Preachrblog

  Luke 13:22-30 “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” One out of 10?   2 out of 5?   One in a million?   What’s the percentage number, Jesus?   How many will believe, and how many won’t?   Is heaven going to be packed like sardines – or is it going to be kind of lonely? Maybe they just wanted to know.   Maybe it was simple, straightforward curiosity driving the person’s question.   I was always raised to ask questions – there’s no such thing as a stupid question – and so forth.   But the commentaries are pretty harsh with the person who asks this question of Jesus.   They say: Jesus never manifests sympathy for people coming with such purely speculative problems. He who is serious about his salvation does not ask such a question. This was an idle question. Jesus had not come into the world to gratify men's curiosity, but to save their souls. The question is dangerous when put abstractly or academically. Wow!   S...

  "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Jesus ties together his whole sermon with this little aphorism.   It follows immediately upon last week’s reading about the rich fool who built the big barns.   His treasure was on earth, not in heaven.   But with this short saying, Jesus invites us to ponder deeply our own life, our hearts, and our relationship with the treasures we enjoy.   But he starts with “Do not be anxious”.   And in today’s world of high-anxieties, that may be a hard pill to swallow. It’s worth mentioning from the outset that the Christian church doesn’t summarily reject the insights of modern science in helping discover what makes us tick –   and makes us not tick so well.   We recognize that all truth is God’s truth, and discoveries about creation and our own human biology and psychology are discoveries about God’s creation.   And secular wisdom can contribute to our understanding of this world – and o...