Hebrew Scripture: Genesis 15:1-6
Gospel: Luke 12:32-40
Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Christ, Amen
A couple weeks ago, our Gospel was Jesus throwing around the idea of God providing our daily bread. Last week, Jesus threw around the story about the rich fool who stored up everything for himself, and nothing for anybody else. This week, Jesus tells us all- that while God provides and oh by the way, we should go ahead and provide for everybody else too… we should go ahead and prepare for the inevitable as well.
But have no fear, because God will be with you. God provides, go ahead and provide for other people, and yes, keep enough around to live the rest of your days so that when the time comes, you’ll be ready. Whatever you’re waiting for. Whatever reality of life or death that you are waiting for, do not fear the morrow, for God will be with you through it.
That’s it. Sermon over. Let’s go ahead and get on with the service... No? You weren’t ready… for that? You wanted more out of this sermon? But what if I told you that I wasn’t ready? That I didn’t prepare, because I’m terrible at preparing. I procrastinate to the point of forgetting to procrastinate until the very end. Then the ADHD has to go away because I have to hyperfocus the rest of whatever task I’m supposed to be working on. And that’s how I earned most of my college degrees…
But life doesn’t work like that. As much as I can joke about my own misgivings and faults in the art of preparation… I love the seasons of Advent and Lent because they’re intentional times of the year where we as a Church are focused on the idea… of being prepared.
I would say most people aren’t like me, and most people are much better at preparing than I am. But I wonder if Abram in today’s first lesson prepared like me. Abram and Sarai had been childless for so many years. An entire lifetime and then some. And then God tells Abram that he’s gonna have a kid, at like 90-some years old? And not only that he’s gonna have a kid, but that his descendants will number the stars in the sky.
I’m not so sure anybody could have prepared for that. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God has a tendency to spring things on people, without warning. Later on, Abram will be called Abraham, and God springs upon Abraham the task of killing this son that he’s waited for his whole life. A sacrifice to God, and Abraham gets right up to the point of almost going through with it, and then God tells him to stop. What amount of preparation would Abraham have had to have gone through to be able to come to a place of mind… what kind of faith in God would Abraham would have had to had…
But that’s another sermon for another time. Back to this sermon… There are things in life that we can prepare for. That we probably should prepare for. A job interview, or a job in general… writing papers or sermons… playing music for church… even farmers in the winter time prepare for spring planting…
Preparing for such things allows us to have a predetermined idea as to how we believe things will play out. Scientifically figuring out that if I do this, then this will happen. If this happens, then I will be prepared for this reality and so on and so forth and on and on it goes. Without preparing, there’s a certain amount of luck or skill that’s involved in being able to do things on the fly.
I never prepared for tests. Rarely studied. I called it ‘winging it’. After a professor called me out on it… I may have studied a little bit more. But this is why I write down my sermons. If I prepare for anything, it’s these sermons. I have awe and respect for preachers that are able to preach a sermon off the cuff, or with notes. I know myself that I wouldn’t have the state of mind to be able to preach like that, but I can see why preachers do it.
There’s also a certain amount of fear in not preparing. Because there are times when life happens and out of the blue, we’re thrown into a situation where we need to give an impromptu speech or talk or sermon or explanation of what we do. Or someone gets sick or has an emergency that no one expected or some random happenstance where life and death are thrown out of whack. Where your whole world gets thrown upside down and it takes you a long time to recover.
Because life just happens that way sometimes. There’s a substantial list of people this congregation is praying for on the back of your bulletin. I don’t know many of them, but I know you probably know most of them, and maybe some of them are on that list that you might not have been prepared for, to be on that list. I do know that God knows them, and that God will watch over them, and hold onto our prayers.
We had two national tragedies back to back last week, and as often as these mass shootings happen, and how sad that phrase really is… No one can ever prepare for something as horrific as that. From schools to malls to churches to mosques to concerts to garlic festivals… Even literal sanctuaries… have been destroyed by such evil. This past week, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, where Pastor Mark and several others from this synod have been, passed resolutions that have wide ramifications across the ELCA, and I’ll highlight a couple for you in this thought - First of all, one resolution was passed that enacted a commemoration for the nine people that were killed in their sanctuary at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, four years ago. This commemoration makes June 17th a day of remembrance, a feast day to remember the nine people who were killed by a boy raised in an ELCA congregation - and our continued work in repenting from the sin of racism.
“Have no fear, little flock”, our Christ reminds us. The other resolution passed will hopefully help other people to hear those words of our Savior. The other resolution labels the ELCA as a sanctuary denomination, the first one to make this distinction. I hope, along with other leaders, that this is a step in the direction of pushing congregations to becoming sanctuary congregations themselves. So that people fleeing persecution will always have a home and safety in an ELCA congregation. So that they too, can ‘have no fear’ from agencies that intend to harm them.
While these resolutions offer hope for a changing and growing denomination, there was also the reality that the ELCA still has much to grow on issues pertaining to income inequality, discipline for candidates and rostered leaders; and to still learn from their racist tendencies.
As much as we can prepare for the realities of today, sin gets in the way. Human brokenness gets in the way. Realities of life and death get in the way. All through the grey, through the messiness of life, Jesus our Savior is telling us to not be afraid. To have no fear. Because in all of the chaos that is modern life, God is right there beside us to guide us and be there for us, right in the thick of it.
When God bestowed their child into this broken world, to live among us and teach us, God was right there. God present in Jesus, walked in this broken world, and fed, clothed, healed those who were unprepared to be fed, clothed and healed. They were unprepared to learn from this teacher of humankind, this lover of sinners and saints. Jesus the Christ came into this world to live and be, and then die and live again, to love and bestow the Grace that we all share. This Grace that is bestowed on us all, so that we may go out into the world to better ourselves and one another.
From God telling Abram to prepare for descendants, to Jesus telling us not to fear what comes next, we live our lives being prepared or unprepared. I think we all live in that balance. Some of us more prepared than others. Ready yourselves for the world, so that together we may ready the world for what comes next. God will be with us in the preparation, and the action that follows.
Have no fear, little flock. God is with you through it all.
Amen.
