Enough – Salvaged Faith

The Lord’s Prayer: Our Daily Bread

Posted on March 20, 2022Leave a comment

During this season of Lent, we are taking time to dive deep and explore together the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Already, we have thought about what it means to be in conversation and relationship with our Holy Parent.

We spent last week thinking about what God desires and intends for our lives – for all of creation to thrive under God’s reign.

And one of the threads that is woven throughout this entire prayer is that in all of these petitions, our attention is shifted.

We are invited to think bigger… to focus on “Thee and Thine” not “me and mine.”

But that shift is also away from a kind of individualistic “me, myself, and I” to the communal.

Every part of this prayer uses plural pronouns.

We are not just praying for what we want, but are called to be aware of the needs and hopes and yearning of others.

And that is one of the reasons I am so excited that we are joining in this study together.

Some of you have been participating in the small groups in our congregations.

But what you maybe haven’t realized is that other churches in our area are learning and exploring and praying with us.

For these next three weeks, Immanuel, Windsor, and Valley United Methodist Churches are making that connection more explicit as we share our pulpits with one another.

It is my honor to get to speak with you all today and I’m looking forward to how Pastor Lee and Pastor LaTonya will bless us all in the coming weeks.

This morning, we have the opportunity to focus on the third phrase in the Lord’s Prayer:
“Give us this day our daily bread.”

There they are again… those plural pronouns.

The Lord’s Prayer centers us in the body of Christ and our needs and responsibilities towards one another.

After all, food is all about community.

One of the things I have missed the most as a United Methodist over these last two years of Covid-tide is the potluck.

You know – where everyone brings something to the table.

Crocks of hamballs, jello salad, far more deserts than you could possibly imagine…

But even if it isn’t a large communal gathering, in our prayers and blessings for meals, we often invoke the truth that most food before us is only possible because of our shared life.

From the hands that planted crops and cared for animals…

To those who have harvested and butchered and packaged…

To the workers who brought our food to market and the people who work to sell them.

In the modern world, every time we eat, we do so thanks to others.

As the authors of Becoming Jesus’ Prayer write: “bread is a cooperative endeavor.” (p. 53)

We became far more aware of this reality early in the pandemic as so many of these employees all along the food distribution chain were labeled “essential workers.”

I find that particular language intriguing as we think about what it means to ask God for our daily bread.

For those of you who are reading along with us in the study book, Adam Hamilton points out that our English translation doesn’t quite capture the fullness of the original languages.

There is a word used here, “epiousian” which we translate in English as “daily.”

But it is an unknown word in the Greek language.

Breaking it apart, scholars guess that it could mean that which is “necessary” or “that which is needed for us to be”; something that is “sufficient” or even “essential.”

Give us today the food that is essential for life.

Our gospel text this morning comes shortly after the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people.

The disciples are quick to connect this amazing experience with how God provided for their ancestors in the wilderness.

They remembered how the Hebrew people were starving in the desert, having just left the land of bondage, but every day… well, every day but the Sabbath… manna came down from heaven and quails appeared every evening.

Every day, there was enough to fill their bellies and satisfy their hunger.

Every day, their essential needs were met.

But as Jesus responds to this eager group of followers, he tells them that God is not just focused on the kind of bread that fills our bellies.

The gift of bread from God, or the bread from heaven, gives life to the world.

And in doing so, he calls them… and us… to think beyond our individual physical need for food today to what is essential for all people to experience abundant life.

All across the world, there are children of God who do not know if they will eat today.

There are hospitals in war-torn areas running out of medicine and supplies.

We have elderly neighbors choosing between paying for groceries or their medications.

Families are fleeing violence with only what they can carry and are desperate for clothing and shelter.

For them, this prayer is a petition spoken out of desperation and a need for survival.

I confess that every single time I have prayed the words “Give us this day our daily bread,” there has been food in my cupboard and a safe, warm place to sleep.

Growing up, we didn’t always have a lot of resources, but we always had the essentials.

Just a few days ago, I threw out a loaf of bread that had grown moldy.

The truth is, compared to so many people in the world, I have more than I need.

And maybe that has been your reality as well.

And yet, Jesus calls us to pray these words.

And in doing so, they are transformed into a call to action.

I might have enough, but does my neighbor?

How am I called to put this prayer into action?

As part of the body of Christ, how can my hands and feet become the answer to the prayers of my neighbors?

This week, the DMARC offices are closed as they transition to larger facilities here in Des Moines.

This vital partnership between so many area churches, organizations, and individuals, is one way that we make sure that our neighbors are fed.

And more than ever, this partnership and effort is vital.

Food insecurity has continued to grow among our neighbors, rising 80% over six years (https://www.dmarcunited.org/capital-campaign/).

The new facility will triple the available warehouse space, completely change cold storage capacity, and will also house a permanent on-site pantry.

It is just one way that as a community we are putting prayer into action and making what is essential available to our hungry neighbors.

But this prayer calls us to do more than just share our leftovers or extra canned peas with those who lack food.

We are called to adopt this mindset for all that is essential to life.

St. Basil the Great famously wrote:

“The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; and the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor.” (https://www.inspirationalstories.com/quotes/saint-basil-the-bread-that-you-store-up-belongs/)

I am reminded that when God provided manna to the Hebrew people in the wilderness, each day they had enough.

