“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.”

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work to clothe, feed and house ourselves — it doesn’t mean that we should live recklessly and not try to exercise and maintain a healthy diet:  that would be to adopt the philosophy of the “rich fool” in the parable immediately preceeding our lesson scripture who was so focused on worldly comfort and security.  Remember what his goal was?  It was to say to himself, “[Y]ou have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink and be merry”.  The true meaning of last week’s lesson scripture is that we should place God first and the world second.  Think about this for a minute.  Ten years from now, what are you concerned about?  In twenty years?  What about fifty years from now?

Maybe your answer to the last question is that you’re concerned with your children or grand-children, or with your legacy in the community . . . maybe your concern is the well-being of the very planet itself.  Okay, now what about your concerns for two thousand years from now . . . or two million years?  You can see where this is heading:  What are your concerns with an eternity?

Yesterday’s key verse could have as well been the last verse of our lesson scripture, Luke 12:34:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”.

The message is really about prioritizing, isn’t it?  The message isn’t, “Don’t worry, be happy” — it’s “Don’t worry about trying to control things in this world that won’t last no matter how hard you try . . . worry about that which is eternal.”  The verses following our lesson scripture are worth noting:

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”  Luke 12:35-36.

If that is our priority, and not the world, then do we become monks: withdrawn from this world and waiting on the next?  Our next lesson has something to say about that.  Read the lesson scripture now(Luke 10:1-12, 17-20), and then think about (and blog about) it through the week to see what difference it might make next Sunday.  The key verse is:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Luke 10:2

That verse alone should be sufficient for in-depth comments and discussion.

Easiest to distinguish is Mary’s question.  If you read the verses closely (or look at the greek words from which they are translated), Mary asks how she, a virgin, will conceive.  She doesn’t ask for proof, she simply asks, “how can this be?”  Zechariah, on the other hand, asked for proof — “How will I know that this is so?”  In essence, Gabriel’s answer was two-fold:  (1) you’ll know when it happens because it will have happened (“my words  . . . will come true at their appointed time”); and (2) you’ll know right now by this sign — that you won’t speak until then!

Abram’s question is a little harder to distinguish.  In Genesis 15:8, after being promised possession of the land of Canaan, he asks, “how can I know that I shall possess it?”  In his Commentary, Wesley says this question did not “proceed from distrust of God’s promise”, but from a desire to strengthen his faith, for Abram had already believed (Genesis 15:6), and a ratification of the promise for his posterity, that they might also believe.  This seems a little more like hair-splitting to me, but the answer in the next several verses is pretty dark.  It makes you wonder if Abram had believed unconditionally, would his posterity have suffered through the exile and all of the trouble since?

Without going into Abram and Sarah’s reactions in Genesis, Chapter 17, the only thing that I can draw from this is that questioning divine grace is a mortal, human reaction.  Moreover, Zechariah — the older, trained priest – though righteous, was more incredulous than Mary, the young virgin.

In Luke 18:17 (and Mark 10:15), we’re told that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it”.  Like the lyrics to the song:

“When I was just a child I knew
Why rain fell and flowers grew.
The I believe came easy then,
And I can still remember when . . .”

Could it be that the answer is as simple as that?  In physics we’ve learned about the power of the atom.  Two thousand years ago, nuclear physics wasn’t known, but Jesus told his disciples that even the faith of a grain of mustard could uproot trees and move mountains (Luke 17:6, Matthew 17:20).

How do we increase our faith — our assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen?

The Gospel of Luke is a synoptic Gospel, and the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament. The text narrates the life of Jesus, with particular interest concerning his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. It ends with an account of the ascension.The author is characteristically concerned with social ethics, the poor, women, and other oppressed groups. Certain well-loved stories on these themes, such as the prodigal son and the good Samaritan, are found only in this gospel. This gospel also has a special emphasis on prayer, the activity of the Holy Spirit, and joyfulness. D. Guthrie stated, “it is full of superb stories and leaves the reader with a deep impression of the personality and teachings of Jesus.” The text is internally anonymous. One the two oldest surviving manuscripts (circa 200), has the attribution According to Luke. The other which is probably to be dated earlier has no such (surviving) attribution. Tradition holds that the text was written by Luke the companion of Paul (named in Colossians 4:14) but scholars are divided on this issue. Most scholars accept the two-source hypothesis, that the text is based in part on the Gospel of Mark and a now lost document, and place the composition of Luke between 80 and 90. A few scholars postulate an earlier date. Marcion circa 144, appears to have used this gospel, but he called it the Gospel of the Lord. The introductory dedication to Theophilus, 1:1-4 states that “many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word”, and that the author, “after investigating everything carefully from the very first”  has decided to compose an orderly account “so that [Theophilius] may know the certainty of the things [he has] been taught”. Thus the author intended to write a historical account bringing out the theological significance of the history. The author’s purpose was to portray Christianity as divine, respectable, law-abiding, and international. Scholarship is in wide agreement that the author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles.