One
of the joys of those of us who wake up early is to experience the
Outer Banks without the traffic. There are the waves that were
crashing this week as the mist and the foam were buffeted inland by
the wind to remind us that we live on a barrier island subject to the
will and power of the one who is greater than ourselves. All the
houses and streets we have constructed are put into perspective as
potentially doomed human attempts to control the world we live in.
The animals make their noises in the pre-dawn hours and, with the
breaking of the underbrush, the deer come out to graze and remind us
that every flower we think of planting they see as breakfast. There
are competing calls as the birds, foxes, and coyotes remind us that
we share this piece of earth. And there is not just one bird call but
dozens,
as if God didn’t know when to stop creating new opportunities for
joyful beauty.
Here
on the Outer Banks, there are abundant assaults on our senses - the
feel of the misty moisture of the dew and foam; the smell and taste
of the salty sea air; the sight of all of those stars, all the more
luminous thanks to our lack of street lights, which make us aware
that we are only one small planet, around one small sun in a universe
of, as Carl Sagan guessed “maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10
billion trillion stars”. He claimed he never actually said
“billions and billions” as comedians would imitate his voice. For
a while he refused to say “billions and billions” if he was asked
because it was an imprecise figure, until his last book when he
finally wrote it down as the title. But even as he wrote it he knew
that his human ability to count the stars was doomed to failure. It
is part of being human that we want to exercise limits and control,
and it is part of the divine to answer our push toward scarcity with
a rebuff of abundance.
In
the lesson from Isaiah, the exiles in Babylon are afraid to leave the
relative comfort of that which they know in Babylon to attempt the
strenuous trek across the wilderness from Babylon to Jerusalem. They
want to live within their comfort zone in captivity and God, through
the songs of Isaiah, is calling them to a new freedom. God promises
abundance for the journey, but they do not trust promises of
abundance for they only trust what they can hold in their hands. The
promise from God is that they will find water in the desert which
seems to be an impossible thing to happen. Yet, listen to the Psalm
for today which the exiles sang when they got back to Jerusalem, and
they witnessed that God had indeed kept God’s promise of abundance
and for them had restored the water in the Negev desert and:
Those
who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.
will reap with songs of joy.
Those
who go out weeping, carrying the seed, *
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
In
the Epistle Paul describes his own quest for a relationship with God.
Early in his life Paul had made the assumption that God’s love was
based on scarcity, and only those people who earned God’s approval
by following all the rules, dotting every “i” and crossing every
“t”, could establish that relationship. Paul now looks at all the
stuff he sweated over and all the medals and merit badges he earned
and considers it all a waste of time. Paul had a change of vision on
the road to Damascus, and he now lives his life out of a new vision,
looking at God through the spectacles of abundance rather than
scarcity. He is now ready to give himself away, to pour himself out,
as Christ gave himself away for others and poured himself out for
all. Paul found himself by giving himself away.
In
the Gospel lesson Jesus is the guest of the family of Lazarus, and
Mary takes a whole pound of fragrance, extraordinarily expensive
coming all the way from India, and washes Jesus’ feet with it.
Anybody with any sense knows that Jesus is running afoul of the
authorities and unless he runs out of town and hides, which he has
refused to do, it is only a matter of time before he is arrested and
tried. Luke reports that the whole house was filled with the
fragrance and wants to tell you that a drop would have done the job,
but Mary went way past abundance in her gift. Her gift was foolishly
extravagant, and then she compounds the gift by the promiscuous
uncovering and unbinding of her hair and using it to dry Jesus’
feet. Mary throws away her reputation; the scandal would be so great
that she could now not hope to have a suitable marriage. She gives
herself to Jesus and pours herself out for his life and death.
Judas
is appalled by the cost and the waste for he says the perfume could
have been sold for a year’s wages. Now, just think of how much that
might be for you - a whole year’s wages? Let’s make it easier and
just make it a month’s wages. I remember a time when Pat and I had
just started dating. She had gone on a business trip and while there
bought a fake Rolex watch for me on the street. I didn’t know the
cost of anything and don’t keep up with styles, but I thought it
was a nice watch and it was a sweet gift. About a month later, one
evening I was having dinner with the man who would, many months
later, be my best man, and he turned to me and said, “You know Tom,
your whole talk about simplicity of life just might carry a little
more sincerity if you weren’t wearing a Rolex watch!” I asked him
what he meant, and he gave me a guess of how much one would cost. I
had more than a month of my salary strapped to my wrist! I stammered
that it could not be. Pat and I had just started dating and a gift
like that was way more serious than I wanted to be at that moment. I
had not done anything to be worthy of such an outrageous gift. He
challenged me to go to the jewelry store in the mall and I agreed.
There, to my relief, the man at the counter told me it was a nice
watch, but it was not a Rolex. At that time in my life I was
operating out of a vision of scarcity and afraid that accepting a
great gift would put me in a position that I could not get even.
Jesus
accepted the gift, no stammering, no excuses, no comments about not
be worthy. Jesus operated with the economy of God where he went
beyond generosity and gave and received out of a sense of abundance.
Mary, who had had her brother Lazarus returned to her, gave out of
her vision of abundance rather than grudging scarcity.
When
I do pre-marital counseling with couples, I ask them to do a budget -
now, five years from now, and ten years from now. Usually they comply
and do a budget. However, I am not interested in the figures but in
their sense of abundance and scarcity. Most of the budgets are tight,
and they start off going from paycheck to paycheck. I usually suggest
that they start to think of something that is meaningful to them and
make a commitment to give a percentage of their money away each month
- off the top, first of the month - as an outward and visible sign of
their love and thanksgiving for each other. Giving away is the only
way to move to a vision of abundance and freedom from a vision of
scarcity. It is one of the reasons that this church has to give money
away. God knows we could use every penny we can get our hands on to
keep this institution running, but if all we see is scarcity then we
cannot see with the divine vision of abundance. We have to give or
else we start to lose our reason for being, our very soul.
The
money that we give today, the proceeds from “All Saints After
Dark”, a byproduct of people giving their time and talent so that
we might give it away, is part of our healing of vision. We give
thanks for the opportunity to give to benefit our neighbor and to
give thanks to God as our offering to this community in which we are
so blessed with God’s abundance.
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