Our gospel reading today comes from the gospel of Luke chapter 12 verses 32-40
Let us listen now for the word of our God.
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 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. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 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. 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. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. “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. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God
Isaiah – who we might dismiss as an angry street corner preacher, starts out today’s passage by calling out the people of Judah and Jerusalem by comparing them to those people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The references to “Sodom” and “Gomorrah” would have evoked for the people listening to Isaiah a shared memory of complete and utter destruction. Scholar Anathea Porter-Young argues that the people Isaiah is speaking to are people who have used the destruction and punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah as a collective consolation. “We have been battered (Isaiah 1:5-6), but not obliterated. Our earth has been scorched (Isaiah 1:7), but life still takes root here. When God brought judgment on those ancient cities, none survived. But some of us are still standing, so at the very least we are not like them (Isaiah 1:9).”
We might have a lot of preconceived notions and stories that come to mind when we hear the prophet calling us people of Sodom and leaders of Gomorrah. We might have read and heard stories about the destruction of these cities and their inhabitants. We might have heard about Lot’s wife in Sunday school. We might think we know why God punished the people of those cities. We know that their destruction was viewed as an act of God (Isaiah 13:19; Amos 4:11) and as a punishment (Genesis 19; Lamentations 4:6).
Contrary to a particular stream of Christian biblical interpretation, it is worth noting that the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures did not identify the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah as sexual activity. Rather, they identified hubris, pride, and radically inhospitable behavior as the sins for which Sodom and Gomorrah were punished.
We see this when the prophet Ezekiel states that Sodom’s sin was that “she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49) In other words – they were rich, had an easy life, yet did not use that life or their privilege to help those less fortunate than themselves.
The people in Judah and Jerusalem thought that life was on the up and up. They had an active worship calendar, filled with lots of sacrifices, busy meeting schedules that were full of festivals and even more sacrifices. Generally, they thought they were doing pretty well, all things considered.
God, through Isaiah, is telling a different story.
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation– I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
We might understand God to be saying – and I’m paraphrasing here – This time – you can stop consoling yourselves. You are Sodom. You are Gomorrah.
You flaunt your wealth by fattening up sacrifices, but you ignore the poor and hungry among you. Do you see who you have become?
Your worship in the temple has become a cacophony of voices and trampling feet. You throw lavish parties while the poor and the immigrant have no justice.
You have meetings at the temple and festivals as a way of showing off how important you are and how pious you are to each other. You flaunt all that you have in the face of those who have nothing. I will not participate in this farce.
When you stand in the temple to recite your praises, I’m done. Even when you repeat yourselves, I will not listen because you have forgotten whose you are, who brought you out of Egypt and your hands are bloody from meaningless sacrifices and the people you have sacrificed for your own comfort.
Isaiah goes on to say:
Clean your hands. Listen – make yourselves clean. Stop ignoring your neighbors and using them as a justification for what you do. Stop doing evil things.
Learn what it means to be good. Work for justice – not just for you, but for everyone. That means rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphans, and pleading for the widow and the stranger.
Let us sit together and talk through this.
Even though your sins are many, they will be washed away.
Hear what I have said to you – if you obey – you will feast.
But if you refuse, you will die – this is what God is telling you.
It’s worth taking a moment and exploring what is being said here – Isaiah’s audience seems to have been reasonably wealthy. We might go so far as to say they would qualify as rich. Sacrificial offerings of rams, bulls, lambs, and goats like those listed in Isaiah 1:11 were expensive; to fatten animals prior to slaughter was even more costly still.
However, it’s not money that has Isaiah and God angry at the people. As we see in the second half of this passage, the prophet is focused on justice and following the commands God had already given to the people of Israel. Isaiah’s critique of Judah and Jerusalem is in line with the summation of the crimes of Sodom as shared by the prophet Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 49 it reads: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy”. For Ezekiel, prosperity numbs the elites among God’s people to the demands of justice. Isaiah’s critique unfolds along similar lines, with a vivid twist. For Isaiah, the blood of sacrifice accuses God’s people of a different slaughter, namely their violence toward fellow humans.
Isaiah contrasts the people’s failure to advocate for marginalized members of their community with their enthusiasm for sacrifices. It’s one thing to provide expensive animals and resources for the sacrifice, but to do so without correcting systemic injustice means the community cherishes the appearance of righteousness over the reality. Isaiah is arguing that Worship has become for the people of Judah and Jerusalem a regular exercise that allows them to check the box saying – we went to worship, and we repented. Everyone here saw the sacrifices. Everything is good. Right?
However, if we look at what God is saying through Isaiah, their sacrifices have become worship in and of themselves. Through their actions they have reinforced what the people want to believe and those beliefs never require of them any change that might be uncomfortable.
