We Are Blessed
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
October 31, 1993
Memory Verse: Now the Lord said to Abram, I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. Genesis 12:2
Today's Texts: Genesis 12:1-4 and Luke 6:20-23
Opening Prayer: God of new creations and new beginnings, pour out your Spirit on this church and on this pastor. Help us to feed one another in the days ahead and to bless one another for many years to come. May this relationship be a source of encouragement and excitement, of challenge and commitment, as we seek to embody your presence in the world. Bless this time of preaching and use it to your service. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I don't know about you, but I am so glad to be here this morning. It feels like a long time waiting. More than a year ago my wife and I discerned that it was time to move on from the Good News Community Church / Iglesia Buenas Nuevas in Chicago, Illinois. We took time to pray, to talk with close friends and colleagues, to study the Scripture, and to search our own hearts and minds. Our stirrings were confirmed as the call of God to leave the place we had called home for so many years and to find a new place, a promised land if you will, where we could continue to give of ourselves and to receive of God's grace. That place turned out to be the First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Columbus, Ohio.
Have you ever thought of this place as the promised land? Have you ever thought of these lofty arches and stained glass windows as flowing with milk and honey? Have you ever thought of the people sitting next to you in the pews as angels in disguise? Probably not, or at least not very often. But that is how you look to me. You are the fulfillment of a promise, and right now that is all I can see.
I think Abram must have been filled with some of these same sentiments as he took off to the promised land, so many years ago. Called from his country and his kindred and his parent's house, Abram left the city of Ur in Chaldea to go to the land of Canaan. This land had been promised to him by God. "Go...to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Genesis 12:1-2). It was this promise that led him. It was this promise that sustained him. It was this promise that gave him the eyes to see past the obvious difficulties in order to see the hidden mysteries of God.
Can you imagine taking off by camel and foot, at age 75, with all your family and all your earthly possessions, to move to a place you had never even visited? There was no search committee here. There was no Guest Quarters. There were no receptions and no trial sermons. There were no acts of hospitality and no indications that God had any idea what he--or she--was doing. There was only the promise of God and the faith of Abram.
When Abram arrived in Canaan, what did he find? He found hostile people living in the land and a severe famine. Somehow God had failed to mention to the Canaanites that this land was now promised to Abram, and the ensuing conflict was not always settled nonviolently. God also didn't say anything about a famine, a famine so severe that Abram had to go to Egypt to find food and water. So this was the promised land? If it had been me, I might very well have kept right on going. I might have demanded, "God, you can do better than this! Give me another promised land." With this demand I might well have missed my blessing, looking only at the negatives instead of the positives.
But such was not the case with father Abraham. Through faith in the promise of God he was given eyes to see and ears to hear. "Raise your eyes now," God told Abram, "and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." (Genesis 13:14-17).
Eyes to see and ears to hear God's blessing, even in the midst of hostile people and severe famine.
There is a story of an old Hindu monk teaching his disciples by the side of the Ganges River. At one point he looks up and sees a scorpion caught helplessly in the rocks of the river. The disciples watch in disbelief as the master makes his way out on the rocks in order to free the scorpion. Struggling to maintain his own balance against the current of the river, the master reaches down only to recoil in pain as the scorpion stings him at first touch. Regaining his balance, the master reaches down again only to be stung again. This happens numerous times, leaving the master swollen and blistered and inflamed. Eventually, however, the master successfully grabs hold of the scorpion and releases him to the shore.
Sitting back down with his disciples, they confront him, "Master, why did you bother to save that scorpion? Look what it did to you. You are all disfigured and you have enough poison in you to die. You should have left it alone." But the master replied, "My friends, just because it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting does not mean that I should abandon my nature to save."
The reign of God is like that. It comes to us as the power of blessing in the midst of an often hostile world that is filled with trials and temptations.
Do you feel blessed by God, or do you see only the trials and temptations? Do you feel called by God, or do you hear only the angry and stinging voices? Do you feel led by God, or are you still wandering and grumbling in the wilderness? The power of these ancient stories, such as the story of Abram or the story of the Hindu master, is that they speak to us of eternal truths and primordial wisdom. God is the power in life that seeks to save, even when the world seeks to sting. God is the reality in life that seeks to bless, even when the world seeks to curse. God is the spirit in life that seeks to build up, even when the world seeks to destroy.
Jesus understood this power of God to turn the tables on the world.
These beatitudes present a 180 degree turn, an about face, on the conventional wisdom of Jesus' day. Poverty, hunger, grief, and defamation were all signs of God's absence, not of God's presence. The problem of evil had not been solved by the story of Job. People still understood trials and temptations, difficulties and disasters, as signs that God was punishing you for something. They were certainly not understood as signs that God had chosen you to be blessed in the reign of God.
