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Sunday, October 24, 2010
Ordering Our Lives After the Example of Christ
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Acts 20:35 New Revised Standard Version
35 In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Last week we talked about the spiritual practice of generosity and asked each other if generosity is not one of the things that we hope people remember each of us for at the end of our lives.
A couple of days after that worship service, one of our members wrote me about her granddaughter who turned twelve years old a few days ago. For her birthday party, she decided she did not want her friends to bring her gifts. She wanted her friends, coming to the party, to contribute, instead, to the American Cancer Society for research on breast cancer. And with that message to her friends, twelve year old Natalie was able to send a contribution of $180 so that more breast cancer research can be done. I also know that this example of generosity, by a child, is not the exception in our church. Other families and other children have done this and have asked for no presents at their party but have instead asked their friends to give to worthy charitable groups.
We have had a stimulating discussion together these past weeks as we focused on Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity. We talked about what it means to have enough instead of more than enough. We looked at the spiritual practice of simplicity, living more simply so that others may simply live. We handed out mirror clings that give us Biblical principles of money management and we handed out key tags to remind us that we do not need many of the things that we want and that our true life is not made up of what we own no matter what we have or do not have.
Today is the worship service each year when we promise to return to God a portion of what God has given to us. Consecration Sunday is one of the most important days of our worship year because it lets us say to God that we are grateful for what we have been given and we remember that God has given us the talents we have and we want to honor God with our tithes and our offerings. It lets us act on the words of Jesus who says that where our treasure is, that is where our heart is also, and on the words we heard in today’s text, “There is more blessing in giving than in receiving.”
The act of bringing our giving cards to God’s altar table is a way of affirming our faith in God when we are also feeling anxious and even fearful. There is an important Bible story about how fear and faith relate. And it is particularly important in a time when there are many reasons to feel anxious and fearful about our personal finances.
This story happens early in Jesus’ ministry and is told in three of the four gospels. It must have been a really important story for the early followers of the Way of Christ.
Jesus and his friends are in a boat on Lake Galilee. The lake is not really a sea because it is not big enough to be properly called a sea. Many of you have been there over the years with the 150 persons we have taken to Israel. We have seen how easily the topography around it causes it to be vulnerable to sudden wind storms that can whip through a close by mountain pass and, in just a short time, how it can cause heavy waves and storm conditions on the lake.
Jesus and the twelve are in a boat crossing over to “the other side.” That phrase had a special meaning 2000 years ago. What was “the other side” of Lake Galilee? It was pagan country, gentile country. It was where the “really sinful people” lived, the unclean people. Who might be in that group today?
You may remember that when they got there they encountered a man who was especially “unclean” by their values. He had mental illness or epilepsy, we don’t know which because the Bible uses the first century term, possessed by demons. In addition, he lived in a graveyard and by a herd of pigs. So by rigid first century standards, he was triply “unclean” and “impure.”
In the boat on the way there, is where we talk about faith and fear. A storm comes up in the middle of the voyage. Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the back of the boat. In the middle of the storm, Jesus is calm, but the disciples are frantic and they are shouting at him. Lord, don’t you care that we are about to die?
By the way, the artist Rembrandt has painted this scene in a famous painting called, “The Storm on the Sea of Galilee. He painted 14 people in the boat, twelve disciples, Jesus, and many believe the 14th person is Rembrandt, overcome by fear like all the others except Christ.
When Jesus is awakened by his frantic friends, he calms the storm like he still does in our hearts today, and then he says something very revealing to his friends. Why are you so afraid? Where is your faith? It is a question for us as well.
There are many reasons to be afraid. You and I can name a dozen of them: uncertainty in the national and international economy, job loss and job uncertainty, health issues for some of us, retirement worries, and financial worries to name a few. There are potentially many reasons to feel anxious and afraid and worried and uncertain.
Then Jesus asks if we are going to let our lives be dominated by those fears or let our lives be dominated by something else? Why are we letting our fear rule our lives? How does our faith fit in?
In the storm on Lake Galilee, Christ asks us to center our lives not on fear, but on God who still has the power to calm the storms and order the chaos. And Christ tells us what faith is and what the opposite of faith is.
WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF FAITH IN THIS STORY?
Some people think that the opposite of faith is doubt, questioning and skepticism. But this is not what Christ says. CHRIST SAYS THE OPPOSITE OF LIVING IN FAITH IS LIVING IN FEAR. It is fine to have doubts and questions and to be skeptical about some ideas and some beliefs. That is part of following the way of Christ, to still have questions and some unsolved ideas.
But doubt is not the opposite of faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. And we can live life dominated by our fears or grounded in our faith!
