Hope

Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16

Focus: Hope

Function: To prepare for Advent

Form: Study

Intro: Many of us,especially those who were raised in the home of a preacher began to cut our theological teeth on the writings of C.S. Lewis.

One of my Niece's is the wife of an Eastern Orthodox Church. Her husband made a funny to me at the dinner after my cousin's funeral as the current topic was the fact that there is no war on Christmas. My Nephew said: “The problem with the Star-bucks cup is not that it doesn't have any holiday words, but that the color is red instead of purple... ...every one knows that Christmas celebrates the Royalty of Jesus and the proper color is Purple!”

But my Niece's favorite line, when she speaks of God's mercy is this: “Remember, Aslan is not a tame lion.” Aslan is a metaphor for Jesus in Lewis' heptalogy, The Chronicles of Narnia.

But, C.S. Lewis was a great writer for the Church during the age of Modernity.

I think one of my favorite principles from him comes from The Screwtape Letters where Wormwood, a character from the Dark Side, says that one of the best ways to distract Christians from their Christian Duty is to rile up patriotic fervor so much that all their passion is devoted to the Kingdoms of men instead of the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven.

And the go-to book, especially for the educated person who was new to the faith, was his book: Mere Christianity.

But we are now in a Post-Modern era and although the good news has not changed, the way that it is understood in our culture is much different than it was in the heyday of the Church, the 1950's.

Mega-Churches spring up, and run their cycle and close down. But the Church will never stop to exist. Jesus promises that to us in Matthew 28:20.

There is a sort of replacement for C.S. Lewis in the age of Post-Modernity. And instead Mere Christianity as a way to help introduce people to Christ, I use the book by N.T. Wright: Simply Christian.

There are are 4 themes for the 4 Sunday's before Christmas, and in this book, there are 4 great longings inside the Human Heart that Jesus addresses.

The 4 Advent Themes are Hope, Love, Joy and Peace.

Wright states that in humanity, there are 4 longings, or hungers. They are a longing for Justice (1) and our hunger for Spirituality (2), Relationship (3), and Beauty. (4).

I wish there was a very direct correlation between the 4 themes in both so that I could do one a Sunday, but I can't, but I want to stay with his theme as we go through the themes of Advent.

People long for Justice. I love Matthew 5:6: God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied. (NLT)

Don't we long for justice? When we see, or hear of injustices, especially those done in the name of God, any God, our hearts breaks with sorrow and we refuse to ignore the pain because we now share our hearts with the Divine, God the Holy Spirit and She longs for Her children and every one of those who children who might consider us to be their enemies are children that She, the Holy Spirit, The Spirit of Christ Jesus, The Spirit of God longs for also.

(Lift up eyes in prayer) O God. Grant us hearts with the care and compassion that you have for all of the world. Amen.

The age of Modernity, the age of Science and Reason alone, had no place for God, or the idea of Divine love, or the idea of Divine Wisdom, everything is what nature has made of it.

And for us, 9/11 happened and all of a sudden humanity came to realize that there needs to be some sort of Spiritual connection, or something beyond pure chance to help give us a sense of a moral framework.

It works better for me to believe that there is a perfectly loving Supreme judge who in His/Her love can heal the entire planet.

Humanity started looking toward faith or spirituality again and Post-Modernity became the way that people experience and discover God.

A longing for Spirituality re-awakened. To me, it is an exciting time for the Church.

Relationship/community is something that everyone hungers for also. I know that when Kathy and I are apart, my heart aches for her. There is something about her smile that gives my life more meaning. (thank you)

The Church is community. I think I noticed the change from Modernity to Post-Modernity in my preaching when all of a sudden, when I was preaching my own Grandmother's funeral, instead of inviting people to get ready for heaven themselves, I invited people into the world's biggest family.

And beauty. When I think of the candle we light for peace, I also think of beauty. Beauty is peace, joy, love and hope wrapped into some sort of mystical image that calls from the spirit of the artist into the spirit of the admirer. Whether that is the beauty that God creates in nature, or the artwork in prose, poetry, music, painting, photography, dance, sculpture, drama, comedy, or any thing that inspires us inside here (point to heart).