Fortunately, father Abraham understood. He knew how to read the signs of the reign of God. Otherwise he might have turned around and gone back to the city of Ur in Chaldea--and none of us would be sitting here right now. Life was difficult for Abraham. Very difficult. He entered the promised land hungry, hated, excluded, poor, and troubled. He was out of his element, and tested beyond measure. But Scripture tells us that he believed the Lord, and the promises of God, and that God reckoned it to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
That is the secret to experiencing the blessings of life. One must believe that God is in the midst of life, working and willing that which is good. One must look for the silver lining behind every dark cloud. One must remember the promise of God even when it seems as though God himself has forgotten. One must separate the day to day pitfalls from the larger perspective of God's steadfast love. One must approach life with the faith of a child, believing that God will take care of me. Then and only then will you start to see the blessing of God. Then and only then will your hunger be filled and your anxiety be stilled and your eyes be opened.
Much of this I have learned through living and working with low-income people over the past 20 years. My first experience was with people of Appalachia, through the Appalachia Service Project. We did home repair on mountaineer shacks, with volunteers from church youth groups aross the nation. This was third world poverty in the midst of the first world, and yet these people taught me--a middle-class Christian with resources aplenty--so much about the blessings and providence of God.
I remember one mountaineer. He would travel 150 miles to work, leaving before dawn on Monday and returning late on Friday night, sleeping in his truck on intervening nights, just to keep his wife and nine children fed. Those 11 people lived in a tiny shack, crowding into 3 double beds to sleep. They had no electricity and carried their water from a creek nearly a mile away. The whole family bathed from a wash tub heated on a stove. In the midst of so much adversity, this man would always meet me with a smile and fairly beam. "I could talk all day," he would say, "and not be finished telling all the ways the Lord has blessed me." I was both humbled and inspired by his beautiful faith.
My time in Chicago took me out of rural and into urban poverty. The problems seemed to become more intense and more impossible. William Bennett has described the Chicago public school system as "the worst school system in the nation." Less than half of the kids who start the 9th grade graduate from the 12th grade. Instead, many go on to lives that are littered with drugs, alcohol, teenage pregnancy, gangs, crime, and welfare dependency. It's not a pretty sight, until you run into someone--20 or 30 years later--who went through it all but was somehow spared by God and is now being helped, little by little and bit by bit, to put his or her life back together. These people have a tremendous sense of gratitude for the gracious hand of God.
Rosemary Davis is such a person. A member of the Good News Church for the last five years, and as she would say "clean" for those five years, Rosemary speaks openly about the 20 years of her life she spent as a drug addict. She is also quick to confess that without God and without the Good News Church, she would still be a drug addict today. Rosemary is so filled with a sense of appreciation for being snatched by God from the jaws of a lion that she has a way of catching you off guard with her simple and yet incessant faith. Pass her in the hall or run into her on the street and exchange everyday pleasantries. "Hi, Rosemary, how are you?" To stranger or friend she will always respond, "I am blessed, how are you?"
It's hard to come back with a cursory, "I'm fine, thank you," after someone has just told you that she is blessed. You'd think I would learn, but it always pulls me up short. "I am blessed, how are you?" I am blessed? I am blessed! There's no whining here about how hard life has been. There's no regrets here about why God had to wait 20 years before helping her to put her life together. There's only a deep and abiding appreciation for the fact that she is alive at all. There is an awareness that without God life itself would not be possible, and that with God there are so many things for which to give thanks.
Do you feel blessed? Do you have the eyes to see the presence and the ears to hear the voice of God in your life? Scripture tells us that we love because God first loved us. We give because God first gave to us. We live because God first lived for us. This lies at the heart of Christian stewardship. It is a matter of returning thanks. It is a different way of seeing life than through the eyes of a typical, upwardly mobile, professional. There's no striving here. There's no credit taking or jockeying for position. There's no demanding and no upstaging. There's only an attitude of gratitude for the mysterious ways of God that call and lead and sustain and guide and bless.
As many of you know my son, Evan, was hit by a car on the 4th of July. Since that time he has been recovering from a compound fracture of his left tibia and fibula. It has been a long, slow process that would have been even more difficult had we been filled with bitterness and anger that God could let such a thing happen. Instead, we have tried to see the blessings of this experience. Evan, like Rosemary, was spared from an even worse fate. Evan, like Rosemary, was healed in ways that only a nine year-old's body could heal. Evan, like Rosemary, has started to walk again after a long time lame.
This is the secret of Christian faith: to see God's presence in world and to act accordingly. In the past seven years, we have spent more than $1 million acquiring and rehabilitating property for the Good News Church in Chicago. I don't know what gave us the idea seven years ago that a small little storefront church could pull this off, if it wasn't for the power and presence of God. Along the way there have been constant miracles, just in case we were ever got discouraged or were tempted to forget who was in charge and who should receive the glory.
