O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
The parable or story that Jesus tells us in today's gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. It, along with the epistle lesson this morning, speak to us of the difficulty that some people have with wealth - with money - with accumulating material things.
Do you notice how I said, some people?
How I have avoided pointing the finger?
How I have avoided condemning wealth itself?
Indeed I believe that it is as Paul says, that it is "the love of money that is the root of all evil" - and not money itself.
No - I am not here today to condemn the wealthy, nor am I here today to make you feel guilty about how much you may have and to urge you to share it lest you go to hell.
You, after all, may already share generously of the bounty God has allowed you to receive.
You, after all, may not love money or seek out wealth.
You, after all, may well have the attitude that Paul urges upon Timothy, the attitude of godliness with contentment, the attitude that flees from pursuit of worldly gain and pursues righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.
But I do want the Spirit to move among us today and for us to think about what true riches are, and about the great chasm that divides some people from others, a chasm in this life that the scriptures suggest may be duplicated in the next.
A preacher by the name of Taylor Mills says that:
In today's parable, the rich man crosses paths with poor Lazarus every day. He sees Lazarus waiting at the gate of the house - the dogs licking his sores. Lazarus sees the rich man go in and go out. And he waits for the servant to bring out the rich man's breadcrumbs for him to eat. Indeed Lazarus longs for those crumbs, even though - as was the custom in some places where water was scarce and food abundant, the crumbs were used, instead of water, to clean one's hands with when the meal was done.
It is clear that the rich man knew about Lazarus. He refers to Lazarus by name, even after both of them have died. But notice something else: the rich man never speaks directly to Lazarus. not even from Hell where he is under torment.
And when he is in Hell he still expects Lazarus to serve him: "Father Abraham," he calls out, "have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames." And then again, "Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father's house - for I have five brothers - that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment."
Even after the rich man undergoes the divine reversal of fates, he still hasn't changed how he treats Lazarus. It is as if the chasm that separated them after they died also existed when they lived. The rich man kept Lazarus at a distance. And now that he is in trouble, he expects Lazarus to cross that distance to help him.
That's quite the attitude - and quite the chasm.
Now, none of us have a poor person outside our front door waiting for the dirty crumbs from our tables. And as I said - I am not here to guilt you out today.
But - don't you love it when someone says "but" to you?
But, if we allow the devil to make us think that this story really has little to say to us then we have taken the first step toward becoming like the rich man.
I said at the very beginning that today's Gospel reading is a very difficult passage for most of us. And it is so precisely because it causes us to ask questions like:
- how am I like the rich man?
- who is it I ignore - or treat as less than fully human?
- who is our Lazarus? The one whom I regard as less than I am?
That's not nice - especially not nice since we are aware that there is a lot of need out there, and since we are aware that we have only so much time, only so much money, only so much compassion.
The whole passage - given our context as a people who have so much more than 90% of the world's population - is distressing; even for those who share their time, give their money, and spend their compassion on the poor and needy within Hong Kong and indeed within our world community.
I'm not trying to point the finger at you. Compared to most of the privileged people in the world, most if not all of you speak to those who have a different station in life. You do not regard street people as your inferiors or treat those on welfare as your servants.
You pray each week for people like the people of Syria, people with AIDS, the oppressed and the homeless.
You tithe your income as the Bible says you should - knowing that what you give to God through the church will indeed be blessed by God and used to not only run this place - but to do many good works in God's name.
But the parable still is difficult for most of us here in Hong Kong who believe - for those of us who flee wealth and pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness - for those of us who are content, as Paul was content, to have the bare necessities of life.
Difficult because we know that we have so much - and don't know how much more we can afford to give - or are expected to give....
It is always the wrong people who get guilty feelings.
It is always the saints who are most aware of their shortcomings.
It is always the holy who wonder
- have I done all I can do?
- am I being too self-centred?
- am I putting my family and it's comfort way too far ahead of everyone else?...
It is not having money that is the problem - it is allowing that money and concern about money to dominate us to point where we do not care about others outside our sphere of interest.
It is a good sign that most of us have difficulty with today's Gospel reading.
It tells me that most people still care - that they are heeding Moses and the Prophets and have listened to - and are being convinced - by the testimony of the one who has risen from the dead.
Indeed you are here today precisely to listen to the one who has been raised from death, the one who the rich man while in Hell told Abraham his five equally rich brothers would heed.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to be blessed and strengthened by God, but to show God true worship... to show God true worship by listening to his word - and then by going and doing it.
You are here - I am certain - not simply to enjoy a song - or have the kids gain a good experience, but to listen to the words the Risen One and to be shaped by them so that you may indeed seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
So allow the words of Jesus in today's Gospel and the teaching of Paul that he shared with Timothy to do that - without getting too much into guilt - unless of course God is putting the conviction upon you that you love money - and that you have allowed a chasm of non-caring to grow up between you and whoever your Lazarus is.
I think that we all need to struggle with this stuff. And that it is one of the most difficult things to struggle with since it comes down to examining how we live - and how we care for one another.
So I encourage you to feel uncomfortable - but not to feel guilt unless you really need to feel guilt, and if you feel guilt - to do what guilt suggests you should do - to repaint and thin - I mean to repent and sin - no more, and to trust in God's mercy day by day and if need be, hour by hour and minute by minute.
The sad truth is that those of you who do not feel uncomfortable today are most likely to feel nothing at all - except perhaps anger that the word of God, and that I, your preacher, have raised the topic of money and our attitude towards it in the first place.
Think back to the parable with me for another minute or so.
After the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his five brothers to warn them about the torment that may await them for not caring for the poor and afflicted, Abraham tells him that if his brothers have not heeded the message of Moses and the Prophets - that they will not be convinced even by one who has been resurrected from the dead.
That is the sad part of the great chasm referred to in my sermon title today, my friends.
There is a chasm between those who love money and those who seek true riches, between those seek out the newest toys that our society is so desperate to sell us all and those who pursue righteousness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Between those who need to get ahead - to get a larger home - a better job - a more exotic vacation and those who have sought godliness with contentment.
It is a chasm of blindness and indifference. A chasm that leads to all kinds of evil, and which plunges people into ruin and destruction, perhaps even into the eternal and unbridgeable Chasm between the Bosom of Abraham and the torment of hell.
Remember how the Rich Man - even in hell - where he knows the truth of his lack of caring - still does not address Lazarus personally - how he still regards him as one who can be sent by others - as a servant to help him - rather than as one who has received his just reward from God?
Those in love with money simply will not get the picture, if they do get it - they still end up wandering from the faith.
So today I tell you all this
To those who seek true riches - I tell you - continue pursuing righteousness and faith and love, feel uncomfortable, struggle with the question of what you are doing and not doing, the question of how well you love your neighbours - and how well you love your God, feel uncomfortable - but also feel assured - for the one who rose from the dead has promised to help you and to forgive you - and he will be true to his promise - and he will guide you day by day as you continue to yield your life to him. He doesn't expect you to do everything for everyone - only to do everything you can - and to trust him for the rest.
And to you who love money - should you be here today - I tell you - listen to what Moses and the Prophets say - listen to the one who has risen from the dead, and know that if you do not change - if you make excuses for your lack of caring for others - nstead of making amends, if you cling to what you have rather than letting it go, if you judge others less worthy because of their poverty and others as greater because of their wealth, then you will pay for it.
God is forgiving - but God is not mocked. If you, being rich, can't bring Lazarus fresh water to relieve his distress in this life, then know that he will not be able to do that for you in the next life.
Hear again Paul's words:
Godliness with contentment is great gain - for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
To this I might add the Love of God - and loving our neighbours - all our neighbours - as we love ourselves is the root of all goodness. Blessed be the one who rose from the dead and who speaks to us now. And blessed are all those who hear his words and act upon them. Amen
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
I Timothy 2:1-7; Psalm 79; Luke 16:1-13
Lord of light - shine upon us. God of love fill our hearts with your wisdom. Holy Spirit, bring yourself closer to us in my words and how we hear them, in our thoughts and how we think them. Use this time - and use us to accomplish your good will. Amen
There are rascals , rogues, and scallywags aplenty in the scriptures, and today's gospel reading features one of them most prominently - a manager or steward of an estate who is so poor at what he does that eventually, when he is called to account by his master, he cooks the books.
You have to picture this now - this person - knowing that he has done a poor job and that he is going to get canned changes the bottom line on all the debts that are owed to his master. Some he drops by 20%, some by as much as 50% - his theory being that the debtors of his master will be so happy to get a discount that they will gladly welcome him into their homes and feed him and care for him after he is fired.
Pretty far out reasoning, with maybe just a grain of truth to it.
I imagine if the manager of the Hong Kong Bank called me up and told me that she was going to reduce my debts by 50% with a stroke of her pen that I might welcome her into my home after she got fired - but still - I would be a little uneasy about it - wouldn't you?
Uneasy because the police likely wouldn't be far behind her - and with good reason...
Yet what happens in the parable when the master finally hears the story and calls the manager before him....
Well - you know...the master commends his manager because he had acted shrewdly, because he had showed some intelligence in doing what he had done.
Pretty far out, would you not say? Where does one begin with this story? What in the world is Jesus trying to tell us?
First of all - let us not imagine that Jesus is commending the dishonesty of the manager.
It is quite clear that he is not commending the fact that he was a bad manager, one quite willing to cheat his master, but rather that he is commending the shrewdness - the forethought of the manager in looking after himself - in doing good to those who in turn may be expected to do good to him.
Jesus often uses people who are scoundrels to illustrate what God is like and what we should be like - think of the judge who would only give a poor widow her due after she bothered him over and over again - or the example of the person who would not budge from his bed to help welcome a stranger until his door was beaten on repeatedly - or the example of the fellow who found a treasure in someone's field and went out and bought it so that he could get the profit.
Each of these examples tells us something important about how we should live our faith and something important about God - but none of them tell us that God is unjust, or that he is annoyed when we call upon him late at night, or that we should cheat someone on a business deal.
Rather we are meant to understand, in a humorous and interesting way that if the reluctant judge can still give justice to widow - or the grumpy person can still get up and share his bread in the middle of the night, then how much more will God help us when we appeal to his mercy?
And if a man will expend every effort - if he will even cheat - just to obtain a treasure which he has found in someone else's field, then how much more ought we expend every effort to enter the Kingdom of God?
The life issue in today's parable has nothing to do with the manager's honesty or dishonesty - rather the issue is: "just how shrewd, clever, and committed are the children of light when it comes to their faith?"
Do we really look after ourselves? Do we really use what we have at hand - in whatever proportion we have it to the best advantage?
Are we as anxious to ensure our future with God as the dishonest manager was to ensure his future in this world? Are we willing to change the bottom line so that when the time of reckoning comes there will be a place that welcomes us?
Indeed, the issue at the very root of the parable of dishonest manager is: are we, as Christians, as people who profess belief in the living God, really committed to Him and his way?
Are we? Are we, who sit together here today, really committed, really full of faith? Really committed to God and God's purpose for our lives and the life of the world?
Well -how can a person tell if we are committed? What signs help to prove the case one way or another? What shows us whether we serve God or Mammon?
Today I am going to share with you a couple of signs that helps us answer this question.
The first sign is quite simply - how we feel about and what we do with money.
Perhaps you haven't thought of it before - but did you realize that over 1/3 of Jesus' parables and sayings concern the relationship between faithfulness and money?
Jesus talks so much about money because ,when push comes to shove, loyalties are revealed by what people do with their money and how they feel about it..
Recall the rich young ruler - who left Jesus because he was rich? Recall Levi - who left everything and followed Jesus? Recall the sermon on the mount - and the lilies of the field which do not spin nor toil? Recall the camel and the eye of the needle? And the Widow who gave everything she had to the Temple Treasury?
Stories about loyalty and about what is important to people and what they seek - God or Mammon.
Jesus ends the parable of the dishonest manager with these words:
"the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light..And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes."
And to drive his point home - Jesus goes on with what is perhaps one of his most famous sayings concerning faithfulness and money - he says:
"No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
The children of this world are more shrewd than us at times - like the dishonest manager, the children of this world will do all that is required to look after themselves - they will use all their money and all their power to get more money and more power.
Better yet - if they can - they will use other people's money and other people's power to get these things, to ensure their future, to change their own bottom lines.
Yes - the children of this world show a savoy that the children of light often lack - and it seems to me that they seem to have this savoy not because they are any smarter than you or I, but because they are more committed - they are only serving one master - their efforts are not divided, not confused, not lost in the gap that always exists between two masters.
We in the church often do things badly - we do them poorly - because we attempt to serve two masters - to serve both God and mammon - God and wealth.
I think this is one of the big reasons why so many people in the church hate hearing about the problems the church has in raising money, getting volunteers, and doing work that, on the face of it, only benefits others.
They hate to hear it because it guilts them out - it reminds them of their own torn loyalties, of their attempt to have their cake and eat it too.
So often we Christians - we who speak of life as God intended it, we who talk about the quality of life and the depth and breadth and power of love, and of how each person can live well, with truth and beauty and peace, so often we settle for the most mediocre things within our sanctuary, our Sunday School, and our practice of Christian mission.