And none of these things happen without hope.

Keep hope alive is a phrase that I remind myself of often. And when my hope feels weak, I get into some sort of beauty, whether it is nature, a babbling brook, the surf, the sun, rain, whatever, music even puzzles, all of these longings, these legitimate, healthy longings that inspire us and keep us praying and praising our God come from Hope.

Treating Refugees as well as Native Americans Treated us

Text: Rev 22:1-6, 17

Focus: Resurrection

Function: Mercy

Form: Story Telling

Welcome!

I love Thanksgiving and not just because I like to eat and watch football. It is the best time for Pumpkin pie and sweet potato cassarole man.

And, my tastes have changed over the years. Yes, I have evolved from light meat to dark meat, it seems to be much juicier.

I know that our version of history is constantly updated, but I love the idea of that first Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims, refugees who were escaping death and persecution because their brand of Christianity was perceived as a threat to the religious authorities.

They came here because like you and I, and every refugee, they were willing to give up their homes and their land because they believed that it was the only way to keep their families safe. Certainly today, we can identify with how difficult it must be to leave home.

I don't think it was an adventure, it was a hardship.

That first Thanksgiving was the second winter they endured. Their first winter took way to many lives.

And although they knew that during the winter their resources would be limited again, in worship to God, they shared with the Native Americans, as an act of faith and trust, the blessings they received.

And the Natives, although they were not Christians, reciprocated with the same degree of welcome.

Revelation 22:17 is one of my favorite passages of scripture, because it includes this incredible call from Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and, the Church -referred to as “the Bride” to come and feast!

It seems to me that the generosity that both sides exhibited is a great example of what it means to be a Christian.

I was a Jesus freak in my youth. I remember the opposition to that new fangled music that Christians were singing and because I was young and full of passion about change, I embraced those songs.

My favorite was the Chorus: “They will know that we are Christians by the way we love one another.”

In many ways, my own Christian journey has been a fleshing out of that statement by Jesus when Jesus said this is how you will be known, by the way you demonstrate love.

The Spirit and the Bride are still calling out for us to Come. Come back. Come for the first time, Come again and again, keep on coming to Christ. And that invitation is for everyone, everyone who is thirsty.

I was an idealistic youth. My father had a heart attack when I was 10, and for about 8 years, his health kept him from his first career love, which was pastoring a Church.

We attended an inner city Church a few miles from our home. It was soon after the civil rights acts/marches which were led by great Christian leaders who risked their lives to ensure that everyone, not just a few, were welcome to come and drink freely from the well of salvation.

In and through that Church. I met Jesus. At 4, during a children's event at a district meeting, I asked Jesus to come into my heart.

I was telling my dad what I did and when I was telling him I realized something. I still picture it, I was looking at my mom, and when I moved my head to tell my dad what happened, I could feel Jesus inside of me. And I almost got in trouble for taking the name of the Lord in vain. My mom said: “who did you invite into your heart today?”

And again, as I turned my head, I felt Him inside me, and with a sort of a shock I shouted out “Jesus.” He was here.

In the Anabaptist tradition, I wasn't allowed to be baptized until I was 12 and of an age of consent. I remember giving a testimony about it and telling everyone that I didn't know what had happened to me but the only way I could describe it was that a ton of happiness fell on me.

I was invited to come to the water, and in that water, again, I met the Lord.

So, you can imagine my internal struggle for some reason or other, as the neighborhood the church was located in began to be integrated and the congregation wanted to move to the suburbs because they didn't think they could worship with people of a different race.

The Spirit and the Bride say: “Come!”

That undermined the entire concept to me of what “welcome,” and “They will know we follow Jesus by the way we love others.”

If others weren't welcome, how could this be love?

They were and still are good people. And God's love is patient as God delivers people from their fears and prejudices into faith.

