Amos
6:1a, 4-7; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke
Last
Sunday my sermon was entitled “A Gift for God: part 1.” And the point of the sermon was very simple:
God is the Giver. When we talk about
“giving” ourselves to ministry or “giving” our money to the Church or charity,
we really just have the shoe on the wrong foot: We do not give God
anything, because God is the Giver.
And worship is the only legitimate response to our God the Giver.
So
today’s sermon is part 2, and the question is a logical extension from last
Sunday’s topic: Since God is the giver, how can I receive what He has to
give?
To
consider an answer to that question, I invite you to look with me again at the
Gospel lesson for today: Luke 16:19-31.
This is not a passage we read very often, and it can make us
uncomfortable on several levels. Look at
it again; I think you’ll hear what I mean:
The
rich man is in hell. The man who had
lived “the good life” now is in hell, and he looks up (now, remember this is a story—it
isn’t a lesson about the geography of the afterlife!)—Anyway, the rich man
looks up and sees the beggar, Lazarus, who used to sit at the gate of the rich
man’s mansion, begging for crumbs to keep him going. The rich man in hell sees this beggar in
heaven and says, “I want what he has.”
But Abraham (who is speaking for God here), says to the rich man, “No. You were rich on earth while Lazarus was
poor. It’s too late to change that now.”
When
I read a story like this I’m not surprised that Jesus seemed at times to make
two enemies for each friend: Hearing it virtually
forces rich people to feel defensive and encourages the poor to feel
self-righteous. But surely, that can’t
be what Jesus had in mind.
Actually,
what I believe Jesus had in mind was the same thing that happened in
another—perhaps more well-known—incident, which we read about in Luke
18:18-23: [turn there with me, please]
This incident also involves a man who had a lot but wanted more. The rich man in this story is still alive,
and he comes to Jesus, asking what he has to do to gain eternal
life. Apparently, despite all his
wealth, this rich man knew he was missing something. And Jesus agrees; in verse 22, Jesus confirms
to the man that—“You still lack one thing.”
And then he tells the man what to do.
Essentially, Jesus says, “To receive the gift I have to give you, you
have to let go of what you’re holding onto.”
But,
the story tells us, the rich ruler went away sad, because he didn’t understand
that, when it comes to the gift God gives, giving up is the only way to
gain. It must have broken Jesus’
heart. Two “rich” men
who end up poverty-stricken in the sight of God. What went wrong?
Last
Sunday I was in the Fellowship Hall after the second service. If you don’t come to that service, you may
not know that we have “fellowship time” then—tables stocked full of
refreshments just when we need them most.
So, people always flock into the room and swarm the set-up, and usually
the children get to the food first. So,
I was walking around the room and had stopped to get a chip or something and
saw one of the little boys having a hard time.
His plate was mounded full of two or three of everything on the tables
and still he was trying to add more.
Things kept falling off and he’d pick them up off the floor and add them
to his plate again, all the while looking at the tables with eyes as big as his
belly. Finally, I said, “Why don’t you
go sit down and eat some of what you have and then you can come back for more
later if you still want to.” But he
looked at me like I was crazy, and he said, “Later, it might be gone!” A little boy with “the
rich man’s disease.” His plate
was full, but he wanted more. He could
not grasp anything more than he was always holding onto.
Now
you might think that I am driving toward telling you to give away all your
possessions. Relax,
I’m not talking about material possessions.
I’m talking—as I believe these Scripture passage are
talking—about the Truth of God’s spiritual economy:
Jesus
is not saying, “Give what you have to the poor, so that they will be rich,”
because—don’t you see—that would just mean that then those who had been rich
would be poor and those who had been poor would be rich. So, it would just be different crowds in
heaven and hell. The truth being
conveyed in these stories is not about “things” we hold in our hands,
but about “stuff” we hold in our hearts that keeps us from receiving what God
wants to give.
Even
when what we hold seems to be a good or necessary thing, it’s a physical fact
and a spiritual truth: What is already full cannot be further filled. When our spirits (our hearts) are jammed to
the brim with pride and striving, guilt and shame, regret, bitterness, oppression,
sadness, and loneliness, we cannot receive the good things God would give us if
we had “room” to receive.
The
Bible tells us that it gives God great pleasure to give us the best. After all, He gave His only Son for us and
for our salvation. But if you don’t like
the idea of giving up in order to receive—because that seems
self-serving—consider the fact that we also give up in order to give pleasure
to God.
