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We come here this morning after a difficult week. Our communities are still reeling from the murder of someone we knew. Our nation’s leaders seem too busy trying to destroy each other to deal with the business for which they were elected. Some of us are dealing with difficult health issues, family issues or work issues.

We’ve come to rest in God’s presence, to hear His Word, to be reminded that in the midst of all the troubles of this world, Jesus is still King.

And so I’d invite you to quiet your mind, to travel back in time 2000 years to once again join the crowd that’s walking with Jesus down that ancient road that leads to Jerusalem. You’re part of a growing group that includes all kinds of people. Back in chapter 15:1, Luke divided it into two groups: “the tax collectors and sinners,” and “the Pharisees and the scribes”—or teachers of religious law.

Two groups that are just as much at odds with one another as Democrats and Republicans seem to be in our country today. Two groups that think they have nothing in common—and that want nothing to do with one another.

And I ask you once again to consider: where are you in that group? Are you one of the Pharisees looking for Jesus to say or do something that you can condemn? One of those who’s sure that you have all the right answers—that you always have the right answer, that other people might need a savior but not you. Or are you on the other end of the spectrum, convinced that the things you’ve done are so bad that even Jesus could never forgive you?

Luke divided the crowd the way you and I might divide it. Good people and bad people. People who do the “right” thing and people who don’t. People who are socially acceptable and people who aren’t.

But there are other ways this crowd could be divided. And this, of course, is the point that Jesus has been making on His final journey to Jerusalem. Some of these people, like Zacchaeus, who we talked about last week, are desperate to “see who Jesus is.”  Some of them are quite sure that they already know who He is. Some of them are looking for a reason to condemn Him. Some of them are there because of what they’re hoping He’ll do for them.

But as we travel with Jesus, we find that those who respond to His message and recognize Him as Lord cannot be easily categorized: there’s a Samaritan leper, a persistent widow, a tax collector, little children, a blind beggar, and Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector—not a single one of whom would have been included in the list of those expected to be a part of the kingdom of God.

Others that everyone clearly expected to be included, like the rich young ruler who does everything right, receive no promise of salvation.

Jesus is very much aware that everyone, including even the Twelve, is confused about who He is and why He came. He’s told His disciples more than once—the last time just a few verses earlier in Luke’s gospel—that He’s going to Jerusalem to die and then to rise from the dead. And Luke says, in 18:34, “But they understood none of these things.”

His disciples are still convinced that, instead of dying on a cross, Jesus is about to be crowned king in Jerusalem. They’re arguing about who gets to sit at His right hand and which one of them will be greatest.

Which is why Jesus stops just before His triumphant Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem—stops to tell the crowd  the Parable of the Ten Minas. He tells it, Luke says, “because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately” (Luke 19:11).

Jesus is trying to prepare them—not just for His death and resurrection, but also for the time until He returns. He wants them to know that his death is not an ending, but rather that it’s the beginning of a whole new thing. He also wants them to know that the fulfillment of His kingdom will not happen immediately. He’ll be going back to the Father—and we’ll enter a time of waiting—a time that we know now will last for thousands of years.

Jesus also wants His disciples to know that during that time, He has expectations for His disciples.

So He tells them about ten servants who are called by a nobleman to run his business while he goes to a far country to “receive for himself a kingdom and then return” (19:12).  He gives them each a mina (mee-na), a fairly small sum of money—representing about three months wages—and tells them to “Engage in business until I return” (Luke 19:13).

Unlike the parable of the talents that Matthew records in the 25^th chapter of his gospel, in this story, all ten servants receive exactly the same thing.

And now Jesus divides the crowd into two groups—groups that are very different from Luke’s earlier division. Jesus has divided them into “servants,” meaning those who are prepared to follow Him and serve Him, and “citizens,” defined by Him as those who hate Him and do not want Him to reign over them.

Only the servants receive the minas.