We are not born into God's Kingdom as complete and mature disciples. And once we begin that journey of faith, God continues to work within us to deliver us from prejudice and fear. And, I would submit that most prejudice is based on fear. And, we know this: God's Spirit is not inside of us to cause us to fear, but to give us power and love and clear reasoning. Amen?

I still know many of those people and most are as embarrassed about their prejudicial fear as I was offended by their disingenuous reasoning.

And that brings me to the first first 2 verses of Revelation 22: ¹The angel also showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, and coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²and flowing down the middle of the city's street. On each side of the river was the tree of life, which bears fruit twelve times a year, once each month; and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

I oftentimes avoid preaching out of Revelation because there are a myriad ways of interpreting it and I don't want to offend, God brings out many different and unique ways of interpreting any scripture based on the time and the season.

But, I will risk this interpretation of John's vision. Much of Revelation is about future events, but some of it is about current events, in John's time.

The 7 letters appear to be about current events. And 7 bowls, 7 judgments, 7 seals, not unlike the 7 miracles and 7 parables in the Gospel of John indicate that John -and God- have this thing with the number 7. The gospel of John does not follow the chronological order of the other 3 gospels because John -and the Holy Spirit- see value in the repetition of 7 events since 7 seems to be a divine number symbolizing God's glory and power.

All of that is to say that I wonder if at this point in time of the vision that John is describing in the book of Revelations is not specifically about future events, but about what was currently happening in heaven.

And I say that because this can't be about the future heaven and earth once the old one is done away with as described in the 20 chapter when even time ceases to be since sin the tree of life is still producing leaves whose purpose is to heal the nations. Since healing is still occurring, it appears not be about a perfect future, but it is about the present power and work of God in the current world to be the agent to heal and restore the nations.

The Spirit and the Bride say: “welcome!”

And heaven is pictured as a place that is growing a tree that comes from the river of life and that tree is still healing the world.

At 4, I asked Jesus into my heart, and He came in. I believe in the power of what we call: “The sinners prayer.”

But when Jesus told the disciples to go everywhere and preach the good news, He never said to go and tell them to pray to ask Jesus into their hearts so that when they die they could go to this heaven.

I believe in that prayer. But the good news, according to Jesus is this: “The kingdom of God is here, already, right now!”

And John sees this in the vision. The Kingdom of heaven with the river of life flowing through it, with a tree that is still there, healing ALL the nations.

What a great image! (AMEN?)

So, there is another chorus from today's contemporary Christian music that resonates with me as much as “They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love.”

It comes from the Passion worship Conferences. And I confess, it confused me. I thought the song was done by Robin Mark, a Scottish Christian musician.

But, this one song starts out with some haunting words that might be an indictment on our own culture. The song is titled “Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?”

The leader, before the song starts asks a simple question. And, I think that given the first Thanksgiving Worship celebration/feast, is appropriate for this year.

The song leader simply asks this question, three: “Could this be the land of the free?”

Is this still the land that says “welcome?” Is this still the land that says: “Let everyone who is thirsty come.”

And, the author picks up my theme in this song. He speaks of the streams of God's river washing away our sin and brokenness. He sings of the river of salvation flowing out from God. Much of the imagery is taken from this passage in Revelation, but then the song gives us a way to move forward in spite of the fact that there are very real fears when we talk about who we are now going to welcome.

The line is this: Dancers who dance upon injustice.

By faith, by the power of God, by the promise of the Holy Spirit, we too get to dance on fear, hatred, brokenness, prejudice, hatred, and exclusion.

The good news is this: God's kingdom is more powerful than any human Kingdom and those of us who get to be part of God's family here in earth, have real power. We have power flowing right out of heaven, the same power that is feeding the tree that produces leaves for healing the nations.

And just as those first native Americans opened their borders to us, Christians who were fleeing for our lives, God's power is there.

And just as those first pilgrims who took an huge step of faith and shared their limited resources, and they did this with a clear body memory of the terrible winter the year before, we too, have the promises of God to use us to heal a broken world, if we will just trust God, and not give in to our fear.

Amen?

