SHARING SERMONS …

 “Toward Humility with Thanksgiving”

Ecclesiasticus 10:12-18; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8; Luke 14:1,7-14
Sermon preached by Geoff Reeson at Advent – St. Nicholas
on Sunday, September 2, 2007

      Creation indicates one of the differences between God and I. God is able to create and set humans free. Somehow, in a capacity which I can only call trust, God’s creatures are allowed to be free. God’s gifts are free. This is done at considerable risk to the person created, and to God’s own “peace of mind.” And yet, that appears to be the nature of the story of Creation – that freedom is of such necessity that the risk of irresponsibility as well as the hope of responsible use of the gifts must be a possibility. One of the conclusions that I draw from this is that God, in giving a gift, releases control over the recipient and over the gift itself. The gifts become ours when God gives them. Life is mine to use or misuse. So is what we consider that which is ours and with which we can do what we choose. We, as human beings, are free to disobey. The misuse of creation becomes a free option. God really gives us gifts with no strings attached. With that in mind I would like to share with you some thinking on the starting point for being able to live out the teachings of this morning’s Scripture readings, which, at heart, have to do with the gifts that we each are and have in the service of others.

     The traditional sense of what we do with what we have been given, would say that we have temporary control over something which belongs to someone else. That is true, yet I also believe that God trusts us enough to give us, among other things, what we consider we own, including our personal and social conduct. God, in giving gifts, operates on the basis of a radical freedom.

     A theologian once observed that the Bible is a love story which begins with a divorce. The fact that we remain free to be disobedient, to be separate, to be alienated concerned with and living for ourselves, is a part of the nature of God and the nature of the freedom given to us. The biblical history of humankind is the history of our attempt to come to grips with our own personal and social conduct in the face of God’s gift of freedom.

     The call for our response is reiterated as a part of the biblical story, communicated through prophets and preachers, through events and evangelists, and finally and most fully, through the person of Jesus Christ. We are created and redeemed to be free. We are called to use our freedom in response to God’s loving purposes. This is the nature of the human pilgrimage. It is also the nature of what we do with what has been given to us.

     I have come to believe that the gifts God has given us become ours. Now, what that means is that God, through the Incarnation, is at our disposal. God also puts creation at our disposal. One of the results of this in a sinful world is that creation is misused as Jesus is crucified and God suffers. Nevertheless, our Creator does not revoke the promise or gift. Ultimately, God will bring goodness and resurrection out of sin and death. But the freedom remains a part of the gift of God.

     To believe that what I have is really mine, in a paradoxical way, increases my own sense of responsibility for its appropriate use. Whether this applies to what I do with my life or my possessions, the same truth prevails. I am confronted with both the opportunity and the necessity of exercising my own human control over what God has placed at my disposal. That increases, not diminishes, the sense of responsibility which I have.

     This brings me to share putting it in another way: you really only possess what you can dare to give away. Otherwise, it possesses you. If I cannot dare to give away my time, I am possessed by time. If I cannot dare to offer what I consider I own because it is under my control, it possesses me; I do not possess it. The nature of freedom is discovered by the very ability both to be able to use responsibly what I consider is mine and also to discover the extent to which I can give away the sum total of myself and my possessions. As Christians we believe that the unique event of such self-possession and self-giving, took place in the person of Jesus Christ. Theologians tell us that he possessed his life to such a full extent that he was, therefore, able to offer it completely.

     My sense of possession, ownership, and offering is modest and meager in comparison to the person of Jesus Christ. I am still enslaved as an “owner”, a “possessor” of things, people, in short, of power. Nevertheless, the good news of Jesus Christ is an invitation to learn a new freedom through finding ways in which I am not possessed by things external, but am empowered to give them up.

     What I believe I have come to learn is, for me at least, a profound theological truth, not simply a matter of human relationships or ownership management. There is ample evidence that the reality is as true for human relationships as it is for ownership management, but the reality is based in God and not solely related to an inventory of what I possess. What ability I discover to be able to give is a gift which has been received by the mercy and grace of God declared in Christ Jesus. It is only by God’s gracious gift that I can be made to be free to be the giver God wants me to be in my personal and social conduct. I do not have the power to do so, except as I receive that power from God as a gift. Such awareness leads the Christian toward humility with thanksgiving symbolized in offering. It is in that light that I hear this morning’s Scripture readings. Ownership of possessions is not in itself evil. Rather, it becomes an addiction when it robs me of the ability to give, to make offering, to be freed from the bondage to what I consider is mine.

     Friends, ours is a trusting relationship in response to a loving God. It is a relationship in which we can recognize that we have been given much. The faithful use of those gifts is the stuff of which life and offering is made.

     It is hard to let go of things. But that is the real test of whether they possess you or you possess them. It is what Nicodemus was told by Jesus when inquiring about the things of God: “I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” i.e. appropriating as the model for my personal and social conduct what my Christian faith is grounded in, i.e. that “God so loved the world that God gave [up] God’s only Son, so that all who believe in him may not be lost but may have eternal life” (John 3:3,16). Amen.