Many churches are full of elders who never exercise their office, of stewards who give far less than the widows mite, of teachers who use antiquated texts or fill in the blank techniques, and all because the rest of us, and indeed they themselves, do not expect any better and are not willing to pay for any better.
We do not make friends with others with the wealth that has come to us - instead we are stingy in how we use it - we horde it and protect it for ourselves and our families rather than being generous with it and serving our Lord and Saviour with it.
Mediocrity and friendlessness are the results.
Indeed it is still true, no matter how you interpret the message of God's grace, that we reap what we sow; and if we sow sparingly, then the harvest is a sparse one.
Switch for a second.
I'm sure you have all heard that expression that a person ought to give until it hurts....
Well - it strikes me that if one is supposed to give until it hurts then the "average" Christian has a very low pain threshold!
Low, because we regard the wealth we have as our own rather as a trust from God - a trust given to us by which we might make friends for ourselves and for the Kingdom which we are supposed to be serving.
I said I would give you a couple of signs that indicate where our loyalty and commitment really lie - quite briefly lets deal with the second sign - that of time and energy - briefly because it has, already been dealt with in much of what has gone before.
A Lutheran minister by the name of Leslie Conrad says this of today's Gospel lesson:
I am always amused at how seriously some church members take their politics around election time. They can devote hundreds of hours ringing doorbells or making phone calls for their political party and its candidates. Yet they wouldn't walk next door to invite a neighbour to attend church with them. Yes, Jesus was correct. The children are wiser in worldly matters than they are in churchly matters."
Much the same can be said for the zeal we bring to sport's activities, or to our involvement in the fine arts, or to our own personal recreation times.
Where do we put our efforts?
What do we do with our time, energy, and our money?
Who or what are we really serving?
Think of those who promise to help out with the work we do together to witness to God's love and do so, but only after everything else they have in their life is taken care of.
Of the board members who always arrive late to meetings,
of the teachers who prepare their lessons at the last moment,
of the singers who can't be bothered with a full practice,
of the worshippers who never pray for others and themselves as they prepare to worship that God may be present to them,
of the volunteers who must be begged for an hour of their time,
of the members who never give an hour at all to the work of God.
If you are wondering why things are not working out as well as they ought to, why so many churches seem lack lustre in their work and witness, maybe it is because they haven't been making any friends lately, that their members have been unwilling to use the resources that God has given them to make themselves more welcome guests in the world out-there.
Maybe you yourself are not serving God, or at least not serving God with all the shrewdness and effort and resources that you put into other things in your life.
Let me end by saying that a manger who is finally approved by the master is the one who is unafraid to invest time, energy, emotion, and money so that the work that he or she is entrusted with succeeds, the one who is unafraid to change the bottom line in the way that God intends for us to change it.
God has told us the way in which we should go - make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon so that when it is gone you may be welcomed into the eternal homes.
And if Jesus has said that with regard to money, then how much more will God welcome us when we make friends with the world by showering upon it the love and the care that he has entrusted to us for that very purpose.
Blessed be God, day by day. AMEN
There are rascals , rogues, and scallywags aplenty in the scriptures, and today's gospel reading features one of them most prominently - a manager or steward of an estate who is so poor at what he does that eventually, when he is called to account by his master, he cooks the books.
You have to picture this now - this person - knowing that he has done a poor job and that he is going to get canned changes the bottom line on all the debts that are owed to his master. Some he drops by 20%, some by as much as 50% - his theory being that the debtors of his master will be so happy to get a discount that they will gladly welcome him into their homes and feed him and care for him after he is fired.
Pretty far out reasoning, with maybe just a grain of truth to it.
I imagine if the manager of the Hong Kong Bank called me up and told me that she was going to reduce my debts by 50% with a stroke of her pen that I might welcome her into my home after she got fired - but still - I would be a little uneasy about it - wouldn't you?
Uneasy because the police likely wouldn't be far behind her - and with good reason...
Yet what happens in the parable when the master finally hears the story and calls the manager before him....
Well - you know...the master commends his manager because he had acted shrewdly, because he had showed some intelligence in doing what he had done.
Pretty far out, would you not say? Where does one begin with this story? What in the world is Jesus trying to tell us?
First of all - let us not imagine that Jesus is commending the dishonesty of the manager.
It is quite clear that he is not commending the fact that he was a bad manager, one quite willing to cheat his master, but rather that he is commending the shrewdness - the forethought of the manager in looking after himself - in doing good to those who in turn may be expected to do good to him.
Jesus often uses people who are scoundrels to illustrate what God is like and what we should be like - think of the judge who would only give a poor widow her due after she bothered him over and over again - or the example of the person who would not budge from his bed to help welcome a stranger until his door was beaten on repeatedly - or the example of the fellow who found a treasure in someone's field and went out and bought it so that he could get the profit.
Each of these examples tells us something important about how we should live our faith and something important about God - but none of them tell us that God is unjust, or that he is annoyed when we call upon him late at night, or that we should cheat someone on a business deal.
Rather we are meant to understand, in a humorous and interesting way that if the reluctant judge can still give justice to widow - or the grumpy person can still get up and share his bread in the middle of the night, then how much more will God help us when we appeal to his mercy?
And if a man will expend every effort - if he will even cheat - just to obtain a treasure which he has found in someone else's field, then how much more ought we expend every effort to enter the Kingdom of God?
The life issue in today's parable has nothing to do with the manager's honesty or dishonesty - rather the issue is: "just how shrewd, clever, and committed are the children of light when it comes to their faith?"
Do we really look after ourselves? Do we really use what we have at hand - in whatever proportion we have it to the best advantage?
Are we as anxious to ensure our future with God as the dishonest manager was to ensure his future in this world? Are we willing to change the bottom line so that when the time of reckoning comes there will be a place that welcomes us?
Indeed, the issue at the very root of the parable of dishonest manager is: are we, as Christians, as people who profess belief in the living God, really committed to Him and his way?
Are we? Are we, who sit together here today, really committed, really full of faith? Really committed to God and God's purpose for our lives and the life of the world?
Well -how can a person tell if we are committed? What signs help to prove the case one way or another? What shows us whether we serve God or Mammon?
Today I am going to share with you a couple of signs that helps us answer this question.
The first sign is quite simply - how we feel about and what we do with money.
Perhaps you haven't thought of it before - but did you realize that over 1/3 of Jesus' parables and sayings concern the relationship between faithfulness and money?
Jesus talks so much about money because ,when push comes to shove, loyalties are revealed by what people do with their money and how they feel about it..
Recall the rich young ruler - who left Jesus because he was rich? Recall Levi - who left everything and followed Jesus? Recall the sermon on the mount - and the lilies of the field which do not spin nor toil? Recall the camel and the eye of the needle? And the Widow who gave everything she had to the Temple Treasury?
