John 6:25-35

When they found [Jesus] on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

As many of you know, things are tougher than usual in Haiti these days. Our friends in Fondwa – up in the mountains – are safe, as far as I know, from the political unrest and from the gangs who seem to have overrun so much of life in the neighborhoods in and around the capital of Port au Prince.

But our friends in Fondwa are heavy on my mind these days – and this week, in particular – as it revolves so much around food and abundance and counting our blessings. In the last couple of months there has been a food crisis, even up in the mountains of Fondwa. Even though they’re physically safe from and don’t have to interact with the gangs and the protests and the unrest in the city, all of that has impacted their ability to transport food and supplies and other necessities up the mountain. (Ships haven’t been able to port, gas stations haven’t been able to get or sell gas, people can’t get into or out of the city to move goods and supplies from one place to the next.)

Because of that, Zanmi Fondwa has been trying to raise money – not just for houses, lately – but to help with the resulting food crisis. When Luckner, our Director of Operations in Fondwa, who is also one of the most positive, optimistic, hopeful, humble, faithful people I’ve known says that it’s as bad as he’s seen it, it gets your attention.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot the last few days about the fact that our Haitian friends have told us $40.00 is enough money to buy a household in Fondwa enough rice and oil – and maybe some beans – to feed them for a month. And, if you’ve been to Fondwa, you know that “household” is a nebulous term. It could mean anywhere from 4 to 6 or 8 to 10 or more family members, in many cases. $40.00. Rice and oil. For a month.

The fact that we also chose $40.00 as the price point for our Food Pantry Thanksgiving Meal ministry isn’t lost on me. We gave families who signed up – also regardless of their size – a turkey, a pie, cans of corn, beans, gravy, rolls, potatoes, stuffing, and more. Like my Thanksgiving meal and yours, the quality and calories of that single meal is more than my Haitian friends will consume in weeks.

I’m not poo-pooing any of it. Both are beautiful expressions of generosity and provision. It’s all relative and meaningful. It’s just a healthy, holy, faithful dose of perspective for me as I prepare to eat my fair-share of gratitude on Thursday and to count my blessings in the days to come. And tonight – and this week – and every day that we can manage it, is about taking none of that for granted.

Because the practice of giving thanks from a Christian, faithful kind of perspective isn’t so much about national pride or patriotism. The practice of giving thanks, of counting our blessings, even in the face of sadness and struggle – of acknowledging God’s abundance even in the face of what can feel like scarcity for us or for others – is an act of faith, pure and simple. Gratitude is a Christian discipline that points to God’s power – and our desire to trust that power – whether we’re feeling blessed or burdened at any given moment.

And, while having enough to eat isn’t a struggle for most of us, you and I might feel more blessed by God’s provision or more burdened by its lack, depending on the day. Just in the last couple of days, I’ve prayed to God and had conversations with some of you about successful surgeries and about sad and scary diagnoses; about new, blossoming relationships and about relationships that are struggling; about new life being born and about lives being lost too soon. There are joys and sorrows, challenges and celebrations,¬¬¬ everywhere you look.

And, in tonight’s Gospel, what Jesus seems to be inviting those people to – the ones who were chasing him down all around Galilee – is a holy kind of perspective about life and faith in the middle of it all. He reminds them about how the Israelites – lost and wandering around in the wilderness – were fed with the manna that came down from heaven. And he wants them to know that, in the same way, he has come to feed the world – lost and wandering in our own kind of wilderness, still – with a different kind of bread.

It’s bread that fills us, literally, like so much rice for our friends in Haiti. And it’s a different kind of bread that fills them – and us, too – with the promise of forgiveness and redemption and hope, in spite of whatever sins and sadness and struggle any of us faces from day to day.

It’s no small thing that Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed – to be crucified, killed and buried – “took bread, blessed it and broke it, GAVE THANKS, and gave it to his disciples.” And he did the same thing with the cup – GAVE THANKS, I mean – before sharing the new covenant in his own blood, that was about to be poured out for the sake of the world. Even as he looked ahead to the way they would betray and deny him. Even as he looked ahead to his own crucifixion, Jesus had faith enough to give thanks.

