It was the morning of November 5th, the morning after the Tuesday elections of 2008. I knew the results before I even got out of bed and laid there wondering what the promised “change” was going to mean for the America I knew and loved. I threw on my old jeans and a sweat shirt, tired of this broken world and hopeless to do anything about it.
Over the next three days I went through the motions of my day, unsure of how to process the mandate of the political majority. While the stock market plummeted and the phones in my real estate office went strangely silent, I mourned the decline of my country and walked around half-engaged, too sad to do business.
With a strong sense that we are in the final days before Christ’s return, I wondered what to do next. Should we pull our money out of the markets and buy gold? Should we sell everything and go a foreign mission field? Maybe we should do what the disciples did in Acts 1 right after Jesus ascended—stand out on the front lawn and gaze intently into the sky waiting for him to come back!
On Thursday morning while I was making coffee, a verse came to mind from my days in Sunday school: “Occupy until I come.” I couldn’t remember where the verse was or just when Jesus had said it, so I curled up in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee and searched out the phrase.
It’s in Luke 19. And strangely enough, verse 11 tells us that Jesus’ disciples thought that the time had finally come when the kingdom of God was about to appear on earth. Jesus gave them a parable to shed some light on what was really about to happen and what they should do about it.
A nobleman, a king who was about to take a long trip had three slaves. Before he left he gave each slave some money to invest. You remember the story. One slave does a great job by making a ten-fold return for the master. The second one does an okay job by producing a five-fold profit and the last buried the money and didn’t make any return at all. Jesus had something to say to each one of them: “Well done,” for slave number one, a passing grade for slave number two, and the words, “Worthless slave,” for slave number three.
But the part of this passage that pulled me out of my doldrums was in verse 13. Sure enough, the King James Version did say, “Occupy until I come.” But in current English “occupy” sounds like the King was telling his slaves to hang-out and take up space. That’s not the real meaning of the word. It’s the Greek word for to “do business or trade.”
I closed my Bible with clear direction on what to do next. The King is on a long trip. He’s given me some assets and expects a healthy return — Bible classes to teach, a real estate practice to direct and a family to care for. With renewed joy and a sense of purpose, I got up from my chair, put on my best suit and went out to face the day.
“Do business until I come back.” –Luke 19:13
