Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 

(Luke 12:17)

There’s a saying: the quickest way to tidy your house is to invite guests. Do you ever have that thing when you know someone is going to be visiting and you dash about like a mad thing flinging stuff into cupboards and doing the hoovering and shutting the doors to rooms they’re not going to be seeing? There’s actually a word for that. It’s called ‘scurryfunging’. It’s an Anglo-Saxon word which means that people have been doing it for at least a thousand years.

Maybe that’s what we should imagine goes on in the house of Jesus’s parable when the master is returning. Maybe they catch sight of him returning when he’s nearly there and they go dashing around: ‘The wine bottles! Clear away the wine bottles! Has anyone done the laundry? Hide it! Hide it in the attic - he’s not going to go there at this time of night.” Or maybe they get no heads-up at all and he’s at the door before they can do any scurryfunging and he finds they’ve not been doing their tasks as slaves. 

Jesus taught a number of parables like the one we heard this morning that feature the lord of a household and finding that some of his servants have been diligent and some have not. The early Church believed that Jesus would return and that he’d be coming back pretty soon. So they took these parables as referring to that imminent return. We’re now 2000 years on from that but maybe he will return any time now. Half-past two this afternoon perhaps. Some Christians have this idea that sometime soon there'll be a thing called “The Rapture” and all those God has saved - the ones who are found alert - will be swept into Heaven.

Maybe. To me it really doesn’t matter. We’re all going to meet Christ at some point. I hate to break it to you but none of us is immortal. For all of us our time on Earth is limited and will come to an end at some point. Generally we don’t know when that will be. I’m 62. I’m hoping for another 20 to 25 years but I could go under the proverbial bus tomorrow. Like the servants in the house none of us knows when we’re going to be meeting Christ.

If we have a little knowledge of when it’s going to come, maybe we could try scurryfunging. Constantine the Great who Christianised the Roman Empire put off being baptised until he was on his deathbed. And that, to me, kind of misses the point. And maybe it’s a point we too often miss.

Maybe as Christians we get too much caught up in the idea that Christianity is about what we believe. For centuries Christians have been dividing each other - sometimes with sharp pointy things - over matters of doctrine and creed. Do we believe in transubstantiation or not? Do we have bishops or not? Is the Bible the infallible word of God or not? Or we’ve reduced the Christian life to simply rocking up to church on a Sunday morning and then agonised over whether it’s proper hymn singing if we don’t have an organ. Please, don’t get me started on that one.

All of which misses the warning we have in the prophecy of Isaiah which we can summarise as, God doesn’t care about when, where and how we worship, or how we believe in him if we do not serve him by doing what is right. Throughout his ministry Jesus taught one prayer and didn’t engage with theology at all. What he did say was, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Take up your cross and serve God. That’s what we’re called to do: take up our cross and follow Christ.

Christianity isn’t just a set of beliefs. It isn’t just about worship. Most importantly Christianity is a life to be led. It is about living in this world in a way that serves God. It is about being diligent servants - not just on Sundays or when we think our time might be up, but as we go about our everyday lives. It is about living the love of God in our time and place.

That’s something you can’t scurryfunge. Kindness doesn’t come easily always. Generosity doesn’t come easily in a world that teaches us to get all we can for ourselves without regard for anyone else and in which the wealthiest man on Earth has said that empathy is a weakness. Doing what’s right doesn’t come easily in a world where we see that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely and sometimes tramples the law and constitutions.

But the more we practise kindness the easier it gets. The more often we are generous the easier generosity gets. The more often we stand up for what is right, even if we sometimes feel we’re the only ones doing it, the easier it gets. The more often we love our neighbour - even if that neighbour is someone we are taught to hate - the easier it gets.

This parable and the prophecy of Isaiah are powerful reminders that we are here on this Earth, in the years we have here, to be servants of God and to live as such. To live lives that reflect the love of God for humanity - an extravagant love that came into the world in the life of a human being like us, with all the temptations we know, to show us what that service is like. It is to live lives here and now that show what Heaven is: love, kindness, generosity, justice and peace. It is to serve God diligently by being who we are meant to be: children of God made in the image of God

Lord may we serve you. Not merely with our thoughts and beliefs or in our words and song but by living lives of service that reflect your love for your children. May we follow in the way of your son.

Preached at Annan URC

Complete Service