Which is how we’re called to be today, on Thursday, and every day, as God’s people on the planet – find ways to be grateful in the face of whatever comes our way, which is something I’ve learned from the people of Fondwa over the years:

- To give thanks, not just for what we have, but for the Truth that God has us, always.

- To give thanks, not just that God meets our needs, but that God is our only need, really.

- To give thanks, not just that we have been blessed in some way, but that God uses us to be a blessing in return.

- To give thanks, not because all is right with our world, but that God is bigger than whatever is wrong.

- To give thanks, not because we are better off than so many others who have it worse, but to give thanks that whatever and wherever we are in the grand scheme of things can be “enough” – by God’s grace – if we will allow it to be.

- And to give thanks because the discipline of it changes our perspective and it softens our hearts. It turns darkness to light, scarcity into abundance, sorrow into joy, despair into hope, fear into faith – and more – because of God’s deep love for us all.

Amen

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

I was part of something pretty great this weekend … and I’m making no bones about that fact that this sermon is a shameless, thinly-veiled excuse to brag about my wife and some of her newest friends. (Based on the Gospel we just heard, I hope it also has something to say about the practice of faithful giving and generosity, too.)

Christa and I are just back from Chicago where she competed in her first, ever, dragon boat race with the club of paddlers she been a part of, recently. It’s a club of women who train three times a week up on Geist Reservoir and compete a few times a year at festivals and races in places like Chicago, Kentucky, Orlando, and sometimes, even, internationally.

Apparently, “dragon boat racing” originated in China a couple thousand years ago and the boats look like this:

They’re about 40 feet long and only four feet wide and, at least in this case, of 20 women, paired-up, side-by-side, paddle in tandem, while someone bangs a drum and barks orders from the bow and someone else stands on the stern and steers, or rather, keeps them on the straight and narrow, and in their lane, headed for the finish line.

But, more important than all of that, the group of women with whom Christa paddles are all breast cancer survivors – their club is call the Indy Survive-Oars – and they do their thing as much for the exercise and physical therapy that the motion of paddling provides their bodies, as they do for the sisterhood, camaraderie, friendship and encouragement they share as so many of them continue to fight and recover from their respective breast cancer battles. It’s one of those special things that is as practical as it is holy.

Anyway, with today’s Gospel on the brain, and with this reminder from Jesus about paying attention to and living differently because of what really matters, I noticed some common ground between these Survive-Oars and the way we’re all called to live where our giving and generosity are concerned as followers of Jesus.

For one thing, looks can be deceiving. I couldn’t believe some of the shapes and sizes of the many women who showed up to paddle yesterday. Their bodies have been utterly transformed by their cancer – and the surgeries and interventions it takes to treat it. You would expect some of them to complete the walk from their car to the staging area – but they were still going strong all the way to the finish. Others looked lean and mean, like they’d done this a million times before, but they were huffing and puffing their way through as much of it as any of them. Christa’s own, mostly rookie crew of Survive-Oars, with all of their battered and broken, mended and mending bodies, surprised, even their coach, by beating much more experienced paddlers.

And I’ve seen the same around here, over the years, where giving is concerned. There are individuals and families who simply don’t have the resources that others have. I know it because of what they do for work, because of where they live, because of a million circumstances that many would use – for very good reason – not to give as generously, or as much, or as often. But, like that poor widow from another Gospel story – the one who had nothing to give except everything she had, while the rich folks dropped in their leftovers – some people give selflessly, sacrificially, generously, gratefully, in ways that are surprising, inspiring, humbling, and uncommonly faithful.

Another thing I noticed this weekend is that, like with so many hard things that matter, temptations to stop – or never start in the first place – are everywhere. I’m impressed every time Christa leaves the house on a Monday, Wednesday and Saturday for regular paddling practice. After long days at work. With so many easier, more fun and relaxing things to do; never knowing when the side-effects from her meds will strike; there are lots of reasons to just NOT. And I know so many others from her team are very literally in the same boat, but they show up, practice after practice, nonetheless.

