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David Orendorff   Luke 12:32-34     August 15, 2010

Today’s scripture is obviously about divine pleasure, human fear and our possessions (or what we assume is ours). I think the most striking content of the first verse is that it is Abba’s pleasure to give us the kingdom. Abba does not give the kingdom to us begrudgingly. Nor does Abba give the kingdom to us because we have earned it. Abba gives the kingdom to us because to do so gives Abba good pleasure.

This should alleviate our fears before God and life. But sadly, even the best of us sometimes fears, and in our fear we turn from Abba to stuff, forgetting that it is Abba who gives and sustains our lives and not us, and certainly not our stuff.

Last week I talked about God, us and our possessions as well. And no, we are not in the midst of a stewardship campaign, though we are in need of a fusion of funds through the long, financially dry summer. I am preaching on our stuff again for three reasons:

• I am a lectionary preacher and this scripture is the one assigned for today by the international and interdenominational committee;
• More importantly, because Jesus preached about how the love of stuff is the most serious impediment to a healthy trust of God and is a serious threat to the quality of our relationships, and is the thief of true joy.
• And I am preaching about God and stuff because I am committed to preaching even from the words I wish Jesus hadn’t said. What good is it to seek meaning in God’s word only when it’s comfortable?

Jesus obviously thought confronting the false god named stuff was important. Misuse of wealth is one of the few things for which Jesus has no tolerance and which even makes him angry. Good stewardship, the right attitude and the right use of God’s creation, is at the very center of Jesus’ teachings.

When I first began to work on this sermon I had nothing to say. I prayed my usual prayer and waited for a day or two before optimistically writing, “Dear God, give me words to comfort the weary.” Usually, after having studied and meditated on the scripture for a week, an outline flows. But by the Wednesday when I should have been done with a draft and on to polishing, there was no outline, no idea, nothing but silence. So after sitting in the silence and fearing I would have no sermon, I prayed again.

God, for 30 years you have told me what to say and helped me say it. What would you have me tell your children? What would you say to me?

I held my pencil over my writing tablet, waiting. Then I simply wrote the words that came. Here they are, unedited:

Tell them this: I am everything they need. I am the fruit of the earth. I am breathing in and breathing out. I am love itself. All other things are false gods that will destroy. Only my love can save.

And in my love I give myself freely. You can have it all. All means all. What you truly need is yours, all of it. You need bread for your table? I give it to you. You need love for your heart? I give it to you. You need health? I give it to you, even in and beyond death. I am your greatest treasure.

Though everything is Abba’s, Abba chooses to freely give us the kingdom. We don’t have to be afraid. We can be generous. We can make the treasure of our hearts the love of God and not the stuff from God. In the fear of life we have been trained to think our salvation and the kingdom lie in the stuff of life, the things and status that make us rich and respected. But this treasure is false and leads us to hell.

Oddly, Jesus has the sociologists on his side. In 1956 a survey was done which measured two things; how much stuff we had and how happy we were. Forty years later, in 1996, the same survey was repeated. And though we had twice as much stuff, we were half as happy-twice as much stuff and half as happy.

Other research by the Pew Memorial Trust reveals these startling statistics. Ninety percent of divorcees say there were battles over money and that money played a major role in divorce. In 1996 there were one million filings for bankruptcy. In 2009 there were nearly 1,400,000 filings for bankruptcy, almost a 40% increase in just six years. And the number of those who are losing it all continues to rise.

From childhood we are inundated with messages that teach that salvation is in having stuff. By the time our children are 20 they will have seen more than one million commercials. Our children are learning from us to seek spiritual needs in material ends. So, when they are blue and bored, they go to the mall, the temple of stuff. Self esteem, worth and value are defined by the right label on your shoes.

This false salvation is not only deadly to our joy, it is killing our children. Though our kids have more stuff than any other generation, the suicide rate for teens continues to rise.

The lust can kill in other ways. My niece Shayna is one and a half years old. At one year old she had a liver transplant. She will be on anti-rejection drugs the rest of her life. On their recent visit my niece and her husband told us that one of the major risks for Shayna, should she reach adolescence, is that she will stop taking her anti-rejection drugs because they puff up her face and she will think they make her unattractive. Turns out this is a too-common problem among girls like Shayna, and they trade their lives for looking good by stopping their medication or becoming bulimic or anorexic, all for stuff.

More stuff, less joy. More stuff, more hell. Still, in spite of the facts, most of the people who live around us and among us believe their security and joy lies in having stuff. But in spite of Jesus’ warnings and sociologist’s and researcher’s confirmations, we shiver, get frightened, and find ways to avoid or soft petal the conflict Jesus’ words are sure to bring when he says:

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

It is such a simple thing to say. It is so clear and cuts so sharply. God is God. Stuff is not God, but a gift from God. If we give our hearts to stuff we not only miss the kingdom that has been given to us, we find ourselves increasingly in a spiritual hell. But if we are frugal in our personal lives and generous in our public lives, doing acts of compassion as Jesus did, giving our hearts to the love of God and stuff to the healing of the world, then we have the treasure that makes our lives heavenly.

I have used the word “generous” several times. For concrete thinkers among us, “generous” needs to be defined so it is not just a perennially subjective preference. Biblically, “generous” is defined as greater than 10% of our harvest or income. In Methodism we have a more processed definition in quoting John Wesley’s, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.” For the early Methodists generous meant living simply so others could receive the gift of life. In our consumer society “generous” is denying ourselves something we want for what someone else needs. The bottom line is that only individually do we know what is generous to us. But generous can never mean giving the leftovers.

It is only right that, as we consider generosity, we consider how generous God is with us. Jesus, speaking for Abba the creator and true owner of all stuff, says, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” God gives us everything. Thomas Merton says it this way:

Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that He is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. It’s impossible. It’s simply impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.

Notice that Merton does not say that we can’t see it, but that we don’t see it. Fortunately and graciously we have the opportunity to see it all the time if we will but see that it is our Abba’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Julie Manhan tells of a God being seen by a small boy and an old woman.

There once was a little boy who wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of root beer and he started his journey.

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an old woman. She was sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons. The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her a Twinkie. She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a root beer. Once again she smiled at him. The boy was delighted!

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.

As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman and gave her a hug. She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.

She asked him, “What did you do today that made you so happy?”

He replied, “I had lunch with God.” But before his mother could respond, he added, “You know what? She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!”

Meanwhile, the old woman also radiant with joy, returned to her home.

Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and he asked, “Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?”

She replied, “I ate Twinkies in the park with God.” But before her son responded, she added, “You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”[1]

It is not hard to see that our Abba is generous and takes pleasure in giving to us the kingdom. By God’s pleasure we need not fear, but be grateful for our many gifts from God, be generous in sharing our root beer and Twinkies with strangers. We can know that God is love and that when we love generously, no matter who we love, we see, know and reveal God. We are surrounded by the simple wonders of grace and love. Such gifts are from God, who is our treasure, and it is in God that our hearts belong and we find a joyful peace. It is Abba’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

Shalom and Amen.