was not just a liberation from sin but a liberation from oppression and those who presided over the institution of slavery. Each of the gospels embodies this in a different way. In Mark, Jesus challenges social boundaries. In Matthew, Jesus creates a new community striving to live in line with the will of God. And in the book of Luke, which our passage is from, Jesus’s death is the beginning of an enormous social and political reversal, portending the kind of violent upheaval we hear about in the Book of Revelation: an apocalypse. Or depending on which side you’re on: a jubilee.

This is the only way I have found to understand why Jesus does not insist on overturning slavery – because he takes for granted that God’s coming kingdom will overturn everything. And most importantly, make it right. There will be cosmic justice.

Is this a good enough explanation for extolling believers to act like good slaves? I really struggle with this and I suspect I will for my whole life. This is why I think it needs to be addressed whenever it comes up. Each preacher and each church has to decide for themselves how they want to do this but I’m not talking about one sermon. I’m talking about every time the word doulos is translated in a holy space, because I do think we deny its gravity if we don’t acknowledge it. Perhaps this is more of a topic for the people writing the sermons but we have responsibilities as listeners too.

What should not be surprising at all is how much understanding this topic enriches our understanding of scripture. Let’s dive into today’s passage. For one thing, we might understand the final line differently. Luke writes, “The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” That might sound like a threat – to the oppressor. But it will sound like a promise to the oppressed. Liberation is coming! The kingdom of God!

And that liberation will be a reversal. Luke writes, “Be dressed for action.” Then a little later he uses the same word for what the master will do: “Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will dress himself for action and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.” At other times I might have read this metaphorically in which the master who finds his slaves alert is God. But now I can also hear it as the literal master. The one who enslaves will learn to serve. This reversal happens throughout the book of Luke. It is most clear in Mary’s Magnificat: “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” I don’t know if we can fully appreciate how radical, how revolutionary this is. The modern equivalent might be, “Hey, one day you will pick the berries for someone else’s table. One day you will mine the cobalt for someone else’s iphone.” Perhaps the only way to imagine this is an apocalypse.

Now, we don’t talk about apocalypses in 21st century DC churches very often. For one thing there is this sense that only crazy people talk about apocalypses when they are trying to predict them, and so far, they have had 0% accuracy. For another, the end of times has been used to scare and control people with warnings of impending judgement.

Even when not posed as our own personal threat, an apocalypse is terrifying for those of us who are comfortable. Of course, it is different for people who are brutally oppressed. Even those who bear witness to others’ oppression and try to stand alongside them sometimes feel like they just want God to burn it all down. This is what I hear from some activists right now, overwhelmed by the pictures, the news, the lack of care. And sometimes it can be a tiny comfort to know they are not the only ones who have cried out to God to put an end to everything. 

It can change how we hear the Bible if we understand that Jesus’s followers felt so desperate and defeated that they wished for an apocalypse and that an apocalypse signified hope. And it can give us another way to make meaning of Jesus’s advice: We are to shape our lives in anticipation of God’s great endgame – whether we fear it or yearn for it. This is the first idea I want to draw out of our passage: We are to shape our lives in anticipation of God’s great reversal.

This is not a foreign idea to us. Our culture recognizes that if we were to find out that we only have a year to live, most of us would change how we are living. It’s just that in this case it is not simply one person making peace with their individual death. Our souls are immortal through Jesus Christ. So what we really need to make peace with is that all of our earthly plans – all of our systems, all of our legacies, all of our inheritances, all of our social constructions – will pass away.

