Proper 21, Year C
Sunday, September 29, 2013
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Luke 16:19-31
For many years now, I have wanted a
better guitar than the one I have. I
want a multi-thousand dollar; handmade; deep, dark, rich, solid tone-wood
guitar which fits me and is as beautiful to look at as it is to listen to. Never mind that such a guitar would be rather
underutilized in my hands. Never mind
that I have a perfectly good guitar which has served me well for years. I want something more, something better. I am not content with what I have.
If I’m really honest, there are
many such ways in which I am not or have not been content with what I have in
my life. Perhaps I am not alone in these
feelings of discontentment, and in light of the Gospel of Jesus, all I can think
of my feelings of discontentment is, “how silly.”
Considering the great need of the
so many around us, considering the huge number of blessings in my life, how
incredibly silly not to be content with and grateful for all that I have. “There is great gain in godliness combined
with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take
nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with
these.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
Many of us find ourselves discontent
because life is hard or we don’t have all that we want. As disciples of Jesus, we’ve been taught to
be content with what we have. We’ve been
taught to stop believing the lie that life will be better if only we
had…whatever. We’ve been taught to stop
believing the lie that the grass is greener…anywhere in particular. We’ve been taught to stop constantly seeking
self fulfillment believing that one day will will finally have enough or
achieve the right things to be happy and content. As disciples of Jesus, we know we will never
arrive at happiness through more stuff; we will never achieve happiness if we
are not content with life as it is. As
disciples of Jesus, we’ve been taught not continually to seek more for
ourselves, but to give thanks for what we have and to share what we have been
given with others.
We heard Jesus
tell a story today about the consequences of not sharing what we have with
others, and Jesus’ warning is pretty stark:
If we ignore the suffering of those around us, there will be hell to
pay. Now, I don’t mean Dante’s
Inferno. I don’t mean share what you’ve
got or risk going to hell after you die.
The rich man in Jesus’ story feasted sumptuously every day which the poor
man Lazarus sat at the rich man’s gate with nothing to eat, the dogs licking
his sores. That sounds about like hell
to me. The rich man could have helped
Lazarus, had more than enough to do so, but he didn’t, and so Lazarus sat in a
real world hell of hunger and sickness with dogs licking the sores on his
body. We may not be able to fix every
problem for people, but when we don’t share what we have with others, there is
hell to pay, here and now in this world.
Jesus’ warning about the dangers of
not sharing what we have was not only, however, an individual warning about
sharing material wealth and food. His
warning was also a warning to the nation of Israel as a whole about sharing
their faith and way of life with those around them. “Rich Israel,” Jesus was saying, “you have
the law; you have a covenant with God; you walk and live and breathe as God’s
people. You feast sumptuously on God’s
word and God’s presence among you, and yet others around you starve. You were made to be a light to the nations,
and yet you hold the gentiles and the sinners in contempt rather than share the
light of God and God’s way of life with them.”
Through this
story, we hear Jesus calling out today.
“My church, you are rich in faith, rich in hope, rich in love. You are rich in eternal life, the very life
of God, shared with you through me,” Jesus is saying. “Share your faith and hope and love with a
world in desperate need, a world filled with anger, hopelessness, and fear.”
In a world of
sarin gas, terrorism, mass shootings by crazed gunmen, we were created to be a
light to the nations, to share our faith, hope, and love with others, and we
needn’t look to headline grabbing, national and international problems to see
the need for God’s eternal life given in the Gospel.
There is poverty
in Bay City. There is hopelessness in
Bay City. There are people who turn to
drugs, sex, alcohol, and violence to try to sooth their sorrow, just trying to
get through the day. There is great need
right here for the hope and peace that comes from the good news that God became
one of us to share with us his eternal life and to show us how we can live his
eternal life here and now. Even the
simple teaching of contentment, the simple teaching that so long as we have
food and clothing, we can be content with what we have, even that teaching is
part of God’s eternal life.
Be content with
what you have, with the relationships you have.
See the many blessings around you, the earth, the sky, the air, your
food. Take nothing for granted, but in
all things give thanks, and be content with what you have and find peace and
joy in that contentment. That is part of
God’s eternal life which we have been called to live an share with those around
us. As for the hell there is to pay without
such contentment? We know that hell all
too well: the mad rush for more, bigger
better things; the soothing of our sorrows in sex, drugs, alcohol in violence
because we are blind to our blessings; the resentment of those who have more
than we; the fear that what we have will be taken from us; the feeling that
life will be better once we’ve achieved or gained…whatever. We know the various hells of not living God’s
eternal life, and we are called to live and to share God’s eternal life in the
faith, hope, and love which we have been given through Jesus.
We also have
material wealth in the church, perhaps great wealth, perhaps only a little, but
whatever we have, is calling on us to share it with others, to use our material
wealth to serve the needs of those around us.
If we don’t, there will be hell to pay.
Lazarus is out there living out hell on earth, starving, with dogs
licking his sores, and we may not be able to solve his every problem, but we
can help.
Southside Abbey is an Episcopal
Church in the Diocese of East Tennessee, and they collecting $700,000 to give
away. They’re calling this a Jubilee
ministry, collecting almost three quarters of a million dollars just so they
can give it away to help serve all of the poor Lazarus’s around them. Southside Abbey is doing this jubilee
ministry partially in response to The Crossing, another church in Chattanooga
which collected $700,000 to build three giant, metal crosses, soaring 125 feet
into the air on the edge of their property along the interstate.
The crosses were made to be a
beacon for those driving along the interstate, to give hope to the hopeless, to
be a reminder of the Gospel of Jesus, the hope of resurrection. The crosses were made to help guide people to
Jesus. The hearts of those who erected
these massive, $700,000 crosses were in the right place. They were trying to serve those around them, and
while it’s easy to point fingers, I can’t help but think that at the end of the
day, they basically just accumulated more stuff.
Here at St.
Mark’s, we’ve been called to share what we have with others, to help serve the
spiritual and material needs of those around us. Sharing the Gospel, sharing our faith, hope,
and love, requires surprisingly little money.
We can pretty well each share our faith, hope, and love for no money at
all; it certainly doesn’t cost us $700,000.
In thinking about the possibility of eventually renovating and adding to
buildings here at St. Mark’s, we’re being called by Jesus to look beyond
ourselves as well, to use whatever buildings we make in the future to be a
resource for the community six days a week and a resource for us when we gather
here on Sunday.
If we don’t share
what we have with those around us, then there will be hell to pay in the lives
of those around us. We’re being called
share what we have with others and be content with what we have, even if we
don’t all end up with all of the stuff that we want, share and be content. Even without our very own proverbial
multi-thousand dollar; handmade; deep, dark, rich, solid tone-wood guitars, we
can be content with what we have and share our blessings and God’s eternal life
with the Lazarus’s around us. Amen.
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