So what do the minas represent? There are varying ideas about this—some think they represent salvation, others the gift of faith, still others think the minas represent the mission of the church. Whichever it is, those receiving it are to “engage in business”—what business?

Our first reading from the first chapter of Genesis, tells us that when God created men and women in His image, He gave them responsibility to care for the world and everything in it. God works—He creates. And so He expects His people, created in His image, to work, to create.

And Jude, the brother of Jesus, calls the church to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).  By faith, Jude means those things we believe, not just the fact that we believe them. Jude says that this faith was “delivered” to us—some translations say “entrusted” to us.

Jude is saying that this faith is a precious commodity that has been entrusted to the saints, to those who believe in Jesus as Christ. And that because it has been entrusted, or delivered, to us, we have a responsibility to care for it, to use it, and to pass it on to future generations of believers.

Jude is reminding us of what Jesus, in this parable, is telling His apostles and the others in the crowd—He’s telling them that they have a responsibility to use the gift they’re receiving. And that He’s going to hold them accountable for how they use it.

So whether the minas represent salvation or faith or the mission of the church, it doesn’t really matter—all of these are included in the work that Jesus has assigned to His followers. Assigned not just to those believers in the crowd outside Jerusalem that day, but also to you and me and to every single believer who’s lived since that day that Jesus ascended into heaven 2000 years ago.

Matthew records Jesus’ final words in His gospel: “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

Jesus is giving His followers the responsibility of carrying on the family business in His absence—the business of bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God to everyone everywhere.

He wants us to understand that He really means it. Because when the king returns, Jesus says that he orders His servants to come and tell him what “they had gained by doing business” (19:15).

He gave minas to ten servants but He only talks about three of them—because there are really only three possibilities.

The first servant says that he took the single mina and made ten minas more. And Jesus says, “Well done, good servant!”

Back in Luke 18:28-30, when Jesus tells the crowd that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God,” everyone is astonished—they’d always believed that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing and favor. When Peter pointed out that he and the other apostles had left their homes to follow Jesus, Jesus responded, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

Now, a few verses later, He’s giving them a better picture of what they will receive. The servant who made ten minas more has, like Peter, put the mission of Jesus above all else in his or her life. This servant has made the greatest possible use of our common salvation. They were looking at everything in life as an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel, to spread the knowledge of the heights and depths of God’s love. They understood that whatever job they might have, it was for the primary purpose of spreading the message of Jesus, rather than for the purpose of building a personal kingdom.

So what’s the reward for doing a great job for Jesus? Not a ten day all expense paid trip to Hawaii. It’s ten cities to rule over. In the kingdom of God, it appears the reward for doing the hard work of serving God is more work.

This life apparently is about apprenticeship. About learning how to serve God so that we can continue to do it in eternity.

The second servant told the king that he had turned the one mina into five minas. He is rewarded, but notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “Well done, good servant!” This servant has done well, but they have not made Jesus’ mission the most important thing in their life. They’ve allowed other things to come first.

The third servant, on the other hand, has done nothing. They buried their mina. When called to account, they said, “I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow” (Luke 19:21). With these words, it becomes clear that they didn’t really know Jesus at all. They might have come to church and participated in religious activities, but they’re still living under the old covenant. They think that it’s by keeping the law that they’ll be saved—by trying to be a good person.

We’ll never be able to follow Jesus simply by working really hard at being good, at doing the right thing. A new heart is needed—this is what we saw in Zacchaeus. And only when we have that new heart are we able to really see who Jesus is.

But when we see Him, when we being to serve Him, we find that our spiritual self, like our physical body, is strengthened through the exercise of serving. When we develop our muscles, our reward is that we can carry heavier loads and still feel good. When we act faithfully according to the responsibilities the Lord entrusts us, our capacities will grow.

