Coffee With God

15 October 2021 Luke 12:1-7

According the Gospel of Luke, one reason for Jesus losing his temper was hypocrisy of the people. In Chapter 11, he presented an angry Jesus who came strong against the Pharisees and religious scholars for not being truthful and for their hypocrisy. “Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees,” Jesus tells his disciples. The Jews regarded yeast as a corrupting agent, which corrupted the food. That is why they insisted on using unleavened bread at the Passover. When Jesus talks of “the yeast of the Pharisees”, the reference is about the behaviour that corrupts their lives –hypocrisy. In contrast to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees the followers of Jesus must practice transparency. The Church is not a secret society. Its purpose is to share the vision of Christ with the whole world. This is crucial to the reign of God in the world. “What you have whispered in locked rooms will be proclaimed from the rooftops.” This, of course, will involve dangers. The Gospel will be resisted, and those who proclaim the Gospel will face persecutions and death. This has been the history of the Church. Thousands have sacrificed their lives simply because they were followers of Jesus. But for a Christian, death is not an enemy. It is something that every Christian awaits eagerly – to return to his Father’s house. That’s why Jesus reiterates his disciples not to be afraid of those who kill you. The following sentence could be confusing: “Be afraid of the one who after killing, has the power to cast into Gehenna.” The one we are really to fear is the one who can make us deny Christ and all that Christ means, and to die in that state of denial. ‘Gehenna’ in Hebrew meant ‘Valley of Hinnom’ or ge-ben-hinnom, ‘Valley of the Son of Hinnom’. This valley was situated on the south-west of Jerusalem. In the time of the kings, it had been the center of a cult in which children were sacrificed (cf. 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31) and hence, seen as a place of abomination. In the time of Jesus, this valley was turned into the dumping site for all the wastes of the city of Jerusalem. When Jesus talks about casting someone into Gehenna, he must have meant, “ to waste one’s life or throwing one’s life into the dumping pit.” If you allow yourself to corrupt your life through hypocrisy and falsehood, you choose to ruin your life and is not worthy of anything other than to be wasted in the dumping pit of Gehenna! But, whatever threats hang over us, we are not to fear because, Our Faith is in a God who values the lives of the children of God.