Stories about loyalty and about what is important to people and what they seek - God or Mammon.
Jesus ends the parable of the dishonest manager with these words:
"the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light..And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth, so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes."
And to drive his point home - Jesus goes on with what is perhaps one of his most famous sayings concerning faithfulness and money - he says:
"No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."
The children of this world are more shrewd than us at times - like the dishonest manager, the children of this world will do all that is required to look after themselves - they will use all their money and all their power to get more money and more power.
Better yet - if they can - they will use other people's money and other people's power to get these things, to ensure their future, to change their own bottom lines.
Yes - the children of this world show a savoy that the children of light often lack - and it seems to me that they seem to have this savoy not because they are any smarter than you or I, but because they are more committed - they are only serving one master - their efforts are not divided, not confused, not lost in the gap that always exists between two masters.
We in the church often do things badly - we do them poorly - because we attempt to serve two masters - to serve both God and mammon - God and wealth.
I think this is one of the big reasons why so many people in the church hate hearing about the problems the church has in raising money, getting volunteers, and doing work that, on the face of it, only benefits others.
They hate to hear it because it guilts them out - it reminds them of their own torn loyalties, of their attempt to have their cake and eat it too.
So often we Christians - we who speak of life as God intended it, we who talk about the quality of life and the depth and breadth and power of love, and of how each person can live well, with truth and beauty and peace, so often we settle for the most mediocre things within our sanctuary, our Sunday School, and our practice of Christian mission.
Many churches are full of elders who never exercise their office, of stewards who give far less than the widows mite, of teachers who use antiquated texts or fill in the blank techniques, and all because the rest of us, and indeed they themselves, do not expect any better and are not willing to pay for any better.
We do not make friends with others with the wealth that has come to us - instead we are stingy in how we use it - we horde it and protect it for ourselves and our families rather than being generous with it and serving our Lord and Saviour with it.
Mediocrity and friendlessness are the results.
Indeed it is still true, no matter how you interpret the message of God's grace, that we reap what we sow; and if we sow sparingly, then the harvest is a sparse one.
Switch for a second.
I'm sure you have all heard that expression that a person ought to give until it hurts....
Well - it strikes me that if one is supposed to give until it hurts then the "average" Christian has a very low pain threshold!
Low, because we regard the wealth we have as our own rather as a trust from God - a trust given to us by which we might make friends for ourselves and for the Kingdom which we are supposed to be serving.
I said I would give you a couple of signs that indicate where our loyalty and commitment really lie - quite briefly lets deal with the second sign - that of time and energy - briefly because it has, already been dealt with in much of what has gone before.
A Lutheran minister by the name of Leslie Conrad says this of today's Gospel lesson:
I am always amused at how seriously some church members take their politics around election time. They can devote hundreds of hours ringing doorbells or making phone calls for their political party and its candidates. Yet they wouldn't walk next door to invite a neighbour to attend church with them. Yes, Jesus was correct. The children are wiser in worldly matters than they are in churchly matters."
Much the same can be said for the zeal we bring to sport's activities, or to our involvement in the fine arts, or to our own personal recreation times.
Where do we put our efforts?
What do we do with our time, energy, and our money?
Who or what are we really serving?
Think of those who promise to help out with the work we do together to witness to God's love and do so, but only after everything else they have in their life is taken care of.
Of the board members who always arrive late to meetings,
of the teachers who prepare their lessons at the last moment,
of the singers who can't be bothered with a full practice,
of the worshippers who never pray for others and themselves as they prepare to worship that God may be present to them,
of the volunteers who must be begged for an hour of their time,
of the members who never give an hour at all to the work of God.
If you are wondering why things are not working out as well as they ought to, why so many churches seem lack lustre in their work and witness, maybe it is because they haven't been making any friends lately, that their members have been unwilling to use the resources that God has given them to make themselves more welcome guests in the world out-there.
Maybe you yourself are not serving God, or at least not serving God with all the shrewdness and effort and resources that you put into other things in your life.
Let me end by saying that a manger who is finally approved by the master is the one who is unafraid to invest time, energy, emotion, and money so that the work that he or she is entrusted with succeeds, the one who is unafraid to change the bottom line in the way that God intends for us to change it.
God has told us the way in which we should go - make friends for yourselves by means of the unrighteous mammon so that when it is gone you may be welcomed into the eternal homes.
And if Jesus has said that with regard to money, then how much more will God welcome us when we make friends with the world by showering upon it the love and the care that he has entrusted to us for that very purpose.
Blessed be God, day by day. AMEN
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 1; Luke 14:25-33
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
If anyone has followed the news out of the Middle East, Pakistan or out of India or even a Catholic country like the Philippines over the last five or six years they will know that Christian aid workers and church workers, both foreign and domestic, have been imprisoned or killed for no other reason than that they bear the name of Christ.
Some things have not changed in the last couple of thousand years.
As it was in the Roman Empire - where, over a period of about 250 years hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people were tortured and executed for saying "Jesus is Lord" - so today it can still cost people everything to be a disciple of Jesus.
Most of us will never face that kind of choice in our lives. Most of us will not be asked to give our freedom or perhaps even our lives for the sake of the Gospel.
But what about the other costs? The giving up of self that we are so reluctant to do? The giving up of a lot of our self control - which is no easy thing - so God might rule in us? The giving up of hatreds and resentments against those who injured us or slighted us? Or - and this can really hurt - the giving up of meaningful amounts of cash to God's work - money that could be better spent on our pleasure and comfort?
Discipleship is what today's passage from the Gospel according to Luke is all about. The discipleship - the following - that calls us to love God - to love Jesus - above all other things, to love God more than our mother and our father, more than our wife and children, more than our brothers and sisters, more even than our own lives.
What is the commandment - the commandment that comes to us from the Covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai - and which is lifted up by Jesus for us as the greatest of all of God's commandments?
Is it not the greatest commandment "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength"?
How we talk about love is most interesting to me - and I am sure it is to you as well.
I know people who love the views that they can get from the top the mountains round Sai Kung. I know I love it. There is nothing quite like what you see when you ascend Jacob's Ladder in Sai Kung. It is absolutely incredible.
But - I ask myself - what if that easy and beautiful view was not there?
People have told me that view on top of Sunset Peak is absolutely wonderful. I love that kind of view. I love the pictures that friends of mine have taken there, but I have not yet gone there myself. I haven't expended the sweat and the energy it requires to ascend the trail.
It seems that I love ice-cream and watching television as well - and I find it easier to pick up a spoon and push buttons on my remote control than to strap on a pair of running shoes or hiking boots and start climbing.