In John’s gospel, the last miracle that Jesus performs before He dies on the cross is the raising of His dead friend Lazarus—bringing him to life after four days in the tomb. Luke tells us of the chief tax collector Zacchaeus, whose heart is completely changed when he sees who Jesus really is. Hundreds of years earlier, God gave the prophet Ezekiel the vision of a huge valley of dry bones that come to life when the spirit of God is breathed into them.

Jesus told His disciples that only after He departed would His Spirit be able to come and live in and with them. And not just them, but in and with every single person who can see who Jesus is.

Jesus’ mission in His lifetime here on earth was to share the good news of the Kingdom of God with anyone who would listen. He came, in His own words, “to seek and save the lost.”

His purpose for you and for me and for everyone else who sees who He is is that we, too, be about His work of seeking and saving the lost. Of telling the world that He came for much more than the nation of Israel—He came for all nations. He is Savior of the world. His kingdom is for every country, every city, and every people—and His plan is that His Church reach every single man, woman and child with the message of salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is our purpose. To contend for the faith in all places and at all times. To make disciples—of Samaritan lepers and adulterous women, of corrupt politicians, of those engaged in human trafficking, of those being trafficked. To make disciples of Republicans and Democrats, of Communists and Libertarians; of illegal immigrants and murderers.

Jesus died not just for Peter and Paul and James and John—He died not just for you and me and all the other people gathered in churches around the world today. He died for the guilty thief on the cross next to Him, He died for the Roman soldier who pounded the nails through His hands and His feet. He died for the chief priest who condemned Him.

Because just as He looked at the rich young ruler who rejected him and loved him, so too does He love every single one of His creatures. Loves us and longs for us to be with Him for all eternity. But because God is perfect and holy, we too must become holy before we can enter into His presence.

We, too, must learn to look at every single person and love them. Love them enough to persist in growing relationship, in bringing them to a place where they’re ready and able to see Jesus.

This is what it means to be engaged in the business of God.

And so while we might be farmers or doctors or teachers or pastors or mothers raising children or whatever other occupation God has given us, we are called first and foremost to be about the spreading of the gospel. To be less about the political transformation of society and more about the spiritual transformation of the soul, without which political transformation will never happen.

Kingdom work in this world is never easy—Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross after being beaten. And the absence of the King must be extended in order that we have time to reach all those in the world, even to the ends of the earth.

Luke wants us to know that, no matter who we are in that crowd with Jesus, none of us is too last to be found. None of us is too bad to be welcomed into the kingdom. If Zacchaeus, the short, reformed, tree-climbing con man can receive a new heart, so, too, can you and I.

He also wants us to remember that the glory of the resurrection was preceded by the horror of the cross, without which the glory could never have occurred. He wants us to think not in terms of quick and easy victory, but in terms of long delay and protracted struggle, as we seek to grow the kingdom.

And he wants us to know that whether we’re a lost sheep or a prodigal child, a leper or a blind beggar, rich or poor, white or black or red or yellow; whether we’ve known Jesus all our lives or whether we just now had our eyes opened to who He is—He died for us. Died that we might live. That through the death of God’s only Son on the cross, He offers to each one of us a new heart

Jesus, as He traveled from His baptism at the River Jordan to Jerusalem and the cross, has been continually at work reshaping the people of God around Himself, warning of the division He brings and yet offering assurance that God provides for those who follow and confess Jesus.

Freedom is not the prize—serving the master in even more ways is, along with the joy of sharing in His work.

Let us pray.

Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. If you are familiar with this phrase, you’re probably old.

When I was in high school, computers were a very new thing and they were just starting to be used by businesses. Schools were convinced that knowing how to use them would be very important in the future—and it was a complicated business, because those first computers were nothing at all like the computers we use today. They didn’t speak English. I was really good at math and so when my high school offered its first computer math class, they encouraged me to sign up for it. I did—and in the class we learned computer language and then we learned how to write programs. And the data that we entered into the computer was printed out on cards that looked like this. Not printed with ink, but punched into the card.

