14 Wise Up, O Men of God

"Wise Up, O Men of God!"
We get so soon old, so late, smart! I had naively assumed for
years that money in one's pension plan was always there for you - a pot of
money - all your own - just sitting there waiting for you to get old and
decrepit. What I learned in later years is that it could be gone in a flash -
that everything you had looked forward to as something you could lean
on, take comfort it and enjoy in your old age could disappear - even as
we had hints of it this week with the stock market plummeting further than
it had for many years.
So instead of singing "Rise Up, O Men of God" we should sing
'WISE up, O Men of God" - and women too! We get so soon old
and so late smart.
I couldn't be very wise because a friend got me good the other
night. I heard something on the T.V. program that he was watching about
how much money the average person needed to retire successfully and
comfortably. "How much did they say?" I asked. "Eight and a half
million!" he said. I almost had a heart attack. I could have BEEN the
foolish man that gathered the crops into the barns only to die that very
night.
The purpose of this parable by Jesus is not to tell us that we
should not have anything, but rather to share the something that we have.
Yet everything in our culture gears us up for getting more and more - even
the church does it.
I read this week about a young man, a youth minister who was
serving a conservative Christian church. It was o.k. with them when he
involved the youth in anti abortion protests, antidrug rallies and picketing
to protest unfair labor practices, but he was unceremoniously fired simply
because he made a videotape containing a collection of T.V. commercials.
Then, at the youth meeting on Sunday evening, he showed the tape and
led the youth in a discussion of these TV advertisements, discussing the
ways in which television tries to lure us into the acquisition, hoarding and
grabbing of things that TV tells us will make our lives better. They discussed
what this sort of getting and buying does to our family and to our souls.
(Good old Jesus would have LOVED it!) The church leaders didn't! To
them, having a lot of "stuff" meant you were on the right spiritual track - it
was proof of it. Jesus said "One's life does not consist in the abundance
of possessions." Luke 12:15.
Much as I appreciate and practice the underlying law of attraction
that is part of "The Secret", I am made spiritually uncomfortable on the
acquisitive nature of advice in the book. Only if we take what we are
given and use it to help others, will God bless us. Otherwise our lives may
be required of us - our families maybe taken away from us.
A minister involved in a discussion on Christianity and
homosexuality listened to several people who equated homosexuality with
the destruction of the American family. When he could stand it no more,
he rose to his feet and he said, "I've never had a family destroyed by
a homosexual. I suppose it could happen. But I've seen dozens of
marriages ruined and families devastated by nothing more than
simple greed - working too many hours, buying too much, getting
too deep in debt. If you want so save the American family, do
something about our greed! WISE UP O MEN OF GOD - and
women too!
In our Scripture today, Jesus is asked to decide how a father's
things should be divided - one wanted it all - the other wanted Jesus to
make his brother give him the half he "deserved."
"Deserved" is a loaded term. As one who has been the
administrator of a few estates, I have often been amazed that family members
who have not been around to care for the individual or to help the family
member who IS caring for the individual is front and center when its "will
time."
Jesus told the young man: "Be careful and guard against all
kinds of greed. People do not get life from the many things they
own."
Maybe it's just me, but I have learned that you can have wonderful
beautiful things as in cars and houses and furnishings, but if you have no
one to share them with, they are very little unto themselves.
That's why God wants us to share - not to fulfill some arbitrary
God-rule that he creates, but because in sharing we will have, and not just
with the typical spouse or significant other.
Some people have no one in their lives because they're waiting for
a love interest to walk into it. Love interests tend to walk into our lives
when are lives are filled with interesting and fun people with whom we
share our homes and cars and company - when we have a "family" around
us.
I redefined "family" when I was in seminary. Previously, a "family"
was a mom, a dad, and a kid and a half - at a minimum! But in the
suburban church I served while in seminary, I became friends with a high
school principal. He w as unmarried, and lived with his two sisters. I
noticed that after dinner - every night - they would carefully set the table
for the breakfast they would have together - enjoy together - it was family
time - sacred time. Yes, they were related to each other, but they would
have been just as much a family had they not been. We are to make
everyone "family."
The Pilati family took me in as part of their family when I was in
seminary. I got to know Saul Pilati because he taught at the high school
where a lot of my church kids went to school. He saw me as alone and
in need of a family, but my fellow seminarians were a family, my church
people were a family. Yes, technically I was a "family of one" (Yes, there
is such a thing) but in reality, we're all family - and particularly we are one
in our family of Christ. I've shared with you many times how on getting
ill in the Holy Land I headed for a hospice run by Italian nuns. I headed
for "Family" - we didn't even speak each other's language - except the
language of love and the dialect of compassion and concern.
What God wants you to know is this: The things that you have -
they are to be used for God. Have a car. Give a ride to someone that
doesn't have one. Have a home? Invite someone over. Have a little
extra cash, send some money to a struggling student. People who remained
anonymous did that for me when I was a pre-ministerial student in college.
I knew that it had to be people from the Baptist Church where I attended.
They weren't the wealthy people - they were the Methodists in the church
up on the hill! But these people WERE wealthy in the ways that mattered
-
In next week's sermon Jesus tells us to be like servants who are
waiting for their master to come home from a wedding party. The master
comes and knocks, and the servants immediately open the door for him.
When their master sees that they are ready and waiting for him, it will be a
great day for those servants. I can tell you without a doubt, the master will
get himself ready to serve a meal and tell the servants to sit down. Then he
will serve them. Those servants might have to wait until midnight or later
for their master. But they will be glad they did when he comes in and finds
them still waiting.
Be ready, he says, "BE FULLY DRESSED AND HAVE
YOUR LIGHTS SHINING"
Helen Keller who triumphed over being deaf, without speech
and blind, said, "I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it
is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were
great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty
shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes
of each honest worker."
So, here we are, shining together. May God bless us as we
come to this Sacred Table.
Come, not because you must but because you
may.......communion liturgy continues.
Communion Meditation Notes(Not edited nor proofed)The Rev. Dr. Garth R. Thompson Pastor, M.B. Community ChurchA sermon (or meditation) is a simple truth told by someone whobelieves it to people he knows and loves (Phillips Brooks)August 5, 2007 10:30 a, m.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heartsbe acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.