Anything that they tried to save and hoard and store up would rot away.

Maybe part of what it means to pray and work for our neighbors to have what is essential for their lives is to also reflect upon the excess of our own consumption.

It isn’t just the bread that molds in our cupboards.

It is also the dress that is too small hanging in my closet that could benefit a woman newly released from prison.

The bed taking up space in your storage unit that could benefit a family from Afghanistan that has found refuge in our community.

If you are anything like me, your heart has been broken apart over and over again by the stories coming out of Ukraine.

But one in particular that I think exemplifies the spirit of this particular prayer is from a train station in Poland.

Polish mothers began dropping off their old strollers for Ukrainian mothers arriving with nothing but the clothes on your back.

What is essential for life?

What do our neighbors need to thrive?

Every time we say this prayer, we are making a commitment to center our lives around what God intends for all of creation and that means joining Jesus in reaching out to people in need.

Whether it is food, or clothing, or shelter, or the money you have saved up, it all has the capacity to be a blessing to others.

We are praying for the strength to work and give and advocate so that others might have enough.

We are paying for the courage to see other people on the fringes of our community as children of God, people of worth and dignity who deserve food and shelter and health care and relationships.

We are praying for justice for our neighbors.

Our scriptures are full of passages that speak of God’s justice in relation to caring for the orphans and the widows, in concern for the strangers or sojourners, the prisoners, the sick, the slaves.

Because of circumstances beyond their control, each of these groups are kept from full participation in the community and find themselves without access to things that are essential for life.

As St. Basil would say, whenever we keep people from what is rightfully theirs – according to the principle of need – we are committing injustice.

But over and over, scripture tells us that God hears and God responds and God calls us to act as the people of God.

According to the Holman Bible Dictionary – “When people had become poor and weak with respect to the rest of the community, they were to be strengthened so that they could continue to be effective members of the community.”

God’s justice is about meeting the needs of our neighbors and restoring people to community.

It is our task and calling as the body of Christ to care for the poor and the marginalized.

To look out for the least among our siblings.

To band together, to hold one another up, to reach out to those on the fringes and offer each other life and life abundant through the power and grace of Jesus Christ.

We do so through prayer, but we also do so through what we share.

Out of our abundance of food and clothing, time and money, even hope and strength, we can reach out to impact the lives of our neighbors so that every single one of us has what is essential for life.

May it be so.

Amen.

Remember Enough

Posted on October 10, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Exodus 16: 1-18

Friends, over the next several weeks in worship, we are going to talk about how we connect our faith, our life, and our finances.

And while on one very practical level our stewardship time helps our church leaders to set a budget for the coming year, there is a much bigger reason that we take time every year to talk about generosity and stewardship.

Because even if we want to avoid the conversation, Jesus is very interested in what we do with our money and resources.

Your money story is a spiritual story and when we let God into this part of our lives, we find grace and love and transformation and joy.

Let us pray…

“Enough” by John van de Laar

Worry and stress are not hard for us, God,
We do them without thinking:

There is always the potential of threat
To our security,
Our comfort,
Our health,
Our relationships,
Our lives.
And we foolishly think that we could silence the fear
If we just had enough money,
Enough insurance,
Enough toys,
Enough stored away for a rainy day.
It’s never enough, though;
The voice of our fear will not be dismissed so easily.

But in the small, silent places within us is another voice;
One that beckons us into the foolishness of faith,
That points our gaze to the birds and the flowers,
That in unguarded moments, lets our muscles relax.
And our hearts lean into loved ones.;
In unexpected whispers we hear it,
Calling us to remember your promises,
Your grace,
Your faithfulness;
And, suddenly, we discover,
That it is enough.
Amen.

In the words that I just shared with you from John van de Laar, we hear echoes of the story that the world tries to tell us about money.

There is never enough.

We live with fear and stress and worry… and so much of that has been compounded by the pandemic and economic uncertainties and supply chain disruptions and… and…

There is always something out there with the potential to bring it all crashing to the ground.

Even in the moments when everything is okay…

When we find our footing…

When we have experienced a transformation for good…

We struggle to let go of the fear.

That is what we find in Exodus.

It is a story of a people who just a month and a half before were still in the land of Egypt.

They were living in “an economy of fear and deprivation,” writes Erin Weber-Johnson but God liberated them from oppression.

Can you imagine the joy and the freedom and the excitement of being able to write a new story for your life?

And yet they struggled to let go of their fear.

They were not yet sure what it meant to trust in God, they were already looking back upon their days in captivity with rose-colored glasses.

You see, they remembered that at the end of those days, they could sit by the fire and their pots were full and bread was plentiful… or at least it seemed that way in their memories.

They forgot that they could never produce enough to satisfy their oppressor.

Whether they lived or died, how many bricks they had to make, what materials they had to do so with… it was all based upon the whims of Pharaoh and their overseers.

The work was brutal and unending… or as Walter Bruggemann describes it “the endless rat race for sufficiency.”

Like livestock must be fed and equipment has to be maintained, the Egyptians knew they had to keep their workforce alive in order for them to work.