This Isaiah passage can be a bit confusing for us sitting here in the 21st century. You might think that the prophet is talking to someone other than us. I mean, we are not Sodom or Gomorrah. He can’t be talking to us, right?
Prophets are notorious for saying things we don’t want to hear. They agitate us, they challenge us, and they push up against our comfortable positions. They push us to step out from the places where we sit, and remind us of the work that God has called us to. Hebrew Scripture scholar Walter Bruggemann describes the role of the prophet as someone who disrupts for justice. It is the prophet’s job to break or to challenge or to criticize the general consensus for the sake of a new word from the Lord.
Let us hold the words from Isaiah for a moment and turn to our gospel reading from Luke.
Our Luke passage starts with one of the most comforting lines ever spoken by Jesus – “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” these words convey something of the nature of God to us. These words root God’s generosity in God’s pleasure or desire.
The whole of the passage gives the reader some instructions for living; it starts with Jesus telling us to not be afraid, because it is God’s pleasure or God’s delightful decision to give us the kingdom. It is worth noting that the verb used in the greek to express God’s pleasure is a verb that indicates a completed action. So we might understand this line to be translated as
“Do not fear, because God has already made the decision to give to you the kingdom.”
This word to the disciples and by extension – to us – is Jesus reassuring us that God is faithful to the promises that God has made and that the kingdom is not just a heaven in some far off future, but the kingdom is also God’s active reign, which Jesus is bringing about on earth through his preaching and ministry.
From this place of reassurance of God’s intent and decision for humanity, Jesus goes on to tell his listeners sell their possessions, to give alms and to store treasure in heaven where there are no thieves and moths cannot destroy it. This seems to run counter to how the American economy of philanthropy works. We might understand it as a benevolent transactional economy. We understand that the rich give away large sums of money and get status and recognition in return. We understand what is given and what we give in return.
I’m not knocking it. There is good work being done in these organizations, however, Jesus told us to give in secret, so our left hand did not know what the right was doing. How are we to reconcile this benevolent transactional economy with the commands from Jesus to give in secret and to sell our possessions and give alms?
I argue that as people who have been given the kingdom, God has already recognized us. We respond by living into and enacting the values of the kingdom. As we learned from Isaiah, those values include “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Jesus is encouraging his listeners to reorient our lives and understand that the whole of our lives is an abundant gift from a generous God who loves us. Our lives are a gift of love from a God who loves us. This gift of love can be given away with wild abandon. Love that reflects the kingdom of God into every hard place, and that gives the kingdom to everyone, regardless of where they are in their journey, is the gift of God. It is the work we are all called too.
I argue that this passage from Luke complements the passage from Isaiah. Isaiah is calling out false worship and the kind of values that build only a few while pushing everyone else down. In the middle of the passage, Isaiah states the values of the kingdom and tells us that if we listen and obey, we will feast with God. Jesus tells that we are given the kingdom, and that as members and recipients of the gift of the kingdom, we are given the gift of love to share with neighbors and friends. There is the work and our command from God – sharing the gifts we have been given in abundance – that is sharing the overflowing love of God with everyone.
We might take a moment and ask what love looks like today.
I think Love looks like the backpack program you participate in.
I think Love looks like welcoming your neighbor and remembering that when asked “Who is my neighbor” everyone is your neighbor.
Love looks like showing up and standing up for the most vulnerable in society and standing against hate in all its many varied and ugly forms.
But most of all – I believe that Love looks like justice.
Author and activist Cornell West said “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”
Justice is working to ensure that everyone has access to clean water, not just those that can afford it.
Justice is lifting our voices to counteract hateful word said about our neighbors.
Justice is working with our brothers and sisters to ensure safety and equal protection for all people – regardless of the color of their skin, their sexual or gender identity, or country of origin.
Going back to Isaiah, the temple – that which becomes our church – has a history in economic and social justice. The tithes which were offerings from the bounty of the land were used to feed and support temple personnel as well as widows and orphans throughout the land. We have a heritage of working to care for and support the most vulnerable in society. Jesus in Luke encourages us to sell our possessions and to give away the love of the kingdom that has been given to us.
And we come full circle to us, here in the 21st century. Is the prophet is talking to someone other than us? I mean, we are not Sodom or Gomorrah. He can’t be talking to us, right?
Let us ask ourselves… Are we comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comforted? Are we lifting up the marginalized and oppressed? Are we allowing ourselves to live in comfort while we check the appropriate boxes or are we getting up and going out into the world – ready to get our hands dirty and to live into God’s call to action given in Isaiah?
It’s time to step out of our comfort zone and push ourselves. It’s time for radical hospitality and to share the abundant love of God with the most vulnerable among us.
People of God,
Residents of the Kingdom,
We are called to work for justice.
Matthew Messenger 