Sometimes Generosity...

 

Text: Matthew 20:1-16

Focus: Envy

Function: To help us be happy about grace

20:¹“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

The goal I have for this sermon is to help us be happy about grace given to others, even if we don’t think they deserve it, or we deserve it more. I suppose, in a negative way, Jesus gives this story to help us overcome envy in our spirits. Sometimes generosity leads to envy.

But before I start that. I want to refer back to last week’s sermon on forgiveness because Kathy asked me to clarify something that I said.

This biblical, theological concept, was newer to me when I first heard it because I was raised with a god of retributive justice instead of the God whose justice is restorative and redemptive.

R. Scot Miller introduced me to the meaning of John 20:23 where Jesus gives us the authority to forgive sins.

Brother Miller emphasized the fact that in order for them to be forgiven, we have to forgive them.

So, I explained to Kathy, even if we think what they are doing is sin, forgive them and God will forgive them.

People may ask why that is necessary. Well, the Christian faith is all about reconciliation with God and people and God has given us the command and the power as the the Church to reconcile the world to God and others.

Reconciliation is biblical. The power and the command to do it comes from this passage, 2 Corinthians:5:17-19: ^17-19what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God (then) has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.

Brother Paul explains his own missionary call and why he gave up the ease and comfort of his authoritative position as a Pharisee to travel the world, raising his own funds to start churches across the Mediterranean.

And we too as ambassadors of Christ are given the task of reconciling people to God and each other through the power of the forgiveness of sins.

I am calling for boldness with this passage. God wants us in community with each other and in order to do that we must be reconciled and we have the power to forgive the sin that we think the other person has. Forgive them because according to this text, God already has through Jesus.

The text says that God forgave their sins. There is a period there and we cannot add to grace our conditions. If we want relationship, then we have the power from God to forgive them.

And if we forgive them, God will also.

Anyway, back to the parable. It is about the generous nature of God’s grace and the people who grumble against it.

People who get saved on a deathbed after living a life in rebellion to God’s love are just as saved as a person who was born again at the very young age of 4. Well, we are constantly being born again as the Spirit of God moves us from level to level of faith.

Every Sunday I hope my preaching inspires you to grow deeper and deeper in your love for God and each other.

I don’t really need to sum the parable. But I notice a few things.

Those who worked all day received a living wage. The landowner was not stingy with his wages at the beginning. They were glad for the chance to work.

He was righteous. or just, because he paid a living wage.

And the landowner wasn’t afraid of being accused of rewarding laziness. When he returned several times and hired more workers the text says that he had mercy on them.

He was a righteous man because he paid everyone a living wage, and because he acted with mercy over profit.

Jesus, in this parable, exposes the human condition of envy and confronts it in the upside down kingdom way by being generous with everyone regardless of why.

The landowner saw their need.

Jesus sees our need and forgives us and welcomes us into his family.

And as we have been seeing about mercy, we were given mercy, we must extend it.

So, do we grumble against generosity?

Sometimes generosity doesn’t seem fair.

Almost every day, my first Uber ride is at the methadone clinic on Poe ave just down the road from where I get my VW serviced.

Anyway, I was meeting Kathy at the car dealership to get my warranty inspection done and accidentally gave her the address for the Meth clinic instead of the dealership!

I was having a laugh about it with the Service manager who then questioned how drug addicts can afford Uber.

And my response was not nice to the poor and I told him that our tax dollars were paying for the rides.

And, like many of us, he was offended at the generosity. And I was too, initially.

Sometimes Generosity leads us to envy. I left the last part of that our of the sermon title because I didn’t want it to be negative. But sometimes generosity leads us to think beyond ourselves into what others need, not to what we have.

Now, I didn’t say he was offended at the practice, I said he was offended at the generosity.

There really is two sides to the issue. Ubers are a lot cheaper than Medical Transport companies or taxis, so we are saving the taxpayer money.

But I wish I pointed out to him that they were paying my salary and I was paying his salary and the benefits given to the poor, this generosity given to the poor, was money that wasn’t being hoarded in an offshore tax dodge by some rich person, but money that goes right back into the economy, is taxed and then stimulates more growth.

I hope I didn’t get just political. As I tried to mention the validity of the issue from both sides. The Service Manager feels squeezed by his tax burden, I understand that.

That is why I love living in a democracy. People who disagree with the practice can exercise their right to vote for a candidate that they believe will vote their values on the issue.