But it was never really enough.

The bare necessities of food and water… which the Israelites found themselves crying out for in the new barren land… are not enough

And to be honest, many of us experience this in our own lives, don’t we?

We work and we work, thinking eventually we might have enough money to provide for more than our basic needs… we work incredibly hard so that someday we might enjoy our life and by the time we get there we are too tired and worn out to experience it.

Our quest for “enough” is killing us.

Or perhaps your story is more like that of Pharoah.

We so fiercely guard what we have acquired that we begin to see outside forces as a threat to our power and position.

So we rail against taxes and we bemoan immigrants and we cry out about what belongs to us.

Or maybe it is far simpler… we hoard what we have without even being aware of the people we have impacted.

We have moved far beyond “enough”; filling our closets, and homes, and garages, and storage units with things and we cannot even remember why and we are too afraid or ashamed to consider the consequences of such a life.

Both of these stories are ruled by fear.

A fear that there never has been and never will be enough.

As Rev. Sarah Are writes,

Our anxiety is loud.

Our fear is loud.

Our anger is loud.

Our shame is loud.

Mental illness is loud.

Doubt is loud.

But there is another voice that is whispering in the background.

A voice that hovered over the waters of creation.

A voice that led the Israelites out of slavery with a pillar of fire.

A voice that promises not just to feed us, but to love us, to guide us, to give us rest.

When the Israelites found themselves in the middle of nowhere, utterly dependent upon God, it terrified them.

But that is precisely when God steps in and reminded them… I am enough. I will provide.

“At twilight you will eat meat. And in the morning you will have your fill of bread.” (Ex. 16: 12)

This food comes without requiring any labor other than stepping outside of their tent and gathering it up.

The only strings attached were that they didn’t take more than they needed.

If they did, it rotted and became infested with worms and stank.

OOF… Do you hear that… if we take more than we need it is just going to rot away.

And then, here was the kicker.

On the sixth day, they were told gather enough so that on the seventh they could rest.

God provided. God was enough.

You know, I got to thinking about that prayer that we say every single week in worship.

We ask for God to give us our daily bread.

Our manna from heaven.

And if you look at the Greek work that Jesus uses here it is: epiousios, which we understand to mean that which is necessary and sufficient, that which gives substance to our lives.

We are asking for God to teach us, shape us, remind us what truly is enough.

As we remember this story of manna in the wilderness, it wasn’t just about food.

It was also about learning who they were, who we are, as people who are loved by God.

It was about learning to obey God’s commands.

It was about learning to trust in God’s faithfulness.

It was about learning what it meant to share with one another.

And it was about learning to rest on God’s Sabbath.

And we are called to remember that our fears and our anxiety and what Walter Bruggemann calls “the endless rat race for sufficiency” (Money and Possessions), are never going to bring us enough.

We are called to remember God’s provision, God’s grace, and God’s faithfulness – not just with our minds, but to let these truths sink into our very bones and our daily existence so that we, too, will be shaped as God’s people.

You know… maybe the Lord’s Prayer should be our daily practice.

Our daily gathering of manna from heaven.

Our daily reminder of who we are and whose we are.

Because when we cry out, “give us this day our daily bread,” we are not simply asking God to make sure there is food on my table tonight.

We are asking for God to provide for all who hunger. To make sure that everyone has enough.

Those who hunger for rest.

Those who hunger for connection and relationship.

Those who hunger for liberation and freedom from oppression or addiction or worry.

We here at Immanuel believe that God is calling us to love, serve, and pray so that all who hunger might be fed by God’s grace.

We dream of a future where no one in our zip code goes to bed hungry at night.

We dream of a church where children and grandparents are growing together as they share meals and laughter.

We dream of a community where every need is met because we have so many volunteers at Immanuel willing to give of their time and talents and resources.

And that means putting hands and feet on this prayer and rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

In our church money story, we can remember times we all rallied together to accomplish big things with God’s help – like when Faith Hall was built.

But with the uncertainty in the world today, stories of fear and scarcity and doubt start to creep in again.

We can get focused on making sure there is enough to keep the lights on and lose sight of God’s promises and faithfulness and who God has called us to become.

This fall, as our leaders wrestled with our goals for 2022, one step we knew we wanted to embrace was leading with mission. We want to be a church known for how we are reaching out to love our neighbor.

And so, we have a few goals related to that like focusing on a local 2022 Volunteers in Mission Trip, but we also discussed how we might have to adjust our own church money story to truly lead with mission.

We want to get to a place where 100% of our budget is supported by annual pledges SO THAT everything else that comes into our church, all of the other money and gifts that we receive can be given away.

We are trying to realign our own money story around what is enough so that we can turn around and bless our neighbors with everything else.

That is just one way that we are going to become the church God is yearning for us to be. A church where all who hunger are fed by God’s grace.

It is just one way that we are going to remember that God is enough. Amen.

Count the Cost

Posted on October 19, 2014Leave a comment

I have four different apps on my phone that are designed to help me get healthy and fit and lose weight.

One of them is a weekly meal plan full of healthy, high protein, low calorie dinner options. It comes complete with a grocery store list and nutritional information for each meal.

One of them connects with a wristband to track my steps and even monitors my sleeping habits.

