by Clint Schnekloth
Gospel Reading: Luke 12:32-40
For Sunday, August 11, 2013: Year C—Lectionary 19
Let's face it. No wonder Jesus calls his group a "little flock." Any group that is asked to sell all their possessions and be constantly ready for the coming of the Son of Man is going to be a rather select group. Tiny, in fact.
It should perpetually amaze us that so many of us are willing to continue to affiliate with this Jesus movement given its seemingly impossible expectations and our endless failure to meet them. That we have to remind ourselves of these expectations and our failures again this coming Sunday by reading this text out loud is, quite simply, embarrassing.
Where Your Treasure Is
Notice first of all that Jesus does not say, "Where your heart is, put your treasure." He says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So the first thing to do with this text if you are to preach it well in any context is to draw hearer's attention to what it actually says, rather than what we think it says.
Most people think this text says, "Your treasure will go where your heart goes." But actually the text says exactly the opposite, "Your heart will go where your treasure goes." So, if you really want to get your heart into something, give a lot of money to it. A lot of money. Like all of your money. In this sense, Jesus' teaching reverses the terms of the imagination. Rather than assuming that the imagination can draw us into a different reality, Jesus is teaching that creating a new reality can change our imaginations.
From Whence Your Treasure Comes
It’s critical to note that just prior to this famous sentence, Jesus says, "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." You are not to fear—give your possessions away and give alms because the kingdom is coming to you as a gift from God. So another way to read this text well is to realize that "where your treasure is, your heart will be also" is inverted too.
Not only does our heart follow our treasure, but since our treasure comes from God in the gift of the kingdom the virtuous circle is initiated. Like the psalmist says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me…then I will teach" (Psalm 51:10). Although the words of Jesus are hortatory, they are very clearly telling the disciples/us/all hearers what to do, they are also spoken immediately after a promissory word, "It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom"(12:32).
Back From the Wedding Banquet
My mom used to wait up for us when we were out late. I think it was a combination of authentic anxiety, love, and responsibility. I thought it was somewhat frustrating (I didn't want to be the cause of her concern), but it also endeared me to her; she really loved/loves us. The injunction to be alert and ready needs to be heard in this kind of context. The servants stay awake out of genuine responsibility and even love for their master. We look forward to his return! Readiness for the highly anticipated return of a loved one is no burden at all. This by no means softens the edges of this text. If anything, it hardens them, because now the readiness required is for someone, and a situation, in which we are truly invested.
However, my mother stayed awake because of all the imagined possibilities that made her nervous. Texts like these challenge us to consider how our imaginations actually inform our actions. Some biblical scholars doubt whether or not any Christian communities actually lived up to Jesus injunctions (or the later descriptions of such practices in Acts) to share everything with everyone. And it may be that those base communities never were as generous as Jesus' instructions. Nevertheless, the text funds and challenges our imagination. At the very least it illustrates the failure of our imaginations. That we fail to sell our possessions is as much of a failure of imagination as it is a failure of actual practice.
The Hardest Question
Everything above has "flipped" some traditional notions and readings of this text on their head. It is hard to disabuse ourselves of mis-readings in order to read rightly. To get started, the best method is to actually do something. In which case the hardest question to ask is to invite us to do what Jesus himself invites us. Since where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, I ask, What might it look like for you to change your practices in order to fund your imagination? What might it look like to imagine differently in order to fund your practices?
Clint Schnekloth is the Lead Pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has written extensively for Augsburg Fortress, including the Seasonal Essays for Sundays and Seasons and the baptismal resource Washed and Welcome. Visit Clint at www.clintschnekloth.com.