I have to ask myself from time to time - and perhaps you do too - is my love of God like my love of the view from the top of those mountains out there?
My love of God a real and genuine thing - but is it one in which I am willing only to put in so much effort.? Is it but one love, as it were, among many?
These kinds of questions, my brothers and sisters, as we allow ourselves to struggle with them serve a deep purpose in our lives.
They are like the hands of the potter we heard about in the reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the hands that shape the clay into a pot - and when he see that the clay is marred pounds and reshapes the clay into a new and better form - until it is pleasing and useful to him.
We can assume that is not always a comfortable process for the clay - but the results are worth it - for the potter is God - and God does not make junk.
There is a difference between loving God and doing what God wants us to do - a difference between loving Christ and being his disciples" being those who take up their crosses and follow him.
The Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote his History of the Jewish people during the time that Rome ruled Israel - in the middle of the First Century - talks about the cross and what it was like in those days to walk the main road that led into Jerusalem. He records how, along that road there would be - at times - as many as 2000 or 3000 crosses lining the way - each with either a fresh victim of Pax Roma - nailed or tied to a cross - or the decaying and rotting body of an unfortunate one baking in the heat and causing a great stench to hang over the roadway.
Unless we have seen with our own eyes and smelt with our own nose the horrors of places like Vietnam, Rwanda, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq we can't really grasp what it must have been like to walk into the city beside a row of crosses with people dying or rotting on them.
Nor can we grasp the absolutely insanity that the words of Jesus must have conjured up for his prospective disciples - when he told them - a people who often said "cursed is the one who hangs on a tree" - that to be truly his they must "pick up their crosses" and follow him.
It was the worst possible image that Jesus could have used if his whole intention was to get people to love Him - and to love God - in the way that I and so many other people love the view from our mountains.
Jesus uses graphic images today to remind us that God wants more from us than our eagerness to receive bread without cost and wine without price.
He uses words about hating all those we should love to shock us, he uses words about taking up the cross to horrify us - and help wake us up to what is at stake: to help us realize that for his followers there is more to loving God than simply feeling thankful to God, more to loving God than simply waiting for God to pour a handful of goodies into our laps.
God wants us to be disciples, to be followers - to be vessels able to receive his love - vessels able to hold his love and then to pour it out upon others.
Jesus is telling us that being half-hearted is about as much good as having no heart at all. Giving up some things, but not everything, to God - he tells us - can only earn us the ridicule of others.
"Count the cost", he says in our reading today, "and pick up your cross and follow me."
Oh, how much I want it all to be easy. How much I want every mountain to have a Gondola ascending it. How much I want to not have to suffer or die, to live forever without having to pass through the grave, or as people always put it - how much I want to have my cake and eat it too.
I want to be a beautiful vessel for God my potter but I don't want to be shaped or formed on the wheel if it means that I will be pounded on and pushed around and have water soaking me and wires and wooden edges cutting and shaping me.
And isn't the truth about most people? Isn't that the reason why Jesus talks to his followers in the way he does? Isn't that why Jesus challenges us?
How easy I want it to be - and how awful the way of the cross appears to be. But - I can't help thinking - because the Gospel has touched me - that perhaps all the suffering that I fear, all the self-sacrifice that I am loath to make, all the humility, the thinking about myself self less and about others more is more than worth it for the sake of that which has been revealed and is yet to be revealed to the children of God.
You see the cross that Jesus speaks of, the cross that he himself was raised upon, does not end the story. If that was so - the story would not be told and people would not offer their lives in service to God in places like Iraq or Afghanistan or India.
The one who talked about the cost of loving God not only shown us what true love is like when he died for us upon the cross - he also shown us what God's love for us is like when he was raised from the dead on the third day.
God's intention and purpose is to have us become beautiful vessels - beautiful pots - ones that can hold his love and pour his love out upon others. God's intention is to make us like more like Christ in every way, every day, to make us ones who are a blessing to others - and who ourselves know the blessing, the presence, the peace, that only He can give.
What do we need to give up?
What do we have to give up?
Well, we don't live or work in Afghanistan, the Middle East or any of the other places in our world today where people are killed for telling others that Jesus is Lord of Life, and of Death, and of Life beyond Death - unless of course God has called us to one of those places specifically.
But there are things to give up to God right here; perhaps those things indicated in the beatitudes of the Devil that someone sent to me this week, things of the self.
The Devil's beatitudes for believers in Christ - for those who start, but do not finish, go like this:
Blessed are those who are too tired, too busy, too distracted to spend an hour once a week with their fellow Christians, they are my best workers.
Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be thanked - I can use them.
Blessed are the touchy. With a bit of luck, they may stop going to church - they are my missionaries.
Blessed are the troublemakers - they shall be called my children.
Blessed are the complainers - I'm all ears to them and I will spread their message.
Blessed are the church members who expect to be invited to their own church - for they are a part of the problem instead of the solution.
Blessed are they who gossip - for they shall cause strife and divisions. That pleases me.
Blessed are they who are easily offended - for they will soon get angry and quit.
Blessed are they who do not give their offering to carry on God's work - for they are my helpers.
Blessed are they who professes to love God but hate their brother or sister - for they shall be with me forever.
Blessed are they who read or hear this and think it is about other people - I've got you..
Our gospel reading today ends with the words:
"In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."
Some things are well worth giving up to God - they cause us and others nothing but grief. Other things are well worth giving up to God - because God can renew them and remake them - because God can renew and remake us.
In any case those things we treasure that get in our way, we can't keep them anyway. All flesh is mortal and suffering will come to us whether we are dedicated to God or dedicated only to ourselves.
How much better then that if we are to suffer - we suffer for the Lord who is forgiving.
How much better then if we are to die - that we die for the Lord who gives life to those who call upon him.
God is the potter - we are the clay.
May we - may you - may I be ready to have to him mould us and fill us. May we follow Jesus, not counting the cost as people of this world count the cost, wondering if we can do what we purpose to do, but rather counting the cost as Jesus counted it - knowing that this slight, momentary affliction will prepare us for eternal glory - and knowing that in Christ we can do all things for he loves us with a love that overcomes the world.
Blessed be God - our Father - our Creator - the one who forms us as Potter forms the clay. Amen.
If anyone has followed the news out of the Middle East, Pakistan or out of India or even a Catholic country like the Philippines over the last five or six years they will know that Christian aid workers and church workers, both foreign and domestic, have been imprisoned or killed for no other reason than that they bear the name of Christ.
Some things have not changed in the last couple of thousand years.
As it was in the Roman Empire - where, over a period of about 250 years hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people were tortured and executed for saying "Jesus is Lord" - so today it can still cost people everything to be a disciple of Jesus.