Generous God

Text: Psalm 93

Focus: Thanksgiving

Function: To help people be generous to strangers.

Form: GOK

Intro: There are a few profound sermons that I have heard in my life.

I think one that has stuck with me the most was a man asking us to quote the first 9 words of John 3:16.

Say it with me: “For God so loved the world that He gave.”

So far this month, we have been looking at the idea of Generosity when it comes to our faith. We examined Generous people, generous grace, generous resurrection and today, the well spring of all that generosity is our final message, Generous God.

The nature of God is generosity.

And today we celebrate God's generosity as we celebrate Thanksgiving.

I wonder if Thanksgiving is actually our most Christian holiday.

I know Easter celebrates the Resurrection and Christmas celebrates the coming of hope, healing and restoration as we celebrate the coming of God, the Word of God made flesh: Jesus.

And although Thanksgiving is not actually a religious holiday per se, I have often wondered who or what those who claim that they do not believe in any sort of higher power or Creator are thankful to.

I suppose that there could be an honest celebration of success, hard work and good luck every year when Thanksgiving happens as it is wrapped around our harvest celebration.

Thanksgiving is a throwback to an agrarian culture.

After the Industrial revolution, modern cultures were no longer merely agrarian. Economically, we are a consumerist culture.

And that leads us to a sort of sad part of what Thanksgiving has become.

Since inevitably, at least one person from our household works in retail, our Thanksgiving celebration starts early and is cut short.

And our economic future for the next year is predicted to be good or bad based on the level of success that Holiday Shopping from the previous year.

And it is true, if Christmas sales go well, then it stimulates the entire economy and the hope for prosperity or lack of it is determined.

In an Agrarian culture, the quality of the next year was based on the harvest of the year before.

But that is the neat thing about faith.

That, to me, is the neat thing about Thanksgiving.

That is the neat thing about worshiping God in gratitude every year at Thanksgiving.

Because, people of faith have gathered together every year and have taken the time to stop and to say “Thank You” to God.

And, that attitude of thankfulness has come from believers regardless of the quality of harvest.

If the harvest was disappointing, people still stopped to celebrate and to say thanks to God because we who live by faith have learned this lesson, our Hope is in God.

And God is indeed generous.

We know that God is generous with Grace because God has chosen to forgive us and welcome us into God's family in spite of our own failures.

God is love. And God's love draws us back to God and keeps us in God's protection.

Profound scholars, and skeptics both have come to a wonderful understanding, God gives rain, sun, harvest and hope to everyone, even those who are wicked.

God is love. And God's love is generous toward everyone, especially those of the household of faith.

Even though Thanksgiving became a national holiday as a day of prayer right before the Civil war, for some reason that first celebration with the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sticks especially in my mind.

Those Pilgrims endured a bitter winter the year before and their population was cut by one third because of the hardship of that winter.

The next winter, instead of hording their labors in preparation for another hard winter, they decided to share with their new found friends.

And in a spirit of hospitality, their new friends, the native Americans, who knew how to cultivate and prepare for the harsh Northern Winter, welcomed the strangers, the Pilgrims, and shared with them.

I pray that we, who then dispossessed those people who were generous to us, can be of the same mind toward everyone who comes begging us for shelter and succor. Those victims of ISIS are fleeing religious persecution much worse than the Pilgrims had when they fled to this new land.

(look up) Oh God, we pray that we will be a nation that will respond with the same generosity.

Let me read Leviticus 19:33-34: ³³“Do not mistreat foreigners who are living in your land. ³⁴Treat them as you would an Israelite, and love them as you love yourselves. Remember that you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Unfortunately, some people have used those refugees as political pawns and are trying to reap political points by shouting out fear towards the very people trying to flee from ISIS as if they were ISIS themselves merely because they look and dress like some of them.

Imagine what that first Thanksgiving would have been like if those who had no claim to the teachings of Jesus, the teaching to love one another as yourselves, would have treated the Pilgrims like some fear-mongerers are treating Refugees?