And, don’t we all know about temptations when it comes to what or whether we give to the Church or store up more treasures for ourselves? There’s always something better or easier or more fun to do than to give away our time and our talent and our money. We’re constantly tempted to just do what we’ve always done, or give less than we know we could, or to do nothing at all because “he” or “she” or “they” aren’t, or because someone else will surely take care of it – and who’s really going to notice, know, or care anyway? Temptation toward greed is everywhere, as Jesus reminds us, and so much of it has to do with how we use – or don’t use – our money in ways that are a blessing for others and pleasing to God.

Playing along with this will take you places you’ve never been before or ever thought you’d ever be. Christa had never thought about “dragon-boating” in her whole life. And new things are awkward and feel risky and can be downright scary when you’re her age. (She’s older than me, remember!) But strong, faithful people do brave, courageous things when their very life has actually been demanded of them.

And that’s nothing more or less than what Jesus’ parable asks of us as Capitalists, trained to want more, to save more, to have more. He’s always calling us to do a new thing; believe a new thing; try a new thing where our money is concerned by storing up less of it for ourselves; by giving it away more generously; by sharing it with the world around us; and by watching what God will do with it – and us – along the way.

It’s hard to stop once you’ve started. In a boat full of other paddlers, it seems to me it’s hard to quit. You have a coach encouraging you. You have teammates helping you along and to whom you are beholden. And once you’re moving, the current and the wind (on a good day) and your own momentum and adrenaline must help keep things moving forward.

I hope the same is true when it comes to being generous. Someone, somewhere said once that they had never met an ex-tither. And as far as I know, that’s been my experience, too. When it comes to stewardship in the Church, the reason ex-tithers are rare, is because the experience of giving proportionately is as rewarding and as life-changing as God promises it will be. Tithing – or giving away any significant portion of your income – can be like committing to something so practical and holy that it changes your perspective in a way you’re not willing to stop, or slow down, or go back on once you’ve seen the impact of it on your life and the places to which you give your money.

Commitment matters. When Christa signed up for this new hobby, it became pretty clear that the team was counting on her and on each other to show up. Again, for really practical reasons, they need to know who’s going to be there and when – especially for a competition – so they can balance the boats according to the size, shape, weight, experience and the ability of each paddler.

Too many of us, when it comes to making our financial commitments aren’t sure we want to be counted on; or beholden to; or committed to someone or something outside of ourselves or our own family’s needs. But faith calls us to trust not in our own willingness or ability to give, but in God’s willingness, power and desire to provide – not just dollars and cents, but to provide the generous hearts and open hands to share it. And in God’s Church, just like on a dragon boat, everyone’s commitment matters – no matter the size, shape, weight or experience – because it helps us plan and prepare for how to use what we have and because it reminds us that we’re all in this boat together, too.

And lastly, we’re called to do this because we GET TO, not because we HAVE TO. None of these Survive-oars are out there because they have to be. They’re not under contract. They’re not getting paid. There are no endorsements or expectations from anyone but themselves. It seems to me they do this because they’ve had to imagine more seriously than most of us that there was a time when they almost wouldn’t have had the option – their lives were very much being demanded of them, not so long ago.

In the same way, the commitments we offer are between us and Jesus. We are challenged by each other, by our Pastor, I hope, and by the needs we see around us in this place and in the world. But ultimately, our offerings are to be made with prayerful consideration for our own needs, God’s desire and only with thanksgiving and as much generosity as we can muster – because we CAN and because we have so much for which to be thankful.

I was so impressed and inspired by what those women were up to yesterday – surviving their illness, choosing the hard road toward healing and wholeness, loving, supporting, encouraging, and challenging each other to do more and better with what they’ve been given, and being grateful – above all else, it seems – for the simple, profound, second chance to do any of it.

Our lives and our discipleship could be transformed by following their example. And one of the most practical places to start paddling – and so much easier by comparison, if we’re honest – is by giving away – not storing up – more of what has first been given to us by the gracious hand of the God we know in Jesus.

Amen

Joy, Discipline and Perspective of Gratitude

Dragon Boats and Faithful Stewardship