Most of us will never face that kind of choice in our lives. Most of us will not be asked to give our freedom or perhaps even our lives for the sake of the Gospel.
But what about the other costs? The giving up of self that we are so reluctant to do? The giving up of a lot of our self control - which is no easy thing - so God might rule in us? The giving up of hatreds and resentments against those who injured us or slighted us? Or - and this can really hurt - the giving up of meaningful amounts of cash to God's work - money that could be better spent on our pleasure and comfort?
Discipleship is what today's passage from the Gospel according to Luke is all about. The discipleship - the following - that calls us to love God - to love Jesus - above all other things, to love God more than our mother and our father, more than our wife and children, more than our brothers and sisters, more even than our own lives.
What is the commandment - the commandment that comes to us from the Covenant God made with Israel at Mount Sinai - and which is lifted up by Jesus for us as the greatest of all of God's commandments?
Is it not the greatest commandment "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength"?
How we talk about love is most interesting to me - and I am sure it is to you as well.
I know people who love the views that they can get from the top the mountains round Sai Kung. I know I love it. There is nothing quite like what you see when you ascend Jacob's Ladder in Sai Kung. It is absolutely incredible.
But - I ask myself - what if that easy and beautiful view was not there?
People have told me that view on top of Sunset Peak is absolutely wonderful. I love that kind of view. I love the pictures that friends of mine have taken there, but I have not yet gone there myself. I haven't expended the sweat and the energy it requires to ascend the trail.
It seems that I love ice-cream and watching television as well - and I find it easier to pick up a spoon and push buttons on my remote control than to strap on a pair of running shoes or hiking boots and start climbing.
I have to ask myself from time to time - and perhaps you do too - is my love of God like my love of the view from the top of those mountains out there?
My love of God a real and genuine thing - but is it one in which I am willing only to put in so much effort.? Is it but one love, as it were, among many?
These kinds of questions, my brothers and sisters, as we allow ourselves to struggle with them serve a deep purpose in our lives.
They are like the hands of the potter we heard about in the reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the hands that shape the clay into a pot - and when he see that the clay is marred pounds and reshapes the clay into a new and better form - until it is pleasing and useful to him.
We can assume that is not always a comfortable process for the clay - but the results are worth it - for the potter is God - and God does not make junk.
There is a difference between loving God and doing what God wants us to do - a difference between loving Christ and being his disciples" being those who take up their crosses and follow him.
The Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote his History of the Jewish people during the time that Rome ruled Israel - in the middle of the First Century - talks about the cross and what it was like in those days to walk the main road that led into Jerusalem. He records how, along that road there would be - at times - as many as 2000 or 3000 crosses lining the way - each with either a fresh victim of Pax Roma - nailed or tied to a cross - or the decaying and rotting body of an unfortunate one baking in the heat and causing a great stench to hang over the roadway.
Unless we have seen with our own eyes and smelt with our own nose the horrors of places like Vietnam, Rwanda, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq we can't really grasp what it must have been like to walk into the city beside a row of crosses with people dying or rotting on them.
Nor can we grasp the absolutely insanity that the words of Jesus must have conjured up for his prospective disciples - when he told them - a people who often said "cursed is the one who hangs on a tree" - that to be truly his they must "pick up their crosses" and follow him.
It was the worst possible image that Jesus could have used if his whole intention was to get people to love Him - and to love God - in the way that I and so many other people love the view from our mountains.
Jesus uses graphic images today to remind us that God wants more from us than our eagerness to receive bread without cost and wine without price.
He uses words about hating all those we should love to shock us, he uses words about taking up the cross to horrify us - and help wake us up to what is at stake: to help us realize that for his followers there is more to loving God than simply feeling thankful to God, more to loving God than simply waiting for God to pour a handful of goodies into our laps.
God wants us to be disciples, to be followers - to be vessels able to receive his love - vessels able to hold his love and then to pour it out upon others.
Jesus is telling us that being half-hearted is about as much good as having no heart at all. Giving up some things, but not everything, to God - he tells us - can only earn us the ridicule of others.
"Count the cost", he says in our reading today, "and pick up your cross and follow me."
Oh, how much I want it all to be easy. How much I want every mountain to have a Gondola ascending it. How much I want to not have to suffer or die, to live forever without having to pass through the grave, or as people always put it - how much I want to have my cake and eat it too.
I want to be a beautiful vessel for God my potter but I don't want to be shaped or formed on the wheel if it means that I will be pounded on and pushed around and have water soaking me and wires and wooden edges cutting and shaping me.
And isn't the truth about most people? Isn't that the reason why Jesus talks to his followers in the way he does? Isn't that why Jesus challenges us?
How easy I want it to be - and how awful the way of the cross appears to be. But - I can't help thinking - because the Gospel has touched me - that perhaps all the suffering that I fear, all the self-sacrifice that I am loath to make, all the humility, the thinking about myself self less and about others more is more than worth it for the sake of that which has been revealed and is yet to be revealed to the children of God.
You see the cross that Jesus speaks of, the cross that he himself was raised upon, does not end the story. If that was so - the story would not be told and people would not offer their lives in service to God in places like Iraq or Afghanistan or India.
The one who talked about the cost of loving God not only shown us what true love is like when he died for us upon the cross - he also shown us what God's love for us is like when he was raised from the dead on the third day.
God's intention and purpose is to have us become beautiful vessels - beautiful pots - ones that can hold his love and pour his love out upon others. God's intention is to make us like more like Christ in every way, every day, to make us ones who are a blessing to others - and who ourselves know the blessing, the presence, the peace, that only He can give.
What do we need to give up?
What do we have to give up?
Well, we don't live or work in Afghanistan, the Middle East or any of the other places in our world today where people are killed for telling others that Jesus is Lord of Life, and of Death, and of Life beyond Death - unless of course God has called us to one of those places specifically.
But there are things to give up to God right here; perhaps those things indicated in the beatitudes of the Devil that someone sent to me this week, things of the self.
The Devil's beatitudes for believers in Christ - for those who start, but do not finish, go like this:
Blessed are those who are too tired, too busy, too distracted to spend an hour once a week with their fellow Christians, they are my best workers.
Blessed are those Christians who wait to be asked and expect to be thanked - I can use them.
Blessed are the touchy. With a bit of luck, they may stop going to church - they are my missionaries.
Blessed are the troublemakers - they shall be called my children.
Blessed are the complainers - I'm all ears to them and I will spread their message.
Blessed are the church members who expect to be invited to their own church - for they are a part of the problem instead of the solution.
Blessed are they who gossip - for they shall cause strife and divisions. That pleases me.
Blessed are they who are easily offended - for they will soon get angry and quit.
