Sermon on the Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18)

Luke 18:26–30

Luke 18:26-30 

English Standard Version 

  With 3 kids, there aren't many meals that everyone agrees on.  As tastes have changed, foods slowly were eliminated.  Some nights, it feels like there isn't anything that everyone agrees on, except for ice cream, so maybe it is the perfect food and we should simply start with that.

  As Jesus has taught the crowds, it feels like he's whittled away all the paths to salvation that we can try and create on our own.  Religious obedience, morality, achievement, possessions -- each of these has been taken off the shelf and discarded.  The disciples might have thought that their sacrfices would be enough, but even those fall short.  What is left?

  This is where faith begins, Jesus says, because where humans fall short, God steps in.  The Kingdom is something to be received.  Peter is looking at all that the disciples have sacrificed, but Jesus is redefining what it means to follow God.  There isn't a scoreboard that they are tracking, but rather through Christ, they are entering into a new identity, a new creation, where there are riches untold.  Can they entrust themselves to God?  

  May we lean into the Kingdom of God, even in the midst of uncertainty.  May we pursue Christ, trusting in God that what is ahead is far greater than anything that is behind us.

Luke 18:18–25

Luke 18:18-25 

English Standard Version 

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  This guy sounds like the model for all of us to follow, right?  He has kept the commandments from the time he was a child, and he's ascended to a level of power and influence as a ruler.  He's rich as well.  What's not to like?

  Like each of us, he has one thing that he loves more than God and is hard for him to give up.  Jesus, knowing all, is aware of exactly what it is for him.  Money can easily come to rule our hearts -- we desire it and begin to think about it, day and night.  We are saddened by the thought of losing it, just as this rich young ruler is.

  What would be the hardest for you to surrender?

  We should each be willing to ask ourselves this question.  It's so hard for us to keep our hearts in line.  We start to have disordered loves, opting to love something more than God.  It's probably different for each of us, but we all have something.  

  Thanks be to God that Jesus comes to show us what those things are, and he loves us and redeems us to give us hope.

Luke 18:15–17

Luke 18:15-17 

English Standard Version 

  In those days, children had no power of influence.  They weren't regarded as terribly important.  Many people didn't give them much thought.  The disciples assumed Jesus had far more important things to do than to spend time with people who didn't bring much to the table.

  Jesus is teaching us that this is how we come to God.  We are sinful and broken, and we don't bring anything to the table.  

  God loves us anyway.  God makes time for us.  God saves us.  

  Not because we bring something that God is lacking. 

  But because God loves us.