Proper 14 C

Proper 14 C

Transcribed from a sermon given

On August 12, 2013

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 12:32-40

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

(Sung)

People get ready

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel hummin.’

Don’t need no ticket

You just get on board.

As I look around I can tell the people who come from the sixties because you are all smiling and know that song that was written by Curtis Mayfield who was the lead singer of the Impressions. And it has been recorded by many other artists since. That’s the chorus of “People get ready,” and it has a lot of meaning to me personally. But I feel that chorus sums up the Gospel reading for today.

Look at what is in this amazing little piece of writing

People get ready

Well that’s the whole point of what Jesus is saying. To be ready. To be ready and to be waiting. To know when it is time. To be listening. If you are ready and waiting for the master to come home, you have your ears open. You are listening, you are hearing. It is like my dog. When my car comes near she knows. She doesn’t always get up and greet me, but she knows that I am coming.

So we are to be ready. We are to be paying attention. Listening to those subtle clues, because there is a train coming. A train is such a great image. I know for children, especially boys, they love trains. And there is something about being by a diesel engine, the size of it and the strength of it and the power of it that just is awesome. It puts you in a particular position. Trains are fascinating, fun, powerful, and once a train gets moving down the track it is really hard to stop. It is going someplace. And one of the things that is exciting about seeing a train go by is imagining where it is going. Where the people are being taken.

Don’t need no baggage

Last week we talked about baggage and Jesus is talking about baggage again today. He is talking about all of the stuff. Of selling what you own. Of giving it as alms. I’ve taken several train trips. One of the best I had I was just going for a weekend and I had everything in a small suitcase, well actually it was a large purse. And it was great. I could get on the train, I could move from place to place and take everything with me. I had no worries and enjoyed it tremendously. There was another time I took a train trip when I was staying for a couple of weeks, and I had a BIG heavy suitcase. Baggage. First of all, when you get on the train there are these high steps to get up and I had to drag the suitcase up those steps. And then there are these tiny little steps that go in a circle to go to the upper place where the seats are. Well there was NO way I was getting the suitcase up that. There was an area where you could leave your suitcase, but it’s right by the door, and it’s not locked and you just leave it there. When you go upstairs you can’t see it any more. You don’t know what’s going to happen to it and there’s a certain amount of concern. Is it safe? Will it still be there when I get down? If I have to go to another car how will I find it? Will I be sure I can get to it before the train leaves when I have to get off? All the anxiety that comes with baggage.

This song and this scripture are saying you don’t need no baggage. Whether that be psychological baggage of memories, of angers, of resentments or whether it be the physical baggage of the stuff that limits your life. I talk to people who say, well I’d love to move but what am I going to do with all my stuff? It is so hard to pack everything, and then we have to pay someone to move it, and I’d have to get a place that was big enough to fit all that stuff or else I’d have to decide what to get rid of and I don’t know how to do that. Often the stuff we accumulate over our lives begins to limit our lives.

Don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.

What is this train that we are getting on board?

Now Jesus also says, when he tells people to sell everything, he says it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. God takes delight in this. The greatest thing for God is to be able to give to us. Can you imagine that? The thing that gives God pleasure is giving to us. To give us the kingdom, to give us everything we need. So we are to get on board this train, this train that is headed for the kingdom. This train that’s headed into the future that we are invited to be part of that.

All you need is faith to hear the diesel coming.

In the second reading we have that wonderful definition of faith in Hebrews. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When you get on a train you sure hope it is going where you want to go and you have a conviction and a hope and faith that it is taking you to the destination you want to go to. But once you are on the train there is nothing you can do about it. You are going wherever the train is going. We don’t think of it when we get on the train of it being an act of faith that it is actually going to go where we want to go but it is. And when we get on board with Jesus, when we get on board with the kingdom come, when we get on board with God’s intention, we have that faith, that hope, that assurance that it is leading forward - that it is leading to something good. We have that hope, that assurance, that life with God will be better than life without God. That the coming of the kingdom, whether we think of that as after our death, or at the apocalypse at the end of time, or as something that is going on right now where we are in the process of bringing God’s kingdom, God’s rule on earth we have that assurance that if we get on board, we will be going there, we will be part of that process.

All you need is faith to hear the diesel humming.

Now I live in Grover Beach and when the weather is right, even when it is not, I can hear trains going by. Sometimes you can hear them far off in the distance and they slowly get louder and louder. It is kind of a neat thing to listen to the sound. It is kind of like that with the coming of the kingdom. When we have faith we can hear the sound of the kingdom coming far away. It may not be here yet. We may not experience all of it right now, but it is coming. It is on its way. The new world, a world of justice, is coming. Christ is coming. You can hear it if you have the faith to listen to that humming sound.

Don’t need no ticket.

I like that. You don’t need a ticket. You don’t need to buy something. You don’t need to have credentials. You don’t have to have any kind of particular stamp or anything. Everybody. Everybody is welcome on this train. Everybody is welcome to get on. All you need to do is thank the Lord. To get on board, to be part of that journey of faith, that journey towards the kingdom of God. It is all summed up in that little song.

(Sung)

People get ready,

There’s a train a comin’.

Don’t need no baggage

You just get on board.

All you need is faith

To hear the diesel humming.

Don’t need no ticket

You just thank the Lord.