There would be no Thanksgiving holiday.

These people want a safe and secure future just like the Pilgrims did 450 years ago.

And that passage in Leviticus haunts me about what God will think of us if we refuse the same succor and help we were given.

Don't mistreat them. That is obvious. But God gives a reason why.

God told them that since God gave them a new land, a safe place, where they were given security, and they didn't build the houses, plant the vineyards, erect the walls around their cities, pave the roads, clear the fields, all of that was a gift to them by God, the only thing that God expected in a form of gratitude was that they treat every other foreigner who came to their land with the same blessings that God gave them.

And then, 15 times in this chapter alone, God repeats this statement to them: “I am the Lord.”

Well, they knew that. The repetition is God's subtle way of reminding them that God is watching, and judging -either with blessing or hardship- as to how well they do this.

So, God says to them: This was not your land, I gave it to you by driving out the people who were living here. And since this Land is my gift to you, I have this condition for you as a way to honor my gift for you. Give the same freedom to enjoy this land to the strangers who come to you. And by the way, I am watching to see if you do it.

Now, most of us have an issue with the way the land of Canaan, what is today modern day Palestine, was given to the Jewish nation.

The entire population was killed. And because of that, we Brethren make it clear that our Creed is the New Testament because we believe, and can prove it from scripture, that the New Testament ended that kind of warfare.

Most of us have a hard time defending God's willingness to allow the Jews to wipe out the native people.

But, the defense, whether we like it or not is this: The people were cruel, especially to foreigners. It was proven by the way the angels who visited Lot were treated. And yet, even then, God was trying to win back the hearts of those people.

God told Abraham that the iniquities of those people was not yet as bad and they would have to wait 400 years until their collective evil was bad enough.

And so, they went to Egypt.

The reason for the delay is obvious when one reads the OT prophets.

God sent prophet after prophet to these people telling them to be kind, loving, and caring towards others. And it appears that after continually rejecting the prophets warnings to stop doing evil towards others, God made an example out of them.

I don't believe that God allowed the Jews to displace those people with violence because God loved the Jewish people more than others.

Nope, God loves everyone equally. The OT declares that the Jewish people were some of the most stubborn of all the peoples and God loved them and God blessed them when and if they ensured justice for everyone, even the stranger.

Now, there are a lot of other ways to look at the warfare in the OT than the one I just gave. I think I am almost alone in my understanding of that. And don't, please don't get bogged down with those points except to hear this.

The Jewish people were under a manifest destiny to possess the land. God never gave us the right of manifest destiny.

Instead, God didn't stop us when we displaced the very people who were kind enough to share with the Pilgrims. By their very actions that first Thanksgiving, the native Americans exhibited the just and loving acceptance of strangers that God commanded the Jews to demonstrate toward other strangers.

We took the land with violence and I cannot justify that action as being anything that a Christian nation would do.

But that is irrelevant to the conversation, if the Jews, who had manifest destiny, were commanded to welcome the stranger because they were also strangers to this land, then how much more does God expect us be generous with God's provision of such a rich land?

And I want to end with the idea of God's generosity.

You see, we cannot out give God.

That first Thanksgiving, resources were still limited among the Pilgrims. The pain of all those who died the winter before was fresh on their minds. But, they still trusted God enough to share. And they did that because they knew that God was generous.

Generous Resurrection

Text: Rev 22:1-6, 17

Focus: Resurrection

Function: Mercy

Form: Story Telling

Intro: I am almost always reluctant to preach out of the book of Revelations because of all the dogma around the book.

So let me give you a little bit of history about understanding the book from my personal perspective.

At about 12, I began to be serious about studying the Bible and Theology. By this time, my father had had a heart attack and was not pastoring a Church. So, we attended a church in the city, a Missionary Church. A block away a new church was built. It was a Missionary Baptist Church, which is an historic black denomination.

For all the wrong reasons, that new Church in the neighborhood caused a problem in my church. But it opened my own questions. I saw Missionary, and I was just recently baptized and I wondered why there were two of us a block apart from each other.