Faith means trusting God to see us through and to give us some positive surprises even when we cannot see how that will come out. Faith means taking a risk when we have gathered all the information we can. We will never have all the information before we make a decision. Faith means trusting God when we need to take the next step in life or enter the next chapter of life or gather the information, knowing the uncertainties, and moving ahead. That is faith.
There is an old story among preachers about some events of 150 years ago at Niagara Falls. There were some tightrope walkers who had strung a tightrope over part of Niagara Falls. They were walking across for large crowds to admire. Twelve people have done this over the years and the most famous was a gentleman in the 1860’s named Jean Francois Gravelot. He not only walked the tightrope several times on a 180 foot long journey, he carried a man on his back across one time and pushed a wheelbarrow across one other time.
The old story goes that on one of the days when he crossed the falls, he announced that the next day he was going to push a wheelbarrow across. He not only would push a wheelbarrow across, he was going to push the wheelbarrow with someone in it!
As he made his way through the admiring, cheering crowd after that announcement, he came across an excited gushing fan who was beside himself in his praise for the tightrope walker’s success, and he told Mr. Gravelot that he so admired him and that he just knew for sure that the next day with the wheelbarrow was going to be a roaring success. Gravelot looked carefully at the man and said he was so glad to meet this admirer and he appreciated the man’s confidence in him and told him that because of this man’s faith, he thought he was just the fellow to step into the wheelbarrow the next day and take the ride across the Falls!
Faith does not mean thinking that something is a good idea. Faith means stepping into the wheelbarrow, or stepping into the boat with Christ, even in a storm, even with our fears, and trusting Christ to see us through the storms. There will always be storms.
There are good reasons to be worried and anxious and afraid. All of us are affected by the economy. Our church leaders are being very frugal right now. We are being careful with our utilities in this building at night by not turning on all the lights. Our staff is taking three furlough days by the end of December to save us personnel costs. We are managing our budgets well.
There are reasons to feel anxious, and there are so many varied personal situations with some people out of work and others with enough flexibility to make travel plans out of the country.
By the way, for persons who are in a financial crisis, we do have a little money in our care fund that I am able to help with some needs and you may contact me for that.
There are reasons to be anxious on this consecration Sunday. We, also, can think of times when we have felt the fear and have done our homework and have moved ahead in spite of the uncertainty and fear.
I did that two years ago this month when I learned I had a benign brain tumor that needed to be removed. I looked for the best surgeons to interview. I looked up all I could find about meningiomas. I talked with others who had surgery, and then with a lot of support and prayers from all of you, went in for a nine hour surgery that opened up my skull. It was very successful and I was cleared by the doc 18 months ago and am in excellent health.
Was I anxious? Some, but I also had done the homework and knew the risks and made the right decision.
When have you felt the fear and done the homework, weighed the risks and taken a step in faith and seen your faith affirmed? All of us have done that.
We did that as a congregation seven years ago when we voted to build our first building phase and we bit off a lot and we have been roundly confirmed in that step of faith as we have now outgrown this space and taken another step of faith to serve people who are here and who are not yet here by providing even more space for ministry.
Is there uncertainty? Of course, there always is. Is there excitement and enthusiasm—oh Yes, yes, yes! Is there interest from our community? Nine new families were in worship two weeks ago giving us a try for the first time.
By the way, to put our faith and our decision in a larger perspective, popular author Philip Yancey, author of millions of books on spiritual themes, tells in his new book, What Good is God, about being in China in the past couple of years and talking with church groups there about faithful Christians in China, who over the years, have rightly been fearful about practicing their faith in that country. These are people who have felt the fear, stronger fears than ours today, and who have continued to express their faith in Christ with really scarier risks than ours.
Will we live our lives dominated by our fears or by our faith?
Will we feel the fear, do our research, say our prayers, and move ahead in faith knowing that we will never have 100% surety and certainty about almost anything, but still we take a step of faith, still we trust in Christ to let us take the next step of faith.
Don and Jeanne Smith of our congregation told us there faith story two weeks ago about their life practice of generosity on an educator’s salary. They trusted God, they gave themselves sacrificially, and God provided what they need. Have you found that also?
Cathy Dunwody of our congregation told us last week about her journey of faith and how she was underemployed and anxious and insecure about her job and about how she prayed as she was filling out her estimate of giving card and how she gulped as she filled in a very generous and sacrificial amount and took a step of faith as she brought it to the altar table and the God she trusted to provide for her has affirmed her because of that trust.
Perhaps your own pledge card today is an act of faith, an act of trusting God, a way of saying that when you are willing to be in the boat with Christ in the midst of the storm, that it is your faith that he will calm the storm and keep you safe.
We have said as we have welcomed new members today that we will order our lives after the example of Christ. Let us take this next step as we bring our faith promises forward to day.