Blessed are they who do not give their offering to carry on God's work - for they are my helpers.
Blessed are they who professes to love God but hate their brother or sister - for they shall be with me forever.
Blessed are they who read or hear this and think it is about other people - I've got you..
Our gospel reading today ends with the words:
"In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."
Some things are well worth giving up to God - they cause us and others nothing but grief. Other things are well worth giving up to God - because God can renew them and remake them - because God can renew and remake us.
In any case those things we treasure that get in our way, we can't keep them anyway. All flesh is mortal and suffering will come to us whether we are dedicated to God or dedicated only to ourselves.
How much better then that if we are to suffer - we suffer for the Lord who is forgiving.
How much better then if we are to die - that we die for the Lord who gives life to those who call upon him.
God is the potter - we are the clay.
May we - may you - may I be ready to have to him mould us and fill us. May we follow Jesus, not counting the cost as people of this world count the cost, wondering if we can do what we purpose to do, but rather counting the cost as Jesus counted it - knowing that this slight, momentary affliction will prepare us for eternal glory - and knowing that in Christ we can do all things for he loves us with a love that overcomes the world.
Blessed be God - our Father - our Creator - the one who forms us as Potter forms the clay. Amen.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Hebrews 13:1-8; Psalm 81; Luke 14:1,7-1
O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
I want you all to do something unexpected - and perhaps a bit uncomfortable for you. I want you to change seats - to move around to a place where you rarely, if ever sit.
So get up - and move - those on my right - please move to my left. And those at the back - move to the front.
Let us do it - come - and see what it feels like....
--- (time for finding a new seat) ----
Now you are all seated again - think about how you feel. Are you happy? Are you pleased to have been moved out of your comfortable spot? The spot you always sit in?
Probably not - I know I would not be - but consider this - whose house is this that we are in? And whose seat is it that we sit in?
We just sang what is one of the favourite hymns of our congregation - one of the top three actually - the other two being "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace".
"Come In, Come In and Sit Down" speaks to us of how we are all part of the family of God. How we are all welcomed by the Lord in his sanctuary. And how here - in God's place - there is life to be shared in the bread and the wine.
The version of the hymn found in "Songs For A Gospel People" contains a verse that goes like this:
Children and elders, middlers and teens, singles and doubles and in betweens, strong eighty-fivers and streetwise sixteens, greeters and shoppers, long-time and new nobody here has a claim on a pew, and whether we're many, or whether we're few we are a part of the family.
Nobody here has a claim on a pew. That is the theme of today's gospel reading.
In that reading we see Jesus eating at the home of a prominent Pharisee and watching how the guests behave. Each seeks out the best place - the places of honour at the table where they can be noticed by the other guests and, by their proximity to their host, be served first and receive the best portions that the table offers.
And Jesus speaks about this saying:
"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Humility is indeed a theme of today's reading - the humility to recognize that it is up to our host, that it is up to our God to seat us and to grant us honour or not, just as he chooses. And the humility, the trust, to recognize that every seat at the table of God is a good seat, a seat that allows us to received the fullness of God's blessing, the fullness of what God promises to all who respond to his invitation to come to him.
But there is much more to the passage.
That more is found in the words that Jesus then addresses to his host, saying to him:
"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Alcoholics Anonymous defines humility this way:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
Let me repeat that:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
This sermon today is not simply about humility, but it is about thinking of ourselves less - about ourselves less and about others more.
Back in 1966 Billy Graham held a Conference in Berlin titled "One Race, One Gospel, One Task". It's purpose was to help train up and inspire evangelists from around the world to go into the world and to invite others to receive the good news - and to become a part of God's family.
The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie the First, Protector of the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church, opened the Conference with these words:
However wise or however mighty a person may be, he is like a ship without a rudder if he is without God.... Therefore, O Christians, let us arise and, with the spiritual zeal and earnestness which characterized the Apostles and early Christians, let us labour to lead our brothers and sisters to our Saviour Jesus Christ who only can give life in its fullest sense."
Who are we thinking of when we come to this house of God? And who are we inviting to come with us? Who are we reaching out to and letting know about the wedding banquet of God's Son?
It is only our Saviour Jesus Christ who can give life in its fullness. That's in my heart and that most surely is in yours - or you would not be here today.
But are we thinking mainly about ourselves and what we can receive here today?
Are we more concerned about what we may or may not receive from God this morning than we are about the fate of the rest of the family of God?
Is our favourite pew so important to us that we resent it when the preacher asks us to move?
Do we choke up when someone else enters this place and gets the attention that we think we deserve or takes the place that we have reserved for ourselves?
I pray that God meets your every need this morning. And I am sure that most of you are praying for the needs of those seated next to you: those that you have known for a long time - and those whom you have known for a short time.
But what about those who are not here today?
Are you praying that those outside this place may enter in. That they may come and without thinking about it - take the seat you usually occupy and come forward to the table to receive the same food, the same grace, the same love, the same hope, that you receive.
Are you eager - are we are all eager - to risk the discomfort that you experienced this morning when I asked you to move and to reach out and have this place of healing so filled each week that each week we may have to sit in different spot and have different people rub against our elbows?
Do we live as an inviting people?
Do we speak inviting words?
Do we have inviting attitudes?
Do we lead lives that invite people to Christ?
Especially those people who are poor, crippled, lame, and blind?
Those people who have nothing to offer to us in return?
Do you want God to shower them with favour and to have them become rich, and strong and able to see? Do you want them to eat at the table of God? Do you invite them in - as God has invited you in - so that they may receive what you receive?
I like the story historians tell about the funeral of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was the greatest Christian ruler of the early Middle Ages. After his death, a tremendous funeral procession left his castle for the cathedral at Aix. When the royal casket arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met by the local bishop, who barred the cathedral door.
"Who comes?" the Bishop asked, as was the custom.
"Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire," proclaimed the Emperor's proud herald.
"Him I know not," the Bishop replied. "Who comes?"
The herald, a bit shaken, replied, "Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth."
"Him I know not," the Bishop said again. "Who comes?"
The herald, now completely crushed, responded, "Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ," - to which the Bishop responded, "Enter! Receive Christ's gift of life!"
The point, of course, is that in God's eyes, we're all equally needy. Charlemagne, Mother Teresa, you and me. None of us will ever be "good enough" to expect that the presence of God belongs to us.
As we come to the Lord's Table today, we all come equal before God, sinners in need of salvation, beggars in need of bread, strangers who were at one time, like ourselves, welcomed to this place.
You gave up your usual seat today to someone who is a part of the family of God, to someone like you who is need of rest and of health, to someone like you who needs to let go of the burdens that are crushing and the yoke that is hard and to take upon themselves the yoke of Christ - the yoke that is easy and the burden that is small.
