Daily Devotional for May 19

 

May 19                                                           Luke 12:32-48

Where, my child, have you stored your treasure? Where have
you committed your heart during your journey through life?
Have you sought riches and power and prestige among the
nations of the world? Or have you cast your lot with the poor,
the homeless, the drug addicts of your community? Have you
used your riches to keep mental patients out of your section
of the city? Or have you spent time seeking political support
for the task of sheltering and ministering to those cast out into
the streets who have fallen through the bureaucratic cracks
in human services systems? Where is your treasure, dear child?

Jesus gave up the power of his lineage and his authority as rabbi
to identify with the powerless in Hebrew culture: women,
children, lepers, sinners. We become his followers when we
are willing to make our home with the humble, to use our
power in the service of the powerless. In the humility of low
estate we become like Jesus. He so identified with the tax
collectors, prostitutes, and sinners of his time that he shared
their humiliation, even to the extent of exposure on a cross
of shame. He gave up his life to redeem the outcasts and
criminals who needed his healing touch.

Are we less than our brother Jesus? Have we placed our treasure
at the disposal of the political powers, the economic giants
of finance, the military-industrial complex - of those powers
that seek to dominate a world in which the rich get richer and
the poor get poorer? If we have been given abundance, we
must remember not to hoard it for ourselves. We must give
it away, so that our treasure may lie in our heavenly abode.
If we have been given much, much shall be required of us.

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From The Road to Emmaus - An inclusive devotional Edited by Joseph W. Houle

Emmaus House of Prayer - Washington D.C.198