The latest miracle was quite overwhelming for me, perhaps because I was so tired and so stressed out at trying to wrap everything up in Chicago. Six weeks ago we were struggling to finish a $200,000 reconstruction of our parish hall and kitchen. We were running out of time and money and talent, and worse yet, I didn't even know it! The treasurer hadn't added up all the bills and I was still thinking that somehow I could complete the job all by myself. In short, I was fooling myself. But God was not fooled. About the time it was beginning to dawn on me that I was facing an impossible situation, with no money, little time, and not enough skill to complete the project, out of nowhere an electrical company, who I had never dealt with before, showed up to lend a hand. The owner of the company sent three electricians to finish the job. They worked for 7 days, installing every fixture and switch and wiring every heavy piece of commercial equipment. Without them the job would never have been finished. And the owner donated not only all the labor but the materials as well. Talk about turning the tables on an impossible situation. Talk about being snatched from the jaws of a lion. Talk about being blessed.
Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.... Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God." (2 Corinthians 4:7-9,15).
Incredible. Amazing. Impossible. And yet that is the way of God. To make a way out of no way. To make a promised land out of an arid dessert filled with hostile people. To make a church out of people like you and me. Amen.
Blessings not Entitlements
First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
November 7, 1993
Memory Verse: Now the Lord said to Abram, I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. Genesis 12:2
Today's Texts: Genesis 22:1-8 and Luke 15:11-32
Opening Prayer: God of Blessing and Giftedness, help us to never take life for granted. We know that you are the source of life itself, and yet all too often we act as though life depends more upon our skill and scheming than upon your grace and goodness. Help us grow in wisdom and in faith. During this time of preaching, move your Spirit among us that our hearts might be filled with thanksgiving and our minds might be transformed by your will. We ask this in the name of our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ the Righteous. Amen.
A few months ago, about the same time as I was negotiating my contract with the Search Committee from First Church, I read a Habitat for Humanity newsletter from the southwest region of our country. The cover story featured a woman who was moving into her new home, after months of sweat equity and scores of volunteers had helped to make this impossible dream a reality.
Now I'm not sure one can use the following adjective about a woman who was being interviewed by a newspaper, but this woman was speechless. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that she would one day own her own home. The product of a broken home, the victim of early childhood abuse, pregnant as a teenager, and never able to finish high school, this woman had given up on the American dream.
Nevertheless, Sharon did what she could. She was determined that her own children would not repeat the same mistakes that she had made. Two things were important to her. She always kept her home clean, and she always managed to work. They were not jobs that paid any real money, but at least her children saw their mother getting up every morning with somewhere to go and something to do.
That was about as far as she had imagined she could go when Habitat for Humanity entered her life. Talk about joy. Talk about gratitude. Talk about thanksgiving. Home ownership had been, for Sharon, the impossible dream of a Don Quixote. And then along came a group of people, the Selection Committee, who said, "How would you like to own your own home? We are impressed with your housekeeping and with your employment history. We think you make just enough money to handle it. And we want to work with you to make this dream a reality."
Sharon could not thank God enough for being so good. It didn't make sense to her that she should be selected. There were so many others and she felt so undeserving. What had she done to receive such an opportunity? What merit could she claim, what credit could she take? In her mind, she could claim nothing at all. Being selected for home ownership appeared to her as pure grace, little more than a whim and a fancy of a generous God. And the praises of God were flowing up as the blessings of God were coming down.
Reading this article, it struck me that all of us might benefit from having to be picked by a Habitat for Humanity Selection Committee in order to own our own home. I mentioned to you that I had read this article at about the same time as I was negotiating my contract with the Search Committee. In reality, my experience was not very different from Sharon's experience. But the search process in the United Church of Christ, as with any profession, is carefully designed to hide the unmerited, undeserving, and unstoppable grace of God that flows through every interview and every nod.
It all began with my Professional Profile, my résumé for the United Church of Christ. Here I was asked to list my qualifications and my credentials, and I was encouraged to make myself look as good as possible. What had I accomplished? Where I had gone to school? Why was I the best thing to come along since sliced bread? You fill out one of these things, play with it long enough to make sure that everything looks just right on your laser printer, and you can start getting a pretty big head. And that's before you even get anywhere in the search process!
Watch out when you actually make it through the first cut and the second. When you go for an interview and get put up at one of the best hotels in town. When you preach a trial sermon in a neutral pulpit and people in the congregation tell you that you should be preaching to thousands. When you sit down at Rocky Fork and start saying here's what I need and here's what I want and here's what I expect. When you go to the Trustees and to the bank, wheeling and dealing to put together loans and mortgages and financing for house and additions and cars and what have you.
By the time you get through it all, the gracious and generous hand of God can be completely hidden from view. We talk in terms of my job, my call, my house, my car, my family, my bank accounts, my degrees, my credentials, my life. These things are mine. I worked hard for them. I deserve them. I got them the old fashioned way: I earned them. And anyone who doesn't have what I have in life must not have the same drive, the same ambition, or the same work ethic. Indeed, they're probably shiftless, no good, and lazy riff-raff. How often have you heard that rhetorical question, "I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, why can't they do the same?"