And as businesses like the electric company and the phone company began to use computers, the bills that they mailed out to customers included one of these punched cards. The card had to be returned with payment—people still wrote checks and mailed in their bills back in those days.

And every card was printed with the words, “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.” Usually this was printed on the outside of the envelope, too. Because if the card was not returned in its original condition, the computer would not be able to read it correctly.

So great care had to be taken to ensure that those cards weren’t damaged in any way.

Thankfully, those days are behind us. But what does this have to do with the Bible or All Saints’ Sunday? Quite a lot actually—because I think the idea of “do not fold, spindle or mutilate” has become a part of our American faith life.

Perhaps it’s the default position of the human condition, because it appears that many of the people living in first century Israel also believed that “folding, spindling or mutilating” was not to be part of the life of any good Jew—certainly not any Pharisee.

Then Jesus came along. In our gospel this morning, He’s on His way to Jerusalem—Palm Sunday is just days away. He’s traveling on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem and, as was common in first century Israel, there’s a crowd of people walking with Him. It was customary for rabbis to teach as they traveled, and this is what Jesus was doing. People traveling in the same direction on the road would join the group; they’d drop out as they reached their destination while others join the group as they began their journey. The disciples were traveling with Jesus, but the rest of the crowd would have been continually changing.

In the middle of all this, Jesus stops and pulls the Twelve aside to tell them that when they get to Jerusalem, He’s going to be beaten and mocked and people would spit on Him—and then they’re going to kill Him. But then on the third day, He’ll rise from the dead.

Luke tells us, “But they understood none of these things” (18:33). They were certain that Jesus was the Messiah, but, like all the rest of the Jews, they thought the Messiah was coming to establish a political kingdom—certainly not to suffer and die.

Jesus’ disciples were good Jewish men. They’d been educated in the synagogue and they knew a lot—but they didn’t know enough. They didn’t understand the whole story—and so when Jesus told them, for the third time, that He was going to Jerusalem to die, they just couldn’t even begin to comprehend what He was saying.

They were like most of us today. We think that because we are bombarded with information through the media, that we are well-informed of the facts, when what we really are is simply much-informed. It’s true of us not just in terms of news, but also in terms of our faith. Many Christians in our country today—and maybe some of us, too—think that because we’ve heard some of Jesus’ message, we know who He is and what His position might be on every conceivable matter.

Luke wrote his gospel to clear up misunderstandings that already existed in the understanding of at least some people as to who Jesus was and why He came—and this was only about 30 years after Jesus had ascended back up to heaven.

And what he’s saying here is that “these things,” the things that “they did not grasp,” the things that will be happening in Jerusalem in just a few days—the torture and crucifixion of Jesus—are the most important things. He’s saying that if we don’t understand the message of the cross, we can’t really understand any of the message. This is, of course, why the apostle Paul said that he had “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (I Corinthians 2:2).

Luke, along with all of the gospel writers, reminds us that if we want to follow Jesus, we, too, must be prepared to take up our crosses.

Because when we forget that the cross is the most important thing, we begin to turn Jesus into whoever we want Him to be. We can say with assurance that if He were alive today, He’s be in support of all kinds of things that seem like good ideas to us. Even people in the church have convinced themselves that Jesus is fine with abortion, with same sex marriage, with alternative life styles, with rebellion against government. A variety of political, social, and religious causes identify themselves with his “kingdom.”

But Luke reminds us that the Christian life isn’t one of ease. It’s not one where we can be assured that we’ll never be “folded, spindled or mutilated.” He wants us to understand that following Jesus—truly following Him—is not easy. He wants us to ask the question: are these so-called Christian soldiers “Marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before?”

Because you cannot have a crusade without a cross.

There’s an old Latin saying that says, “The voice of the people is the voice of God.”

This saying is totally contradicted by most of Luke’s gospel and particularly by this section. The voice of the people is saying one thing, the voice of God is saying something very different.

