Luke 8:16-21

Transcript

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:29:35
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends. Welcome back. Thanks for starting the week with us as we continue through the Gospel of Luke. We find ourselves in the eighth chapter into a short section with kind of multiple brief stories for Abu. I don’t know. We’ll get to a couple of them today. At least we’re in the 16th chapter or I’m sorry, the 16th verse of Chapter eight.

00:00:29:40 – 00:00:56:38
Clint Loveall
You if you have read other gospels, you’re going to hear some echoes today of what is called the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew two. And we get some of that here in Luke. That same type of material is is sort of more scattered throughout. And this first passage we have is one that you would have heard before, but you would have likely heard it in Matthew’s version.

00:00:56:38 – 00:01:22:10
Clint Loveall
So let me read those verses and then we’ll talk about them. No one. After lighting a lamp, hides it under a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lamp, stand so that those who enter may see the light for nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light.

00:01:22:15 – 00:01:58:33
Clint Loveall
Then pay attention to how you listen for those who have more will be given and from those who do not have even what they seem to have will be taken away. So again, kind of several things pushed together here from other gospels that are condensed in Luke. This this primary idea is one that you’ve heard. I think if you’ve done any Bible study, this idea of lighting a lamp, if you maybe you grew up with the Sunday school song inspired by this idea, these verses, no one hides their light.

00:01:58:33 – 00:02:26:34
Clint Loveall
Essentially, if there’s truth, it’s on display. If there’s something to be seen, it should be seen. And the idea of taking our faith and then not having our faith be observable, not having the gospel be known, but but hiding it away or keeping it away is against its intention, which is, I think, Michael, a common idea, but a challenging one in in terms of the way we live out the faith.

00:02:26:34 – 00:02:42:52
Clint Loveall
And I think a good reminder for those of us who call ourselves Christian, that though we are not supposed to draw attention to ourself, a lived out faith should be observable and should have an impact on those who see it.

00:02:42:57 – 00:03:05:20
Michael Gewecke
So this text follows immediately after last lesson. I’d encourage you to go back and listen to that. But the Parable of the Sower, parable of the seed, that idea of where seed is planted, that this matters. And here today we see that one can actually expect to see that seed germinate, that it should make a difference, it should have an impact on our lives.

00:03:05:20 – 00:03:35:18
Michael Gewecke
And here this idea that if you have had the seed planted in a good heart, like a light, you are not going to hide it. You’re not going to try to find ways to make it quiet. This is a particularly important message to the earlier, earliest church because we are easily detached from the reality of those first Christians who whose conversion not only in many cases meant that they would be put out of their homes, that they would be disowned.

00:03:35:31 – 00:04:05:43
Michael Gewecke
But in many cases it meant that they could no longer practice the business trade that they had before, or in some cases, as the faith grew and as time went on, it became an actively persecuted, sought out religion where the Romans would seek to find you and then do harm to you or to your family. And in these cases, Clint, the idea that it’s not just that the works that we do should be visible, transparent and fruit, that truth should grow in us in a meaningful way.

00:04:05:54 – 00:04:32:20
Michael Gewecke
That’s certainly a valid lesson for us today, but also a reminder that one shouldn’t hide the truth that you’ve been given, even if that may even if that light may cause trouble for you, you can’t hide it. You can’t put it down. You shouldn’t look to make that camouflage, but you should allow that to to really be visible and to accept the consequences that come with that.

00:04:32:20 – 00:04:46:05
Michael Gewecke
And I think if we remember that this text has been received by different people at different times throughout the history of Christianity, it helps us understand, I think, what makes words like this so powerful that Jesus taught.

00:04:46:10 – 00:05:17:26
Clint Loveall
Yeah, the most obvious example of this, probably the Gospel of John, but the the theme of Light and Dark is seen in all the gospels. And it’s such a powerful challenge, the idea of illumination, the idea that the genuine and faith of one person provides light for others to see. Truth provides light for others who are in the darkness, lights the way literally so others might find the path.

00:05:17:31 – 00:05:52:28
Clint Loveall
And there’s again, there’s just there’s something deeply challenging, deeply inspiring. I think there’s something invitational in there. There’s also something about our responsibility as people of faith, our opportunity. And and so these words are well-loved, they’re familiar. Luke, though, then makes this connect and for nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor anything secret that will not become known and come to the light.

00:05:52:33 – 00:06:16:51
Clint Loveall
And so again, we have we have a little more of a buffer from these kind of passages in, say, the Gospel of Matthew in Luke. They’re here back to back. And the idea is whatever we try to hide. So we start off by saying nobody hides light. So by implication, well, what is it we do hide then? Well, we hide darkness, we hide secrets, we hide our sins.