Don't believe it. There is not so much that separates Sharon from Bob Tschannen-Moran. And there are no bootstraps pulled up without the gracious help and blessing of God. The problem, to borrow from one of my old philosophy professors, Errol Harris, is a problem of hypothesis and perception. If you hypothesize that life is dog-eat-dog and that nice guys finish last and that God is dead, then you will perceive life accordingly. If, on the other hand, you hypothesize that life is a gift and that what goes around comes around and that God is real, then you will perceive the blessings and presence of God.
The problem for us Christians is that modern-day society is structured around the first hypothesis. We live, as they say, in a secular city. Our days do not begin with prayer. Our meals do not begin with prayer. Our classes, our meetings, and our interviews do not begin with prayer. Our operations do not begin with prayer. Our contracts do not begin with prayer. With the secularization of society, we can now "successfully" get through an entire lifetime without any reference to God whatsoever. We have other language, other vocabulary, and other explanations for it all. We have organized God right out of life, and then we wonder why we struggle so much with aimlessness, meaninglessness, depression, and violence.
Don't believe it. I'm not sure why, on my second Sunday here, I would be led to preach from one of the hardest texts in Scripture--the call of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah--but I think it has something to do with illustrating this relationship between hypothesis and perception. This man, Abraham, who started out as a wandering Aramean had just concluded a successful business deal with Abimelech, the commander of the Philistine army, over the rights to a water well. Things were starting to look up for Abraham. In his old age, he had finally started to prosper in this promised land that had, at first, seemed so formidable. He now had flocks and money and slaves and, against all odds, his wife of many years, Sarah, had finally given birth to a son and they had named him Isaac.
One can only speculate why, in the wake of such prosperity, God would come along and treat Abraham the way he did. The easiest theory, at least for 20th century North Americans, suggests that Abraham heard the voice of another god, a false god, at a time when human sacrifice was not uncommon. The traditional theory suggests that God was testing Abraham to discern the depth of his commitment and the strength of his convictions. This morning, however, I would lift up a third theory; namely, that God could find no other way to teach Abraham about the blessings and nature of life.
Could it be that Abraham may have started to get a little too close to that first hypothesis? Could it be that in all his prosperity and all his success he started to forget who and whose he was? Could it be that Abraham had started to feel entitled to life, in all its fullness, rather than blessed by life, in all its newness? "Abraham! Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you." (Genesis 22:1f).
Woah. Every time I read those words they make me shudder. I cannot help but think of Bryn and Evan. If anything belongs to me, if I can claim anything at all, it is my children. Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, these children belong to me. Maybe I can't claim my job, my call, my house, my car, my bank accounts, my degrees, and my credentials as my own handiwork. But my children? Certainly I can claim them. Certainly I am entitled to protect them and care for them. Certainly they deserve only the very best.
"So Abraham rose early in the morning," like when I go fishing with my dad, "saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, 'Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.' Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together." (Genesis 22:3-6).
Can you picture that? Can you imagine that? Can you feel that? Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice. Abraham, having waited for more than century for the birth of this child, carrying the fire and the knife. Somehow I imagine the air thick and heavy. Perhaps clouds were hanging like smoke around the mountains of Moriah. There is a stillness here such as you can only find early in the morning, with your dad, as you go out fishing in a boat on a lake in northern Wisconsin.
"Isaac said to his father Abraham, 'Father!' And Abraham said, 'Here I am, my son.' 'The fire and the wood are here,' Isaac said, 'but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' Abraham," perhaps with a long pause and a heavy heart and a trembling voice," said, 'God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' And the two of them walked on together." (Genesis 22:7-8).
Abraham finally got the point on that long walk up the mountain. We are not entitled to anything in life, not even to life itself. All of life is a gift. All of life is a blessing. All of life depends upon the gracious power of God. Is it to my credit that I can move this right arm with such dexterity and ease? Is it to my credit that I can claim degrees from Northwestern University and Yale Divinity School? Is it to my credit that I can go to work every day in a car given to me by my sister, with a car phone given to me by the Good News Church? Is it to my credit that I can craft a sermon or construct a kitchen or compile a computer program or balance a set of books?
No! All of life belongs to God, and we are but channels of God's grace. Whatever good I do, whatever skill I have, whatever resources I claim, whatever family I know--all these and more belong to God. I am here not to demand my rights but to exercise my responsibilities as a steward. Indeed, Scripture was not written with any consciousness of what today we would call human rights. Look for it if you will, and show me where you find anything like the Declaration of Independence and its "certain inalienable rights" from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. It simply is not there.
