[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon on Luke and Hebrews passages

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded:

Here's an old one I'm going to rework with more up-to-date illustrations.
 
Please use what is helpful, and make any constructive suggestions you'd like. Since I'll be repeating it, I would appreciate any feedback you have.
 
Peace,
Pam Laing
The United Presbyterian Church
Wood River, IL, USA
 

Date: 08/08/2004                                                                  Preached by:  The Reverend Pam Laing
19th Sunday in Ordinary Time                        The United Presbyterian Church, Wood River, IL
Bible texts:  Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 ; Luke 12:32-40
                                                      Living into the Promise
     The opening sentence of this morning’s gospel lesson caught me up short when I read it. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  God gives us the kingdom?  How can that be? Aren’t we told elsewhere that it is our responsibility to find it?  One of my favorite hymns says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God
knock and the door will be opened unto you.”1 So, which is it?  Do we search for God or does God come to us?  The answer is, “Yes,” and “Yes.”
     Our tendency is to think of God’s kingdom as some far-off, difficult-to-attain place where certain people get to go after they die, if they act right while they are living. But today’s passages speak of the kingdom as something that exists not only in the future, but also in the here and now. That’s because the kingdom is not a finite place; it is a state of being in relationship with God. The kingdom of God is already ours for the taking and God is happy – in fact, God delights – in giving it to us.
     The kingdom of God is like the air we breathe; it is all around us and it moves through us and is part of us. The Apostle Paul speaks to this in the book of Acts when he says, “For in [God}, we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). So, we attain the kingdom by looking inside ourselves and finding the faith given us by God, and that faith transports us into the ever-present, yet eternal realm of God. Those of us who are baptized into Christ don’t arrive into our faith or into God’s kingdom; we open our eyes and hearts and recognize that we’ve been living there all along.
     We recognize the kingdom through our ministry and mission.  Some of my fondest memories of ministering here come from traveling with our youth on mission trips. We left early one morning for one of our trips to Camp Pyoca in Brownstown, Indiana. After the initial excited chatter died down because we had been on the road awhile, one of the girls asked the inevitable question; “Are we almost there?” Leroy looked at the trip mileage indicator and answered, “It depends on how you look at it. We’ve gone fifteen miles.” We weren’t even out of Illinois yet, but still, we were on the mission journey. We began living into that mission when we first gathered that morning as a group in Fellowship Hall.  And everything we did from that moment on was part of the experience and undoubtedly contributed to the faith of everyone who shared that experience together. 
     Faith is cumulative, in that it is better experienced than it is explained. Faith is not the ticket that allows us to enter God’s kingdom; faith is the ride of joy we experience with God. Faith does not exist because of our belief or because of anything we say or do. Rather, it is a free ride offered to us by God’s grace. And once we get on board, we are in for a ride of a lifetime – a journey from here to eternity.
    Our faith is based on God’s promises, not our abilities. To have faith means that we are part of the household of God. So if we agree to live there, then we are asked to follow the rules of God’s household. Just like our households have specific rules by which all family members agree to live, there is an expected etiquette by which kingdom dwellers agree to abide. Jesus says that we are following the rules and living faithfully if we remain constantly dressed for action, with our lamps lit.  But what does that mean?
    What lights our lamps?  What does it mean to be dressed and ready?  The Greek used here actually says, “Gird your waists.”  When men went to work back then, they tied a sash around their waist and tucked the material of their long robes up in that sash, so their feet did not become bound in all the material. Today, we say we “roll up our sleeves.”  
     Or to think back to another youth mission trip when we stayed at Camp Ferncliff in Arkansas, as we prepared for a day’s work at that camp, we said, “Get your gloves, spray on the insect repellant and spread on the sun screen.” That was a difficult day. We were taken to a rocky meadow, probably the size of two football fields, and instructed to collect all the rocks in two-gallon buckets and carry them to a rock pile at the edge of the field.  The camp wanted to clear that field so campers could play soccer and softball there. When we stopped working several hours later all we had to show for our hard labor was a small pile of rocks and a field that looked pretty much just as rocky as it did when we started. 
     Jesus wants us to be ready to serve – even if the service is hard, even if it is inconvenient, even if it might hurt, even if we cannot tell that our specific service really makes a difference. We might not be able to predict the outcome of our service; a lot of times we cannot even fully imagine the end results, but we serve anyway, trusting that God can and will use it for good.
     We can learn a bit about what it means to trust from the African impala. The impala is a magnificent animal that can jump to a height of over ten feet, covering a distance of greater than thirty feet. Yet, surprisingly, these creatures can be contained with nothing more than a three-foot solid wall.  You see, an impala will not jump if it cannot see where its feet will land.2 Aren’t we just like the impala? We want to know our feet will land in heaven. It is difficult to trust Jesus when he says that by our faith we are saved.  Jesus knew that.  That is why he said, “Do not worry and do not be afraid, little flock, because God is in control.”  
    Worry is one of the chief ways we break relationship with God. When we worry about something, be it what we will wear or whether we have enough money, or whether we will live long enough to do everything we want to do, we take our lives back from God and try to control circumstances by ourselves. Then, when we realize that we really cannot handle things on our own, we become fearful.  Fear and worry separate us from the joy of faith in Christ. Faith is the opposite of worry; faith is trusting God to be with us through all of life – through thick and thin; rough and smooth, good and bad. Faith does not remove the difficult times, but it does connect us to the One who offers us a lifeline of strength, security and salvation. 
     Something else to notice is that Jesus spoke to the flock, not to an individual sheep. We are to serve together, to pool our resources of time, talent and money so together we contribute to the well being of the whole flock. We are all invited to participate in the work of God’s kingdom. It takes all of us, and it takes our best effort. Learning how to be kingdom-dwellers begins at church. We come to church and participate and contribute to church programming not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is here, among others who love and follow Christ, that we can best learn how to obey God’s commands.  It is through the unified efforts of God’s people who make up the church that God works toward the promised future of God’s full rule on earth as it is in heaven. It is within the sponsorship of the church that we learn and serve, and it is here that we fulfill our God-given responsibility of instructing our children in how to live into and grow in their faith.   Our faith experience affects how we act. Our faith brings us to worship so we can praise God’s name and be renewed by hearing God’s word and by sitting at table with the living Christ. Faith calls us to obedience for our own good and so we can live for the good of others.  
      “Faith is the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). As we work toward the future of our congregation, we do not know whether we will actually be the ones who will reap the benefits of all the things we do. Like Abraham, we will not all see the end of the many things we begin, but we do them because they are worth doing; we do them because they prepare others to live in God’s kingdom. In other words, we do them in faith. Just because we do not expect to see justice for all, does not mean that we do not work for justice to the degree to which we can achieve it. 
      Archbishop Oscar Romero once said, “It helps now and then to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that can be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings complete wholeness. No program fully accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is the faith that we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future Promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our imagined capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. But we can do something and do it well. It may be incomplete, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; we are ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”3 Thanks be to God, we are kingdom dwellers living by faith. Amen.


1  ”Seek Ye First,” Presbyterian Hymnal, #333.

2  Bass Mitchell, ”Homilies By Email,” ”Sermon Starters,” # 4 – Real Faith, Pentecost 10 C, 8/12/01.

3 Archbishop Oscas Romero, El Salvador, as quoted by Kathy Keener-Han, midrash at joinhands.com, 8/8/01.



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