So,
I’m going to talk with you very personally now—to ask you if there is anything
you might be holding in your heart that is keeping you from receiving God’s
gifts and allowing Him the pleasure of giving.
Don’t answer me aloud, but just consider these questions:
v
Might
anyone here be holding onto guilt?
Real or false? Clutched in your
heart for fear of exposure? Clutched so
tightly that you cannot receive the free gift of God’s forgiveness?
v
Or what about regret?
Angry about “what was”? Bitter
and hurt about “what might have been”?
Do you know it’s possible to say the liturgy
for Confession and Forgiveness every week, yet never let go of those feelings
and thoughts that swell your heart too full to receive God’s forgiveness? God knows all about what you’ve done, and it
breaks His heart to know that you are still burdened when Jesus died so that
you might experience forgiveness and peace.
Why not just say the words, “God, I really want to let go of my guilt
and shame, and receive, in faith, your forgiveness and love.” And then, you will be able to receive God’s
gift of new life—a new past, a new present, a new future. Jesus says, “Behold I make all things
new.” But, to be free, you have to take
Jesus at his word. Ask him to open your
heart, so that you can let go of the past and let the sweet freshness of new
life flood your soul.
v
Or
might anyone here be holding onto the illusion that your life is under
control while, in actuality, self-destructive habits keep you in
bondage? Are you tired of holding onto
those habits and that pretense, but they’re the only way of life you know?
Oh,
why do you we this to ourselves?! Why
don’t we just let go of the pretense that we’re in control—just admit our
weaknesses—whatever they are! The Bible
says that when we are weak, God is strong.
Sin has no right nor any power to
oppress the child of God. Let go
of your pride and let the people of God to support you in prayer—whatever it is
you have to live through. God wants you
to receive freedom.
v
Finally,
might anyone here be holding onto sadness and loneliness and fear
that just threaten to choke the life out of you? Have you lost so much that you are just not
willing to open up to receive anything else that you might lose again?
God says, “I will never leave you nor
forsake you.” The hope of eternity is
the certainty of reunion with our resurrected loved ones, forever together in
the presence of God.
I’m
not trying to play amateur psychologist here.
I’m simply telling you the truth and, the Bible tells us, the Truth will
make you free: God is the Giver, and He
wants to give us “exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ever ask or
think.” But you and I cannot enjoy the
benefits of God’s gifts until we let go of what we’re holding onto and accept
what God is offering in His out-stretched hands. The Bible says, ”You
have not because you ask not.”
So, I’m asking you:
Will you open up your
hand? Will you open up your heart?
God is the Giver. Will you receive?
Of
course, the answer to that question might seem to be simple: God gives us life,
breath, family, health, meaningful work, food,
clothing, shelter—the list goes on and on.
But wait! That’s what God gives us. But we all know that everyone doesn’t have
those things. In fact, some people have
nearly none of those things. There are
lepers dying on the streets of
And
even within our own congregation, everybody is living “the good life,” as we
call it. What about those who are losing
ours homes or our jobs or the battle against some germ or some cancer? When you think about it, the sermon-question
seems more complicated than it first appeared.
If God is the Giver, what is the gift?
What
is the gift that God gives to everyone alike, so that its benefits apply to
each and every person who ever lived—even for a second? The gift that makes even a
The
gift God gave, the gift God still gives—every second
of every day to every person—past, present, and future—is the gift of Himself.
God
didn’t simply create us and then give us creation to wander around in. God who created the universe didn’t just
retire afterward, to sit up in heaven and wave to us from afar—like the Queen
of England from inside a bulletproof car.
God came into creation. He
entered our fragile flesh and experienced the joys and sorrows of being human,
and showed us how a man should live.
And, finally, God gave the ultimate gift—He showed us how a god dies, on
a cross, giving up His life for you and me.
So, that’s the answer to the sermon-question: God is the Giver and the Gift is God.
Well,
that feels a little bit anti-climactic, doesn’t it? It’s like getting a great big beautifully
wrapped birthday present, only when you tear the ribbon and paper off of it, you look at it, and say, “Thanks! What is it?”
What
does it mean to say, “the Gift is God”? As I once heard a child say, when he got a
sweater for Christmas, “Thanks. But I
can’t play with that!”
