MAGNANIMOUS ILLUSIONS

Scripture Lesson: Psalm 50

Dr. Matthew S. Brown

October 22, 2006

In the fellowship hall of a downtown Methodist church in a small southern community the wary and anxious have begun to gather. Pressed khakis, white oxfords, rep ties, blue blazers, dirty bucs or weejuns, hair combed, a touch of mousse to cure the cowlick, fingernails cleaned and clipped, the boys look like a casting call for a Brook’s Brothers commercial, well, except for the frowns and terrorized eyes that decree this to be the last place on earth they want to be.

Smocked linen, cameo lace on pink cotton, chocolate brown and ivory silk taffeta, black shantung, lavender organza, or periwinkle satin, buckles, bows, and here and there, a hint of heel. Is it the rebirth of Laura Ashley? No, because if looks could kill, every mother in the lobby would soon be modeling morgue-tagged toes. The girl’s don’t have to say a word, but the message of their eyes will not be missed. Let’s just say they do not relish their presence at this event.

It must be cotillion time for the unfortunate eleven year olds whose parents think it’s time for a little more dignity and a little less use of the shirt as a napkin; a little more refinement and a little less eating with their fingers (Isn’t it interesting that little boys are so fascinated with knives, but cannot figure out how to use one at the dinner table?); a little more sophistication in their social relationships and a little less fun with flatulence; a little more Miss Manners and a little less Captain Underpants; a little more box step and a little less spastic convulsion.

The mavens of the junior league begin calling their recalcitrant pupils to the dance floor and one terrified Tad makes a mad dash for the parking lot, while all the other prepped-up prisoners look with longing and offer a silent prayer that he makes it. Sadistic parents cluster at the doorways, necks straining to catch a glimpse of their progeny circling the floor, hand in hand, sweaty palm to sweaty palm, stiff as starched cotton, miserable as a debutante at a motorcycle rally. Dick Cheney and Senator Clinton would be more comfortable dancing with one another.

But the dance goes on and the children suffer through it. For some reason that Cotillion scene of uneasy partners dancing the dance neither of them would choose is a scene that comes to mind whenever stewardship season rolls around in the church. I preach something like 44 or 45 times a year and the one time the subject of money is mentioned in this pulpit, you know some guy’s gonna stomp off in a huff muttering something like, “All he ever talks about is money.”

Eventually, though, the subject cannot be avoided. You know it’s coming and I know it’s coming but both of us just wish it would be like an inaccurate weather forecast that just didn’t materialize. I remember hearing about the moxie of one preacher whose finance committee was pestering him to come up with a good stewardship sermon. He said, “Listen, I’ll only agree to do it once a year, but I do promise you, you won’t forget it.”

Some cynically refer to it as “the money sermon.” I was talking with my parents last Sunday afternoon, both long-time elders in the Presbyterian church and they asked about worship here and I asked about worship there, and my father said they had just returned from hearing “the money sermon.” There was no resentment or frustration in his description of the day. He had been the chair of the stewardship and finance committees before and he can read a calendar and know that Dedication Sunday’s coming. Two plus two still equals four and October Sundays still equal the lead-up to Dedication Sunday in the church.

The money sermon. Stewardship committees suggest it, preachers sweat it, and congregations brace for it like an inevitable car wreck. Well, relax, will you! You know they say that when you relax it doesn’t hurt as bad!

I’d avoid the subject altogether but to do so would be to ignore a significant portion of the Bible. If we are to speak of the Giver of life, sooner or later we must deal with the question of what to do with what we’ve been given. From Genesis to Revelation the writers do not shy away from the question of the stewardship of all of life.

Let me refute one common complaint, though. Too often, the statement is made, “All the church wants is my money.” Well, neither the Bible nor the church speaks about “your” money, but the Bible and consequently the church do not shy away from the subject of what is God’s.

The newest confession in our Book of Confessions begins with the statement, “In life and in death we belong to God.” In Romans 14:8, Paul says, “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” When we claim Christ as Lord we are acknowledging God as the giver, sustainer, and redeemer of all of life. Thus, to begrudgingly fret over giving what is ours to God is a misunderstanding of the concept of creator and creation itself.