One is designed to track my calories eaten and burned each day. It is like a social network to connect me with others who are working on the same thing.

The last, I use when hiking or running to track my speed and distance.

I have all the tools I need. I have a goal in mind. And yet, somehow I have gained five or six pounds since I moved to Des Moines.

Fundamentally, my lack of success has nothing to do with the tools at my disposal and everything to do with the fact that this goal is not a priority in my life. I am not willing to put it above all else. I’m not willing to let this goal change other aspects of my life. I know that to succeed, this priority is going to affect the amount of sleep I get and it will mean spending more money for healthier food options. It will reduce the time I spend watching my favorite t.v. shows and even require that I cook more meals at home instead of enjoying my husband’s super delicious, fatty, carb-filled dinners.

The truth is, you can have all the tools in the world and all the best intention, but until you lay out a plan, build in some accountability, and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to reach that goal… then nothing about your habits or lifestyle or physical body will change.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus shares with us an extraordinarily difficult challenge. “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters – yes, even one’s own life – cannot be my disciple.” He asks us to “give up all of your possessions” in order to follow him.

Jesus isn’t asking you to turn right now to your loved one and treat them badly. He’s not asking you to leave home. He’s asking each one of us to take seriously the call to be his disciple and helping us to see that our intentions don’t really matter. Until we lay out a plan, build in some accountability and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to follow him, then our habits and lifestyle will never change.

Last week, we were reminded that the things of this world are impermanent and shaky at best. We heard the call to place our belief and our trust firmly on God and I’m sure a whole lot of us left worship last week thinking, YES! That’s what I need to do! That’s the kind of faith I want to have.

“My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness”

“Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes Yes Lord!”

And yet, just like all of my good intentions about exercise and health, we have to be willing to let those words move from intentions and goals into an actual concrete plan that demonstrates commitment and sacrifice.

In your bulletins each week during this series, you will find a green insert that highlight some of the lessons we cover each week in the “Enough” study. I want to invite you to take that sheet out right now.

Today’s insert invites you to think about what God is calling you to be and to do. I want us to look at the side that talks about goals.

If God is our rock and foundation…

If God is the creator of our lives…

If Jesus Christ is calling us to follow…

Then, what are you supposed to be doing with your life? What is your purpose?

For very few of us, that calling involves some sort of professional ministry. And to answer that call took planning and commitment, money and time.

Most of us here in this room today, however, have a much higher and more difficult calling. You have been called to be lay persons in the church. You have been called to live out your discipleship where you are. At the office, on the soccer field, on the production line and in the classroom.

Sometimes, the work you give yourself to matches up with that call to live out your discipleship. Some of you could share how the act of caring for patients or helping someone plan for their financial future is your ministry.

Sometimes, however, our work simply provides the resources that allow us to live out our discipleship in other ways. We spend our retirement caring for neighbors and loved ones. We teach lessons and music to our little ones at the church. We volunteer with community agencies.

What gifts has God given you?

What is your purpose?

What is God calling you to do?

And once you have figured that out…

are you willing to sit down and count the cost?

Are you willing to give whatever it takes to get there?

Will you let God’s plans trump your plans?

One of the greatest adventures of my life was to engage in the work of Imagine No Malaria over the past two years.

Answering that call was extraordinarily difficult. After all… I already had a calling – to be a pastor, serving in a church. But I also began to see how my gifts tied in with what we needed here in Iowa… what we needed to accomplish what God was calling us to do.

I also discovered that God had some lessons for me along the way: the primary lesson being that when we have a mission and a calling, we have to do whatever it takes to get there.

Henri Nouwen writes that the work of “fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry. It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission… We are declaring, ‘We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.’”

And all along the way, I witnessed people who caught that vision and heard the calling from God to end this preventable, beatable disease. And they made sacrifices to help other people live. Some families gave up cable t.v. to make a monthly gift. A nurse quit her job to work on our grassroots campaign. Lots of people made a significant three-year commitment to give to this work. One little girl gave all of her birthday money to help save the lives of kids just like her.

And we did that, because we counted the cost and we were willing to give whatever it took to make the goal of saving 200,000 lives a reality.

What is your purpose?

What is God calling you to do?

Once we answer that question, then we think about those things that are going to help us get there. Then we can think about the spiritual goals and the financial goals and the steps along the way that will help us to say “Yes” to God and set our own plans aside.

On the other side of this green insert is a budgeting worksheet. It helps us to gain an accurate picture of the priorities in our lives based on our spending and helps us reorient our financial priorities based on those goals and that purpose that is on the other side.

I have a friend and a colleague who recently shared that he used a budget just like this to help him make some big changes in his family. As he and his wife started plugging in the numbers, they were shocked by how much they were spending on transportation. My friend had just bought a new truck and while it was beautiful, the payments were hefty and it was a gas guzzler. And he hardly ever used it as a truck. When compared with the amount of money they were giving to the church and using to help prepare for the new baby on the way, they realized that if they were going to truly give to God and set a good example for their new child, the truck had to go. They sold it and bought a more affordable car. They allowed their spiritual priorities guide their financial decisions.

But I also want to emphasize that this accounting we do in our lives needs to cover more than just our finances.

