Sermon: "Are You Ready?"

1st in the "Ready for Real Life" series.
Delivered February 10, 2008 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 6 / 7

A study guide for small groups or individual devotions is available online.

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Well, I need to let you know that I am quite a Risk player. I am pretty good. Back in my IV days all the staff would get together and play Risk. I like Risk enough that when we got to Japan we realized that we didn't have a Risk game; so we got a Japanese version of it. The Japanese version is written right there and it took us seven years of living there before we could read the directions. But we used to play this game together at home. In IV days we would do it during staff retreats and that would be the way we would relax. We felt it was beneath us somehow to be playing a game of world domination you know? Eliminating armies of other people. So we decided to call the game World Evangelization and I proved to be a very good world evangelist. I love the game.

I also played it a lot with the family in Japan, but sometimes I would bother them to be honest, particularly Debbie. It's not that I cheated. I played by the rules and could beat the pants off of a 10-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter, but as I began to win, I also began to gloat as world conquerors (I mean world evangelists), as they all do. "Go ahead and set up your alliance, I will beat you anyway." What I forgot was that when the game was over I still had a bigger life to live with these very people I was playing this game with and I was playing by the rules of the game, but I wasn't playing by the rules of the bigger life, the bigger picture around it. Rules that had to do with respect and gentleness, the rules that had to do with real life and not the game. When the game is over and the board is put away, where do I stand on the things that really matter? Because reality is much bigger than just playing a game, even the world's game. Winning the game is not the same as winning in real life.

Now there are people who want to tell us what it means to win the game. They want to tell us what success in life really is and they want to tell us how to get it. There is a book and a movie called, "The Secret" that claims to show how to be successful in life. I went to one of their websites and it talks about the book and the movie this way: without exception every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering in to strength, power, perfect peace, health and abundance. Rhonda Burns discovery of the secret began with a glimpse of the truth through a 100-year-old book. She went back through the centuries tracing and uncovering a common truth that lay at the core of the most powerful philosophies, teachings and religions in the world. What Rhonda discovered is now captured in "The Secret." The Secret explains with simplicity the law that is governing all lives and offers the knowledge of how to create intentionally and effortlessly a joyful life. This is the secret to everything; the secret to unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity. This is the secret to life. That is quite a claim.

I want to focus on the final part of that claim. The secret offers the knowledge of how to create intentionally and effortlessly a joyful life. This is the secret to everything. The secret to unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity. What I noticed about this is that love, health, happiness, prosperity is the ultimate goal according to this. In other words, all the answers are held in life as we know it now and those things are in our control if we only learn how to control them. Maximize what we experience right now and we win. Winning the game now is all there is. And to learn how to attract unlimited happiness, love, health and prosperity is the secret to life.

Now Jesus' definition of a successful life is a lot different than that. According to Jesus the ultimate answers in life are bigger than just our happiness and our prosperity. It's even bigger than our experience of human love. In life now we need to be ready for the end of life. Winning the game is not the same as winning in real life. Winning the game according to the rules and winning all the extras that we can get now is not the same as winning in the big picture. The passage we are going to look at in the 12th Chapter of Luke talks today about being ready. And Jesus here teaches how important it is to live a life that is ready for the master to return. And according to Jesus living a life ready for the master to return is the definition of a successful life. Living a life ready for the master to return is the definition of a successful life according to Jesus. Are we ready for life on those terms?

Let's go now to the Book of Luke, Chapter 12 and we are going to begin at the 35th Verse.

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. But understand 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, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?" The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. "That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."

Let's pray: Gracious God, open my lips that I might speak your truth, open our eyes and ears that we might hear it, open our hearts that we might believe and obey, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

These two parables; this teaching comes in a series of teachings of Jesus that have to do with real success in life, with being ready for the end of life. Jesus teaches in this section that many of the answers for a truly successful life are not found in just the present. There is a bigger life with bigger rules than the rules of the world's success. You can win by the rules and win the game and still lose in real life. Chapter 12 begins Verse 1 to Verse 12 about warning against fear of people in light of the fact that Jesus is going to return. Verses 12 to 34 are warnings against the worries of materialism in light of the fact that the world will end as we know it. Verses 35-48 is warnings against being unprepared for the return of the master. In Verses 49-59 are warning against misreading the times around us in light of the end. In Jesus' mind winning the game is not the same as winning in life. Success is more than money. It's more than happiness. It's more than health. The end, the conclusion of all things to which history is moving right now, that end will test the value of what we do today. What determines real success is success in God's eyes; that is at the heart of Jesus' teaching and that will be at the heart of what we are going through in this whole series in Lent. We are going to be going back to Chapter 6 for the rest of this series, but it's the same theme and the same message. Jesus is talking about the bigger picture of life and what success and a good life mean in light of eternity.