But there are empty places among us today - places that will be only filled if you allow God to issue an invitation through you to those, who like you, are in need.
I ask you today not to think less of yourselves - you are, after all, part of the family of God and God has laid this table for you - Christ has given his life for you. Rather think of yourselves less.
Remember the rest of the family and pray that God will use you and that God will use me and that God will use each one here today to invite others to come in and sit down and know that they are part of the family, to come in and sit down - and to receive the life that is to be found in the bread and the wine, the life that Jesus came to give to all who would receive it.
Praise be to his name, now and forever. Amen!
I want you all to do something unexpected - and perhaps a bit uncomfortable for you. I want you to change seats - to move around to a place where you rarely, if ever sit.
So get up - and move - those on my right - please move to my left. And those at the back - move to the front.
Let us do it - come - and see what it feels like....
--- (time for finding a new seat) ----
Now you are all seated again - think about how you feel. Are you happy? Are you pleased to have been moved out of your comfortable spot? The spot you always sit in?
Probably not - I know I would not be - but consider this - whose house is this that we are in? And whose seat is it that we sit in?
We just sang what is one of the favourite hymns of our congregation - one of the top three actually - the other two being "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace".
"Come In, Come In and Sit Down" speaks to us of how we are all part of the family of God. How we are all welcomed by the Lord in his sanctuary. And how here - in God's place - there is life to be shared in the bread and the wine.
The version of the hymn found in "Songs For A Gospel People" contains a verse that goes like this:
Children and elders, middlers and teens, singles and doubles and in betweens, strong eighty-fivers and streetwise sixteens, greeters and shoppers, long-time and new nobody here has a claim on a pew, and whether we're many, or whether we're few we are a part of the family.
Nobody here has a claim on a pew. That is the theme of today's gospel reading.
In that reading we see Jesus eating at the home of a prominent Pharisee and watching how the guests behave. Each seeks out the best place - the places of honour at the table where they can be noticed by the other guests and, by their proximity to their host, be served first and receive the best portions that the table offers.
And Jesus speaks about this saying:
"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honour, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honoured in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Humility is indeed a theme of today's reading - the humility to recognize that it is up to our host, that it is up to our God to seat us and to grant us honour or not, just as he chooses. And the humility, the trust, to recognize that every seat at the table of God is a good seat, a seat that allows us to received the fullness of God's blessing, the fullness of what God promises to all who respond to his invitation to come to him.
But there is much more to the passage.
That more is found in the words that Jesus then addresses to his host, saying to him:
"When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Alcoholics Anonymous defines humility this way:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
Let me repeat that:
Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is thinking of yourself less."
This sermon today is not simply about humility, but it is about thinking of ourselves less - about ourselves less and about others more.
Back in 1966 Billy Graham held a Conference in Berlin titled "One Race, One Gospel, One Task". It's purpose was to help train up and inspire evangelists from around the world to go into the world and to invite others to receive the good news - and to become a part of God's family.
The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie the First, Protector of the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church, opened the Conference with these words:
However wise or however mighty a person may be, he is like a ship without a rudder if he is without God.... Therefore, O Christians, let us arise and, with the spiritual zeal and earnestness which characterized the Apostles and early Christians, let us labour to lead our brothers and sisters to our Saviour Jesus Christ who only can give life in its fullest sense."
Who are we thinking of when we come to this house of God? And who are we inviting to come with us? Who are we reaching out to and letting know about the wedding banquet of God's Son?
It is only our Saviour Jesus Christ who can give life in its fullness. That's in my heart and that most surely is in yours - or you would not be here today.
But are we thinking mainly about ourselves and what we can receive here today?
Are we more concerned about what we may or may not receive from God this morning than we are about the fate of the rest of the family of God?
Is our favourite pew so important to us that we resent it when the preacher asks us to move?
Do we choke up when someone else enters this place and gets the attention that we think we deserve or takes the place that we have reserved for ourselves?
I pray that God meets your every need this morning. And I am sure that most of you are praying for the needs of those seated next to you: those that you have known for a long time - and those whom you have known for a short time.
But what about those who are not here today?
Are you praying that those outside this place may enter in. That they may come and without thinking about it - take the seat you usually occupy and come forward to the table to receive the same food, the same grace, the same love, the same hope, that you receive.
Are you eager - are we are all eager - to risk the discomfort that you experienced this morning when I asked you to move and to reach out and have this place of healing so filled each week that each week we may have to sit in different spot and have different people rub against our elbows?
Do we live as an inviting people?
Do we speak inviting words?
Do we have inviting attitudes?
Do we lead lives that invite people to Christ?
Especially those people who are poor, crippled, lame, and blind?
Those people who have nothing to offer to us in return?
Do you want God to shower them with favour and to have them become rich, and strong and able to see? Do you want them to eat at the table of God? Do you invite them in - as God has invited you in - so that they may receive what you receive?
I like the story historians tell about the funeral of Charlemagne. Charlemagne was the greatest Christian ruler of the early Middle Ages. After his death, a tremendous funeral procession left his castle for the cathedral at Aix. When the royal casket arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met by the local bishop, who barred the cathedral door.
"Who comes?" the Bishop asked, as was the custom.
"Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire," proclaimed the Emperor's proud herald.
"Him I know not," the Bishop replied. "Who comes?"
The herald, a bit shaken, replied, "Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth."
"Him I know not," the Bishop said again. "Who comes?"
The herald, now completely crushed, responded, "Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ," - to which the Bishop responded, "Enter! Receive Christ's gift of life!"
The point, of course, is that in God's eyes, we're all equally needy. Charlemagne, Mother Teresa, you and me. None of us will ever be "good enough" to expect that the presence of God belongs to us.
As we come to the Lord's Table today, we all come equal before God, sinners in need of salvation, beggars in need of bread, strangers who were at one time, like ourselves, welcomed to this place.
You gave up your usual seat today to someone who is a part of the family of God, to someone like you who is need of rest and of health, to someone like you who needs to let go of the burdens that are crushing and the yoke that is hard and to take upon themselves the yoke of Christ - the yoke that is easy and the burden that is small.
But there are empty places among us today - places that will be only filled if you allow God to issue an invitation through you to those, who like you, are in need.
I ask you today not to think less of yourselves - you are, after all, part of the family of God and God has laid this table for you - Christ has given his life for you. Rather think of yourselves less.
Remember the rest of the family and pray that God will use you and that God will use me and that God will use each one here today to invite others to come in and sit down and know that they are part of the family, to come in and sit down - and to receive the life that is to be found in the bread and the wine, the life that Jesus came to give to all who would receive it.
Praise be to his name, now and forever. Amen!
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