And then we meet the blind beggar—a man who can see nothing, but who somehow understands who Jesus is better even than the Twelve. A man who, when He’s told that it’s “Jesus of Nazareth” passing by, simply cries out the perfect prayer, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Cries out over and over again, despite the efforts of people around him to make him be quiet. The same prayer we heard the tax collector in the temple pray earlier in this same chapter.

But he’s a blind beggar—and so the crowd assumes that he’s a sinner and that Jesus will want nothing to do with him. Just as they assumed that the rich young ruler was exactly the kind of person Jesus would want to be associated with—so no one tried to keep him from talking to Jesus.

Because despite three years of Jesus reaching out to the poor, the lame, the hungry, the sick, they still thought that health and wealth indicated God’s favor.

But Jesus stops and asks the blind beggar the same question He puts to every one of us: “What do you want me to do for you?” The man asked for his sight—and Jesus gave it to him. And immediately, the man got up and followed Jesus.

Jesus came to heal, to give sight to the blind, to bind up the brokenhearted—and He calls those who follow Him to do the same.

This is not something new—400 years before Jesus was born, a man named Nehemiah is serving in the palace of the Persian king Artaxerxes when his brother Hanani comes from Jerusalem and tells him of the destruction of the city. Now Nehemiah has never been to Jerusalem, but he knows and loves the Lord God, and so his heart is broken at what he hears. He spent days in fasting in prayer before going to the king and telling him that he needed to go to Jerusalem to do whatever he could do to help the people who were there.  The rest of the book of Nehemiah tells of the opposition that he faced when he arrived in Jerusalem, of the poor living conditions and the struggles.

Although the Messiah had not yet come, Nehemiah knew the law—and he somehow understood that the law was created to help us to love the Lord our God and to love our one another. Even when doing so brings with it the possibility of being “folded, spindled or mutilated.”

Nehemiah could make the long and dangerous journey—900 miles on foot—from Susa to Jerusalem and then go about the task of rebuilding the city walls because he knew that the Lord was with him. He could, with the help of the prophet Ezra, bring the Word of God back to the people because he knew that the Lord was with him. And the people, after years of hardship and struggle, were ready to listen.

The apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthian church at about the same time Luke was writing his gospel, begins by sharing the extreme affliction that he and his traveling companions have experienced. “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength,” he wrote, “that we despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8).

But Paul, who had committed to preaching the cross of Christ only, was reminded in his suffering of the suffering of Jesus Himself. And so, Paul says, there was a reason for their struggles. It was, he wrote, “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

As is often the case, the earliest days of Paul’s ministry went pretty well. But that was not to continue. As we read the Book of Acts, we see that almost everywhere Paul went—Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Jerusalem—there were people who opposed his message. Violently opposed—mobs trying to kill him or at least run him out of town were a regular occurrence for Paul.

Some scholars think that in his letter to the Corinthians, he’s referring to the riots in Ephesus that we read about in Acts 19. Paul faced strong opposition in Ephesus from the silversmiths because they said that Paul was hurting their business. People were being converted to Christianity through Paul’s preaching and so they were no longer buying silver statues of the goddess Artemis—the gospel was causing them to lose income.

Throughout all of Paul’s letters, we see that he’s much more concerned about the people who have not received the gospel with great joy, the people that he knows will be lost for all eternity if they don’t receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, than he is about the hardships he faces. And perhaps it was in Ephesus that he finally realized that the message of the gospel, the message of the cross of Jesus Christ, would never stop bringing opposition from those whose jobs and incomes depended on religious or political beliefs contrary to the gospel. That until Jesus returned, there would always be those who, like the disciples traveling to Jerusalem with Jesus, would be unable to grasp the message in any life-changing way.

And Paul’s heart, like Nehemiah’s 400 years earlier, was simply broken at the realization that there were people in the world who would never give their hearts to Christ. But if continuing the preach the good news included being “folded, spindled and mutilated,” Paul clearly believed that it was worth it.

