Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” Three are divided against two in one house, father against son, mother against daughter, in-law against in-law. And all of this because of Jesus.

Jesus is the reason or cause for the division. Some in a house will believe in and confess Jesus to be the Savior of the world; others will not. And while those in the household may say that they love each other—and that’s not always a given—internally, they are most certainly divided with hostility. It’s not just father against son, etc., but vehemently so. In some cases, this division even results in abandonment, disowning, and divorce.

A cursory reading of today’s lessons reveal that they are about faith. There is a theme of taking God solely at His word, of full reliance and trust in God simply because He says a thing is so.

One of the things it seems that St. Luke tried to teach Theophilus (and, of course, every Christians and lover of God) is the importance of prayer. From the prayers of praise and thanksgiving from Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon in his first two chapters, to showing that Jesus was Himself a man of prayer who sought His Father’s aid during significant times in His ministry (check out chapters 3, 6, 9, and 22, among others), St. Luke’s Gospel is filled with prayer.

If anything, from St. Luke’s account, the disciples should have learned of the importance of prayer by observing the discipline with which Jesus prayed and the frequency of His prayers. Jesus would often depart to a solitary place and pray to His Father in heaven. He prayed to His Father in Heaven because He was the Son of God and a Man of faith. He prayed to His Father because He relied on His Father for everything that He needed. His disciples observed this in St. Luke’s Gospel; every Theophilus should find this hard to miss when reading St. Luke’s Gospel.

I have heard it said, “If we had a scheduled day, we would be able to get a lot more done in a day.” That is to say that if everything—and I mean everything—that you needed to do were scheduled, you could and would get much more done. Whether or not that’s the case, it is an indication that people these days have something to do at just about every hour of the day. There’s barely time to sleep. It seems, and it just may be the case, that people today are a busy people, busier than ever.

Busyness interferes with leisure. When there’s so much to do, there’s little time for fun. As mentioned once already, busyness can also take away from time to sleep. But, busyness can also take time away from doing nothing, playing a game, reading a book for fun, enjoying some down time with friends, going to the pool, riding your bike to nowhere in particular…leisure.

Busyness can also take away time from worship. Therein lies a real danger. You can get so caught up in doing what you’re “supposed” to do—taking care of business—that you forget about, ignore, or flat-out neglect worship. You can get the doctrine of vocation so wrong that you believe you are doing right when you miss worship because you are doing what you do.

In Matthew 25, Jesus presented a picture of the Day of Judgment. People will be separated, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats. The sheep on Jesus’ right hand will be ushered into everlasting life as Jesus gives a list of their accomplishments, much to their surprise. The goats on Jesus’ left will be ushered into fire and everlasting torment prepared for the devil and his angels, and as much as the sheep are surprised to hear of what they have done, the goats are shocked to hear of what they didn’t do.

From there, people get all kinds of ideas as regards what the text means. They all usually focus on the works of the sheep versus the non-works of the goats, and assume He is there teaching that His followers should be in works of service to others, feeding, clothing, visiting, and caring for them as befits their needs. These are all fine works, given to you by God that you may be in service to others.

But Jesus also said in Matthew 25, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40) Now, the idea of works to service to others shifts into one that states that doing these is doing them to Jesus, that the person receiving the benefit is something more than someone in the way of your getting to Jesus. It also shifts into the belief that these works are only worth doing if they are done to someone who is Christ-like—someone you deem to be a Christian.