00:06:16:51 – 00:06:54:02
Clint Loveall
We hide the things that we don’t want people to know. And so Jesus then progresses right on to that idea. Nothing is hidden that won’t come out and everything will become known. And very specifically ends with this phrase and will come to light. Even our darkness will be brought to the light of Christ. The light of Christ will illuminate the places that we’ve tried to keep to ourselves the behaviors, the practices, the misdeeds, the struggles, whatever it is that we try to hide.

00:06:54:07 – 00:07:33:01
Clint Loveall
Those things will become known and those things will become seen. And so again, that sounds like a kind of threatening verse. I suppose there’s a sense in which it is, but it’s also, I think at heart a kind of challenge. Don’t live a life that needs to hide things, live by the light, and you won’t need to worry about what’s hidden in the darkness and, you know, again, Michael Luke has given us such a condensed version of this that I do think there’s a lot to unpack in the way that he’s connected these ideas.

00:07:33:01 – 00:08:03:16
Michael Gewecke
Well, when you use the word troubling, I think that we get that in verse 18. Also, the idea of pay attention to how you listen for those who have more will be given from those who do not have even what they seem to have will be taken away. These are troubling words, especially if we’ve become accustomed to Jesus as the gracious, loving, always healing, always serving person who He is these things, but he is also a person who calls us to account.

00:08:03:28 – 00:08:29:40
Michael Gewecke
He’s also a person who tells the truth. And when he talks to this crowd this day is, as Luke gives us this account. It’s a difficult thing for us to navigate what Jesus might mean about those who do not have having what they have taken away and the temptation of a verse like this is that we change in the beginning of verse 18 here, the how you listen to how they listen.

00:08:29:40 – 00:08:50:39
Michael Gewecke
It’s very, very easy. Christians do this all the time. We convert in our mind whatever we think Jesus meant here. The idea of right theology, right practice in our lives about how to read the Bible or what the Bible means about our how we vote, or what we do with our bodies, or all of these things that Christians can get fixated on.

00:08:50:43 – 00:09:27:54
Michael Gewecke
I think the temptation in a text like this is to begin for us to start pointing fingers out at other people and say, Yeah, what you have is going to be taken away. And I think what makes this verse troubling, what is truly going to make an impact in our lives is if we take seriously the idea that Jesus is speaking to us, that he’s calling us to the practice of listening, you and me individually, no matter how long you’ve been a Christian, no matter how hard you’ve tried to be open to the Gospel, no matter how many services you’ve been to or prayers you’ve prayed, it’s not a question of quantity or repetition.

00:09:27:54 – 00:09:46:31
Michael Gewecke
It’s a question of Am I today open and listening that I could actually hear and be transformed and changed? And it’s a sobering word, Clint, when Jesus says those who lack will have what they have taken away. And I think it’s a call to vigilance and to practice and to humility.

00:09:46:44 – 00:10:10:55
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I think you have to be careful with verses like this, Michael, because you can read this and it sounds like a threat, right? Like Jesus has power and he’s going to sort of randomly take from people or give to people. That’s not it at all. The fascinating phrase here is pay attention to how you listen. We would expect that to say, pay attention to how you live.

00:10:11:00 – 00:10:37:39
Clint Loveall
It is intriguing in the gospel that how you listen is how you act, that that what you do with what you hear determines how you live. And so the clear implication then is the way you live determines whether you will gain or whether you will lose. Those who listen will be given. Even if they already have, they will be given more.

00:10:37:44 – 00:11:11:54
Clint Loveall
Those who don’t listen, those who refuse to incorporate the gospel into their life, they will lose whatever it is that they have, even if it doesn’t seem like they have much. And so it it is really interesting. We’ve said this before, how much Luke can get in relatively few words. And this I think if you’re if you carefully pick this apart verses 16 through 18, here is a page worth of material.

00:11:12:03 – 00:11:47:33
Clint Loveall
I mean, really, if you follow the steps Luke is making, I think you find that this is dance weighty, thoughtful stuff. And notice in just those three verses what you display, what you hide, and the implication and results of how you live responding to one of those two things. And so Luke has taken almost like a full sermon and just mashed it down into a very weighty small section here.

00:11:47:37 – 00:11:57:27
Michael Gewecke
And some of Matthew’s telling of the story with that idea of light is connected to the idea of a city on a hill. You have that image as well and that.

00:11:57:27 – 00:11:58:03
Clint Loveall
Salt.

