Role Playing

“‘So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom.’ ‘Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.’ ‘Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded. I tell you the truth, he himself will seat them, put on an apron and serve them as they sit and eat! He may come in the middle of the night or just before dawn. But whenever he comes, he will reward the servants who are ready.’ ‘Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would not permit his house to be broken into. 

You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.’” (Luke 12:32-40) (Also read Isaiah 1:1, 10-20; Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16) I don’t mean to shatter anyone’s treasured image of Christian churches as groups who always think of others before themselves and who never get into fights over petty stuff, but... well, it happens. Church politics can be just as mean and vicious as anybody else’s politics. In this gospel, Luke pictures the twelve failing when they try to cast a demon out of a boy, but then trying to prevent someone who could exorcise in Yeshua’s name from doing so, because he didn’t belong to their group. Just before that, they are arguing with each other over who’s the greatest. Pretty realistic, actually; we may not be able to live like Yeshua, but by golly we know how to exclude those who aren’t like us. We may not be able to free people from the grip of evil, but we are pretty skilled at dividing ourselves into groups to argue with each other.

The gospel lesson for this teaching is in three parts and each of them offers each of us readers a different role to try on: first a sheep, then a slave and then a homeowner. Let’s read the lesson for what it says to us about whom we are and what sort of group it is that we go to every Sunday. To help us with our reading, let’s imagine a group of Christians near the end of the first century listening to this gospel lesson as it is read aloud. This little group meets in the house of a man named Stephanus (see 1 Corinthians 16:17). Stephanus is pretty well off and has a house with a banquet room that opens onto a flower-and-shrub garden with benches here and there, so it has enough space for the whole congregation to gather. Stephanus has several slaves to do the work of his house, but we’ll imagine just one, a man named Fortunatus (“Lucky”). Both of them are present for this reading: Stephanus sitting in a comfortable armchair, as befits his status as patron of this group; Fortunatus sitting on the ground near the edge of the group, so that he can fetch things without disturbing anyone. How do we imagine that this section of scripture would affect them?

I.) Be a sheep. The gospel lesson begins, “Do not be afraid, little flock.” Want to be a sheep? Not so much, I think. Yeshua sends His followers out on mission in chapter 10, telling them that they will be like sheep among wolves; it’s dangerous to be a sheep! But in this chapter it’s intended to be a comforting image: “Fear not, little flock; it is YAHVEH’s good intention to give you the Kingdom.” Now this is a really interesting collision of images. What good is a kingdom to a sheep or even to a flock of them? Sheep want food, shelter, security. They don’t care about stuff we’d normally associate with a kingdom; power, wealth and territory. But then the Kingdom Yeshua offers and that YAHVEH wants to provide is like no kingdom on earth. YAHVEH’s Kingdom, YAHVEH’s realm, is a place where there is no status; where the one who wants to be great must be a slave; and where there is no need for and no value in wealth. “Sell your possessions and give alms,” says Yeshua; in the Father’s Kingdom, you sheep won’t need your wallets and credit cards.

Hmm; do you want to be a sheep in a flock that is given a Kingdom where money means nothing? I don’t imagine that our imaginary audience likes this part all that much. Nobody wants to be a sheep; sheep are herd animals, useful for human consumption and for the wool they grow, but nobody would want to be one. And I doubt that many of Luke’s hearers thought selling off their property and giving it away was a good idea; I doubt they were any more willing to take that seriously than we are. The idea of a kingdom where nobody is higher than anybody else may have appealed to Fortunatus the slave, but maybe not; he probably dreams of being wealthy and able to order his own slaves around. No, this kingdom-of-sheep scene is not too appealing. But it’s where we need to start if we want to make congregational life more Christ-like. We’re sheep, sheep that have been handed a Kingdom. Our priority is to live according to the rules of the Kingdom YAHVEH has given us; as sheep, we should have no interest in accumulating power or wealth.

II.) Be a slave. The second image Yeshua suggests for us is that of a slave. That’s a step up from being a sheep, but not far. In Yeshua’s day, slaves were property. They could be sold, whipped, tortured or crucified at the whim of the owner. All but the very poorest households had slaves and slaves did all the grubby and menial jobs. In this story, the master has gone off to be married and is expected home with his new bride at any moment. Better be prepared, you slaves; better be dressed and ready for work when the master comes home, no matter what time it is. Well, sure, you think; the newly married master is going to want his slaves to make the new wife feel right at home, so he’s going to start giving orders right away. Carry her bags to her room! You, get her a nice chair and you, fix her something to eat. The smart slaves will be waiting at the door when the master arrives, trying to make a good impression. But Yeshua gives us another jarring set of images. The master and Mrs. Master arrive and instead of putting the slaves to work, the master puts on his apron and starts whomping up a big feast; for the slaves!

And when he’s done, he tells them all to sit down while he serves them; precisely the opposite of what you’d expect. Lucky slaves, says Yeshua. This one bothers Stephanus the Christian slaveholder, I bet. We don’t want slaves getting the notion that being Christian makes them equal with us. Maybe we’re brothers and sisters in HaMashiach, but in the real world, there are status differences to be observed. Fortunatus the slave likes it, but he doesn’t think it is very realistic. No master would behave like that. It’s just a fairy tale. And throughout most of the history of the Yeshua movement, Fortunatus is right. Christianity was supposed to do away with the distinctions between rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, but it didn’t. Even today, when slavery is no longer legal, we don’t assume that being Christians really makes us all the same. Christian congregations still mostly sort themselves along lines of class, education and income. But imagine that this were not true and imagine that the people who do the grubby and menial jobs sat next to you at church supper or knelt next to you at Communion. How would that change the “master’s” perspective on things?

III.) Be a householder. Yeshua changes point of view once more, this time inviting us into the role of homeowner. The word He uses in verse 39 means “lord of the household”; the person at the top, who owns the physical property and the slaves and whose decision is final. Yeah, I want to be that person, says Fortunatus the slave; I want to be the one giving the orders for a change. So do we all. But then Yeshua twists the story a bit. In this little narrative, He asks us to imagine the householder who has been burgled; had he only known what hour the thief was coming, he could have prevented the loss of so much property. “You also must be ready,” says Yeshua, “because the Son of Man is coming when you don’t expect.” This story takes two unexpected turns. First, “if the householder had known what hour the thief was coming, he wouldn’t have let his house be burgled.” You want to be a householder? Fine; be one whose stuff has already been stolen. Focus on YAHVEH’s realm, not money and property and stuff! Second unexpected turn: “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” You want to be a householder? Fine; be one who is always on the alert, guarding the property. But wait; in Luke’s day, guarding the house was a slave’s job. The slave stayed awake so that the master could sleep. Well, too bad; if you’re going to be a householder, you’ll have to imagine being one who lives like a slave.