Now, the Missionary Church was essentially an evangelical Mennonite denomination. And for those who study theology, the Mennonites followed the teaching of salvation from the perspective of Wesley -from the Methodists- and Joseph Armenius. It was called Wesleyan Armenian theology.

I want to bog you down with the details, but Wesleyan Armenians, among conservative theologians are almost the polar opposites of the Baptists, even though they both baptize believers instead of infants.

And my very simplistic understanding was that Baptists, who followed John Calvin believed that once you got saved, you could do anything you wanted to, and God was obligated to save because a contract had been made. I was wrong, but that was my understanding at the time.

So, I asked if they were true Christians, to which I heard this: “well, we will see them in heaven, but there are things about them that just aren't as good as what we believe.”

“Hmmm,” I thought, “the possibility of who was a Christian was bigger than I had previously imagined.”

I looked into it to see if maybe they were indeed, the ones who were better. It wasn't that I disagreed, or didn't trust my father and my church, it just made/makes sense, to know more and more.

After a while, I came to the conclusion that although there were others who were truly saved, we were probably the ones who got it “the most right.”

it is no biggie that this happened and I am glad that I was given the freedom by my father to explore and challenge my own understanding and that of others.

I became fascinated with the history of the Church's teaching on salvation. Of course, at that time, salvation meant that when we died we went to heaven instead of hell.

As my understanding has grown, I realize that I missed a bigger part of sodzo, The Greek word for salvation. Jesus said: “I came that you may have life to the fullest.”

Salvation is restoration to God and others through God's love. It's a healing. It's a welcoming back to God and it doesn't start when we die, it starts now.

But, I didn't understand that at the time. I was thinking only of heaven and not going to hell.

I remember the gratitude, and I guess, pride, that God had brought me into the very best church.

However, there was something else that I thought I learned that really shocked me.

It was the discovery that up until about 1830, nobody “got saved.” My mom, who also didn't understand, believed that somehow from the time right after the New Testament had been written until about 1880, no one was being born again, saved, people didn't ask Jesus into their hearts to save them so that when they died they would go to heaven. (And for good reason, by the way, because the Bible doesn't say that).

Now again, when I asked Jesus into my heart, I felt Him come in. He did that.

But, I didn't question this lack of a true Church that it got it best until many years later when, I realized that God has always had a Church full of God's faithful men and women who knew and loved God since the Church began.

This is a Child's understanding of faith development from my unique perspective. When I realized that Mennonites and Brethren gave their lives and property for their faith, when they lost everything to help fight slavery, I had to adjust my understanding.

So, what happened in 1880 that changed things?

A theologian named John Darby came along who had a different explanation of the book of Revelation based on a new system of theology called Dispensationalism.

Again, I am not going to bog us down with the details except to say that for better or worse, the doctrine of the end times that was popularized in the Left Behind series of books is a relatively new doctrine.

Now, I am not going to discount it because it is new. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit will continually work in the Church to help us see more and more what God wants.

We see that growth probably most clearly in the way that the Church was the biggest opponent of slavery and the Church effectively worked on the conscious of governments and people in power to make it illegal everywhere in the world even though slavery is not condemned in scripture.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will continue to reveal God's truth to us. God's people, following God's Spirit caused that to change by teaching the value of every single person regardless of sex, race, religion, culture, wealth, or education.

But I do hesitate to preach Revelation because the book itself gives a warning about adding to it our own doctrines and, the interpretations about how this world will all end are so varied, that inevitably, I am going to miss something.

However, on September 11, 2001, I was pretty sure that the Rapture was soon to take place.

As I overcame my anger toward our nations enemies and started obeying God by asking God to bless our enemies and truly love them, I realized something really big.

God wants everyone back. Everyone.

In my own prayer time and spiritual disciplines, it felt like I was actually seeing into the heart of God and I realized just how much God agonized over and loved the people in Islam.

Did you know that a valid case can be made that Islam grew out of Christianity?

