Fear not, Little Flock (Luke 12)

A homily on Luke 12: 32 - 40. Jesus teaches his disciples not to fear.
     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
     Today's Gospel contains a number of instructions: 1. Do not be afraid. 2. Sell your possessions. 3. Give alms. 4. Make purses that don't wear out. 5. Be dressed for action. 6. Have your lamps lit. 7. Be like those waiting for their master, and, to sum up, 8. You must be ready.
     2, 3, 4 can be summed up as "Sell your stuff and give away the proceeds." 5 through 8 can be summed up as "Be prepared." And it is the first instruction, "Do not be afraid," that makes the other instructions possible. Only the lack of fear that Our Lord is talking about releases us from the possessions that tie us down, and makes it possible for us to be ready for whatever God wants us to do next.
     "Do not be afraid." Those are also God's words to Abraham in Genesis 15, verse 1, in today's first reading. Abraham has just returned from a battle with the king of Sodom, and he is blessed by Melchizedek, king of Salem, to whom Abraham gives one-tenth of his goods. And after Abraham promised the king of Sodom that he would not take his king's possessions, God says to Abraham, "Do not be afraid...I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great." We learn that in return for his restraint toward the king of Sodom, Abraham will be given descendants, and they, we hear in verse 14, will have great possessions. Our Lord parallels this exactly in Luke's Gospel: "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The "little flock" probably feared what Abraham feared: that they would have no possessions and no descendants either. These verses, after all, are in a section of the Gospel which the New Revised Standard Version calls "Do not worry," which contains the lines we have all heard many times: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear...consider the lilies...they neither toil nor spin...and do not keep striving for what you are to eat...and drink...instead...strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well." For Abraham in the Genesis story, the concern has been for earthly descendants and possessions. In Luke's Gospel, the emphasis is on letting go of earthly possessions, and any anxiety about them, for the sake of a future kingdom, the new heaven and the new earth.
     I don't want to sidetrack myself here, not unnecessarily anyway, but I do want to look at a few words in this story which have been puzzling me. Our Lord says, "Sell your possessions, and give alms." Sell them to whom? Give alms to whom? It seems to me that there are two groups here: the little flock to whom the Father will give the Kingdom, and everybody else, whom the little flock will leave behind. Does Our Lord intend this? Is there really only going to be a part of the human race, the "little flock," who will receive the Kingdom? Furthermore, is the little flock really supposed to sell everything to the remainder, and give away the proceeds? Where do the proceeds go?
     The beginning of an answer comes in the next line of the Gospel reading. "Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys." I want to look at the Greek word which our translation renders as "purses." The Greek is 'ballantia' which derives from a verb 'ballo,' which, my dictionary says, means 'throw, put, place, offer, give, pour, sow, invest, deposit,' and many more extended meanings somehow related to 'throw' or 'put.' The 'ballantia' then, are places where we put, or deposit, our treasures. But our text actually says that the 'ballantia' the purses, are the "unfailing treasure in heaven." What, then, is in the 'ballantia,' the purses, the treasure in heaven? In our consumerist, materially prosperous period, we naturally think of money and material possessions, and they can indeed be obstacles to perceiving the will of God.  But I think that our story is actually directing us to look at possessions and alms more closely.
     Remember the summary of the three groups of instructions in today's Gospel: Do not be afraid. Sell your stuff and give away the proceeds. Be prepared. It occurs to me that selling, and giving away, and being prepared, are exactly what we need to do in order not to be afraid. Our Lord is telling us how to let go of fear, so that we will be able to receive the Father's gift of the Kingdom. We let go of fear by letting go of the stuff that we think we need. They could be material things, as the literal surface meaning of the story suggests, or they could be ideas, notions, wishes, dreams, any intellectual or emotional obstacle at all, that get between us and God. And when we "sell" them, that is, when we let them go, we get back freedom. Freedom is what we have to give away...the alms of the story are...freedom. When we do that, we have treasure in heaven, which can't be stolen or eaten by moths. That freedom is what goes into the 'ballantia,' the purses, and it's that freedom in God that makes them treasures.
     Being prepared is the other way not to be afraid. When we are prepared for anything, then there is nothing to be afraid of. "Be dressed for action," "open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks." There is nothing to be afraid of when we are prepared for God's arrival at any time.
     We remember that it is our "Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom." Our Lord tells us how to prepare for this, but the Father's good pleasure has been decided in advance. We don't earn it by doing what Our Lord commands, but we do give ourselves up to it. There is a paradoxical double movement here: we are not to fear and therefore let go of possessions and make sure that we are prepared, and, also, doing those things liberates us from fear. We have the Father's promise that, either way, it is his good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. The only condition really is that we "open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks." But that he will come is clear, and all we have to do is be ready for him, and he makes that readiness possible. "You must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." He makes it possible for us to be ready, and our readiness makes it possible for the Kingdom to appear.
     In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.