What would happen if we did this same accounting of our time?

Where are you spending your time and energy?

Does it reflect your calling?

What do you need to let go of in order to give more time to God’s purpose for your life?

Jesus knows that discipleship isn’t easy. He knows that to follow him requires sacrifice… a giving of ourselves and a letting go of our wants and desires.

Jesus knows, because he has been there.

He counted the costs. He weighed the options. And he knew what it would take.

And today, he asks you to do the same.

He’s asking each one of us to take seriously the call to be his disciple. He is asking us to count the cost, lay out a plan, and actually make the commitment to do whatever it takes to follow him. When we do so and when we hold one another accountable to the choices we have made, then our lives will truly be transformed.

I Believe…

Posted on October 12, 20141 Comment

Nearly five years ago, I lead this “Enough” study with my very first congregation in Marengo. I remember vividly how I had planned out the whole series and had all of my notes ready to go for Sunday morning. I had sat down to start writing about the American dream and how our quest to have it all has taken so much away from our lives…. when an earthquake hit the island of Haiti.

And suddenly, it didn’t seem so hard to put things in perspective.

Every simple convenience and item in my home seemed like an overwhelming blessing when I began to think of the lives of missionaries and doctors and orphans and moms and dads who had just lost everything.

I had a friend whose parents were working at a hospital in Haiti at the time. Her parents were okay and her mom wrote to her in an email:

Hospital Ste. Croix is standing. John and I are fine. The administration building collapsed, and our apartment collapsed under the story above. We have nothing we brought with us to Haiti… Someone who was here gave me some shoes, and I found another pair of reading glasses that will work, so I have what I need.

Those lines just struck me.

“we have nothing we brought with us to Haiti… but someone gave me some shoes and I found a pair of reading glasses, so I have what I need.”

We may not experience earthquakes, but that doesn’t mean our lives are completely stable and worry free.

when the ground beneath your feet begins to shake…

When you lose your footing…

When everything seems to fall apart…

When that happens we start to ask questions about what is it that we really need and what are we going to rely upon.

Now, that may have been a more humorous look at this idea of instability but I think that each of us could probably find ourselves somewhere in that sketch.

We put all of our hope and faith and trust into the things of this world… our homes, our jobs, the stock market, and we don’t often pause to think about whether or not we are making the best decisions.

We over extend ourselves and work more hours to make more money so we can have more stuff.

Some statistics from Adam Hamilton’s “Enough” stuck out to me.

Did you know that the average American home went from 1660 square feet in 1973 to 2400 square feet in 2004?

Did you know that there is estimated to be around 2 billion – yes, billion with a b- 2 billion square feet of self-storage space in America? We have so much stuff that we don’t even know what to do with it or where we will put it.

And to get all of that space and all of the stuff to fill it, we have exploited our credit systems… and our credit systems have exploited us.

In the past twenty years, the average credit card debt in our country rose from $3,000 a person to $9,000 a person.

It’s like we have a gaping hole in our lives that we aren’t quite sure how to fill. So we try to fill it with money and possessions.

We try to build our lives upon these things and forget that the economic systems of this world are just shifting sands.

And so when the sands shift, when the rug gets pulled out from under us, we don’t have a firm footing. We have put all of our faith and trust into our things… instead of our God.

Adam Hamilton reminds us that the core of our most recent financial crisis is the extension and abuse of credit.

The very word credit comes from the Latin word credo, which means “I believe” or “I trust.”

By extending credit to us, our home mortgage companies and stores and the credit card companies believe and trust that we will pay them back for the money extended to us.

But too often, we have treated this credit as something that we believe and trust in… we believe it will always be there, that there is always more to borrow, that it is the answer to all of our problems.

We believe in our credit, more than we do our God. And as we do so, we find ourselves building on an insecure foundation that is moments away from collapse.

Jesus had some advice about things. In the Sermon on the Mount, he said that his words are not just helpful pieces of advice to get add inspiration to our day – they are what we are supposed to be building our lives upon.

Hear this scripture again, this time from the Message:

If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. – Matthew 7: 25-29

Now, of course, Jesus isn’t talking about our actual homes. Floods and fires and earthquakes destroy homes all the time, no matter how strong we have built them.

He is talking about our ability to withstand the troubles of this world.

When disaster strikes…

When the stock market falls…

When a diagnosis shakes the foundations of your family…

When those things happen, and sometime they will to all of us… Is your life built on a belief in credit cards and mortgages and flat screen televisions?

Or is the core belief of your life… the one that everything else is built on… is that belief in the God who created you, who died for you, who gives you life?

When the earthquake comes and shakes our very foundations, will we have as much abundance in our life as the woman serving in Haiti whose only possessions are a borrowed pair of shoes and some reading glasses?

In our first reading this morning, this letter of advice to Timothy, Paul writes that wealth is here today and gone tomorrow, so we should:

go after God, who piles on the all the riches we could ever manage – to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. (1 Tim 6:17-19 MSG)

And he reminds Timothy, this from the Message translation:

A devout life does bring wealth, but it is the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that’s enough.

If we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet… that’s enough.

Over the next month, we will be looking at that word, Enough.