The older brother in Luke's story of the Prodigal Son thought he had certain inalienable rights. After all, his younger brother had been a scoundrel. He had taken his inheritance and squandered it in dissolute living, leaving his older brother to stay home and mind the store. As time passed, the older brother never disobeyed any command of his father and worked like a slave while his brother had been off devouring half of the estate with prostitutes and wildness. Certainly he had the right to demand justice. Certainly he had the right to demand fairness. Certainly he had the right to be angry with his father and his brother and with life itself. Can't you just see him pulling out his hair. A party for this snake? It isn't fair! It isn't right! It shouldn't be!
This older brother needs to take a walk up the mountain, early in the morning, like Abraham did so long ago. This older brother just doesn't get the point. If our gracious God wants to celebrate the return of an errant son, who are we to complain? If our loving God wants to forgive the most outrageous of sinners, who are we to object? If our blessed God acts in ways that transcend our understanding, who are we to demand that God operate any differently?
There is something wrong about approaching life from the point of view of entitlements and certain inalienable rights. The worst of it is what it does to the human spirit. It does not put us in a position to recognize God. Instead, it fills us with a demanding spirit that creates more problems than it solves and that hides from us the truth of the gospel.
How absurd! Can you imagine an army where new recruits determine strategy or a company where mail clerks set policy? Of course not, and yet that is how we act when it comes to the creator of the universe. We shake our fist at life, and demand that it meet our needs. We are so hell-bent on securing our own happiness, that we actually end up producing the very opposite result. By demanding from life what we desperately require but what we cannot ultimately control we play out our original sin and position ourselves for failure.
This morning we have the opportunity to restore our souls through communing at table with our Lord and Savior in the company of one another. I would invite you this morning, as you prepare your hearts and minds for this sacrament, to root out the demanding spirit. This is the body of Christ, and we are individually members of it. It is not our accomplishment. It is not our entitlement. It is not our reward. It is not our doing. It is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Sharon has a lot to say to us this morning. So does Abraham and so does the older brother. "Son you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of your was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." (Luke 15:31f).
The reign of God is like that. It is filled with blessing for those who let go of their demands and their posturing. It is filled with joy for those who come to their senses and return after a long time wandering. It is filled with peace for those who act like stewards over the gifts of God.
What do you do with a Blessing?
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
November 14, 1993
Memory Verse: Now the Lord said to Abram, I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. Genesis 12:2
Today's Texts: Genesis 14:17-24 and Luke 19:28-35
Opening Prayer: God of Peace and God of Power, help us to trust you. When you have plans for our life other than those we currently have in mind, help us to move with you rather than to fight against you. Enable us to be free of our own preoccupations and our own agendas so that we can get on board with yours. Fill us with excitement for this church, not only for what it has been but also for what it can become. We lay this all before you now in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of our Holy Comforter. Amen.
Martin Bell is an Episcopal priest who has written several books of short stories, poems, and songs that have been truly influential in my life. His most famous book, The Way of the Wolf, brings the good news of the gospel to the reader in fresh, imaginative images. An early, moving experience for me as I considered the ordained ministry was hearing Dick Cash, now deceased from AIDS, tell the story of Barrington Bunny who hop, hop, hippety-hopped into my consciousness as a witness to the true meaning of Christmas.
One story that has always troubled me comes from Bell's second book, Nenshu and the Tiger. Crazy Mary Katherine refuses to count her blessings even though she claims to be thankful for the gift of life itself. "Being thankful means saying yes to life," Crazy Mary Katherine muses to herself as part of this story, "in spite of all the obvious suffering and brokenness and guilt that's involved. It means enduring unbearable hardships for no other reason than to show up again tomorrow and be part of this whole wild cosmic adventure. Being thankful means recognizing that all of life is good--not enjoyable or easy, certainly--but necessary and received. To give thanks is to have the courage to get up in the morning. And that doesn't have anything at all to do with counting your blessings."
You see, Crazy Mary Catherine is concerned that in counting our blessings we separate ourselves from those less fortunate than ourselves. She is also concerned that counting our blessings makes us less than thankful for the gift of life itself, with all its disappointments and all its pain. "The whole idea of counting my blessings," Crazy Mary Katherine concludes, "makes me sick."
For years I bought this story, hook, line, and sinker. It certainly makes some sense. If all you ever count is your blessings, you may well start to think of yourself as better than the guy who does not have what you have. You may also loose heart when life takes a turn for the worse. But then I took 20 years of my life to work and live with low-income people. I have never met people more ready to count their blessings than low-income Christians. People who have practically nothing by the standards of our society will stand up and testify about the blessings of God.
You get the idea. One testimony after another, one witness after another, that God is in life as the power of blessing. And if God is the power of blessing in life, then how can it be wrong to count those blessings? How can it be wrong to take stock of the goodness of God? How can it be wrong to enjoy what God has done?