This changes how I hear Jesus saying, “Sell your possessions, and give alms.” Because then his words are not just about helping people in poverty (though that matters). His words are about untangling our immortal souls from earthly obsessions. I think is why Jesus adds, “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Making a purse is not a one-and-done. It is an investment of time and energy and hope that you will collect something new. And do you hear that end of times mindset? At the end of times, it is not enough to have written a check to a charity. We must have reoriented our hearts to live in God’s kingdom come. This makes me think about habits like buying less, fostering and participating in community mutuality, sharing, cooperating, working for another, deprogramming the idea that time is money and paid work equals worth. At the end of times, there will be a reversal of hierachies – of positions. So we must also reorient our position to others: living so that we are connected to people who have different needs, making it so that people in need feel comfortable confiding in us. Those kinds of alms change your entire life. That is how “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

One way to do this is to wake up every day and really reflect, “what if the world was ending tomorrow?” At first you might think, “Oh, I would finally tell my boss what I think and then I’d go home and eat all the ice cream I’ve ever wanted.” Maybe. I think that might just mean you have some stuff to stop avoiding with your boss and maybe you should let yourself have ice cream sometimes. What would you do after that? It doesn’t have to be a big gesture. Remember, you’re making a new purse. It’s going take time – one small action and then another – a gradual unraveling of the earthly ropes that tie us in knots, then weaving a new fabric.

Thinking about all of this reminded me of the 2021 movie, Don’t Look Up, with Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is an allegory for facing climate change. Two low level astronomers discover that a comet will strike the earth and end all life in six months. Their attempt to convince political leaders to do something is a farce. Not everyone loves this movie. Some people think its heavy-handed. I loved it because it somehow managed to make me laugh even though I feel deep sadness about how we care for our planet. It also looked at the different ways people might handle real news that the world was ending. In the movie, there are the people who deny the comet is coming. They just can’t face it. Even when the comet becomes visible in the sky, they come up with a motto: “Don’t look up.” There are also the people who know the comet is coming but somehow think they can save themselves. They’re still trying to get rich. They’re making their escape plans. There are nihilists, who loot and pillage. There are hedonists, who try to lose themselves in pleasure. There are even people taking their last days on earth to argue with other people on the internet. The ones who I really identify with are the ones who keep going into work – the news reporter who is still sitting at his news desk in the final hour, alone. Seeing it in the movie makes me wonder if I would keep going to work. Where would I be on the day the comet strikes? Why aren’t I there right now?

One reason is because I’m pretty sure the world isn’t ending tomorrow. It probably won’t even end next year. This was one of the challenges that Luke was starting to grapple with when he wrote his gospel. Jesus had been gone for 30 years or so. The apostles were starting to realize that maybe the second coming wouldn’t happen in their lifetimes. We can look back and see it’s going to take at least 2,000 years. Who knows how many more. It is hard to keep up a we-could-die-tomorrow mindset for our whole lives. We have bills to pay. We have kids to raise. We have kitty litter trays to clean. We have teeth to floss.

But we cannot wait for someone to tell us “you have six months to live.” We have to start now and we have to remember it every day even if we live until we are 109 years old. That’s why we need each other. That’s why we need church. That’s why we need the Bible. And I think this is why we are hearing in today’s scripture to be “dressed for action,” to be alert, to be ready. This is the second idea I want to draw out. First, we are to shape our lives in anticipation of God’s great reversal. Second, God might take longer than we think God should, and we will have to wait.

While we wait, we have to stay awake. We have to keep our lamps lit, which is to say: pay attention to what is around us. Remember: the enslaved people who Jesus is talking about didn’t do this for one night. This was their work. Jesus is referring to something they did day after day after day. That kind of posture is not one that you can just pick up and sustain indefinitely without some strategy. If it is going to last then it has to be less of a one time bold action and more of an ongoing practice. I have found this requires regular reflection, strong boundaries and, over time, it will lead to a whole different structure for one’s life.

If you take this seriously, I hope you will take it slowly but I still think it is going to feel terrifying – not that God’s upheaval will be terrifying. That will be our creator’s ultimate plan coming to fruition. That should give us hope. Changing our life beforehand is the terrifying part. 

In our lectionary, which is a three year cycle, we don’t have time to read the whole New Testament so we tend to skip the parts that are similar to other gospels. That means we don’t usually read the lines that come right before today’s passage. I’d like to end with reading them to you today because I think they are the third part of this message, and they help us understand that first line a little better:

Luke 12:20-32 – Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,[b] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith! And do not keep seeking what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that seek all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.