We’ll ask what “enough” means in our life, what it means in our church, and how we can live our lives making sure that others have “enough” as well.

But today, I want us to remember that while we worry about having enough, the truth is that we are blessed beyond our wildest dreams.

It is just that we sometimes need a shift in perspective to see that. We need to weed out the seeds of life and fruitfulness from the gunk.

We might fret about keeping up with our neighbors, but we were created to love one another.

We get anxious about our stock portfolios, but we were meant to share with those in need.

We are constantly thinking about upgrading to the newest device or fashion accessory, but we were meant to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

My prayer is that this season of “Enough”, this time that we spend together exploring our spiritual and financial lives, will help re-orient us. My prayer is that it will transform our relationship with money so that we might see it not as a source of anxiety and stress in our lives, but as a resource that God has given us to do good in this world and to care for one another.

And the start of that transformation is to start with what we believe and who we entrust our lives to.

I want to invite you to turn with me to page 883 in your hymnals and recite with me one of the many creeds, or statements of belief that we affirm together as the people of God. Page 883.

disconTENTment

Posted on January 31, 2010Leave a comment

In our gospel reading this morning, we come across some very angry folks in Jesus hometown of Nazareth.

These are ordinary, run of the mill folks. They aren’t Pharisees who have a beef with Jesus. They aren’t disciples – those people who chose to follow Jesus and who should understand. No, these are small town people – a lot like you and me – who are just trying to get by.

Last week in our gospel reading, we remember that Jesus came back to his hometown after being away for a while. He walked in through the doors of the church and everyone was so happy to have him back again. I can imagine lots of handshakes and hugs going around as Jesus was passed from one person to the next. I can even imagine an older lady or two wanting to pinch his cheeks.

Jesus grew up among these folks. They knew him his whole life. And here he returns and they are just waiting for the hometown boy to make good. They are waiting for him to show off all of the stuff that he has learned out there in the big wide world.

So when the time comes for the reading of scripture, the scroll was handed to Jesus. And he found the place in Isaiah where it says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Now, Jewish custom in church was not to have one person give a sermon, but the leaders of the church would have the opportunity to comment on the reading and to bring up insights. In many ways, that’s what we do in our bible studies – especially the roundtable pulpit. Every voice is heard and respected.

Well, Jesus finished his reading and he too had a comment to make about this passage from Isaiah. All he said was, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In Mark’s gospel – just giving that little speech sets the crowds off in a tizzy – they can’t believe his arrogance, they want to know who he thinks he is to claim such things. After all, he is the kid they grew up with, that little snot-nosed bugger from down the street.

In Luke’s version of the story – that is not what the people are upset by. In fact, they are pretty amazed at first. Oh my, could this really be Joseph’s son? Where did he learn so much?

No, what get’s the people mad and upset and full enough of rage that they want to throw him off of a cliff is that Jesus picks a fight with them.

After he’s been gushed upon and praised, Jesus starts to get a little concerned that perhaps the people need to have a little reality check.

“This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing – but unfortunately, I’m not talking about for you. “

In Luke’s gospel – Jesus has been sent to be a light to the Gentiles. His mission is to bring about the kingdom of God, but he starts not with his own people from his hometown, not with the Jewish people, but with strangers and foreigners…

Maybe to think of a modern parable for this story, it would be as if someone that grew up here in Marengo, someone loved and respected, went off to college and graduate school. And then the came back into town with fanfare and that young woman told everyone – I’m going to lift this community out of poverty and rehabilitate all of the people in the prison, and I’m going to bring jobs and good things to this town, and I’m going to fill the pews of this church. And then, she choses to do so by working only with illegal immigrants in Williamsburg.

The kingdom was still going to come – they were just going to have to wait a little bit longer.

Would you be upset by that? Your hometown hero comes back to raise all of your hopes and then you think that they just dashed them to the ground.

The people were enraged – angry enough to kill – whipped up into a frenzy when they dragged Jesus to the brow of Nazareth Cliff… but it wasn’t his time, and he walked away from the fray without a scratch.

Jesus found himself coming home to a lot of discontented people. They were unhappy about how life had been going in their midst. They were hoping that maybe this one would turn out to be their savior… and he was, and he would be – but since he wasn’t exactly who they wanted him to be, their discontentment kicked in and they kicked him out.

There are people who live in a perpetual state of discontentment. In your bulletins, you may have noticed that that word is typed a little funny. That’s because I really want to focus this morning about the states we choose to live in. The attitudes we choose to clothe ourselves with.

Some people in this world are never happy. They can surround themselves with all of the good things in life and they will still find something to complain about. They can attend the best church in the city and they will still find something to be angry about and they will leave and try somewhere else. They can have the best husband or wife on the planet, and still they will nag and bicker. Do you know any of these people? Have they pitched their disconTENTment near you?

For the past few weeks, we have been exploring in Sunday school and our special Thursday night study the roots of this discontentment. Yes, we are talking on the surface about finances and money – but underneath all of that are things like greed, and pride, envy and sloth.

Underneath all of our financial turmoil is the simple fact that sin is present in the world.

While there are many ways that we can talk about sin – I think one of the best images for sin is turning our back to God. We turn our back to the good things that God offers us and instead seek our welfare, seek our happiness in things and money or food or alcohol or power or might.