Perhaps the story of Araham can again help us with this conundrum. The setting for today's Old Testament Lesson finds Abraham, with only 318 people, victorious over the companies of four kings. His mission was to free his nephew Lot from captivity. Now Scripture does not tell us how many were in the companies of those four kings, but we are led to believe that they were sizable. Indeed, they had just gone against and subdued entire villages in the Valley of Siddim (that is the Dead Sea). Now Abraham takes 318 people and goes against them by night, routing them and pursuing them to Hobah, north of Damascus.
You can bet Abraham was counting his blessings. I wonder if he knew he would be successful when he started out on that mission. Scripture does not tell us of any revelation or sign from God. This was not like Abraham's call to leave his country and his kindred and his parent's house in order to go to the land that God would show him. Here Abraham was acting on his own, and he was blessed with victory.
"So King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. He blessed (Abraham) and said, 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!' And (Abraham) gave him one tenth of everything." (Genesis 14:18-20).
The New Testament saw this King Melchizedek as a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. "His name, in the first place, means 'king of righteousness'; next he is also king of Salem, that is, 'king of peace.' Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, Melchizedek remains a priest forever." (Hebrews 7:2b-3) Bringing out bread and wine, like Jesus during the Last Supper, Melchizedek blesses Abraham and praises God Most High. "See how great he is! Even Abraham the patriarch gave him a tenth of the spoils." (Hebrews 7:4).
It's only natural to show appreciation when someone or something has been good to you. In this day and age, however, even such a natural instinct as gratitude has come to be surpressed. M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, writes in his latest book about the need for our society to recover "civility" in its dealings with one another. We have become selfish and arrogant people. We express ourselves without regard to how our words or actions will be perceived by others. We focus on our needs, our wants, and our feelings. We can be rude without apology and self-serving without embarassment. In a word, our society has become violent and it is starting to take a toll on the human spirit.
Abraham shows us a better way. Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what the Lord has done. Then return thanks. Do not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. Give a tithe, 10% of your blessings, as a sign of appreciation and a measure of gratitude.
How tightly we hold on to our blessings. Maybe that's part of why Crazy Mary Katherine does not want us to count them. Maybe she's afraid we'll all become like Scrooge. Counting and recounting then counting again to be sure that no blessing has gone astray. Maybe she's afraid that once our blessings are counted we will possess them all the more, as though our ability to count our blessings gives us a certain proprietary interest that transcends even the grace and call of God.
This morning's New Testament lesson is typically read as part of our Palm Sunday festivities. We focus on the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, with the people waving palms and singing hosanna to the one who comes in the name of the Lord. This morning, however, I want us to think about another part of the story. Forget the frenzied masses for a moment, let them fade into the background, and instead turn the camera onto the owners of that colt.
Now "when Jesus had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his discples, saying 'Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' just say this, 'The Lord needs it.' So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, 'Why are you untying the colt?' They said, 'The Lord needs it,' and they brought it to Jesus." (Luke 19:29-35a)
That is all we ever hear in the New Testament about the owners of this colt. Perhaps they had been saving it as a Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah gift for their son or daughter. It had never been ridden. It had never felt the whip. It was without mark or blemish. This colt may well have been a prized possession. It could even have been ready for sale on the auction block, providing food and sustenance for this family. We'll never know. And we'll never know if they ever got it back. But we do know this, when the disciples found the colt as Jesus had told them, they started untying it. The owners asked them, "Why are you untying our colt?" And the disciples said simply, "The Lord needs it."
I've sometimes tried to imagine what it would be like to buy a brand new lawnmower, to bring it home, take it out of the box, and assemble it in my front yard for its first go round. Before starting it up I take the cardboard boxes around to the alley. Coming back to the front yard I find several men starting to push my lawnmover down the driveway and out to the street. "Hey, come back here!" I call out with alarm, "where do you guys think you are going with that? Stop right now or I'm going to call the police." One of them turns around and looks deeply into my eyes. "The Lord needs it." That's all he says, and they keep right on walking.
Do I call the police or not? I must confess: I usually do. But can you imagine being so free from material preoccupations and normal propietorship as to give up your property to some stranger who comes along with a line like that? Our suspicions tell us no way. And most of the time we're probably right to listen to the voice of reason. But when I think about the way he looked, so deeply into my eyes, I sometimes come close to the truth of the gospel.
Count your blessings, name them one by one. Enjoy them while you have them, and do not feel guilty that you have more or less than someone else. Count your blessings, see what the Lord has done. Whose blessings are they anyway? Do they belong to you, to have and to hold until death do you part? No! Our blessings belong to God, and when God has need of them we have need to give them. When Abraham counted his blessings, he gave 10% back to the Lord. When the owners of that colt counted their blessings, they let it go without complaint because the Lord needed it.