I mentioned the difference between calling these social benefits “generosity” or “practices” is a way of biasing the hearer toward the direction they want them to choose.

If I imply that wanting to stop the practice means that you are not generous, then I have been manipulative. So, I give you the option.

So Jesus ends the parable with the conclusion: “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

That is why I said Jesus’ answer was an upside down kingdom kind of response to forgiveness and the rest of our Christian lives.

In the parable, the last, who got a very generous amount for a little bit of work, became the first ones to get paid.

That doesn’t seem fair.

The only conclusion I can make is that Jesus is telling us that envy robs us of our sense of blessing and contentment.

They were happy with the deal at the start of the day. Why knows? Maybe they did something unfair to beat our those others who didn’t get hired? Who knows why the first were made to be last and the last to be first except that it is God’s prerogative to be generous with grace and God calls us to be happy about it for others.

Lord have mercy on the times we are envious and forgive us.

A Forgiving Spirit

 

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

Focus: Forgiveness

Function: to help us see what forgiveness is all about

²¹Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²²Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

²³“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, ²⁵and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. ²⁶So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. ³¹When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. ³²Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. ³⁵So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The Lectionary provides a schedule of bible passages for the preacher to follow so that he/she does not get in a rut and preach the same old passage every week. Today’s lesson is from the lectionary and it is on forgiveness.

I suppose the salient phrase from this morning’s passage is “you should have mercy as I have had mercy on you.”

Peter starts out, I believe, thinking he is being bold in stating that we should forgive up to seven times. And Jesus’ answer to that is hyperbole, “77 times”

I believe it is a metaphor for “don’t even count.”

The scriptures say, Love believes all things, bears all things and endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

I believe it means that when a person is walking in God’s love for others, there is a contentment in the peace that the promise of eternal life brings that we can continue to forgive because God forgave us.

I notice something about Jesus’ teaching. It is never about “believing the right thing.” No. It is always about “doing the right thing.”

And when Jesus gives the parable about the Kingdom of heaven being all about forgiveness, he again uses hyperbole. 10,000 talents would be billions of dollars. At the time, it would have amounted to a king’s ransom. An amount almost impossible to pay. And the master forgives the debt. He has mercy on the one who cries out for it. He, listens to the cry of the desperate and is a righteous, or just king, because he extends mercy.

Meanwhile, the parable focuses on what the parable calls “wickedness:” the man’s refusal to give the same mercy he was given and is condemned by the master for his refusal.

Jesus gives a warning about them forgiving completely, or “from the heart.”

Forgiveness isn’t easy, because we have been wronged and our sense of person-hood has been violated.

Do the people we forgive deserve it? Probably not.

What if they have not repented, or changed the behavior that offends, or offended us? How do we forgive when the presence of some people reminds us of the pain that they have caused in our lives?

These are all difficult but legitimate questions. All of them are subject first to a matter of faith. The point of the parable is that the master has given us mercy and we have to respond by giving mercy toward others.

The mercy given is actually the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. The Psalms say that it is impossible to purchase.

We received mercy, we give mercy.

In other words, forgive and accept people. That doesn’t mean we don’t set up boundaries to protect ourselves from the bad behavior of others. But Jesus teaches us to forgive from the heart.

The highlight of our Kairos weekend, which is coming up in November and I’m gonna need some cookies, the highlight, is the forgiveness ceremony.

And every time I do the weekend, God reveals to me more people and circumstances where I get to forgive and God then experience God’s healing, salvation.

Forgiveness heals us.

It is a way for us to let go of past pain.

Forgiveness from the heart does not mean we justify bad behavior, but it means that we release it to God who is a loving, fair and merciful judge. I rest in that thought.

So, he says forgive. It sets us free.

I have been wanting to share this next story with you for years and today the Holy Spirit is finally letting me.

It comes after our conversation last Sunday about the query in our denomination allowing each church to decide for themselves on the issue of how to care for people who have different gender identities, and a phone conversation with Jodie this week.

I’ll set the stage:

I once pastored a larger, multi-staffed church. And we had a lot of people who came for I suspect various reasons.

One guy was a “Christmas, Easter” attender. And he was welcome. In some ways, I got to know him because his wife was a devout attender and she ensured that we had contact together.

