So,
rather than rummaging around in that gospel reading, I would like to take some
time today to focus on the notion of blessing and giving.
“Oh
fun! You are giving us a stewardship
sermon! Just what we wanted!”
But,
this is not really that kind of stewardship sermon so please stick with
me.
Today,
I want to go back to the gospel reading that was appointed for last week. But, before we do that, I just want us to
ponder on the nature of God’s blessings in general.
Normally
when I focus on the subjects of “blessing” and “giving,” I ask questions that
go something like: “How have you been blessed by God? What has God given you? And, what percentage of your income are you
going to give back to God’s ministry in the church, keeping in mind that your wealth
actually belongs to God?”
Now,
I am not saying that is a bad sermon.
These words have come from the lips of this very pastor many times before. This time around though, I want to point out
one thing that I am not certain I have ever realized before, that past sermon
assumes that all of your stuff and all of your wealth is a blessing. And, I have to tell you, as one whose family
still lives on one floor of their house while finishing up the last items of
flood repairs on the lower level, I can assure you that all that extra stuff
sitting around everywhere is not a blessing…it is clutter.
Let
us not go there quite yet though.
In
the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) you see that ancient people regularly
considered having lots of stuff as proof of God’s blessing. Just think back to Genesis where God made
Abraham a very rich man, blessing him with great herds of animals.
In
addition, listen to the words of the Proverbs (specifically Proverbs 10:22),
“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.”
So,
according to Proverbs, the most blessed person by God is the brat son of a rich
billionaire who gets wealth handed to him with no effort of his own. I could be wrong, but that is what Proverbs
appears to be implying.
But,
we do not have to talk about rich billionaire’s sons in order to get at the
idea that if you have stuff, you are blessed by God. We, normal, everyday people talk this way all
the time. We look at what we have and
say, “God has blessed me so much.” We
take a look at our homes in comparison to the homes of those who live in slums
and say, “God has truly blessed me.”
The
first hint that this idea might be flawed usually comes about when you point to
a picture of a starving child in a distant country and say to your daughter,
“You see, we are so blessed in this country,” and your daughter asks, “Does
that mean that God didn’t bless that child?”
Children
are not stupid. They can smell bologna a
mile away, even when it is religious bologna.
And, their questioning causes us to wonder, “Yeah God, why isn’t that
child blessed? What did that child do
wrong to deserve starvation? What did
that child’s parents do wrong that caused that child to starve?”
But,
even those are the wrong questions, because if "rightness" and “wrongness” were the determining factors on whether or not I get the gift of wealth, then there would be no
food in my pantry. I have had my share of
"wrongness" throughout my life. I deserve very little of what I have if it is based on my greatness.
I
want to take the time now to remind you of the gospel reading from last week,
because in it Jesus reveals to us that we SHOULD be questioning this assumption
of stuff equaling blessing. Jesus
reveals that God does not work that way.
Jesus indicates that God’s blessing has nothing to do with the
accumulation of stuff and wealth.
Instead, Jesus says:
"Blessed
are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. "Blessed are you
who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. "Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they
exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice
in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for
that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. "But woe to you who are
rich, for you have received your consolation. "Woe to you who are full
now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will
mourn and weep. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what
their ancestors did to the false prophets.” (NRSV, Luke 6:20-26)
Jesus, God incarnate, the very
presence of God with us, is very clear here that we have had this blessing
stuff all wrong for a very, very long time.
Why is it natural for my child to ask her hard question regarding some children in the world being blessed by stuff when
others are not? It is because, stuff and
wealth is not a clear sign of God’s blessing.
In fact, those who appear blessed by
God are told by Jesus to “Look out!”
That is what that “woe” means in the Greek by the way. “Look out” if you are rich. “Yikes” if you are full now. You have received you consolation, and it is
a very cheap and cluttered consolation indeed.
Blessed are those who do not have "stuff" and "wealth" getting in between God and them.
Blessed are those who are hungry who
depend and trust in the goodness of God.
All of these blessings that Jesus
lists assume that blessing has nothing to do with having stuff or having wealth;
rather blessing is found in the freedom to love God and love others. Those things that we normally count as
blessings are considered by Jesus to be a curse. They are the things that create a wall
between us and our God.
So, maybe, just maybe, true freedom
and blessing can be found in being free of this stuff rather than accumulating
it. Maybe, just maybe, blessing is found
when the bricks of the wall between us and God are torn down, brick by brick.
“Blessed are you who are poor; you will thrive in God’s Kingdom.
So, maybe that reading from today
about whose wife the woman is in the resurrection has something to say to us
after-all. It is the same lesson that we
learn from Jesus’ blessings. The
blessing that God provides in the resurrection is the gift of being with our eternal
God. The gift is certainly not that a man gets to retaining
his marital property in the resurrection.
Blessing is being in the presence of
God. Blessing is living in God’s
kingdom, both now and in eternity.
Blessing is giving up everything for the sake of relationship with another.
That is what Jesus did after-all. He gave up everything, even his very life on
the cross, so that we might be saved…so that we too might live a new life with
him. That is relationship. That is blessing.
You know what I have found to be
true? There is a certain freedom that
comes after a flood requires you to get rid of some of your possessions. There is a certain, unexpected, sort of life of
freedom that comes with giving it up.
Now, that is not what you say to
someone who has just suffered a flood.
You do not say, “It’s good that you lost all your stuff. Being free of it must make you feel truly blessed!”
Never say that.
Never say that.
None-the-less, being forced to
release yourself from the trappings of wealth creates a new sort of trust. It is a trust not in something, but a trust
in someone. Suddenly, you are forced to
trust in the one who makes things new.
Suddenly, you are forced to trust in the one who can raise from the dead
and bring life out of destruction.
Blessed are you that have the gift
of trusting in God, because nothing is more valuable than that.
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