Sermon by John Brierly McCall, D. Min., Consecration Sunday, 23 October 2011
Luke 6:27-38
In this complicated world you’ll be a whole lot happier if you just accept reality: there will never be peace among nations; there will always be clashes between rich and poor; there will never be harmony between religions; there will always be mosquitoes. Corporations will always determine the outcome of elections; churches will always have to beg for money; teenagers will always be sullen and sassy. Those are facts – handle it!
But , what if we refused to accept such a world view?
- What if we held to the conviction that people of good will really can make things better?
- What if we lived with confident hope that the way the world is is not the way God wants it to be?
As people of faith, we claim every single day that God is able to re-create our lives and our world – to transform individuals and communities. Whether gathered on Sabbath or sitting quietly, or even when we give in to the frantic pace of too much to do in too little time… we dare to claim the good news that God equips us to live differently, distinctively in the world.
God knows how we struggle. It’s always been so. God knows how broken and fallen we can be, how contorted our lives become from jumping through hoops. God hears the cries of God’s people that it’s all hopeless and that no one can make anything better come out of what we’ve created in our culture. God still says: I will show you a better way.
I’ve heard many people say they’ve never seen it so bad; that our country and world are groaning under great burdens and we refuse to pull together. As Benjamin Franklin reputedly said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
The people are weary and it shows. The government is divided and it shows. True answers elude us and it shows – it shows that most of us want solutions… at others’ expense.
So desperate people take to the streets in protest saying business-as-usual isn’t acceptable. What if we considered the possibility that Occupy Wall Street and other such protestors are not tearing down but are challenging a nation that desperately assumes nothing can change?
My message this morning is about affirming life together in an age when our sense of community is stressed and strained. It’s about the Gospel truth that Jesus told and lived and died for: unless we reclaim our conviction that all that is truly good must be for the common good, we face a deeper darkness. We know this is ancient wisdom:
- The Apostle Paul said: “we do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves.” (Romans 14:7)
- Lincoln said “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
- An old proverb says “I have drunk from wells I did not dig; I have been warmed by fires I did not build.”
- And a US Senate candidate from another state recently said:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved the goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for… You built a factory and it turned into something terrific…? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is to take a hunk of that and pay it forward for the next kid who comes along. {Christian Century, October 18, 2011, pg. 9}
Whether spoken thousands of years ago or at yesterday’s news conference, these messages DIRECT US TO THE CORE MEANING OF COMMUNITY. When we see ourselves only as individuals, and worship our autonomy and independence, we live by protecting our borders and boundaries and bank accounts and opinions and options.
This way of being in the world is so habitual and second-nature that we may not even notice, until we’re challenged. But scripture is clear: when we prosper at the expense of widows, orphans, aliens, strangers, the ill, the poor, we offend our God.
The lesson from Luke 6, our theme for this year’s stewardship campaign, comes from “the sermon on the plain.” It’s a lot like Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount… but flatter. It’s a collection of Jesus’ fundamental wisdom gathered by the ancient author in digest form. It was counter-cultural then as much as it is now. There we read in Luke 6:37-38:
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. 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.
If you’re like me you read it and an inner voice says “Uh, no. Impossible! It can’t be done. It’s stupid and naïve and wrong-headed.”
But trust this: Jesus’ insistence that we live in a way contrary to our culture is based on his certainty that God intends something better than we have managed. God seeks shalom – a deep harmony and lasting peace in our creation. To this the British author of the last century, G. K. Chesterton, simply said: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Difficult? Yes! Impossible? NO!
If we’re not ready and willing to try the Christian ideal, what voice will call us; what values will guide us? If now is not the time, when will it be? People are occupying Wall Street and Congress Street not intending to destroy but to stop the erosion, the destruction of so many deeply held values that still lie at the bedrock of our nation – a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
We forget that the seemingly insignificant but good things we can do, we must do. Don’t hold your breath waiting for megabanks to get a social conscience or the Pentagon to decide that peacemaking is its most important product (though either could go a long way).
The world will be saved by the loving kindness of God lived out in the lives of one, then another, then another until a great chorus, a great tide of good-hearted people come together to shape community. Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No!
Each of us is called by this faith we claim to be a small drop in the pond, a small love note from God to God’s people who have chased so many fleeting dreams only to find they fade like a mirage when they draw close.
On this Consecration Sunday we affirm, too, that our congregation has ministered for 277 years because we (and thousands before us) have embodied a faith that God transforms lives. We’ve seen lean times and rich times. We’ve been united (and sometimes divided) in faith and service and vision. We’ve had times of dull self-absorption and times of spirit-filled enthusiasm. There have even been a couple of times when the flame almost went out here on the Hill.
Even so we’ve ministered to our community and extended a gracious welcome in the rites and sacraments to any who would enter here. And we’ve lifted our voices in praise, and taught each other, and encountered the living God within this magnificent sanctuary, and reached out to ease the burdens of our neighbors.
But we’ve never assessed dues or charged parents for their children’s Sunday School, or made the sacraments pay-as-you-go, favored large-givers over non-givers, or turned anyone away because of who they are and what they can give.
We have counted ourselves blessed. Surely there have been times of anxiety and austerity when it was doubly hard to see the slow-moving hand of God. Surely there have been times when the good folks couldn’t agree. But from spring to summer to fall to winter to spring we have kept the faith and danced to the melody from God.
On this Consecration Sunday we thank God for those who have generously, even sacrificially, given for our ministries – a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over; because that is the measure we have received.
And we know the “Greatest Generation,” this most generous generation is gradually entrusting our church and our ministries to the next. And we know that only through our own generosity – even in times such as these – will we continue to embody God’s call to us.
Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No!
We will step up. We will move forward. We will continue to minister within these walls and far, far beyond. Because when we count ourselves blessed we can do no less than be truly generous in response.