Maybe Darby was right and the modern understanding of Revelation is correct and all of that is the way it will happen and God just keeps delaying it because God knows that just a few more will trust God and join God's family. Maybe God is waiting for more to come in.

And that leads me back to the last verse of this morning's passage: ¹⁷The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”

Everyone who hears this must also say, “Come!”

Come, whoever is thirsty; accept the water of life as a gift, whoever wants it.

I realize something else about this passage.

John describes a Revelation, a Vision, that Jesus gave him when he was praying one day.

And when I see the tree, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, I realize that this is not at all some description of a future event at this point of the vision.

John sees what is already happening in heaven.

Right now, God has a tree in heaven whose leaves are given to heal whole nations and the only real way to get to it is to come.

It is both a future revelation and a description of what is currently happening.

And again, that theme, LET EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO: COME!

Oh for the day when men and women will gather in the city of God and enjoy God's grace.

Oh God, in us, Let that be today as well.

Generous People

Text: Mark 12:38-44

Focus: Giving

Function: To help people be generous with mercy

Form: Bible Study

Intro: Last week, we began the November study of Generosity. Last Sunday, Generous Grace, next week, Generous Resurrection, the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Generous God, and today, we will look at the result of God's generosity, Generous People. God's Generous People.

It starts with God.

It does indeed start with God's grace.

In one way, if one was to try to place one central theme to most of the parables, then the central theme would be this: “Since God has given mercy to you, you must give mercy toward others.”

Must? Or should? Or will?

If we must give grace, if we should give grace, if we have to give grace in order to receive grace, then we haven't been given grace at all.

Grace is free.

Grace is God's expression of God's generosity and God's love.

And you know that.

You know that the only part of what we call “The Lord's Prayer,” in the 6^th chapter of Matthew that Jesus explains is the part about forgiveness. And Matthew sort of describes like Jesus is giving us a contract for forgiveness. A contract is an agreement between two parties whereby both parties agree to certain actions, services or payments in exchange for something from the other party.

In this case, the Lord's obligation is to forgive us for all our sins as His part of the contract. And, our part is to be just as generous with forgiveness to every person that hurts us.

If it is merely a contract, then, the moment we choose not to forgive, we place our own selves outside of God's mercy because we refused to give the same mercy back.

The parable of the 10,000 talents is an example that may seem exaggerated. But it isn't exaggerated when we think of what it would actually cost to ransom a soul. There is no amount of money. But, for the example, a talent would have been about 15 years wages for the average working man. So, the man was forgiven a debt of 15,000 years wages.

The money owed the man, the money that he refused to forgive, was a lot, a year's wages.

I know that I would be really upset of someone stole a years salary from me. But we are talking 15,000 years compared to one year of labor.

Jesus makes the amount absurd to emphasize the fact that no man or woman can actually ransom their own soul. That, my friends, is the gift of God.

All of us would indeed be angry if we lost a years wages to someone for no good reason. We work hard for our money.

But God has given us so much more.

And, Matthew makes it sound like it is indeed a contract that we might very well fail at.

As a matter of fact, I don't really know anyone who is perfect in their ability to forgive. There may be, I know that almost all the Christians I know are trying, but even in that, we need God's generous grace.

So, is it a contract that we can fail at?

Are all doomed?

And what about the text for today?

What does the story of the widow's two mites tell us about generous people?

Well, let us look at the context. Jesus explains the resurrection and then the scene changes to the Temple. Jesus points out the religious leaders who do their religion for a show.

He warns them of being fake about giving, trusting, serving and loving.

I mention this because generosity is a response, a love response, to the generosity that God gives us.

And it is simple, God gives to us and we respond by giving to others. And remember, we cannot out give God. We can't.

So, it takes place in the temple and we see this woman giving her last bits, all that she has to live on.

And we assume that this is good, that she is praised because she chooses to live by faith and she gives away all that she has because of her love and devotion to God.

But maybe we should re-examine that.

They are in the Temple and Jesus first criticizes the whole idea of this abusive religious system that is more concerned for buildings and appearances than the people involved.