I try not to judge, but the fellow was sort of vulgar. Really, not judgment. He was a Vietnam Vet and those guys have a lot to process. But it was difficult to see the fruit of “love, Joy, Peace” and etc in his life. I wondered if he had ever made the choice to trust Jesus and join the family of God.

And then, sadly, Vietnam got him and we walked together through the very long process of his dying from bladder cancer caused by agent orange poisoning. He name is now enshrined before the wall in D.C.

This is the story of the slow salvation of this man through the process of forgiveness.

When he was first diagnosed, he finally opened the door to have the discussion with me about life, death and the afterlife and what faith in Jesus actually means.

And praise God, I got to lead him past his baptism into the power of the Spirit as he learned to forgive from the heart. And he had a hard time learning that lesson because of his relationship with his son.

He loved his son and had great memories of childhood times with sports, fishing and father son bonding. He was a good father, not perfect, but motivated by love and that is all we really can ask of parent.

The problem, he told me, was that he couldn’t stand to be around his son.

Of course, I was shocked because he predicated that statement about not wanting to see him with the fact that he loved him and missed him terribly.

I didn’t understand at first just what was going on inside of him until he told me that he could not forgive him for the choices he was making in his life.

My parishioner believed what I no longer believe, but confess I did at the time. He believed that his son had chosen to rebel against God and shack up with a male partner.

This put me in a quandary. I wasn’t there to minister to, or try to save the son. I never met him, and God had placed before me a man who was wrecked by unforgiveness and it was clear to him that it was a barrier between him and God.

So, instead of my worrying about whether or not the son was in rebellion with God, I needed to focus on what the father needed for his own restoration and reconciliation with God.

And that turned out to be reconciliation with his son.

And just like Christ did from the cross toward the very ones who murdered him, he forgave them even though they did not change their behavior.

Regardless of who or what this man’s son was, he needed to forgive him. So he did.

And the son came to visit his dying father and they reconciled. Thank God, that the reconciliation happened long before the man died and they were able to make up for a few years of lost time.

And I got to know the son and his partner through the process. He has a beautiful soul.

And watching God love the son through the love of the father became a metaphor for me to accept people I previously denied. I witnessed God accept the son.

It really changed my parishioner. Remember how I mentioned that he did not seem to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit? Well, no longer. He was truly born again by the Spirit of God to love unconditionally. His heart melted and became soft and kinder.

Now remember, the salient phrase of the text is that we should give the same mercy we have been given. Regardless of whether or not we think someone deserves it

I watched that man get saved through the forgiveness of his gay son. At the time, that really messed with my theology.

The thing is, God led me to forgive the son as well.

I saw the Spirit of God move when this man accepted and forgave his son. He didn’t place the condition of change on his son.

I got to be a part of God healing a family, and I thank God for that. The man learned to forgive. But at the same time, I’m not sure who learned the lesson that day, was it him or was it me?

So, I see the Spirit of God moving in the same direction. It began the journey in me that let me to accept people with different gender identities.

It is biblical to forgive people their transgressions. Jesus breathed on us the Holy Spirit and told us to forgive the sins of others. That is what I did with the son.

It was a different theological understanding than what I was raised with. But. It is biblical to forgive the sins of others.

And by now, you know me. I preach the scriptures and Jesus as the Word of God. I try not to compromise for convenience. And I know that within the church, it is easier and more popular to say things like “gays are wrong” and point the finger and blame them for our problems. But that is contrary to scripture.

And I am trying to stay true to what the Scriptures actually mean when God says to love and forgive others.

Our Debt To God

Text: Romans 13:8-14

Focus: Love and holiness

Function: to help people see how love is the fulfillment of holiness

⁸Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

¹¹Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹²the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

I talked two weeks ago about the difference between religion and faith. Or, the emphasis was on the idea that religious practices, like going to church, praying, tithing, and etc. are merely the practices of those who trust in Jesus to restore them, but not the things that save them.

I know that is confusing. But the idea comes from Jesus’ words to Nicodemus when Jesus told him that in order to join the kingdom of God, he needed to be born from above. In other words, in my opinion and doctrine, he needed to be filled with the Spirit of Christ and transformed into a person whose nature is no longer one of selfishness, but one of care and love for others.

We don’t want to “count on” our religious performances to save us, we want to be saved by loving others the way Jesus loved them through the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us.

So, in order to understand today’s text a little bit better, I am going to talk about religion.

James 1:27 talks then, about what he calls pure religion. In other words, acts of faith, instead of acts of piety to save us.

