Eagle Harbor Congregational Church, United Church of Christ June 14, 2009
Sermon preached by Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Share Abundantly
What is your motto? Our staff celebrates one another's birthdays by going out for lunch, and each answering the question that the birthday person has posed. I love this tradition, because instead of chatting about the weather or things of little consequence, the birthday questions often stir up great insights and let us glimpse something in each other that perhaps we didn't see before. This past Thursday, Alice posed the question about which word or phrase we use to guide our lives. We shared mottos such as Listen before you speak. Live honorably. Family first. Be kind to all things that move. And from the prophet Micah: Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Mottos can bolster our confidence in our abilities, encourage us in our life goals, center us, and open us to the Sacred. While growing up my Dad would often remind me, Remember who you are. And as I left for school, Smile for your teachers. I was encouraged to be true to myself, and kind to others. In the reading this morning Paul gives a motto in his letter to the church in Corinth, reminding them: share abundantly. Paul builds them up in their ministry, and encourages them to live their lives in obedience to Christ. It's not so different from the basic reminders we all need. Reminders I give to my kids such as Listen. Guest first. Use your manners. Clean up your own mess. And as Paul reminded the church in Corinth: Share. Developmentally, children are often not able to share until the age of four, and sometimes not until five or six. By the time kids are in school, sharing comes much easier than it did in the toddler years. But somehow, at some point, many of us forget what we learned in Kindergarten. We forget to share – or aren't even aware of others who sit at the same table.
Access to daily bread was not a given in the middle of the first century. Famine in Judea led Paul to organize a foreign assistance program, taking up a collection from the Gentile churches in Asia Minor for the hungry Jews in Judea. In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians we can read about how the people had energy and enthusiasm for raising the funds. But a year later their zeal was flagging – and some were growing resentful of the whole idea. The need was enormous. The logistics were complicated. To compound the problem, the church in Corinth was not full of warm fuzzies for Paul. This threatened to drag other churches down, and take the zip out of everybody's giving. How was he to persuade them to follow through with their commitment? He did something with which we today – two thousand years later – can readily identify. He wrote a letter. He described the generosity of one of the other churches as one to model, giving them something to emulate. He called them to put action to their rhetoric, reminding them that their ability to give comes from God. God graces us, gifts us with a generous spirit, that we might shower generosity on others.
Each Sunday we pray Thy Kingdom Come and Thy Will be Done. This prayer is a call to action, a vow to advance the values of Jesus. Jesus began his ministry by announcing, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Establishing the kindom is a responsibility – we are blessed so that we might be a blessing. In the book Praying Like Jesus, James Mulholland wrote, “If the church is not committed to changing the world, it becomes irrelevant.” Changing the world takes action. Doing justice may require us to look into the eyes of the one we would ordinarily pass by. Mulholland wrote, “We need to stop pretending the will of God is a mystery. Jesus made God's concerns clear. God wants us to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoners. God wants us committed to seeing that all of God's children receive their daily bread.” The prayer, “Give us our daily bread,” means all of us, we are all in it together. We need to use the tools at hand. One of these tools is the power of the written word.
Later in the service we will have an opportunity to use letter-writing to work toward all God's children receiving their daily bread. Since the founding of Bread for the World in 1974, thousands of congregations have taken an offering of letters as acts of worship. Jennifer Merrill will tell you in a bit about the legislation that Bread for the World is focusing on this year. We set aside time as a community each year to do this particular act of justice. Liturgy means the work of the people. It is a communal response to the grace God bestows on us. There are many ways to do this: Song, prayer, greeting one another, confession, study, reading Scripture, teaching, eating and drinking. We can also respond to God by writing to change the world. Today, in the words of Mary Pipher, we will “take pen to paper with the goal of making a difference.” We will once again link ourselves with the world community, with the world table. What motto would we pass on to those in government? Paul's motto is a good one: share abundantly.
Charitable giving is essential. But our call goes beyond charity to justice. Justice happens when we encourage those in power to share. It doesn't stop with us sharing from our pockets, but continues as we work to change systems. In working for justice, we call our government to put action to their rhetoric, to pour resources into development assistance and hunger relief. According to the founder of Bread for the World, “God . . . requires both charity and justice, and justice can often be achieved only through the mechanism of government.” Development assistance makes up less than 1% of the U.S. Budget, compared with about 50% to Defense. We would do well to remind those in government to share.
If we enjoy basic necessities such as adequate food, clothing, and shelter, then we are already richer than 75 percent of the world. Theologian Dr. Beatrice Bruteau advocates that the US use it's superpower status to care for the world's poor. She wrote, “Americans . . . need to look on our life together on this planet as a sacred shared supper: sacred because it expresses our deepest values; shared because everyone is included in contributing and benefiting; and supper because it is a matter of life, meaning, joy, nourishment, and pleasure.” Sharing what we've been given is an integral call in the Christian life, and yet we humans feel such an innate resistance to it. The motto I give my two-year-old before he plays with his friend is: Hands are for sharing--hands are not for hitting. This reminder is given frequently because it is frequently disobeyed. And isn't it true that when we use our hands for sharing, for justice, that harmony rises above violence? Many of us in the world's developed nations, the world' economic minority, are gifted with tools for sharing, such as buying extra groceries for the food bank, sponsoring children in developing countries, giving up some luxuries, seeing and listening to all those at the table, and taking pen to paper with the goal of making a difference. May we remember who we are: beloved, graced, gifted with generosity. May we share abundantly.
Praying Like Jesus, New York: HarperCollins, 2001. p. 67.
Writing to Change the World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
Praying Like Jesus, 76.
Spiritual Perspectives on America's Role as Superpower. Woodstock: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2003. p. 196-7.
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