3rd February Trinity 2017, Be Ready

3rd February Trinity

Luke 12: 35-48

Waiting Servants, Eugene Burnand

“Be dressed and ready for service and keep your lamps burning. Be like men who are expecting their master back from the marriage feast, so that they can open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are the servants whom the master finds awake when he comes! Yes, I tell you, he will put on an apron himself and show them to the table and serve them. And if he does not come until the second or third watch of the night, and yet finds them awake: Blessed are the servants! You know: If the master of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would not let his house be looted. So be ready: the Son of Man comes at an hour that you had not thought.”

Then Peter said, “Lord, are you telling us this parable, or is it for all human beings?”

And the Lord answered, “Imagine a faithful and competent steward whom his

Jan Luyken

master appoints to be in charge of the whole staff, to give to each one what he is entitled to. Blessed is that servant if the master comes and finds him carrying out his duties.  I tell you, he will entrust him with all his goods. But if the servant says in his heart, ‘My master will not be coming all that soon,” and begins to mistreat the other servants and the maids, himself all the while eating and drinking and becoming intoxicated, then the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him, and at an hour that he does not know. The master will virtually tear him to pieces; he will treat him as those deserve who have not proved faithful.

A servant who knows his master’s will but does not act according to it and so does not carry out his will deserves the severest punishment. If he does not know the master’s will and then does something that deserves punishment, he will escape more lightly. From one who has many gifts, much will also be expected; and from one who has been entrusted with much, much more will also be demanded.

3rd February Trinity

February 19, 2017

Luke 12: 35-48

We all know what happens when something unexpected occurs – being surprised, we may fail to respond appropriately. Emergency crews prepare for events

 
with drills, over and over. They train their consciousness to remain awake and recognize what is happening. With exercises, they train their will until it responds appropriately, habitually, almost instinctively.

Christ asks us to become, not necessarily emergency workers, but at least people willing to serve Him, and ready to respond appropriately. First of all, this means we need to be awake and alert for His arrival. And the great secret is that He could arrive at any moment, in the guise of anyone. A Celtic rune of hospitality says;

I saw a stranger yesterday . . .

He blessed myself and my house . . .

And the lark said in her song
”Often, Often, Often,

Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.”

We are to open the door of the heart to the Christ in them.

Further, we are to protect His treasure in our own hearts, so that the adversaries do not break in and steal it. What is the master's treasure? It is our love – our love for Him, our love for each other, our love for the earth. As Christ points out, being full of ourselves, intoxicated with power, mistreating others, destroys our integrity of heart and its treasure of love and service. What we sow we will reap. If we serve, we will receive service; if we mistreat others, we are in effect tearing our own true being to pieces.

So, in the words of Christ: "Be ready; the Son of Man comes at an hour that you had not thought." Luke 12:40