The verse says that pure religion, undefiled before God is to take care of widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

It correlates to this morning’s text. Paul wrote Romans and most of the letters that we read in the New Testament. James is credited with this one. Paul and James disagreed sharply about religious practices. James wanted Gentile Christians to adhere to Jewish law and be circumcised and Paul absolutely refused to allow a religions practice to substitute for sincere actions of faith and love for others.

Although they disagreed about the weight of the OT law, they did agree on these two defining characteristics of what Christian living looks like. And that is to care for the least of these, as Jesus said it, and to keep oneself pure. The purity aspect does not really come from the teachings of Jesus, but seem to me to be in relationship to the culture and its values.

So, although they agree on the essentials, they have a difference of opinion about the weight of acts of piety compared to acts of a transformed heart.

Paul opens up by saying that in essence “don’t complicate your lives by living under all the rules, instead just remember to love one another (as Jesus commanded) and it can be demonstrated by the way that our actions toward others do no harm to them.

Don’t hurt others is his way of saying that we are called to take care of the least of these.

The salient statement is that the entire law is summed up in the concept to love others as much as we love ourselves.

Loving others fulfills our religions duties. 1 John 4:16 we read that those who abide in love are abiding in God.

“Abiding in God” is a synonym for holiness. When we abide in love toward others, we are indeed being holy.

When we abide in bitterness, resentment, jealousy, spite, hatred and quarreling, we are not abiding in love.

I have days when I don’t feel like I am abiding in love. Sometimes it is medical and sometimes it is psychological. And in those days, I do not feel the sense of peace and joy that one might expect would come from living a life connected to God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I am not trying to sell Christianity as some sort of feel good experience as if it is a commodity. But the scriptures do promise through the Holy Spirit to give us peace and joy.

I believe it comes through living by faith and resting in the hopes that we have in Christ. It isn’t a perfect life, but the promise is that God who created us will be with us to strengthen, encourage, enable, heal and transform us.

That doesn’t mean we have to abstain from acts of piety. No. A holy faith that follows Jesus by loving others, rejoices in the practices that confirm our faith.

For example, I can think of the importance and meaning of the bread and cup communion. It is an act of piety, a religious act, but it is symbolic and it leads us to remember not only the actions of faith that we represent in our own love for others, but it symbolizes the love of Jesus expressed toward us.

Jesus implored us to do this act of devotion in remembrance of him.

Communion reminds me to live sacrificially as Jesus did for me in order that I might obtain a greater heavenly reward. It happens when we abide in love.

Here is an odd thing. Religious people are considered to be people of a purity culture. They are not necessarily related to people of a giving culture. Except maybe the Salvation Army.

James and Paul answer the question for us: What is holiness?

The word “Holy” sounds ominous, but it actually means, separate, or different.

Holy people are different than the world around them.

Again, that is why the plain sects wear plain dress, they want to come out from among worldly values to be separated from those values toward the values that Christ taught us.

Jesus didn’t really talk much about the purity that Paul mentions in the second part of our text and James mentions in the last of verse 1:27.

Although Jesus doesn’t talk about it, both Paul and James feel it is important.

There is another incident of moral purity addressed in the NT when Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5 addresses a situation where a man is sleeping with either his mother or his step mother and the church doesn’t see a problem with it.

The church didn’t see a problem with it.

I don’t think it was because they were blinded by their own immorality, but because it really wasn’t an issue that Jesus ever discussed.

Paul is concerned with the way it looks to the world around them. He says, the pagans don’t allow that kind of relationship and it makes us look bad.

It is funny because Jesus wasn’t concerned by the way his associations made him look, In fact, it was a major criticism as they called him a drunkard and a glutton because he had a good time at times with people and because he was a friend of the people that the religions community distanced themselves from.

Paul was concerned with the way it made them look but Jesus wasn’t. No contradiction here, I believe. Jesus was opposing those who merely practiced piety and did not care for the least of these.

So, to close, let us use the introduction to the passage: Owe nothing but love.

What Profit?

 

Text: Matthew 16:21-28

Focus: following Jesus

Function: to help people see how loving others is sacrificial

²¹From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

²⁷“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

This is a passage about our commitment to Christ. There is a very powerful verse in the text this morning with a clear warning and it is difficult to hear. Jesus said that if we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross then follow him.