What happens to you when you count your blessings? If, as Crazy Mary Katherine suggests, counting your blessings makes you haughty and distanced from the lowly then perhaps it is better to forget the whole thing. If, on the other hand, counting your blessings makes you keenly aware of God's love and passionately committed to sharing that love with others then I would suggest you count them all the more in the coming week.
Next Sunday is consecration Sunday, the culmination of our stewardship campaign. Each of us is being asked to prayerfully and carefully consider the blessings of God. How will we respond? Will we stand with Abraham and give a tenth of what we have? Will we stand with the owners of that colt, and give whatever the Lord needs? Or will we hold back, taking a wait and see attitude with the lifestyle of stewardship?
Our blessings are on loan from God. We can enjoy them, for they are good gifts and God delights in giving them. But we can never afford to take them for granted or to hoard them as our very own. Otherwise, like Scrooge, we too may be in for a rude awakening. Our blessings are given to us that we might be a blessing to others. Next week when we place our estimates of giving on the table I hope and pray that we will each leave here with a sense of gratitude and satisfaction, having given what the Lord requires.
We are a Blessing!
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
November 21, 1993
Memory Verse: Now the Lord said to Abram, I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. Genesis 12:2
Today's Texts: Genesis 18:16-33 and Luke 6:27-36
Opening Prayer: Merciful God, Perfect in Power and Grace, help us to be more like you. Where we might be boastful or arrogant or rude, help us instead to be patient and kind. Where we might be tempted by wrongdoing, help us instead to rejoice in the truth. Where we might begin to lose heart and faith, help us instead to bear all things, to believe all things, to hope all things, and to endure all things. Give us the confidence to believe that no act of kindness, however small or however random, is ever wasted in the great scheme of your love. Bless now this time of preaching with the power and wisdom of your Holy Spirit. Amen.
I would begin this morning with an apology. I am not yet familiar with this pulpit, and there may be those who will consider my comments trivial while others may even find them sacrilegious. Indeed, I understand that Chal was here for 24 years without ever stooping to this level of analogy. But I mean no harm, and I would ask you to go with me for just a moment down this road.
Yesterday was the Ohio State-Michigan football game. Now I'm not sure why we scheduled stewardship Sunday to follow the Ohio State-Michigan football game, but perhaps we thought we could learn something from the experience. For those who think giving should hurt, perhaps we thought that people would be in a mood to give and give generously today. There is something to that theory. There may also have been those who were supremely confident, and perhaps they thought we would all be riding high this morning on the feel-good crest of victory. After all our stewardship chairperson even hosted a tailgate party, if you will, at his house. But God has a way of humbling the proud.
I would point, however, to a third gleaning from the experience of yesterday's game. My wife and I joined with the First Friends Fellowship to watch the game at Paul and Melody Leidheiser's house. As things went along, from bad to worse, I gained a new appreciation for just how much fun it is to bless and to curse.
Have you ever tried to watch a football game, let alone the Ohio State-Michigan game, and to not express yourself at all? Let me tell you, it's not much fun. And the more people you get to watch a game together, the more likely you are to hear a loud shout of joy after some acrobatic catch in the end zone or to hear a loud groan of disgust after yet another interception. It's only natural to praise a tremendous play and to hoot at a lousy one, but more than natural it is necessary to fully enjoy the game. People have a need to bless and to curse. That's how God made us, and if you force yourself to sit there like a bump on a log through an entire football game you probably will not make it to the end. It just won't be much fun.
Stewardship is like that. Stewardship is not a pledge to your church in order to make a budget. Stewardship is an automatic, irresistible response of total commitment arising from our encounter with God. Stewardship is a lifestyle. It is a matter of getting into the game of life, with all its many praiseworthy and blameworthy facets. One can hardly sit idly by, on the sidelines so to speak, and enjoy the game at all.
I hope you have learned something about getting into the game of life from father Abraham over the past several weeks. "Blessed to be a Blessing" was a theme inspired by the call of Abraham, the patriarch represented in the tapestries on my left and on my right. "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house," God tells Abraham, "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Genesis 12:1-2). "Blessed to be a Blessing." It is a matter of getting into the game. Once you start looking for the hand of God you will see it all around you, sustaining life in the process. You will praise and you will hoot. You will not remain unaffected. You will become, with Paul, "servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries." (1 Corinthians 4:1).
I'm not sure how else to explain today's Old Testament lesson. Having just received the sign of the covenant, circumcision, and having just learned of Sarah's pregnancy, even in old age, Abraham tarries with the Lord when he finds out that God intends to destroy the city of Sodom on account of its wickedness. Abraham had been blessed, you see, for no apparent reason. He certainly did not deserve God's favor. Never do we hear of father Abraham as particularly righteous or particularly good. God did not run a contest in Haran to find the most deserving fellow to call to the promised land. God simply picked Abraham, and Abraham believed God.