In the section we are reading today, Jesus talks about the fact that he wants to find servants who are watchful and faithful and each of these parables deals with one or the other. The first deals with watchfulness, preparedness and the second deals with faithfulness. And this first section, this first section begins with the theme verse for our year. "Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning like servants waiting for their master to return." Now this is an image that anybody would have understood in Jesus' audience, but maybe we don't understand it as well. The picture here is of servants, of slaves actually, who are waiting for their master to return. They have been entrusted with responsibilities and they are to be ready for the master whenever he returns with everything in the household in order day or night.

The first part of the verse in Verse 35 says, "To be dressed ready for service." The action words behind it have to do with getting your robe arranged. See people would wear robes and when they were relaxing they would just be loose around them, but that was a terrible situation if you wanted to get some work done. And so you would have to arrange things. You'd have to arrange your robe, tuck it in the right way and then tie it with a belt and then you were ready to serve. And the kind of verbs that are used here is that we are supposed to be constantly in this state: gather up your robes, belt them in place to do work. In fact, literally it hints at be the kind of person who doesn't have to be told to arrange your robe and be ready for service, because its always so. You are always ready for service.

The second part of the verse talks about the lamp. It wasn't much more than a cotton wick in a bowl. It would have to be tended quite a bit to keep it from smoking too much or going out and you would often have to add oil to it. And the implication here is that we are supposed to be ready for activity in a time of darkness. The picture Jesus is painting here is that the world is a dark place and it's a place where we are tempted to get weary and to sleep. He gives a warning at the end. The Son of Man will come at a time you do not expect him. There is a surprise at the end of history when everything is wrapped up and comes before God. We can't know exactly when that time will happen, but even if its not the end of history, our own end might be the surprise. For us individually it doesn't matter when history ends if it ends for us tomorrow.

It's nice to think that we will come to a place in life where we will have plenty of time to arrange, to get things in order in our lives before we die, but it might not happen that way. It didn't happen that way for the Brownings. We can find ourselves unexpectedly at the moment of death and accountability. And so what Jesus says here is to be ready, be watchful and be prepared.

Now the second parable deals with an issue of faithfulness. The picture here is a manager, a slave who is in control and has authority over other slaves in the household. He had almost unlimited power under the master and the two temptations that the manager faces in this parable; the first one is the master is taking a long time so I will do as I please while he is gone. That's the first temptation. Forget about the agenda. Forget about what the master says about being ready, I will do as I please, because he is taking a long time. The second temptation is related to it; I will have time to put things right before he returns. And the parable specifically says that is a false hope; the master will come at a time and in an hour that you do not expect. Things don't turn out well for the servant of this parable. Verse 46 has some harsh words. "The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers." These are Jesus' words.

What does it mean to be servants who are watchful or prepared and faithful? Servants who are watchful and faithful. The first thing that comes to mind about that is that we are servants who are completing the work that God has given us to do. John 17, Verse 4, Jesus expresses himself this way: "I brought you glory by completing the work you gave me to do." The picture here is that we are never going to be caught to be servants that are ever found to be putting God's priorities on the back burner in order to win in the current world's game, because we know that winning the game is not the same as winning in life. So the first part of being found to be watchful and faithful is that we are completing the work that God has given us to do.

The second part of it is being at peace with God's people. Verse 42 talks about the responsibilities given to the servant to provide for the other servants and then Verse 45 talks about the abuses that the servant who is head of that household while the master is away, the abuses that he perpetrates upon his fellow men and women. Part of being prepared is always having a right relationship with those people, properly serving them, in proper relationship with them and not to be caught any other way.

The third point and the most obvious one is being at peace with God. In the first parable the prepared servant can welcome the master as a friend with joy, but in the second parable the servant can only expect punishment. Are you ready on these terms? Winning the game is not the same as winning in life. Are you ready to win in life on God's terms? So let's look at those same three things again and think about our own lives.