I have always believed that the phrase “Take up your cross” was a metaphor for living a sacrificial life for Jesus.

In the most basic form, following Christ is refusing selfishness, for selfishness is at the heart of most sin -according to my theology professor.

I don’t want to preach against selfishness, but I want to unwrap just what does it mean to live sacrificially in this day and age?

Because, Spiritually and eternally, there is little profit in hoarding earthly wealth.

So let us unwrap the passage a little bit. When Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me, is Jesus calling us to a life of poverty?

I remember that Jesus also said, “I came that you might have abundant life.” And “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Those verses are a big contrast to taking up a cross.

And, without contradiction, both concepts come from the mouth of the Lord.

How do we have an abundant and yet sacrificial, or selfless life?

Growing up, I was taught that since Jesus died on the cross to keep me out of hell, in order to escape hell, I had to live a life of sacrificial poverty. In the service of God, we lived below the poverty level and survived by the local food pantry.

My dad was called by God to serve where he served and it paid poorly. But, we had an abundant life.

Our life was filled with the purpose of serving God and we felt it in our Spirits and in our bones. We had a close family with a lot of love, support and nurture.

And being poor, we were happy.

And you know this, money does not buy happiness. It may give us a feeling of security, it may even give us a sense of accomplishment if we have amassed enough to be comfortable. But, happiness is a choice that we make inside of ourselves and Jesus promised us that kind of abundant life.

For my dad, it started with the choice to “follow Jesus.” That is what this passage is calling us to and the context of it is in the fact that Jesus himself is going to suffer and die.

Peter can’t understand it, but God is the God of the resurrection.

I always wrestled with the idea that many Christians were called to witness to their faith by surrendering their own lives instead of following the system that the world had built up that didn’t care for the least of these.

The New Testament called it “The New Way.”

Jesus said that if we are called to be martyrs like them, that we should rejoice, because heaven is real and our reward in heaven is great for demonstrating that we believe in God’s reward over earthly reward through the way we lived our lives as a blessing to others.

My dad wasn’t a martyr, but he was willing to be. It was his faith that said, I believe in God’s just reward and I will live my life for that reward instead of for what I can gain here on earth.

We are not all called to be Martyrs, but we are called to be willing, and that is difficult. But Jesus, in this passage demonstrates his faith in the reality of heaven and eternal reward. When he rebukes Peter, he reminds him that Peter is not thinking in terms of an heavenly reward.

I suppose that those who have made the choice to follow Jesus are those who are part of the kingdom.

And just as I was raised with the sense that we were on a mission for the Lord in our family’s life and that sense of mission gave purpose and meaning to my life, I realize now that this is what the Kingdom of God is all about for all of us. We endured the poverty because we knew that we were being a blessing to others.

There are several places in scripture where God calls His people to be a blessing to the people around them.

When the Jews were deported into Babylon, God told them to invest in the new city they were going to and make it prosper because God’s people are there to bring a blessing and God’s loving refreshment to a thirsty world.

When God blessed Abram and changed his name to Abraham, God said that he would bless him in order that he would be a blessing to the world around him.

In the Church we have the clergy, me, and the laity, non clergy. I am not sure I like the distinction because we are all ministers of God’s grace and mercy.

But the word Laity means “The called out ones.”

We signify that the people in the church as being different than the people who are not in the Church, the body of Christ. We signify them by calling them “the called out ones.”

We are called out by God. Called out of selfish living and given to the world at large, by God to be a blessing to the world.

We live for others because, like Jesus, we have made the commitment to live our lives for the good of those around us and not for selfish reasons.

And that is what it means to me to take up my cross and follow Jesus.

And, going back to my introduction, I don’t believe God wants to scare us with the threat of hell in order to accomplish God’s purpose.

We are called to embrace faith and the hope of eternal reward, living for heaven over earth and the reward that is to come instead of the what he says in the passage; “gaining the whole world and losing our soul.”

We are so distracted by advertising in our culture that we believe that we “deserve it all” as long and if we can’t afford it, charge it!.

Advertising is designed to make us unhappy with what we already have and want more.

And we know that more things do not make us happy. What makes us happy is people, love, peace, joy, the fruit of the Holy Spirit as she brings us into community with family and friends.

So, the question that Jesus poses is what does it profit you if you are rich and have no eternal reward?

It’s like Jesus is asking: Do we believe in eternity?

And will we live selflessly in love for others by the power of His Spirit inside of us?