“Security Blanket”

Luke 12:32-40

When you hear the phrase “security blanket,” who do you think of? The image that comes to my mind is that of Little Linus in the “Peanuts” comic strip. Linus is Charlie Brown’s best friend. He goes nowhere and does absolutely nothing without his security blanket. Ragged and torn, it is still his source of comfort and security in an uncertain, sometimes frightening world.

Well, Linus has his security blanket; do you have yours? What exactly is your “security blanket?” Is it the car you drive, the amount of money saved in your 401(k)? Could it be your health or your family or your reputation in the community? What is it exactly that enables you to face life with confidence? That gives you that extra edge?

One day a jet airliner left Washington, D.C., headed toward Columbia, South Carolina. Somewhere during the flight the pilot discovered the landing gear was stuck, and that meant trouble. He turned the plane around and headed for Greensboro, North Carolina, which was the site of the primary maintenance facility for the airline. There the pilot knew the mechanics on the ground could give him instructions by radio and make a visual observation as the plane flew overhead. Following their advice, trying to unjam the landing gear, the pilot put the plane through every acceptable procedure known to shake down the landing gear. He put the plane through a roller coaster ride of nose dives, rocking the plane back and forth, and even put it in a stomach-churning free-fall.

Meanwhile the passengers made preparations for a crash landing with their heads down on pillows at their knees. Finally, in a spray of sparks and flames, the pilot cradled the plane to a safe landing a few hundred yards from the maintenance hangar. One of the passengers was a counselor traveling to Columbia for a mental health conference at the university. In an interview late that night, he said that this was his first time flying. During the tumbles, turns and pitches of the plane, although he is a atheist, he prayed! “This might make me change my ways,” the man concluded. ¹

How do you like that? Brought face to face with possible death, one who never really thought about God, or even believed in God, suddenly found himself praying! In that predicament, who wouldn’t? We would all like to live with a sense of security in an uncertain world, because we are reminded so readily, so often, so close to home, of how fragile life really is. Why, even an atheist can be moved to pray!

So, I wonder, is there something in today’s scripture that can give us courage, a sense of comfort and support? Do you remember the opening verse of our Gospel lesson for today? I believe it provides a key to the security that we seek. In Luke 12:32, our Lord Jesus said, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In these few words Jesus is inviting us to live confidently, with a profound sense of security; to live in faith, not in fear.

There are two splendid ideas expressed in this verse. The first is the word pleasure. Jesus said, “It is your Father’s good pleasure…” Do you remember when actress Sally Field received an Oscar she beamed a broad smile and said, “You like me, you really like me.” When Jesus says, “It is the Father’s good pleasure…” it is as though Jesus was saying, “God likes us, God really likes us.”

We need not picture God as angry, or full of wrath, always spying to catch us in some moral slip-up. God is not ready to zap us with a lightning bolt, but God is there caring and nurturing us like parents nurture their children or as a shepherd watches over his flock. God really likes us! God really cares for us! It is the Father’s good pleasure to love us, to care for us, that we might live in faith and not in fear.

Someone who learned to live in faith and not in fear was Martin Luther. But it took Martin Luther many years before he came to the realization that God loves us. You see, Martin Luther was not always so secure about God’s love. There was a time when his fears were much stronger than his faith. As a student for the ministry, and as a serious monk, Luther struggled against what he thought was an angry God, a deity who could never be pleased.

At daily confession a monk was expected to purge himself of sin almost as quickly as the sin had been committed. But to the confessor a monk like Martin Luther was also expected to “uncover motives, emotions, thoughts, and even repressed feelings.” These were to reveal evil in the heart. And like the body, the heart, too, had to be purged of every impurity. These rigorous examinations horrified Luther. After the fact, he would suddenly remember a thought or an emotion that contradicted his vocation and stained his heart. He knew that it would rightly bring the wrath of God down on him.²

What a wretched, tormented soul, filled with fear, desperate for peace and blessed assurance. To those who were convinced that God’s love was not for them, even the rustling of dry leaves in a forest sounded like the legions of hell coming to seize their souls.³And so it seems that prayers sweated out on cold stone floors, strict spiritual disciplines, fasting, even a special pilgrimage to Rome—nothing could quiet Luther’s conscience or rid his soul of this dark, dreadful fear of God…until he saw the light in the love of Christ.