The first one; what is the work that God has entrusted to you and are you being faithful with it? Now it is not going to be one thing in our lives. For some of us it has to do with raising your family. Are you being faithful with that? For all of us its going to have to do with character; things like love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We are all called to be working on that. That is part of the work that God has given us to do; to work on ourselves. Most probably is going to have to do with some special opportunities for service. Now this varies according to our lives. There are times we can do more than other times. But for almost all of us there comes times when we have special opportunities where we stretch ourselves, where we sacrifice in order to accomplish something for God's bigger picture, because we feel God is calling us to it. And for all of us it's going to include some people that we are called to love even if it's hard to love them and it's going to include some people that we are called to share God's love with them and to share the gospel with them. That is almost certainly the case for all of us; to love them, and to share God's love for them. That's part of the responsibility that God has entrusted to us. It will look different in our lives, but it will touch upon almost all of these things and more.

The second area; are you at peace with God's people? If there are some ways that things aren't right between you and another Christian, deal with it. As much as it is within your power be at peace with people. Bring up what you have to bring up. Apologize for what you have to apologize for. You do not want to be at odds with an ever increasingly larger number of God's people. And under no circumstances are we to ever abuse any of God's people. Now it sounds like a big stretch, you know in fact, people who look at the specific words that Jesus uses about beating the maidservant; he gets drunk and he beats the men servants and maidservants. Some of the commentators say that Jesus really did not expect that to happen, he is just kind of using hyperboles, but it does happen. The last few years have taught us that abuses happen even in the church and even right now in Baltimore there is a case of someone who has abused someone else in the church and a minor at that. It's amazing how bad things can be even within the body of Christ and the warning that is here is that we can never believe that we will get away with it.

The third; are you at peace with God? It's the most fundamental one of the bunch. The biggest question in all of life. Are you at peace with God right now? We are not talking about what happened 20 years ago. That might have been a great start, but are you at peace with God right now? If God came today would it be a moment of celebration or a moment of terror? It's not about 20 years ago, its not next week, it's right now. The past isn't enough. The past is a start of a journey with Christ and the future might not even come. We might not have a tomorrow. What's important is that we are sure we are right with God right now.

Now in Jesus' parables there is often a surprise that twists the whole parable and brings something new to light for the people who are listening to him. Up to this point everything that Jesus has been sharing that I have pointed out are things that the people around him could say, "Yeah, yeah, that's right. We need to be ready. It is an important thing." And most of the people around him would believe that life is really lived in light of God's sight. But there is still a big surprise here from Jesus and it comes in Verse 37. "It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them." When those who were listening to Jesus heard this, it turns their world upside down. They have never seen a master who would act this way. They all wanted to be part of the great messianic feast that came at the end of history. They all longed for the day that they might be considered one of the righteous that would be invited to be there and to stand among those honored to be with God, but they never ever, ever would have had an idea that God would serve at that banquet. It's not just the servants that get girded up, that prepare themselves, and to get dressed for service. God dresses himself for service here.

This is so like Jesus. Remember what he does in John 13? Jesus comes in to the room with his disciples and he is dressed in his robe. He is not ready for service at that point. He takes off his robe and puts on a towel, which is the right uniform for a servant, for a slave to serve in. He picks up a bowl of water and he kneels down at the feet of his disciples to clean their feet. This humility of service that Jesus shows is not just a strategic step on the way to the cross. When Jesus does this he is showing us something essential about the heart of God. Remember what Jesus said, "Those who see me, see the father". When Jesus kneels before his disciples, we are seeing the heart of the father, the heart of a servant. And so, here in Luke, Jesus makes a promise. The prepared faithful servant will have a day when God himself will dress himself to serve them. What an amazing thought. And on top of it all what that means is when we are challenged by Jesus to dress ourselves, to get ready for service, he is asking us simply to become like God. It's one more way we are invited to share the image of God.

This is what winning in real life is all about. Its about experiencing God's forgiveness. It's about having a relationship with God and then becoming like the God who created us and saved us. Now when I played Risk all those years ago, when the game was over and I put the top on the box and put the game away that is when real life began. Winning the game was not the same as winning in life. We live inside of a bigger picture and in this bigger picture God makes the rules. In this bigger picture, God gives the reward. And in this picture, God invites us to become like himself. That's the real secret to real life. Are you ready for real life?

Let's pray: God, we admit that we are not ready and so we are so grateful for grace. We are so grateful that in calling us to be like yourself you provide forgiveness for us and then provide the presence of your Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out. And so we invite you now, help us to be watchful prepared servants and help us to be faithful and in doing so to become more like you. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2008, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org