00:11:58:10 – 00:12:23:00
Michael Gewecke
And salt. And I think the temptation in reading Luke is to import those ideas into this text and to think that here Luke too is telling us about Jesus’s teaching as it regards the community, as it regards the church, So regards the city that the group, the plural and that’s not what Luke is doing here. This, this is an intensely personal look.

00:12:23:06 – 00:12:48:07
Michael Gewecke
Jesus is calling each and every follower to interact gate to ask themself. To what extent am I preserving darkness? To what extent am I open to transparency and the light? To what extent am I willing and able to hear? And to what extent have I been close to hearing and seeing Jesus? And I think that Luke is important in this way.

00:12:48:07 – 00:13:09:18
Michael Gewecke
In some ways. I think maybe, maybe this telling is less easy to read, certainly less easy to get our mind around than what you might have in, say, the larger section of Matthew. But here I think there’s something deeply helpful in this because Christians need reminded that we like everyone else, are tempted to put Jesus in the box.

00:13:09:18 – 00:13:35:42
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus cannot be confined by our human boxes, by the the ideas and the things that we would want him to be. He is himself unique. He is the son of God. He lives outside of that. He is God revealed. And so our job is to be open to that revelation. And Luke is in many ways, I think he’s trying to point that out in this section here.

00:13:35:51 – 00:14:23:34
Clint Loveall
I think that’s really helpful. Michael It’s really important idea when we see things in one gospel that echo things in another gospel, there’s there’s a tendency to make an assumption that the author is saying the same thing in in a different way, or that the author is taking what Jesus said and just giving us a lighter version of it, as if Luke’s shorter version is just a summary of what Matthew said, which is not untrue in all cases, but the danger in that is that you miss the impact that Luke intends to have, the way that he writes it.

00:14:23:34 – 00:14:50:15
Clint Loveall
And so this isn’t simply Matthew Lite, this is Luke taking those same words and I think making in some ways a sharper point with a more forceful point with them. Whereas Matthew draws that out and lets us kind of explore it a little more that Luke sort of shapes it down to a chisel and then hammers it into us.

00:14:50:15 – 00:15:13:41
Clint Loveall
And I think there is a danger in thinking, Well, if I’ve read these things in one gospel, I understand them in the other gospel, because each writer sometimes uses what Jesus has said to fit into the bigger intention of what they happen to be trying to say in that in that moment. And I hope that’s not an uncomfortable thought for people.

00:15:13:46 – 00:15:40:10
Clint Loveall
But I think it’s really important because if you read these the corresponding verses in Matthew and you’d have to move through some chapters to do that, I don’t think you’d find them presented in the same way, and I don’t think Matthew would necessarily be trying to use them in the same way that Luke is. And just because you have seen them in one place, I think would not help you necessarily understand them in the other place.

00:15:40:19 – 00:16:02:15
Michael Gewecke
And the point you make about brevity is really helpful, I think, because just because a passage is short doesn’t mean it’s not deep. And this is a temptation that we make. We see a longer section of a story and we think to ourself, while that that is the authoritative telling of what Jesus said. And so then we get to a section like Luke and we say, Hey, I’ve heard something like this before.

00:16:02:27 – 00:16:09:36
Michael Gewecke
It is in a book before Luke. So I’ve been reading through the New Testament, finally got through. Matthew This sounds familiar. Let’s get to something.

00:16:09:36 – 00:16:10:17
Clint Loveall
I already know.

00:16:10:17 – 00:16:37:46
Michael Gewecke
This Now let’s get to something more. Luke and that is generally the way I think that we miss the unique voice and the unique context where the gospel writers are seeking to speak to you because the luxury that you and I have, we forget this, and I realize now we’ve gone quite a ways on a very short section here, Clint, but that the blessing that we have that we take for granted is you have all four of these books right next to each other in your Bible.

00:16:37:51 – 00:16:57:16
Michael Gewecke
And we forget that the earliest Christians that I’m talking early, early, early, some of them only have one of these. This was written to a particular group and they got it. And then the church compiled these. And it wasn’t long until it was structured into what we have as a Bible, but it’s a blessing. You have all four back to back to back to back, and you can read them in that way.

00:16:57:21 – 00:17:21:21
Michael Gewecke
But each of these tellings of Jesus’s life was written by a by a person to a people. It has different context and ideas. And so the practice really the the mix of art and science that happens in Bible study is you trying to learn those details, then being open to what lessons might come from that to you in your daily life.

00:17:21:21 – 00:17:50:56
Michael Gewecke
And so to really make that concrete and clear, I think the lesson that I would take from this in my daily life is am is my life transparently open to other people, or do I hide my faith in a meaningful way? And if I do, if I’m unwilling to listen to Jesus and for that to change me, if I’m unwilling for that light that has been put in me by his grace, if that is a thing that I’m ashamed of, or that I’m unable or unwilling to let others see, that is a place to grow.