Now, the same God who so graciously showered Abraham with blessings, was about to shower Sodom and Gomorrah with sulfur and fire. I suppose Abraham could have tried to sit idly by, but God had been so good to him that he just had to speak up. "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ... Far be that from you!" "And the Lord said, 'If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.'" God, I know that "I am but dust and ashes, but suppose five righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five? And the Lord said to him, 'I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.'" And so it goes. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. "'For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it,' said the Lord, and the Lord went on his way." (Genesis 18:23-33).
Do you feel that tug in the heart of Abraham? It's the tug of a steward. It's the tug of someone who gets into the game of life, even at risk to one's self. How can we become mindful of God's blessings without wanting to share them with others? How can we know God's goodness and God's graciousness, without wanting to stand up for others? How can we claim that all of life belongs to God, without wanting to steer that life to others? Stewards cannot help themselves when it comes to the mysteries of grace.
The story of Abraham bargaining with God over the city of Sodom should be encouragement to any city church. So often we feel overwhelmed by the problems of our day. Why even this great edifice has been eclipsed by the towering skyscrapers of modern technology. How can we hope to make a difference in such a place? How can we dare to care? Fifty. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. For the sake of ten stewards in the city of Columbus, I will forgive the whole place for their sake. Can you imagine that? We have the power to influence the very hand of God! Do not be overwhelmed. Do not be intimidated. Do not think in terms of our resources and our leadership and our impact. Think in terms of God, and pray that God will find faithfulness on earth.
Do you think God will find at least ten stewards here this morning on which we can hang the salvation of our city? In a few minutes the Deacons will pass out Estimate of Giving cards for 1994. This ritual has been brought into our service of worship precisely because it has less to do with making a budget than making a statement. You have not been given these cards ahead of time precisely because we want you to think and pray deeply, one more time, about the treasure God has placed into our hands. Fifty. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. God is watching. God is looking for you and for me. God is waiting to find faith in this city.
Jesus set the pace, you know. "But I say to you that listen, 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High.'" (Luke 6:27-35b).
Those are hard words. Oh Christian, be like God in your approach to life. Do not be tight-fisted and hard-hearted. Do not be punitive and cruel. Love even those who hate you. Bless even those who curse you. Do not forget that once you too were a helpless little child, who somehow managed to make it here today.
Stewardship is a lifestyle based on the wild idea that God loves sinners. When you allow yourself to get into the game of life, to really enjoy it and to allow yourself to feel its many ups and downs, you will discover so many near-misses and so many random acts of kindness and so many blessings, that stewardship can almost become your second nature. It takes discipline. It takes work. But eventually you will find the eyeglasses of faith, and they will enable you to see life from a new perspective. It's not what we get that counts, it's what we give.
"Be merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful!" (Luke 6:36). "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). For you will be forgiven as your forgive, judged as you judge, and given to as you gave. "A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." (Luke 6:38).
That is Christian stewardship! It is not about a budget but the salvation of the city. It is not about a dollar amount but the percentage it represents in our lives. Do we count on this place, this body of Christ, to carry us through from cradle to the grave? Or do we take it for granted, without much thought or much commitment, figuring it will always be there when needed regardless of how we act in the meantime?
Let me tell you a secret: it doesn't work that way. This place depends upon you, and you depend upon this place. We are here to serve. But more than that, we are here to bless. God has been good to us, and stewardship is the word we use to refer to our gracious response of faith and thanksgiving. The more you give, the more you will bless and be blessed. The more you give, the more stewards God will find in this city of Columbus. The more you give, the more you will act like the author and perfecter of faith who gave of himself even to the point of death on a cross. Irenaeus, an ancient church leader, once proclaimed that "Jesus Christ became what we are, that we might become what he is."
Jesus Christ is the ultimate steward. Leaving his family and friends, his property and occupation, Jesus set out to live as though God was all that mattered. In so doing, Jesus Christ became the salvation of the world. In humbling himself and becoming obedient even to the point of death, Jesus Christ became the encouragement of self-giving, self-sacrificing love. So we too can look not to our own interests, but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4). So too we can be stewards of the mysteries of God. So too we can be blessed to be a blessing.
This week marks the end of our focus on the blessings of God. I cannot imagine anything more appropriate than consecrating stewards as the culmination of our theme. Today we receive, fill out, and present our estimates of giving for 1994. Let us be mindful of the larger context for this act. Remember that you are blessed, and that your estimate of giving is one more opportunity to be a blessing.
In closing I would mention that next Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent, the start of the Christian year. We will move through Advent and Christmas with a sermon series on overcoming fear. We will look at the fear of abandonment, embarrassment, violation, and death. And we will discover God's answer to fear in the birth of the Christ child. I hope you will join with me for this exciting series on the power of God to overcome fear, and that you will encourage others to come who may struggle with fears of different sorts or with the holiday season itself.
You see we are blessed to be a blessing, and this time of worship lies at the heart of it all. Thanks be to God.