Before then, Luther could gaze upon the image of Christ crucified and see only a sword of judgment. Sometime later, however, Luther began to see in the crucified Christ God’s good pleasure to reach out in love to embrace a lost and fallen humanity. The words of John 3:17 ring loud and true from the cross: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” The Lord who comes to us in today’s scripture passage is the Lord who laid down his life in love for us on the cross. It is truly God’s great delight and pleasure to love, to care for us, and to grant us life eternal.

The first splendid idea expressed in the opening verse of our Gospel lesson for today, the source of our security, is the phrase, “your Father’s good pleasure.” The second is the phrase that completes that verse, “…to give you the kingdom.”

Because God loves us, God is pleased to give us the kingdom! The image here in not of a stingy, miserly God begrudgingly giving out grace; rather, it is an image of God who through our Lord Jesus Christ grants us a presence, a power, a peace in the midst of life’s uncertainties.

We can well be like those servants in the story Jesus told in the twelfth chapter of Luke, “waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet” (Luke 12:36). The implication is that not only were the servants awake and alert for the master’s return, but they were glad to see him come home. Why? Very likely, since the master had been at a banquet he would return home with leftover “goodies” to share with the household. What servants, then, wouldn’t be delighted to see the master return home, put on an apron, and serve them treats from a feast?

This is the picture Jesus poses for us. This is what Jesus asks us to believe about the Father God, whose pleasure it is to give us the kingdom.

Perhaps you’ve traveled along a mountain road, rounded the bend and seen a hand-written sign saying, “Prepare to meet your God.” The hidden message in that sign seems to be that in the uncertain twists and turns of life, meeting God can not only be surprising and sudden, it can be fearful and frightening. But that is not the message of our Gospel lesson for today. Here the message is that we can live with a basic sense of security, knowing that God delights in us and wants to give us good things.

In Jesus Christ, God speaks a kindly word to those who are burdened with uncertainties; gently the Lord says, “Do not be afraid.” To those who are fearful because their guilty conscience painfully remembers what they have done, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid”; that is, “Don’t let your guilty conscience keep you away from God, who desires not your punishment but your preservation.”

Look at the twelfth chapter of Luke again. It is not God’s duty or drudgery but God’s delight to give us the kingdom—salvation, forgiveness, life in the Spirit. What, then, could make God happier, to give God more pleasure, than to rescue us from wretchedness or to spare us from suffering or to heal us from hurting, or to save us from sinning, or to bless us with the Spirit’s presence, and, at last, to grant us eternal life? God is not reluctant or hesitant, but eager, to include us in the kingdom and to hold us close in the everlasting arms.

Stop and think how astounding it is for the Scriptures to make that promise, that it is God’s good pleasure to give us joy today and life forever. The Bible calls that abundant life. But abundant life does not mean a believer skips through life unscratched. We go through life very much like anyone else. We eat and sleep, grow and work, have sickness and sorrow, troubles and worries, concerns about family, church, nation and the world. We have low points and high points, laughter and tears. And yet, over and above, in and through all things, there is that basic sense of security, knowing that God is real, God is close, and God is good.

We may experience tensions at work or home, a sickness that won’t go away, a burden that weighs us down night and day, yet we know that we do not walk into the future alone. We can go through life with a built-in confidence, knowing that God delights to bless us with more than we desire or deserve.⁴

At a parish potluck supper, a woman named Ellen walked in with her covered dish and set it on the long serving table. Another member, Sandra, saw her and whispered to her husband, “Ellen has had so much sickness in her family, yet somehow she manages so well. I could learn a lot from her faith.” So could we all.

In the “Peanuts” comic strip, little Linus has a security blanket and doesn’t leave home without it. As Christians we don’t have, or even need, a blanket to grant us comfort and security. But we do have a Lord who loves us and who takes pleasure in granting us peace in a kingdom in our midst and a kingdom yet to come. Amen

_________________________________

1. Article in The State (newspaper), Columbia, S. C., August 3, 1989.

2. James M. Kittleson, Luther the Reformer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), p. 56

3. Ibid.

4. Prayer of the Day, Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1978) p. 26