Oct 20 | “A Thief in the Night,” (Sermon, October 19th, 2016)

Jesus said, ‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’

41 Peter said, ‘Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?’ ⁴²And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time? ⁴³Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. ⁴⁴Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁵But if that slave says to himself, “My master is delayed in coming”, and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, ⁴⁶the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful. ⁴⁷That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. ⁴⁸But one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

Luke 12:39-48

 

Soooo slavery!

This is like the airhorn of the passage right here. It really drives home the reality that the foundational texts of our tradition were written in a world light years apart from our own. Although we know that slavery still exists, we in the West no longer accept it as a natural or desirable state of affairs.

This was not the world that Jesus lived in. Slavery was a part of life.

It might mitigate our discomfort a little to remember that there are different kinds of slavery, and our knowledge of the mindset and theology behind the Trans-Atlantic slave trade out of Africa was different from the beliefs about slavery that a lot of people in the ancient Near East encountered in their day to day lives. Although ancient kingdoms did take slaves during times of war, and did often treat them very badly indeed, there was also an established practice of bond slavery, where servitude was an attempt to pay off debt. Again, no-one was offering these slaves royal treatment – they were still viewed as property – but debt slavery was quite a different beast than chattel slavery, where slaves were not merely seen as property but believed to be literally subhuman and therefore treated not like children who are occasionally in need of discipline (as this story’s slave is treated by the master), but like animals, who possess no human emotions or intellect.

But it’s still super icky to hear Jesus talk this way, right? We know that the Bible has been used on both sides to legitimize or de-legitimize slavery, and thankfully the arc of the moral universe really did bend toward justice this time. We should be thankful that this passage makes us feel so icky, since it means that we no longer take this state of affairs for granted. But we also know that things get murky when we decide to throw out parts of the Bible we don’t like. What’s stopping us from throwing out not just the stuff that we think is bad, but perhaps the stuff that we think is hard, maybe even impossible? I don’t want to sell us short! There’s lots of stuff in there that God expects of us that may very well be impossible! The point is that in Scripture we are being called to wrestle, as Jacob did with the angel – to question and gripe and sob and laugh at these stories. If it were not so, our faith would be dead, rather than living.

So how can we make this story work for us today?

Well lucky for us there’s a piece of this story that is super weird, and that’s always a good place to enter.

So for most of the story, we hear about the master of the house, and the slaves, and how the master will come at an unexpected time. But for just one sentence, right up at the top, we have verses 39 and 40 – ‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’

It seems somewhat obvious in the parable that the master is a cipher for God. But then we have this oft-repeated maxim, which pops up in other Gospels, of the Son of Man coming “like a thief in the night.” I want to delve deeper into that. Let’s make it not just a simile to express the surprising nature of Christ’s coming. Let’s make it a metaphor for how Christ will be when he returns to us.

How could Jesus possibly be like a thief? Well, in a sense, he could be said to be very much like a thief! People come to him and he steals their attention, their possessions, and their lives. He doesn’t do it by demanding, but by the sheer force of his charism and his teachings. Remember when Peter and Andrew decide to follow, they leave behind everything. In a sense, Jesus stole the part of themselves that kept them there, doing what any ordinary men of the time would do to live. In a sense, he stole their hearts, and made them his own.

He also steals possessions, convincing those who do decide to follow to give everything away, or to put them into a common purse. He sends out the disciples with almost nothing, keeping their safety net held back…and yet unlike a thief he does not then use it for his own gain, but merely asks them to do as he does.

But here’s the most intriguing, beautiful thing about Christ the thief. Remember how we talked about slaves as property? Jesus steals people too. We already said that he stole Peter and Andrew, in a sense, and many others. But stepping back into the realm of metaphor, we are given a whole new perspective on how Jesus interacts with the world.

Let us then not see God as the master who hoards his treasures, but perhaps as a false God, one who demands more than is necessary, who pushes us up Sisyphean hills, who belittles and chastens and insists that we not live into our earthiness but transcend it to be more like him. Substitute any demagogue or modern myth that you like. I won’t name names because it would just be depressing. Think of the false God that keeps you up at night wondering if you’ve done your best, not because doing your best is what all people do, but because if you don’t do your best you will not be worthy.

We all know what this god looks like, even though he looks different from person to person. In this instance the metaphor of slavery works well, because slavery is not something which comes upon a person because of moral failings. It comes upon a person when they’re down on their luck, pushed into a corner, or simply stolen away in the nighttime of despair without any warning.

This is the god whose house Christ breaks into. This is the god who awakens to find all of his possessions gone – including his slaves.

This is the god from whom we slaves are liberated. Christ also must be a thief, rather than one who pays the debt, because Christ needs us to know that this god is not worthy of time, treasure, or toil.

All of us have been made free.

And now, we stand before the table, having been made free not to then become slaves again, but to become guests at the banquet of the True God’s love.

Oh, but even more than guests. Family.

Welcome home.