“No Fear”

August 7-8, 2010

Pr. Tom Schoenherr

 

      Jesus is meddling! He’s meddling in our money affairs. “Don’t be afraid…sell your possessions, and give alms.” (Alms are mercy gifts to the poor or people in need.) How can Jesus say this? Does he know what kind of recession we have been in? Does he know the cost of living today? How can we survive if we sell our possessions? Those possessions include some very dear things to us, including our money.

 

      I am coming near to retirement. This a time when we need to hang on to our possessions, especially our money, because we may run out of money unless we protect it and take care of it. We realize that we have invested our lives in our possessions. Pastor John talked last week about “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” That’s where our hearts are, banking on our treasure to save us, to get us through life.

 

      We are afraid to give it away, of trusting God, to risk having nothing to fall back on. In spite of how we may talk about our possessions, we are possessed by them and we are confronted by God in the First Commandment and Explanation, “You shall have no other gods”. What does this mean? “We are to fear, love and trust God above anything else.” In effect we have made our possessions and our money our god.

 

      It is hard for us to say it, but if we take Jesus seriously, we are idolaters. We keep our ears and eyes attuned to the direction of the market and our pension plans. We are afraid of what would happen if we didn’t. Our heart and treasure are not in heaven but are in what we trust, the god of money. And we are not alone. It is part of how our society is built and how it functions. We are caught in a system that keeps us directed into fear and scarcity. Will there be enough for us? We can never really rely on God. We need to rely on ourselves and our possessions, and continuing to live in this myth of scarcity only keeps us in fear, hoarding more and more. We don’t understand Jesus.

 

      But Jesus says God is coming at an unexpected time. We need to be prepared, be ready for the return of the Master or the thief who breaks into our house to take our treasure. But our possessions can’t save us and the Kingdom that God gives us we have refused because we want to hold on to our possessions, our money. Left in our fear we have no hope. Hearing these words of Jesus, I am afraid of letting go of what has become my god, and I am afraid of what I have become.

 

      Do you remember when Jesus fed the 5000 and the 4000 with a little bread and a few fish? Jesus asks the disciples later on, “When I fed the 5000, how many baskets were left over?” They answered “12”. “When I fed the 4000 how many baskets were left over?” They answered “7”. When Joseph was in Egypt in charge of food distribution during the famine, God worked through Joseph in order to provide enough food for God’s people and there was enough. As we live in the gracious loving Kingdom of God, there is enough, and more than enough for everyone. Professor of Old Testament, Walter Brueggemann, uses the Hebrew word, “Dayenu”, there is enough in God’s goodness.

 

      The heart of Jesus is with us. We are Christ’s treasure and for us he is raised from death to forgive and heal us, and by God’s grace God gives us the Kingdom. The kingdom is the activity of God’s grace and love. It is not about getting what is fair or what we deserve. The Kingdom is about grace.

 

      We are part of God’s “little flock” in the world. That is God’s promise to you and me. We don’t have to live by grasping and holding on to our possessions. They don’t save us. God saves us through faith in Jesus Christ. We can bank on the treasure that is ours forever, the grace and mercy of God. Abram received the promise of God that he would be the father of a great nation, but now 15 years later, Abram is still childless. God promises again and Abram believes God’s promise and becomes the father of a great nation.

 

      So, we are set free from fear and being anxious about tomorrow. The future is in God’s hands. In the face of all of our fears about today and tomorrow, God is holding on to us, and we are in God’s flock forever. Now we can be engaged in the way of God’s kingdom, sharing, giving, loving as God has given the Kingdom to us.

 

      This past week we heard of 40 billionaires, including Warren Buffet and Bill Gates,   are giving away half of their incomes. Some of the letters that they wrote in expressing their interest in participating in this plan show their joy in being able to give away money for the purpose of helping other people.

 

      Those billionaires have lots more money and their lifestyles will probably not be changed as a result of their giving away wealth.  The widow who gives two pennies gives more than these billionaires for, Jesus says, she gives all she has. We are able to see our money and possessions as gifts from God. We don’t have to live out of scarcity, wondering if there will be enough for us. We can risk sharing what we have trusting that there will be enough. We have been given our lives and our possessions for the purpose of serving our neighbor.

 

      When in the rest of our lives we see that people and things are being taken from us, when life is changing in ways we never imagined, when our losses seem greater than our gains, like for the families who lost children in the terrible accident on I-44 this past week, we still live in God’s promise of grace for our lives and for our community of faith. We are always in God’s hands and he invites us to risk everything, trusting in the promise that God is there for us and God will hold on to us. “Don’t be afraid. Dayenu! There is enough for all.”