In doing so, we are setting up the poles and laying out the stakes of discontentment. We may be erecting a fine and beautiful tent – it may be expensive and it might keep us warm… but it will never make us content. It will never make us happy.

There is only one thing that can bring us joy and happiness in this life. And we find a glimpse of it in 1 Corinthians.

Paul is writing to a group of Christians who have it all. They have people who are ready and willing to work – they have resources and money and gifts and talents. But they fight amongst themselves constantly. They are always trying to prove who is better, who is the most fit for leadership, they are always arguing about what color the carpet should be in the sanctuary and about who gets to hand out the offering plates and who should count the money.

Okay – well maybe those are a few 21st century things to fight about – but you get the picture. They may be faithful Christians, but they are still living in their old discontentments.

This would most assuredly be a church that would try to kick Jesus out of town if he ever really stopped by. He would probably have something truthful and challenging to say to them – just like he did to the people of his hometown – and they probably would have nothing to do with it.

Our Apostle Paul hears about the mess that they have made of their church and so he writes to them. (note: writing a letter is a whole lot safer than showing up in person sometimes!). He writes a letter to them and wants to encourage them to be their best selves. He tells them that they are the body of Christ and that each of them has an important role to play in the church. He tells them that each of them is gifted and that they should pay attention to and rely upon the gifts of others. He tells them they need to give and accept help and to treat all members with respect.

And then he launches into a beautiful part of his letter that is very familiar to us.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing

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All of this stuff that you think is so important – Paul writes – all of this stuff that you are arguing about, it means absolutely diddly squat if there isn’t love in the midst of your community. You could have the most money or be the most talented or live in the most beautiful house, or even have the most elegant prayers and the most book knowledge…. But all of it is for nothing if there is not love in your life.

Paul’s not just talking about the romantic love between two people. He’s talking about deep, sustaining love. He’s talking about the love that knits people and communities together. He’s talking about the love that only comes from God.

What if, instead of living in discontentment – we learned how to live content in God’s love?

How would our lives be different?

How would the response of Nazareth have been different if instead of being jealous and full of rage when Jesus went to minister among other people they had love in their hearts for the broken and hurting people of Capernum?

How would the church in Corinth be different if the people stopped fighting with one another and instead worked together to bring God’s love to the people of their city and the world?

How would your life be different, if you stopped working so that you could get things and be happy, and instead, in all things worked with God’s love at the forefront of your mind?

3 ways to be content from the book….
– “it could be worse”
– Count your blessings and give thanks
– Know where your true joy lies – know that only in the ground of God’s love are we sustained – only when we pitch our tent there will we find abiding peace.

Story of a man who was angry with his wife and so he stormed out of the house and grumbled to God. Just like that definition of sin earlier, he turned his back on his wife and the love that was there and he was discontented. But something happened. There was a change in his heart as God worked on him there. He turned around back towards his house – just like he was turning back to God. And he was reminded of all the wonderful things about his wife and began thanking God for them.

In our lives – too often we turn our backs on God and the good things that God blesses us with. We want things our way and we deny the contentment at our fingertips.

But we also have a chance to turn around. Did you know that the literal definition for repentence – the greek word – is metanoia. It means to turn around – to do a 180, to turn from living with our backs to God and instead turn and face him with our faces. To seek him as the source of all our joy and happiness. To live our lives in his love.

Today – that is our blessing. That God’s grace turns us around and we have a chance to face God once more. To lay aside all that has pulled us kicking and screaming into our discontented lives and to rest in the joy of God’s abiding peace.

What tent will you live in?

Life Abundant… and what it means for us and Haiti

Posted on January 20, 2010Leave a comment

According to our “Enough” study, I’m supposed to preach on the American dream – about how the quest to have it all has taken it all away from us. I’m supposed to preach on the difference between abundance and the life abundant. I’m supposed to preach on our need to consume and acquire and what we give up in the process.

But all of that seems very trite when we remember that brothers and sisters not too far from here were rocked by an earthquake. All of that seems vanity when we think of the lives of missionaries and doctors and orphans and moms and dads and brothers and sisters in Haiti. All of that seems just plain foolishness, when we consider those who have nothing.

I am a part of a number of online communities that have been sharing stories of the lives of people who have been affected by the earthquake in Haiti. I have been praying for the rescue of and now mourning the loss of the head of our United Methodist Committee on Relief, who was killed in the rubble under our meeting place in a hotel there. And I read this letter from a friend’s parents who are working at a hospital in Haiti.

“Hospital Ste. Croix is standing. John and I are fine. The administration building collapsed, and our apartment collapsed under the story above. We have nothing we brought with us to Haiti… Someone who was here gave me some shoes, and I found another pair of reading glasses that will work, so I have what I need…

Everyone connected with the hospital is alive except that we have not heard from Mario… several people lost members of extended family. The St. Croix church is cracked, I don’t know how badly. Eye clinic looks fine…
At night we sleep in the yard behind the hospital where the bandstand was. It has fallen, as has the Episcopal school. There are 2-300 people who sleep in that field at night. They sing hymns until almost midnight, and we wake up to a church service, with hymns, a morning prayer, and the apostle’s creed. The evening sky is glorious. In the field there is a real sense of community. Of course, we are the only blancs (whites) there… People have shared with us and we are getting a chance to feel how Haitians really live…

I have never understood joy in the midst of suffering, but now I do. The caring I have seen, the help we have received from the Haitians, the evening songs and prayers. Are wonderful. The people will survive, though many will die. Please pray for us. And pray that we and the hospital can be of help to the people here. Suzi.”