He also believed, however, that the prayers of the saints were absolutely vital to the success of the mission. And so he tells the Corinthians that “You must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many” (2 Corinthians 1:11). Paul wasn’t talking about the blessings of a comfortable life; he was talking about the blessing of knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Jesus, who even as He traveled to Jerusalem to face the cross, did not stop sharing the good news of the kingdom of God. Jesus, who when He was arrested and beaten and nailed to a wooden cross, demonstrated to all of us what mercy is all about. He showed us what the mercy of God looks like. He offered every one of us an unimaginable alternative. To those of us who, like the blind beggar, have a right to expect nothing, He offered everything. He continues to hold out His arms to every one of us, inviting us to follow Him. To go through the narrow door that leads to an inexhaustible, infinite store of mercy. The door that can be opened when we cry out to Him in prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

And then go and share the good news with all the blind beggars around us—all those people who are so lost and so blind that they don’t even realize their condition.

And to pray continually for the lost around the world. To pray not just for the lost, but also for all those Christians who are, even now, being “folded, spindled and mutilated” for their faith. To have hearts that break on their behalf. Hearts that can not stop crying out to God.

A few weeks ago, we talked about the way that God miraculously rescued Peter from prison—as the church prayed desperately on his behalf.

Paul himself experienced being released from prison in Philippi when he and his traveling companion Silas were praying and singing praise to God.

We see here that Paul places his deliverance and the prayers of the Corinthians together—because through their prayers, the Corinthians are helping or “working together” with God. The Corinthians were hundreds of miles away from Paul in Macedonia, but Paul is saying that he is confident that their united prayers would still be used by God to deliver him from trouble.

Paul wanted the Corinthian church—and us—to know that If God is the source of mercy and comfort, Christ is the channel through whom these things come. It is through Christ that “our comfort overflows.” While all good things have their origin in God, they come to us through Christ.

Think about it—in the gospels, there was never a single time when people did not receive comfort that overflowed through Jesus—if they were willing to receive it.

But Paul also wants us to understand that as believers, Christians are united not just with Christ but also with one another.  He wants us to understand that God’s comfort is never intended to end with the one who receives it.

He wants us to understand that no matter how weak we may feel, God’s power is always mighty to save. It never runs out. This is not a promise of immediate gratification, health or prosperity, but rather comfort in times of suffering and trouble.

Paul’s confidence that God has delivered us and he will deliver us again refers both to God’s ultimate deliverance and also to his day-to-day deliverance from the problems of this life.  At the same time, he realized that God’s deliverances in this life are always partial. We might recover from an illness, but there’s no way to avoid our last enemy, death. We’re tangled up in the sorrow and suffering of this world—only in the resurrection of the dead is there perfect deliverance.

Modern man is so blinded by his technology and his own sense of power that he regards prayer and thanksgiving as weak. But the apprehension that human power is in fact an illusion is a precondition to the discovery, or rediscovery, of the power of God and of prayer and thanksgiving. Paul’s helplessness in the face of strong forces led him to experience, doubtless through prayer, the power of God to deliver him.

People who are being trafficked.

Christians in China who are being used as involuntary organ donors.

People who are being beaten and imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

This is why we pray—it’s why we should never stop praying. It’s why we’re called to pray for people that we don’t know, people that we’ll never know in this lifetime—but people who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. People who right now are desperately in need of prayer.

Prayer that people in persecuted countries ask for is that they have the strength to endure.

Monday night prayers.

Last week, Paul’s words to Timothy: “As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful” (2 Timothy 4:6-7). His final words of advice to Timothy are: “Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Even when is requires being “folded, spindled, or mutilated.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is our calling. It is our purpose for living. When we have completed the work for which God has created us, He will come and take us to be with him—for all eternity.

As He did for Paul. As He did for the apostles and Nehemiah. As he has done for eight of our brothers and sisters during the past year.