James 3:13-4:3; Luke 12:22-34
May I speak in the name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen
It doesn’t matter how many times I hear that reading from
Luke, I love it! For me, when things are
getting tough and I really don’t know how I’ll get through the day, Jesus’
words to his disciples seem to sum up so well what Faith is all about. That wonderful knowledge that God knows what
we need, when we need it and that he will care for us.
The illustrations which Jesus uses in this passage are so
wonderfully descriptive – the feeding of the ravens, the beauty of the lilies –
images which we can still understand and see around us today. Images which so much capture the futility of
worry.
But as a human being I am a worrier. I worry about the health and welfare of my
family, I worry about whether I will catch that train on time; I worry about
writing sermons, I worry about the state of our Church today – in fact, I don’t think that I am unique; if we are all honest with ourselves then we
probably all worry about something or other at some time or other. Some of us are just that bit better at hiding
it! My parents’ view was that if you
didn’t worry then you were probably being irresponsible!
So, such a wonderful passage - yet one so difficult, in
reality, to follow. As we celebrate
harvest this year, we know that the farmers have been worried about the weather
we have experienced which has led to poor crops. In fact, it’s been a poor harvest all
round. You don’t need to be a farmer or
a devotee of the Archers to know this
– my own apple trees are testimony.
Hardly any fruit compared with last year. Yet we shall survive and we should remember
that all things have come from God and we should count our blessings for what
we do have.
I could leave it there – but in reality, God does ask us to
be prudent and use the gift of wisdom in the way we utilise the other gifts he has
given to us.
Luke’s gospel reading immediately follows the parable of the
greedy rich man who decided to build bigger and better barns to store his
bumper harvest . (I believe for those of
you here last week, Andrew used the analogy of bank accounts rather than barns
as a farmer around here has indeed built himself a bigger barn!) He does so, not out of prudency, but out of a desire to spend the
next few years living off the profits of that harvest so he can indulge himself
in the pleasures of life and put his feet up.
God tells him, you will recall, how foolish he has been to think that
way, that his life will be taken from him that night and he will never enjoy
the fruits of his greed. What use then,
to him, will be his huge barns bursting with grain?
So is Jesus saying, don’t be prudent? Is he saying, be fickle with your harvested
goods? This certainly doesn’t seem to
make much sense when you recall the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh back
in Genesis 41 – the seven fat cows and the seven thin cows – and how Pharaoh
was advised to store up the bumper harvests of the first seven years to see his
nation through the famine of the latter seven years. And we saw how that prudency led to Joseph’s
re-unification with his family. So God
is not saying we shouldn’t be prudent, he is reminding us that in seeking to
use his harvest we must do so in a responsible way and in a way which serves
his purposes.
The apostle Paul reminds us that we are the hands and feet of
God on Earth. Through God’s Spirit we
are here to serve him – to proclaim the gospel, the Good News, here on Earth,
today. God wants us to live very much in
the present – not dwell in the past nor worry about the future – you cannot change
the past (although you can learn from it) – and God will worry about the future
for us. However, to fulfil his mission
here we need to gather the resources together to do this and to use those
resources to the fullest.
At the moment, most of the churches within this Team are
embarking upon a Stewardship Campaign. It is not simply a campaign about
getting more money into the church, it is also being undertaken to gather
together other resources too – skills and talents. I, together with other preachers in the Team
over the next few weeks, am talking about these campaigns – but we are doing so
from the point of view of theological gifting not simply asking you to “up your
subscription”. In order for the church
to undertake its ministry in all its various forms successfully, it needs to
ensure that it has the resources to do so.
The church is no different from any other large organisation in that
there are monetary costs attached to maintaining its ministry. You will all
have had paperwork explaining this is detail. There are also human resourcing
implications – in other words we need more people to give their time and skills
to helping in the proclamation of the gospel.
In this Deanery, this Team has been very fortunate in being
able to donate significant sums of money in the past for outside mission, in
addition to maintaining a high level of ministry within the Clarendon
area. I recently had the enjoyable task
of reviewing the mission we are undertaking here in our Deanery and I was
delighted by what I discovered, but equally saddened by the reduction of the
numbers of people being involved. Jesus
tells us, in his Great Commission to the Disciples, that they should go out and
proclaim the gospel. Most of us here are
privileged in that we have heard the gospel and learned of God’s goodness and
grace in our lives. Now we must do Christ’s bidding and tell others. We are all being called to some form of
ministry and we must ourselves be harvested.
The last three verses of the Luke reading implore us to “Sell
your possessions and give alms. Make
purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven,
where no thief comes and no moths can destroy”. Here Jesus is impressing
upon us not to hoard our possessions but to use them for the good of the poor
and needy. He is not telling us to
literally sell everything, our
houses, cars, DVD players, iPhones etc. but he is telling us to keep only what
is necessary and important in fulfilling our duty as disciples – his followers
- towards the poor and needy – here also including those who have not yet heard
or understood the gospel.
Luke is studded with similar parables and teachings – all of which
are fundamental to our Christian Faith.
We all need to sit down, from time to time, and reflect on how we treat
our possessions – do we treat them as idols in themselves? Do we hoard possessions when we could use
them or their proceeds for the greater good of God’s mission? The Stewardship campaign is about sitting
down and reflecting on these issues. As
Nils preached in Winterslow last week – the way we handle and treat our
possessions and money is a good indicator of where we are in our own
spirituality. This was something which really
struck me personally at the time and which I repeat now. I am still reflecting
on those words.
The passage read to us from James is very strident – as is
most of that Book! I like James’s no
nonsense approach to his ministry. My
wife tells me that I can be quite a “black and white” sort of guy – from her
perspective anyway – and so James appeals to me. He certainly doesn’t pull any punches.
The part I would just, briefly, like to comment on is Verse
13 where he talks about wisdom – “Who is
wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are
done with gentleness born of wisdom...Wisdom from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits... without a
trace of hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those
who make peace”.
Wisdom comes from above; it differs from knowledge, in that
it is a gift of the Holy Spirit and cannot be learned.
In the way we apply our resources, be they money, skills, or time,
we must use wisdom. We must ask for that
holy wisdom through prayer.
During this period of the stewardship campaign, and I suggest
frequently afterwards, we should pray and reflect on how we are doing in the
way we are applying our resources. Are
we, indeed, giving enough back to God or are we hoarding those resources for no
other reason than our own self-satisfaction or self-glorification.
God does not want us to worry about ourselves but he does
want us to worry, or more correctly, care about others. He wants us to carry out his Great
Commission. Above all, he wants us to
use the gifts he has bestowed upon us for his Glory and he will repay us more
times than we can ever imagine with his love and care.
In the words of the well known harvest hymn, “All good things
around us are sent from Heaven Above, Now thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for
all his love”.
Amen