One of the lines that really struck me was the one that said: we have nothing we brought with us to Haiti, but someone gave me shoes and I found a pair of reading glasses, so I have what I need.

That is an amazingly different way to view the world than through the American Dream.

Living under the quest for the American dream, we have a constant need for bigger and better stuff.

Did you know that the average American home went from 1660 square feet in 1973 to 2400 square feet in 2004?

Did you know that there is estimated to be 1.9 billion – yes, billion with a b- 1.9 billion square feet of self-storage space in America? We have so much stuff that we don’t even know what to do with it or where we will put it.

And to get all of that space and all of the stuff to fill it, we have exploited our credit systems… and our credit systems have exploited us.

In the past twenty years, the average credit card debt in our country rose from $3,000 a person to $9,000 a person.

Thursday night, someone in our group mentioned that we have a hole in our lives that we aren’t quite sure how to fill. So we try to fill it with money and possessions. But are we happier? Are we filled? Do we have as much joy in our hearts as the woman serving in Haiti who has only a pair of shoes and reading glasses?

I’m not saying that we should sell everything we have, or throw it in to a ravine and go and serve the poor… although those were the very instructions that Jesus gave to a young man seeking his kingdom.

No, I’m instead saying that maybe our vision of what abundance looks like is a bit off.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus isn’t chastising people for their wealth and celebration… he joins together with friends and family at a wedding feast and when the wine runs out and the party threatens to fall apart… Jesus provides. Jesus takes ordinary things like jars and water and creates abundance.

In Psalm 36, we are reminded of God’s abundance… How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” (Psalm 36: 7-9)

God desires abundance in our lives. An abundance of life. An abundance of joy. An abundance of hope. An abundance of relationships.

And – an abundance of the things that we need to live in that simple, generous and joyful way.

I was struck by a column this week by David Brooks in the New York Times. He wrote:

“On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services…”

This week was a reminder that stuff isn’t always the problem. People around the world need safe places to live in and well constructed buildings. They need access to medical care and they need proper roads and clean water. And not having access to those things created a disaster that far exceeds the earthquake.

I don’t know very well the history of Haiti. What I do know is that it was a nation of slaves who overturned an oppressive government. And I know that although we as a nation benefited from their success and were able buy a whole boatload of land from the defeated French for a measly 1 million dollars, we did nothing to help them. I know that their culture is very different from ours and in some cases religious practices too, but hey are still our brothers and sisters in the human race. They are God’s people too.

And yet some among us have called them cursed.

I don’t know about that. But I do know that our God has something to say about cursed and abandoned places. In our reading from Isaiah this morning we heard: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight is In Her, and your land Married; for the lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.

The Lord delights in you. The Lord is with you in the middle of the field in Haiti and you sing hymns and praise him. The Lord is with you as you work for healing and bind up wounds. The Lord is with you as you tear down the rubble and begin to dream of rebuilding. The Lord is with you and the Lord will provide.

As a colleague said this week, “we trust that God wants abundance, so we follow in the footsteps of the mother of Jesus prodding God for divine compassion and generosity:”

She looked upon the situation at the wedding feast and knew that something had to be done. So she went to someone she knew could help. She went to her Lord… ‘They have no wine.’ She said.

And we have joined her this week in our prayers. They have no medical supplies, we prayed. They have no way out of that rubble, we have prayed. They have no clean water, we have prayed.

How will the Lord provide? The same way the Lord has always provided… through transforming ordinary things into the miracles of life.

That’s what Jesus did at the feast. He took simple urns and filled them with water and out poured abundance. And that is what God is doing in Haiti. He is taking fields surrounded by rubble and turning them into his cathedrals. He is taking a United Methodist Habitat for Humanity mission in the Bahamas and transformed it into rescue and recovery flight service. He takes kits made by United Methodists all across our country and turns them into health and healing for those who have nothing. He takes our dollar bills – these green pieces of paper – and turns them into food and water and medicine for the people who need them the most.

And perhaps the most amazing thing. God takes our lives. God takes our hands and feet and eyes and ears and turns them into his. When we allow Christ to work in us. When we allow ourselves to be transformed by Jesus into wine for a broken and hurting world – I think that is when we truly know what abundance is. When we are poured out for others is when we are truly filled. When we look at the ways that we can transform our time and talents and resources, we find that there is an abundance to be given. We find that there is joy in letting go of all of the things that we though we needed. We find that living below our means – we have so much more room to share.

In your bulletins, there is an insert with some worksheets. Had this week been different, we would have talked more about these things – but they will come later. For now, take them home and read over them and maybe think a little bit about the budgeting that is in the insert. Think about what you though abundance and wealth meant in your life before. And think about what God has called us to – think about what God, in the abundance of his love has provided.

Amen. And Amen.