Ep 30 Forgiveness, Faith and Forgetting the World (Luke 17)

Hello and welcome to episode 30. Today we’ll be hearing stories from Luke chapter 17.

Before we get there, I have a question. Is there a way to invest time and money that will guarantee a happy future? Where I live in Australia we have things called ‘superannuation funds’, and the general idea is to try and make sure people save enough money during their working years, in order to be self-sufficient and comfortable during retirement. In Australia it’s seen as an important thing to invest money in a way that hopefully prepares for the future.

Unless we are getting on in years, saving money for when we retire might seem like a pretty long-term strategy. According to Jesus, however, the entire sum of our time on this earth is extremely short when compared with the future that waits beyond death. Jesus challenges his disciples’ perception of reality. This world is not all there is. There is a God who lives in eternity who, through Jesus, invites people to join his eternal kingdom.

The two stories Jesus told in chapter 16 challenge the short-sighted view of wealth which comes so naturally to us.

In the first story there is a manager who gets sacked because he’s been wasting the boss’s possessions. But in the tiny window of time before he clears his desk he becomes very focused about his future. And he comes up on a clever plan. With calm, methodical urgency he calls in people who owe debts to his master. One by one he asks them what they owe and he then reduces their bills, thus making friends for himself - people, he trusts, who will look after him when he no longer has his job. Jesus comments on the story by saying, ‘the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light’. ‘The sons of this world’ are those who don’t belong to God’s eternal kingdom; their whole life is here and now on this earth. When these people thoughtfully invest their money in such a way as to provide future comfort and security for themselves, they are being shrewd with their use of time. ‘The sons of light’, however, who belong to God’s kingdom and who therefore have an eternally long future beyond their short years on this earth, are not particularly shrewd in their use of time. Instead of viewing their comparatively short life on this earth with the same kind of methodical focus that the manager demonstrated, they fritter away their opportunity to influence their eternal future for the better. If the manager in the story were to behave like this, he might have spent his last hours at the desk enjoying himself with a few drinks or buying a new chair, instead of purposefully thinking about his future beyond the office. If the disciples of Jesus think that the time and money they have at their disposal is theirs to spend however they want, they haven’t yet understood reality. The nature of things is that we serve whatever it is we are depending on to make us happy. If we depend on money for our future happiness, then money is our master, not God. It’s not possible to serve God and money.

Now the Pharisees hear this and they think Jesus is being ridiculous. They love money, and they love God - or at least they love having everyone admire them as people who seem to love God. But Jesus warns them that God knows their hearts. The external things that people admire about them are disgusting in God’s sight. The Pharisees might “look” like they take God seriously but they really don’t, and with his statement about divorce and remarriage, Jesus gives an example of how they actually don’t care about what God really wants. They find ways to excuse his laws in order to get what they what.

Then Jesus tells another story, this one about a rich man who lives what looks like, an enviable life. He dresses in the most expensive clothes and he has an abundance of delicious food to eat every day. Now although the Pharisees might outwardly disapprove of such an indulgent lifestyle, Jesus knows the direction of their hearts. He knows that deep down they have hearts that are entirely consumed by their desires for comfort in this world - they live for status, wealth and the approval of others.

And the rich man in this story, like the Pharisees, doesn’t ponder for one moment that there could be anything wrong with living for his own pleasure and happiness. The rich man is entirely oblivious to the poor, sick, dog-licked, hungry man, Lazarus, who desires to eat the scraps from his table.

But then they both die. In a shocking reversal of fortunes, Lazarus is lifted up to comfort in heaven at Abraham’s side, but the rich man is taken down to hell where he is in torment. Abraham, the Father of all who live on earth by dependence on God rather than themselves, gets implored by the rich man. He calls for Abraham to send Lazarus with a drop of water to cool his tongue and give him some small relief from his anguish. But the man has entered the place where it is not possible to receive comfort. Abraham reminds him that a great reversal - which God’s prophets warn about - has permanently taken place. On earth the rich man lived a self-reliant life driven by the pursuit of his own immediate comfort; he did not listen to the warning “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort already. Woe to you who are well satisfied with food now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep”.

With this vivid and terrifying story, Jesus shows a man who wasn’t very shrewd with his wealth. Rather than looking to secure his eternal happiness by depending on God to meet his needs, he kept his wealth to himself, in order to fill his life with fleeting temporary comforts.

The stories from chapter 17 start here:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Stumbling blocks are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Watch yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” So the Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

“Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’? Won’t the master instead say to him, ‘Get my dinner ready, and make yourself ready to serve me while I eat and drink. Then you may eat and drink’? He won’t thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he? So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Now on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance, raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went along, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He fell with his face to the ground at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. (Now he was a Samaritan.) Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to turn back and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to the man, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has made you well.”

Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. Then people will say to you, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ Do not go out or chase after them. For just like the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage—right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, people were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, anyone who is on the roof, with his goods in the house, must not come down to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”

Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather.”

The Story ends here

Thanks for joining us for today’s story.  You might like to take a moment to pause and think about what you noticed. Things you liked, things you didn’t like, something the story showed you about Jesus. To read it for yourself it’s in the book of Luke chapter 17. If you can find someone willing to read it and talk about it with you, even better! You’ve been listening to stories from the Bible - I’m Jen and I look forward to sharing more stories with you.