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19 November. Luke chapters 12-13
Today’s passage starts with what sounds like a stark warning from Jesus. “Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops” (12:2-3)
This is one of those verses that makes me feel uncomfortable. As the old cinema adage has it, “be afraid, be very afraid!” Not because I have some terrible crime to hide that would have me sent to prison if found out, but because like most people there are things that I say or do “in secret” that would be embarrassing or compromising if said in public. You will know what your own secrets are and it is not for me to enquire about them.
But as someone said to me this morning, one test of someone’s integrity is their reaction to a note slipped to them that simply reads: “Flee! All is known!” Just witness the shock that goes round a place of work, or a church, when someone everybody thought was trustworthy turns out to have been defrauding the organisation, or giving away industrial secrets, or abusing their position of power to sexually harass younger or less influential members of the organisation.
Jesus might have been warning about this sort of public disclosure, things that would be made public in the lifetime of his hearers, that would make people’s life difficult. But it is more often interpreted as referring to the last judgement, that unknown day on which everyone’s deeds will be weighed in God’s balance. The Biblical image of the day of judgement is often a very public one, in which the souls of all who have ever lived will be gathered together or the truth to be revealed. And like one of Hercule Poirot’s denouements, what is revealed may surprise everyone gathered. On that day, those people who might have been held up as paragons of virtue in their lifetime might be revealed as the worst of sinners – but the opposite might also apply, that those vilified in their lifetime may turn out to have repented and to have done good deeds that outweigh the bad.
But what if Jesus was talking about a different type of disclosure? What if his words were addressed not to those who have something shameful to hide, but to his disciples who at that time (and certainly immediately after his death) were frightened to share the “good news”? Maybe he is saying to those who would hide in their rooms for fear of their persecutors in the early days of the Church that there would come a time when it is the glorious Gospel of Christ that is “heard in the light”, and the stories of his faithful followers that are “proclaimed from the housetops”?
For that is the alternative understanding of the day of judgement that Jesus brought. Not an occasion of weighing good deeds against bad and hoping that the former will be judged greater, but one of vindicating all those who have been oppressed for doing the will of God, of raising up those whose acts of love and mercy were done in secret and lifting them high as victors for Christ.
So if “what you have said in the dark and what you have whispered behind closed doors” refers to the unknown ways in which you have spoken to other people of your faith, the times you have said a kind word to someone in distress, the prayers you have offered in private for individuals or groups of people, then be encouraged, be very encouraged.