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Thankful Living
Last week, my husband, Mike , braved his fear of heights and climbed on our roof to do his annual fall cleaning of the gutters. While he was up there, he moved our TV antenna higher on the house, from the second to the third floor. We had sketchy reception for a couple of years now, and since the digital conversion change in June, we have been completely without TV reception. We’ve watched DVDs, and sometimes I stream TV shows online, but for the most part, I have not seen a regular show for almost a year.
So this Thursday, I was excited to turn on the TV for the first time and watch a show during prime time. I was fascinated with what I found – not in the show but in the commercials. I watched them like an anthropologist watching a newly discovered civilization. I was fascinated with the portrait these commercials painted of our country. In the United States, according to the advertisers, everyone has well-dressed children in matching and clean clothes; they are already shopping for Christmas presents and have begun their Christmas decorating; they are mostly white; everyone is middle-class or above; most folks have or need a new credit card; and most people are in need of some type of stain removal stick or gel for their clothes. At least that part is correct.
But purely by looking at the commercials on one hour of broadcast television, I got a quick overview of what advertisers think is important and even normal in our society: to have perfectly dressed children and modern, updated houses, to drive a new car, to have no worries about meeting the mortgage payment for the month, and to eagerly shopping till we drop. The kingdom that is our society and culture is clearly defined, and those who gain easy entry to it are obvious. All we need to do is look at commercials. In the kingdom of our culture, it’s pretty obvious who has the first priority: those who are thin, physically fit, well-educated, financially comfortable and able bodied.
As I watched the television, I couldn’t help but be confronted by the contrast of what I was seeing to the words of Jesus that I was reading in the Gospel lesson for today. Today we meet Jesus as he’s traveling with his disciples on a journey, most likely the long journey toward Jerusalem where he will face his trial, his crucifixion and his death. He’s met by a man who embodies all that the kingdom of our culture says is the ideal: a young, physically fit man who is wealthy, has disposable income and has influence and power in his community. He is well educated and religious. He tells Jesus he keeps all the commandments and has since he was a child. And now he wants to follow Jesus. This should be a slam dunk.
But instead of getting a story of how the perfect people get into the kingdom of God, we hear these unbelievable words of Jesus – "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who 'have it all' to enter God's kingdom?" (vs. 23, The Message). If it’s hard for people who have it together to enter into the kingdom of God, what does it mean for the rest of us? What kind of priorities does God have, anyway, if God will take any old person into God’s kingdom: the blind, poor, overweight, malnourished, babies, great grandmothers, the nobodies and the anybodies?
In this passage, we come face to face with what The Message version of the Bible calls God’s Great Reversal: the first are last and the last are first. God’s priorities are different from the world’s priorities. What God privileges, and what we as followers of Jesus are called to privilege, to put first, is often out of sync with what the world says is most important.
This past year, we as a country have been coming to grips with the priorities that have been out of line with common sense, morality and integrity. We have seen the disastrous effects of greed by a wealthy few, how their decisions have crippled our economic system. We have seen on a personal basis how the priority of keeping up with the Jones’ and living outside our means can devastate families when an illness, a layoff, or the bank come calling. We have witnessed, or participated in, systems that encourage hoarding, thrive on the fear and promote a culture of scarcity rather than abundance. The priorities of the kingdom of our culture have come face to face with God’s priorities and what God puts first in God’s kingdom.
God’s kingdom is one that puts a privilege on generosity and gratefulness. During the past several weeks, we have focused on Thankful Living, how God calls us through our faith in Jesus to live with thankfulness and gratitude in every aspect of our life. We explored thankful living through our new ministries, and last week gave praise for thankful living in the lives of God’s saints, past and present. Today, we explore thankful living in God’s priorities, how living into the backwards, upside down way the kingdom of God operates can free us to focus fully on God’s call to generosity through Christ’s example.
As humans, we are created to secure enough for ourselves. In order to survive, we must have the basics of life: food, clothing, shelter. Where the priorities of God’s kingdom butt up to the priorities of our culture’s kingdom comes in defining what is enough. When is our quantity and quality of food enough? How many coats and shoes and pants are enough? How big of a house is big enough? How big, or how small, of a car is enough? How do we decide?
Jesus in today’s lesson is pretty explicit about what constitutes enough and what constitutes extra: extra is what we hold on to when we are fearful about the future and what it holds. Enough is what we are willing and able to joyfully surrender to God’s use and God’s purpose, whether it’s to meet the needs of the poor or to follow Jesus as his disciples into new relationships, new places, new occupations.
When you review your life and your priorities through the lens of thankful living, where do you draw the line between extra and enough? As you think carefully and prayerfully about how God is calling you to live thankfully in the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of the world, what is God bringing to mind for you?
Next week, we will celebrate our Consecration Sunday, the time each year when we prayerfully consider and offer to God and God’s work a portion of our financial gifts. One priority in God’s kingdom is the understanding that all we have is a gift from God, the one who created us and the world in which we live. We are stewards of those gifts, to care for and use in Christ-like ways, with a priority of serving the least, the lost and the lonely. For those of you who are visiting with us, we are grateful to have your presence today. We appreciate your understanding as we speak for a moment about our congregational focus for next week.
In preparation for next Sunday’s special worship, during your prayer and reflection time this week, we encourage you to consider you and your family’s understanding of extra and enough? What portion of your income is God calling you to return to God’s service and God’s work?
Another way we witness thankful living is how we live out Jesus’ Great Reversal in putting the first, last and the last, first. Said another way, how do we give the vulnerable a place at God’s table among those who have it all together? In the sacrament of baptism, that Great Reversal takes on flesh and bone. We are blessed to be in the midst of a baby boom in our congregation, and today we celebrate the third baptism in six weeks. When we bring our youngest children to the font, to the waters that God blesses, we are witnessing to the world that in God’s kingdom, the defenseless, the weak, the small are invited and welcomed. Our culture’s kingdom may say that you have to be strong and independent and able to talk in complete sentences to have a seat of power and authority. But in God’s kingdom, we bring, with great thanksgiving, mystery and awe, these smallest of God’s creatures and offer them back to God and God’s purposes. God has created them and given us stewardship and care over them for a few years. By bringing them to these waters, we are testifying to thankful living that the Holy Spirit inspires and enables.
So today, what kingdom do you find yourself living in – the kingdom of our culture or the kingdom of God? But more important – where do you want to live? Where do you hear God’s call to thankful living being expressed in your own life? How will you respond to God’s invitation to you, to take on a new set of priorities in love and grace? Amen.