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"Gratitude For Stuff Or Spirit?" Sermon Preached By Rev. Richard E. Stetler - November 23, 2003 Revelation 1:4b-9; John 18:33-33
Jesus responded to Pilate,
"My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to
this world my followers would fight to keep me from being handed
over to the authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!" Not
only is his answer abundantly clear, but he stated it to Pilate
twice. Jesus kingdom is not of or about our material world.
Why is there so much confusion about this? Actually, the
history of our co-mingling God's presence, activity, and will with
the physical aspects of our lives is quite extensive. For example, in the first
book of Samuel we remember the story of Hannah who was deeply
distressed because she was barren. One day she was praying so long
and fervently at Shiloh that Eli, the priest, thought she was
intoxicated. After some discussion, she convinced Eli that she was
not drunk. When Eli learned why she was praying, he said to her, "Go
in peace and may the God of Israel grant you what you ask." She rose
after the priest's blessing and returned home. (I Samuel 1:9f)
Hannah delivered a son and
she named him Samuel. She had every right to believe that God had
been so convinced by her pleas that her request was granted. Is
that what God did, or was it that Hannah changed her anxious,
fear-ridden energy pattern after receiving Eli's blessing, a
blessing which perhaps made it easier for her to release her fear
allowing her body to conceive? Part of the dilemma of
believers is learning and knowing how to separate the stuff
of the material world from the evolving spirit by which we
live. We want God to be involved in our lives and yet there are
moments when we also can feel completely abandoned when God appears
absent. Such a faith response is unfair to ourselves and unfair to
God. We so much want God to be what God is not.
We plead for God to open the
right door for a job that best suits our talents, to bring into our
lives a person who will love us, to bring peace to our troubled
world, and, yes, to bless America. The question we resist answering
is this: "Does the God who is the same yesterday, today and
forever, bless one and not another, bring some couples together and
obviously not others, help us find the right house to purchase while
allowing others to live in public housing, enable some students to
score well on their final examinations without helping others who
also long to succeed?" Does it come as a new awareness
to us that Jesus answered Pilate twice, "No, my kingdom is not of
this world?" We want it both ways and can cite dozens of miracle
stories that suggest that God does lavish material blessings on the
faithful. The truth stands, however, that the world from which Jesus
came features a very different consciousness from the one that desires
the stuff of creature comforts. While in the garden, even
Jesus did not receive the answer he would have preferred. In spite of
their faithfulness, all but one disciple died a martyr's death.
What, then, should inspire our
gratitude during this season of Thanksgiving? Our stuff?
Is
our joy for living based on our abundance of stuff or is it
because we have evolved into beings who understand where our true power
lies? Some of you may have read the
story about the woman and her two children who were left behind because
her husband was killed as a passenger on the large troop-carrying
helicopter that went down in Iraq several weeks ago. She said,
I could be angry and devastated but that is
not where I am right now. I have been told that such strong emotions
are quite normal. Such feelings, however, would not hasten the healing
of my broken heart or bring my husband back to us. A huge piece of my
life is now gone, but I am so grateful that I have other pieces that are
still in tact: my faith and my two children.
She has the skill of acceptance when she
came face to face with a life issue that she could not change. There was a family who lost
their home in the recent fires in California. Their pets, their four
horses and their livestock all perished. The husband said, When God made us, He built into
us flexibility and resiliency. Many of us have moments
when everything caves in at once. This is one of those times for us. We
have lived here for 15 years and we are not going to allow one fire to
wipe out those memories. We intend to build again.
His power of faith was
preventing him from allowing one horrible moment to erase all the
wonderful life experiences that had become part of a much larger
tapestry. What becomes abundantly clear
in these episodes is the control we have over our emotions, thinking and
spirit when we, too, understand that our real treasure is not found in
the stuff of this world, stuff that thieves can easily
break in and steal. In these two life dramas those thieves were
death and fire. But, thieves can also come in many different forms,
e.g. divorce, illness, losses of every kind, low self-esteem, failure,
etc.
When our identities are tied to the stuff
of this world, we have very little. This is why all terrorists
remain spiritual infants.
When they commit suicide in the name of whatever goals they hold, even
the little they had has been taken away. It is impossible for humanity
to build a better world on a foundation of hate, fear and violence.
Regardless of how noble they believe their cause to be, they walk in
darkness. They know not what they do. This Thanksgiving let us
remember with gratitude that we can change our world and our
circumstances by changing our attitude about them. Jesus brought to
the earth the awareness of a world we cannot see. In that sense he is
our king. We only know the results of living in his kingdom when we
experience the reality of what Jesus taught.
When we bring into our life's circumstances kindness, laughter and joy as well as values that are timeless, we can be that eternal flame that burns brightly in tornado winds. We can be the leaven that causes the entire batch of dough to rise. These are the things that remain, even when all else is stripped away from us. These are the spiritual treasures that no thief can break in and steal. THE PASTORAL PRAYER Loving God, every year we approach the season
of Thanksgiving with reflective hearts and minds. We are led to recall
the new frontiers that greeted those seeking religious freedom. We
remember the meal shared between the residents of America and the
pilgrims. We recall the harsh winter, the death and disease that
stalked the early colonists perhaps causing them to doubt why they ever
left the comforts they once knew. Each of us always experience stretch marks on
our consciousness when we try what we have never done, when we take
challenging steps of faith knowing it is easier to stay with the
responses of our youth or when we experience the pain of not having the
skills to cope with what is now confronting us. O God, thank you for
the life and teachings of Jesus, whose testimony about another world
inspires us to live more confidently in a realm that fills our physical
senses. Thank you for the timeless values he pointed to. Thank you for
what happens to us when we have the courage to follow him. Just as the early travelers to these shores had their successes and failures, so do we. Yet we persevere, knowing that your will is being done in ways we cannot see. May we always remain humble as your spirit pours through us into a world that needs light and understanding. We pray these thoughts of gratitude through the spirit of Jesus who taught us to say when we pray . . . |