This is the point made in the Psalm this morning, the setting of which is a court of law where God is bringing a case against all who have entered covenant with God since the covenant was founded on the mountain of the Lord in the time of Moses.

In this scene, God is the plaintiff, God is the judge, and God is the prosecuting attorney, and I don’t think a defense lawyer was invited. The defendants in the case are all the good church people, the “hasidim”, the faithful ones, us.

God has a complaint against the people:

7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. 8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me. 9 I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds. 10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. 11 I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. 12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine. 13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?”

The people are worshiping. The people are bringing offerings to God. That’s not God’s complaint. What the Lord is protesting here is the attitude that there is some transfer of property going on, that somehow, poor old Yahweh is dependent on our benevolence, that it’s our burden to prop old God up, that we have to give what is ours to God.

It is an attitude of which we have each been guilty at various times. The committee meeting, the workday, the newsletter deadline, the choir practice, the sermon, the Sunday school lesson, the all-church mailing, the visit, the Bible study, the offering plate – With loud sighs, and hands to forehead we project the burden we bear in giving what is ours to God – our time, our talent, our treasure. “Aren’t I so responsible, so magnanimous, so long-suffering in giving what is mine to God!” My time, my talent, my treasure.

But wait a minute!!! If God is the Creator and Lord of life, isn’t it all God’s to begin with? Aren’t our time, our talent, and our treasure not really our possessions, but God’s blessing to us? Isn’t every breath I breathe, even those self-serving sighs, a gift from God in the first place? Therefore, our offerings are not an act of benevolence but an act of gratitude.

Here again the words of the great Prosecutor:

12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine. . . . 14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. 15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

We do not sustain God. God sustains us. So let us make our lives a thank-offering to God.

When we truly recognize a gift that has been received, there is something in us that pushes us to want to do everything in our power to honor that gift. And yes, sometimes we recognize the gift a bit too late. A friend, a child, a parent dies and then we finally recognize what a gift that person was, and we are overwhelmed with the impulse to do something, something big, to honor the gift that was that person. Run a marathon, bike across the country as a pedaling poster board raising awareness and funds to honor a person’s name and fund a scholarship or medical research, start library, build a building,, write a song, poem, book. We’d give anything to honor that gift, the gift of a life that came from God.

When we finally recognize a gift, we want to do everything in our power to honor it.

Dick Hoyt, according to my man at Sport’s Illustrated, Rick Reilly, has “pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons [85 times]. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars — all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?”

Forty-three years ago, Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. Of course, the parents were given the stereotypical assessments and predictions – i.e. “He’ll always be a vegetable, how about a good institution?” But the Hoyts learned that Rick’s eyes would follow them around the room.

When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."

"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."

Well, Dad was a self-described porker and couch potato, so 5 miles seemed like a hundred. But he suffered through it and that day changed Rick’s life and Dick’s when Rick used his head to type in this sentence. “Dad, when we were running it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore.”

When you realize the gift, you want to do everything to honor it. 85 marathons. 212 triathlons, including 8 Ironman Triathlons (that’s a 2.4 mile swim – pulling a boat, 112 miles with his son on a handlebar seat, 26.2 miles pushing a loaded chair, all in about 15 hours). In a way that only Rick Reilly could put it, “It must be a real buzzkill to be a 25-year old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?”

When you realize the gift, you want to do everything to honor it. What are you doing to honor the Giver of every good and perfect gift? (Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated)

The other day I had one of those private teary Daddy moments when you realize what a gift your children are and you’re driven to your knees (maybe not literally, I was driving at the time) with the prayer that you would somehow honor God for the gift.

The Confession of 1967 proclaims, “Life is a gift to be received with gratitude and a task to be pursued with courage.”

You’ve been given a gift. How will you honor the giver?

Through the love of God and the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit we have been given the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in a field. Whatever we would offer to God would be miniscule compared to what God has offered to us, and it was God’s to begin with anyway.

14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. 15 Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Amen.

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