The Chapter breaks are not part of the original text.

The passage starts with criticism of the religious leaders, and then Jesus goes into the temple building itself.

This woman gave all that she had to live on, in an act of faith, toward a temple that Jesus prophecies will not stand in 50 years.

And indeed, in 70 AD, that temple, one of the world's ancient wonders, it was more fantastic than Solomon's temple, that temple, all that money, time, effort and the widows 2 cents, are all destroyed.

Could Jesus have been praising the building? Or, was He praising the woman's faith? Or was he condemning the false generosity of those who making huge gifts from their excess while the woman gave all that she had.

There is a big difference between sacrificing our excess to show off for others and giving what we need to live on because of our love and devotion to God.

I have no doubt that God provided for the needs of this woman who gave everything.

But, I am not sure that Jesus calls all this a good thing. Jesus praises the woman's devotion while at the same time He decries the religion that seeks opulence instead of helping the poor.

As a matter of fact, because of the context, condemning the leaders of this opulent religious system immediately before the story, and then the prophecy that the very temple she sacrificed, maybe even her own life for, was going to be destroyed seems more of an indictment on religion that does not focus on the hurting and suffering of the poor.

I'll let that sink in while we go back to the generosity of the woman.

I have had the privilege of serving the poor in many different places. I have spent a lot of time with Bittesweet ministries and Gilbert Romero in Tijuana. I have spent a lot of time in Haiti. I have spent a lot of time in the ghetto of Atlantic City, NJ. And, one of the things that I have noticed, that is noticed by everyone who comes in to work there and who also has their eyes open to what is going on spiritually is that the poorer people are, percentage wise, they are almost always more generous.

Maybe because they know what it is like to do without and they care. Maybe because they have worked as hard and as intelligently as they can and for some reason or other, bad luck has happened to them and it didn't turn out so well, or maybe because they really have nothing else to lose and losing 2 cents is just as hopeless to them as losing 10,000 talents. I don't really know why. But they are.

This woman was completely generous. Maybe the religions system that took her very money to live on to build a building while people are starving to death in its shadows is to be clearly indicted in the story,

Or maybe the woman had complete faith and was generous to a fault.

I know this, every time I experience the magnitude of God's grace, God's Spirit, She lives inside of us, and She compels us to give back as we have received.

Now, this passage is about money, but it has much, much more to do with life than money.

God's people are generous with God's grace.

One of my favorite books is Les Miserables. And M, the mayor is caught stealing red handed from the Priest at the Church. The Priest tells the man who caught him that he didn't steal, but instead it was a gift, and in order to prove God's generosity, the Priest gives M, even more silver.

He buys his soul with generosity. And God takes his soul. And M becomes the same man of generous principles as God.

It is our reaction. We give because God has given to us. And when we give, just like the widow, we give trusting that God will provide.

Now, about the Religious system that exploited the woman's generosity. Obviously that is wrong. So,

I am glad that the woman gave. I am glad that they accepted her gift because by giving, she also got to participate, on even a higher level than the rich who were giving out of their abundance instead of their livelihood, because she too, got to participate. It wasn't the amount given that is praised, it is the willingness to give, to participate for the glory of God instead of her own glory that excites me about her.

This is what it means to us. God provides. We cannot outgive God.

I started Bible College while Kathy was pregnant with our 3^rd child. I went to school full time, and worked a few jobs part-time. It was hard work and we were dirt poor. Those were good times because they had the result of making my wife and I generous. But one year, one of the couples that Kathy babysat for fell on some really hard times. So, we decided to give $50 to them.

Someone gave us $100. So, we gave $200 to someone else. And someone gave us $500. So, we gave away a car to the first family that had none. And someone gave us $1,000 and finally we decided that we could not out give God.

We didn't give in order to get. We gave because we saw a need. And, I have not tempted God with that trick again. One cannot trick God into giving. I am pretty sure that the events of someone giving back to us was a life lesson given to a couple called to be ministers of the gospel.

But the thing is this, God's people are generous.