So,
how can you receive a Gift that is God? What “good” is it to you and me?
God gave his
life as a lesson to us; he gave his death to pay our dues.
He lives now
so that we can live—now and forever.
God’s
gift of Himself means that we don’t have to and, indeed, shouldn’t obsess about
living to make us look good and feel good.
DISCIPLINING
OURSELVES TO EXTEND GOD’S
To
give “undivided love,” we must put our human desires in their proper place:
behind our love for God (Mother Teresa’s vows of chastity, poverty, obedience,
service)
What
human desires get in the way of your being Christ’s servant to someone else?
--your desire
for “stuff”?
--your desire
for “success”?
--your desire to meet other people’s
expectations of who you should be?
--your desire
to “win the Donna Reed award”?
__________________________________________________________________________
SERVING
EVERYONE, FOR EVERYONE
“It
is not just hunger for bread or the need of the naked for clothes or of the
homeless for a house made of bricks.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being
wanted, for having sometime to call their own.”
“Do
not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is
just a drop in the ocean. But if that
drop w[ere] not in the ocean, … the ocean would be
less because of that missing drop. …To
get to love the person we must come in close contact with him. If we wait till we get the numbers, then we
will be lost in the numbers.”
“If
sometimes …poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not because God
didn’t care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not instruments
in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing;
because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing
disguise—in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and
seeking for shelter.”
_______________________________________
OUR
RESPONSE TO GOD’S
What
should be our response to God’s gift?
Our
lives—the way we use our bodies, our minds, our selves—shows how we respond to
God’s gift.
Romans 12:1-2: our bodies a living
sacrifice, our reasonable service
Conduits
of God’s love to everyone in the world
Conduits
of who God is
“‘I
want to be for others the love of God, as you have been to me.’”
Time
Energy
Talents—passions, etc.
SERVING
IN THE FLESH BECAUSE GOD GAVE IN THE FLESH
Sometimes
we think that Christianity is all about what we believe (head). After the sermon, the liturgist might ask you
to stand so that we can “say what we believe.”
Traditional Lutherans don’t focus on the “experience” of faith; they
don’t worship expressively and emotionally, with dramatic and dramatic
conversion stories. Lutherans tend to
emphasize Christianity as a set of ideas to memorize, think about, and
believe. It’s been a stretch for some of
us to begin to accept the idea of having a “relationship with Jesus.” Not because we believe that’s a bad idea,
just because it’s not an idea—it’s a relationship. Love isn’t a set of principles or
propositions. Love is relationship.
Because it is the gift of Christ that gives us all other
things—life, hope, joy, peace.
The gift is in the flesh—the gift is
sacrifice—the gift is suffering
“And
so in Christ it was proved that the greatest gift is love: because suffering
was how he paid for [our] sin.”
We can never discount the flesh because
it is in the flesh that we live the lives God gives us.
Look
at the sensuality of today’s readings—especially the Old Testament and Gospel:
Amos: Alas for
those at ease and those who feel secure, those at leisure and idleness, for
those who seek their own pleasure and do not grieve over the ruin of their
nation. They shall be sent out of the
land, and their revelry shall pass away.
“Because
we cannot see Christ we cannot express our love to him; but our neighbors we
can always see, and we can do for them what, if we saw him, we would like to do
for Christ.” (when
did we see you…?)
“Our
work is only the expression of the love we have for God. We have to pour our love on someone, and the
people are the means of expressing our love for God.”
“Only
in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God
better because of them.”
We are the incarnate Body of Christ
What
the world needs now is not more ideas or more words—what the world needs now is
love, incarnate love, living love—the love of Christ made real and effective
through our hands, our feet, our loving touch.
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LOVE
IN ACTION
In
Scripture, Jesus says, on one occasion, that he is “The Truth.” One time. But dozens of times, Scripture tells us that
God is love. Does that mean that God
isn’t Truth? Now, you know that’s not
what I’m saying. Of course, God is
Truth—Absolute Truth, absolutely! But
what I’m trying to point out is that, being a disciple of Jesus Christ
is not nearly so much about knowing as it is about doing. I’m not anti-intellectual (surely, you know
that!). But I agree with the writer of
the book of James: Just as that writer says, “Faith without works is dead,” so
also I would say, “Knowledge without love is useless.”