August 7-8, 2010
11th Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 12:32-40
Salem Lutheran Church
Sycamore, Illinois
I was six years old the morning my mom put me on a bus in Rockford with my destination being Waukesha. I was going for a week to visit my cousin Susan. I was, for the first time in my life going without my three younger sisters tagging along. I was going alone.
Now this would be unthinkable today, but back then I guess many people didn't worry so much that something terrible would happen to a six year old alone on a Greyhound bus. At least my folks didn't. So off I went with my little suitcase and all kinds of glad expectation filling me up as I climbed on board and took my seat halfway back.
It wasn't long though before I figured out that I had failed to ask some important questions. For you see, every other time I had traveled it had been in the back of the family station wagon. Every other time we had done this journey with maybe one bathroom stop on the way and with my folks keeping track of us. This time though? That bus stopped in every little town between Rockford and Waukesha. And since apparently I had no concept of time and wasn't much into reading road maps or signs, every time that bus would come to a stop, I would walk to the front of the bus and try to get off. And every single time the bus driver would patiently say to me, "Not yet, honey… I'll tell you when…" and send me back to my seat. Only I didn't really trust that I wouldn't be forgotten. So I kept making that trek to the front of the bus at every stop.
We were almost there before I figured out if I just listened, the driver was announcing the name of the next stop we'd be pulling into. If I only paid attention, if only I knew what it was I was to watch for, I wouldn't miss my stop.
In some ways, it is that kind of vigilance that is called for in our Gospel lesson today. It's the kind of watchfulness that knows that your very life depends upon it so you find yourself keeping all your senses peeled. The only problem was? I was working with the wisdom of a six year old who hadn't been on this journey in quite this way before. And so all I knew to do was to keep checking.
And while, I don't believe God would have us today keep checking with the driver to see if this is the end of the journey here, what God does call us to today is different from what we often do.
For most of the time I'm at the back of the bus, believing the journey will never end.
Too much of the time, I'm engrossed in my own business and not tending to what needs to be tended to before the bridegroom returns.
All too much of the time I forget entirely that God is simply waiting to give me all that I need --- even right down to God's own Kingdom --- and it is only ours to receive it and to live like it's ours in which to love and live, to give and receive, to hope and to pray.
I can recall another kind of vigilance that marked my life when I was small. I would experience it some nights before I would fall asleep and my imagination would get the better of me and I would start to wonder what would happen if the house suddenly caught fire. How would I get out? And so I would make an escape plan. And then I'd think about what valuables I'd want to take with me. And I would look around my bedroom with my eyes now adjusted to the dark and would pick out those treasures I could grab quickly and carry with me as I hurried down the stairs.
I was small of course… probably five or six years old… and surely it was a sign of my own short sightedness that I thought of things I would want to save rather than the other people who also slept on the second floor of that house on South 3rd Street. Still, it's an interesting exercise, isn't it? What would you grab in a hurry? Where is your treasure, truly?
In some ways, life seemed more fragile when I was six than it does sometimes now that I'm approaching 50. Over time we pay up our insurance, put double locks on the doors and try to keep our homes in good repair so that now our imaginations aren't so likely to carry us away in the deep of the night… We long ago learned to read maps and watch the road signs --- time and experience have taught us what to listen for so that we can be sure we'll always get off at the right stop.
And yet, the words spoken today are best heard by the child in us --- that part that is deeply aware that forces beyond our own control could change it all at any time and that ultimately someone else is driving this bus we're on. That's what Jesus is getting at when he tells us not to be afraid, little flock, for it's the Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom. We are simply receivers of God's gifts and we're not finally in control.
And so what is there for us today? Surely this is not a call to spend our nights waiting for it all to end or our days so distracted by watching for the signs that we altogether miss the joy of the kingdom God is extending to us. No indeed, my anxiety at the age of six already had me wanting to be in control --- as much as I could be then. So no, it must not be that, but rather, this must be a call to live our lives by a different set of values. One that wakes in the morning and remembers that our beginnings and endings rest in God's hands and that in-between we are to reflect that powerful love God has for us in this day to day time we've been given. And surely that finds its deepest, truest meaning in the next words out of Jesus' mouth where he tells us that we are to be remembering the poor. The poor in body and spirit and heart. Those in our home, those in our neighborhood and those halfway around the world. And in remembering to care for them, it is there we will find the only treasure that matters. For that is where and when we'll come closest to the heart of God. That's where and how we'll find ourselves awake to God's gifts in our lives and the gifts we have to give the world. Indeed, as we live more fully in this way that God intends, we will learn to trust more deeply God's desire to give us all that is good. And we'll be so engaged with the world God gave us to live and give in, we won't be checking to see when it's time to get off the bus. For we'll already be living by the signs that were meant for us. And we'll be so deeply aware of the goodness of God, that we will end each of our days in trust and in hope, knowing that the treasures that matter aren't the ones we can gather in our arms should we have to flee from a burning house, but the ones that live in our hearts. Amen.
