Luke 12:35-40 (CEV)
35 Be ready and keep your lamps burning 36 just like those servants who wait up for their master to return from a wedding feast. As soon as he comes and knocks, they open the door for him. 37 Servants are fortunate if their master finds them awake and ready when he comes! I promise you that he will get ready and have his servants sit down so he can serve them. 38 Those servants are really fortunate if their master finds them ready, even though he comes late at night or early in the morning. 39 You would surely not let a thief break into your home, if you knew when the thief was coming. 40 So always be ready! You don’t know when the Son of Man will come.
Always Be Ready!
Last Friday evening my daughter was invited to go with some friends to their cottage for a few days.
It’s the first time that’s ever happened!
She raced home, packed her bag, did her chores (faster and more willingly than I think I’ve ever seen her do them before) and was seated at the front door reading a book at least an hour before they arrived to pick her up.
She had brownies and freezies waiting to share with her friends in the car.
Her clothes, swimsuit, pillow, stuffy and book were all tucked neatly into a small, easily transportable duffle bag.
There were no last minute things forgotten – no anxieties or rushing around necessary – because she was ready.
What would it look like if we were always that ready for Jesus to show up?
I know that there are lots of people who will try to tell us that means “keeping the rules”, and “looking the part”, and “doing the things”. But over, and over, and over again in the pages that have led us to the halfway mark in this Gospel of Luke, Jesus seems to have come back to some very different ideas and themes.
Like what should we do with the brokenness we find ourselves steeped in, broken by and surrounded with?
What does it mean to be in transforming and transformed relationship with ourselves, our neighbours, and God?
What does a shalom-driven, kingdom-infused justice look like?
What happens when we decide that God-with-skin-on comes to show us how to live life the way God intended it to be lived?
What changes when we start to believe that Jesus means it when he says the only option in the face of fear is to tell a love-based truth that sets us free?
This isn’t about keeping the rules.
There’s no dressing up here, or ‘looking the part’, or ‘doing the things’.
It’s not about achievement. It’s not about appearance. It’s not about appeasement.
Neither guilt nor shame get pride of place as effective motivators.
For a servant to wait at the door – to be ready, whatever time of the day or night his master arrives – with an eagerness full of love and excitement – that servant has to buy in to the purpose and mission that the master is on. They have to buy in to the point where they will be willing to do whatever it takes to move that mission forward.
To do that, we’ll need to be very clear on what that mission is.
To do that, we’ll need to have experienced what that mission can do.
To do that, we’ll need to be all in!Journal Questions:
- What makes you wait eagerly at the door for someone?
- When was the last time that you encountered God’s transformational capacity in a way that made you eagerly await God showing up again?
- If it’s been awhile, which of the themes listed above gets you excited?
- What could you do to pursue this mission a little more deeply this week?
