•    Wisdom 18:6-9
•    Psalm 33:1, 12, 18-20, 22
•    Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19
•    Luke 12:32-48

God does everything for us; there really is nothing for us to do. Our part, and it takes a lifetime to learn this, is merely to be in a state of responsive alertness, just as dogs, no matter how deeply asleep, are up and ready for action at the slightest hint of their master going for a walk. The first reading for next Sunday reflects on Israel in Egypt, and how alert they were on that first Passover night, when the oppressors were punished, and the children of Israel were set free. It may be worth pointing out that the Book of Wisdom, from which our first reading is taken, was probably written in Egypt, for Jews who by now spoke Greek rather than Hebrew, and who marvelled at the brilliant culture around them, and perhaps feared that their traditional values might be rather inferior to those of Egyptian society.

So there may have been a touch of gloating about them as they reflected on that great night of liberation (“that night was foreknown to our ancestors”) and how their predecessors had been attentive to God’s word, so that they knew what was coming, and “your people waited for the salvation of the just; the enemy waited for their destruction”. The Egyptians had been destroyed because they did not listen to God; Israel was saved because they had.

The psalm for next Sunday is attentive to what God has done, “rejoice, you just, in YHWH; praise is fitting for the righteous”. Then comes an intense burst of praise, “happy the nation whose God is YHWH, the people he has chosen for his inheritance”. More than that, the attentiveness is two-way, “behold YHWH’s eye is on those who revere him, on those who hope for his steadfast love”. Then he recounts what God does, “to deliver their souls from death, to give them life in time of famine”. So this people remains attentive: “our soul waits for YHWH – he is our help and our shield”.

The second reading for next Sunday speaks of a particular kind of attentiveness, that we call “faith”. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews gives us a list of those who in Israel’s history have paid attention to “the substance of things hoped for, the reality of things unseen”.  There is Abraham “who went out not knowing where he was going”. There is Sarah his wife who “accepted the power to found a dynasty…because she thought the one who promised was reliable”. And the patriarchs, the reading tells us, “died without receiving the promises, but they looked far beyond themselves…they were looking for their homeland”. “Therefore”, the author tells us, “God was not ashamed to call himself their God, for he had prepared a city for them.” Abraham was so attentive in faith that he was even prepared to sacrifice his son, the promise of immortality.

And so to the gospel for next Sunday. Once again the invitation is to attentiveness expressed as “not fearing”, “staying awake”, and “girded loins” (this last is something like a footballer putting on his kit, or an athlete donning her track-suit). The point of our attentiveness is precisely that God has done it all already: “your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom”. So there should be no difficulty for us to “sell your possessions and give alms”; and Jesus adds the sharp point that “where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be”. Then the angle of attack changes slightly, and we are reminded that we are not in an equal relationship with God; we are to God as slaves to a master (or “Lord”). Sometimes they will get extraordinary treatment from him, “he will put on his kit and make them lie down, and come and wait on them!” But they are not to accept this as their due; if however we fail in attentiveness and “start beating fellow-slaves of either gender and eating and drinking and getting boozed, then the Lord will come on a day when he’s not expecting him, and at an hour he does not know”. And there will be trouble, here expressed in terms of corporal punishment of varying degrees of severity. Let us this week be alert as we contemplate this extraordinary God.