PURSES THAT DO NOT WEAR OUT

Sell your possessions
and give to the poor.
Provide purses for yourselves
that will not wear out,
a treasure in heaven
that will never fail,
where no thief comes near
and no moth destroys.

Luke 12:33 (read 12:32 - 40) - NIV

The language of the Bible is allegorical and symbolic using parables and comparisons. Heaven is the human spirit when it is aware of the Divine presence. The Kingdom of God is the practice of compassion in everyday life here on earth. The purses that do not wear out symbolize the values of the Kingdom which are faith, hope and love. “Being dressed and ready” means being watchful for open doors to new opportunities, practicing love and participating in manifestations of the Kingdom of God when they appear.

It is wrong to interpret this passage as the prediction of a single historical event that will be fulfilled some day at an unexpected hour and a warning for us stay up to date with our spiritual state by praying and fasting in order to not be caught off guard. I know of a woman who does not take off all her clothes when she takes a shower, because Jesus might come, and she would be caught naked. What would she do then? – poor thing!

The Kingdom of God is already here and it's up to us to recognize and participate in it. Failing to recognize this has produced an alienated Christianity which is not of a transforming nature and succeeds only in reproducing the social evils of the society which surrounds it. As an institution the church is not different from secular societies with its struggles for power, inner conflicts and divisions, not to mention its own inner injustice and deceitfulness.

Many church people live their daily life as if it were not part of the Kingdom. They make a separation of the secular from the sacred, without realizing that this division is artificial. They trivialize daily life. In their thinking the Sacred is isolated and confined to a narrow "spiritual" life. God is seen only as the God of their faith. I once heard a recently retired school teacher, pastor’s wife, declare that now she was retired she could serve God full time. Why did she not serve God in the classroom?

Many professing Christians have a narrow concept of God by claiming that they have an exclusive relationship to divinity through their limited interpretation of Jesus and are blind to a wider vision of divine activity outside of Christianity. They play down inclusiveness and limit love in a way that excludes almost all of humanity and the vast world in which we live. They ignore any manifestation of compassion outside of their narrow creeds. The following was not written by a Christian but is well within what Jesus reveals as Kingdom:

* "Our distractions with trivial, mundane activities lead us to waste our precious human life. Instead of using it to achieve (...) big goals, (...) we use it to acquire food, clothing, shelter, material possessions, to indulge in sex and other superficial pleasures and get promotion and social status. This particular does not differentiate us from animals fighting for food, making shelters, producing offspring, protecting their territory and living for supremacy within the flock or herd."

Our real “treasure in heaven” is not to accumulate but to share. Our heavenly treasure is the people with whom we share our lives and the earth for which we care. Greed and selfishness are self-destructive, but love begets life.

* INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM (Introdução ao Budismo) pp. 9-10, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

LUKE 12:32-40 – NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV)

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”