00:17:51:05 – 00:18:02:13
Michael Gewecke
And that’s an opportunity for me to practice a new kind of light and transparency for those around me. And that’s, I think, trying to connect the outcome to the text.

00:18:02:18 – 00:18:22:32
Clint Loveall
And at the risk of taking this long, try to keep this short. But I think the next section, Michael, in the next couple verse verses really make that point. So we we encounter that those next verses. Then his mother and brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.

00:18:22:37 – 00:18:43:53
Clint Loveall
But he said to them, My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it so in this case, we we may know this story from other gospels where it seems clear that his Jesus family shows up. And what you make of the word mother’s here are brothers here kind of depends on your church background.

00:18:43:53 – 00:19:05:33
Clint Loveall
For Presbyterians, we think that means his, his brothers, Mary and Joseph kids. There are parts of our Christian family who don’t hold that, and that’s fine. Whoever you think these people are in the other versions of the story, you get the sense that they’re kind of trying to quiet Jesus and keep him out of trouble and maybe tell him to tone it down a little bit.

00:19:05:38 – 00:19:41:33
Clint Loveall
And so Jesus pushes back against that. Luke leaves that out completely. And and the impact is is jarring because without that explanation, it now looks like Jesus has to make a choice between doing what his family has asked him to do and doing what he understands himself to be. And that may be in fact, Luke’s very point. Luke’s late enough that he may be writing to people who are making that choice in their own families, who are coming to faith under the threat of being abandoned or being outcast by their family.

00:19:41:38 – 00:20:09:45
Clint Loveall
And so Luke sharpens again, sharpens the story. And Jesus here caught between his mission, his followers and his family, has has a clear expression of choosing those around him. My mother and brothers are those who hear the word. In other words, my allegiance is to those who hear the Gospel and the God has who has given it to us.

00:20:09:50 – 00:20:33:33
Clint Loveall
And it helps, I think, to know the broader story, because it does soften it perhaps a little, but I don’t think Luke is interested in the softer version of the story because I think he actually likes the idea, or at least he resonates with the idea that sometimes the gospel does demand a very difficult choice. And when you have to make it, choose the gospel.

00:20:33:37 – 00:20:59:18
Michael Gewecke
Now blessed, I mean, that’s the word, you know, those who are sorry are those who hear the Word of God and do it. It’s the action that matters here. It’s the it’s the way that we respond in faith to the work that Jesus has done. That’s what defines family. That’s what is the gateway towards your participation in this grander kingdom that Jesus has already talked about.

00:20:59:18 – 00:21:31:13
Michael Gewecke
And Clint, it’s really easy for us to look at a text like this from a distance of a lot of years and maybe not the same concerns, and yet we realize that there is a true cost for those who are going to follow Jesus and the cost is that we are to go back to the previous context. We must be people of truth, even when we live in a culture and in a time where where the honest truth is not valued, Christians are held to the account of the light.

00:21:31:15 – 00:21:47:56
Michael Gewecke
Why is it just because we’re more or less and because we people or people who have high ideals know it’s because Jesus is the light? We have no other option. If we’re going to live in His way, we’re going to live in the light. If we will not live in his way, then we will be those who are more comfortable in the darkness.

00:21:47:56 – 00:22:05:09
Michael Gewecke
And that’s that’s no place to be in the family. That’s that’s where we see this turn, is that it’s not about whose blood is running through your veins, it’s whose light do you live in. And those who walk in the way of Jesus are the ones who hear the Word of God, and they’re the ones who do it.

00:22:05:09 – 00:22:07:08
Michael Gewecke
And that’s explicitly what Jesus teaches.

00:22:07:08 – 00:22:39:48
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I don’t mean this scientifically, but philosophically or spiritually. The purpose of light is to allow us to see and to be seen. And so it is to drive out darkness. And having done that, those who participate in it with us are our family, our family in Christ, our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers in faith. And ultimately it is to them through the gospel that we have allegiance and relationship.

00:22:39:48 – 00:22:58:48
Clint Loveall
And so, again, not very many verses in Luke, but man, a lot there. Luke has a real way of packing it in. So I hope there’s something in that that, that sparks some interest, that helps in some way that is interesting to you. If it leaves any questions, by all means, get them to us. We’ll do our best to answer them.

00:22:59:00 – 00:23:01:40
Clint Loveall
I want to thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

00:23:01:42 – 00:23:02:16
Michael Gewecke
See you tomorrow.