Dedication Sunday Sermon

November 15, 2009

Isaiah 58: 6 – 11

John 3: 16 - 22

The Calling of Giving and the Light of Sharing

I.

            There is a story told about a preacher in Alabama.  This preacher always rode a bicycle – in this he has was not unlike the beloved Father Tim in the town of Mitford.  But unlike Father Tim of Mitford, his reasons for riding the bicycle were not because he was quaint, or because he was afraid of modern machinery like automobiles.  This preacher was more Al Gore than Father Tim.  He simply believed that he was doing Mother Earth a favor and keeping himself in good shape by riding instead of driving.

            As fate would have it, his love of the earth extended to his yard.  Most years he just refused to mow it – believing that if God intended grass to be long there was no reason to go against the intentions of the almighty.  Now this worked well and good until the church was having a capital campaign to repair the organ in the sanctuary and it came to his knowledge that Miss Maddie, the wealthiest woman in town, was refusing to give any money because of the puny state of his yard.  Her thinking was “if he can’t take care of his yard, why spend for an organ which will soon fall into ill-repair?”  So the preacher resolved to mow the yard out of duty, placing the needs of the church in front of his convictions about lawn care.  One problem:  he didn’t own a lawnmower.

            On his ride home from church, he passed a boy, mowing with what appeared to be a pristine lawn mower.  “Young man,” said the preacher, “can I by chance borrow that lawn mower from you?”  “No sir,” said the boy, “but I will trade it for your bicycle.”  The preacher thought and thought and finally decided that the new organ was worth it and the deal was struck.  Off rode the boy.  Home went the preacher.

            One hour later the preacher stood in his yard, pulling the starter cable, repeatedly, sweat forming on his brow.  He engaged the choke.  He checked the oil.  He pulled and pulled. He stood left and right.  He tried everything he could think of – all to no avail.

            About that time the young man rode up, but on a different bike.  “Young man,” the preacher said, “I am afraid I no longer want our bargain – I’d like to trade back for my bicycle.  Where is my bicycle?”  “Sorry preacher, but I traded your bike for this one and I can’t get it back.  What’s the problem?”  The preacher answered, “Well this lawnmower won’t start, I traded my Cadillac of a bicycle for this heap of junk which is all show and no mow.”  At this the young man responded, “Preacher is it quite simple, you just have to cuss that lawnmower to get it to start – curse words, cuss words, are the only language that lawnmower understands.”

            “Well then it won’t start,” said the preacher, “I have never learned how to curse.”

            The boy said, “You just keep pulling on that starter cable, the words will come to you.”

II.

            Why do we value the things we value?  Why do we trade, barter, and buy the things that we have?  Why do we give some things away, and keep some others close by or under lock and key?

            Let us make no mistake about it we are a people of giving and receiving, of buying and selling, of trading and bartering.  It is what we do.  These activities make our world, our economy, and our households run and go.

            I am on record in many different places as saying that none of us lives our lives alone – we are who we are because God and parents shared the gift of life; we speak because somebody shared with us the meaning of words; we read because somebody shared with us the gift of literacy; we laugh because somebody shares with us the gift of humor and the insights of wit; we learn how to love because someone shares love with us and our hearts recognize the tune. 

            We ARE because we shARE (look how closely related they are -- it is as though the words themselves are telling us a secret).

            I have on many occasions said that the loneliest people I know or whom I can imagine are those who do not share freely.  The saddest souls I know are those who do not practice generosity or who do not participate in the joy of giving or sharing.

            It is for this reason that the church uses words like giving, sharing, and stewardship so often.  Our stewardship is defined through the dual tasks of sharing from the stockpiles of our lives, the goods in our barns, the money in our accounts; and, through caring, caretaking, of the buildings and possessions that make life sweeter and give it so much of its flavor.  The sanctuary of our church sets a prime example, I should think – 100 years ago it was dedicated as gift to God and church.  It was given to us.  We have gone through great pains to preserve it this year because it is our charge to do so.  We are its stewards as surely as God is its inspiration.

III.

            For the past three weeks you have heard about stewardship and we have been using the words of Isaiah 58, and ideas from Isaiah, to frame our conversation.  Last week we heard Franklin Golden energetically tell us that we don’t know the value of our sharing and our giving until we’ve been homeless or felt abandoned, as he did when he was stranded in Cuba and people so poor they were to be pitied took him in and provided for his safety even though they were under the threat of arrest.  Franklin says only then did he understand the truest meaning of sharing.

            There is a theme in Isaiah that we cannot ignore – especially not today on dedication Sunday – but really not ever.  God calls us to share:  Bread for the hungry;  shelter for the homeless;  clothes for the naked.  God seems to be leading Isaiah to tell us that we should give and share – like Farrar Martin reminded us last week that Mrs. Holderness used to say – until it feels good.

            What happens when we give?  Well according to Isaiah we receive light – that is illumination, hope, faith, and purpose no matter how gloomy the day or how long the rain falls.  Just listen to the verbs and adverbs of stewardship and care in verse 11 alone:  guide, continually, satisfy, never fail.  Who among us would be willing to follow a God who didn’t guide, never satisfied, or always failed? Isaiah 58:11:  “For the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places – and you shall be like a spring of waters who never fails.”

            It might be daring to suggest, but when we share, when we give, light rises, the indelible gift of light rises in the life of a church, the life of a friend, the life of world whenever we are stewards of what we have and we share until it feels good.

IV.

            Follow the theme of light through scripture.  It is after all, by Genesis’ account, God’s first gift.  “Let there be light!”  And thus darkness, ignorance, evil, shadow, none of them can prevail.

            Look at how and where light shows up in the Bible – nearly 300 times.  And it shows up repeatedly in the Gospel of John, and prevalently here in the 3rd chapter at John 3:19.  To be sure John 3:16 is the most famous of them all, but I saw something in it this week I have not noticed before.  Listen to the verbs in the verse:  “For God so loved the world that He gave his son so that no one who believes in him would perish but would have life eternal.”  God loved.  God gave.  Loving and giving – it is impossible to do either alone and both actions imply a deep and satisfying type of sharing.  John’s great verse about salvation is also a verse about stewardship – God’s stewardship.  Jesus is God’s gift of perfect sharing, and as we are a people who follow God it stands to reason that one of the essential ways we follow our Lord is through our willingness to share, to give away.

            This is of course, countercultural.  We celebrate in film and fancy those who keep.  God celebrates those that share.  The choice to me seems obvious.

            “And this is the judgment,” continues John at 3:19, “that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."

            Sharp words.  They cut.  They suggest nothing less than what we are afraid to name:  that when we do not share we fall outside of the light of the all-giving God.  When we do not share we become trapped in a darkness of our own making.

V.

            I heard a story this week on the radio, on Veterans Day, that brought tears to my eyes.  It was about the WASP’s – Women’s Air Force Service Pilots in World War II.  These were women, trained to fly airplanes for the Army in service capacities.  Moving them from base to base.  Flying training missions.  Moving munitions and rations around to various staging areas.

            The woman interviewed told a story that touched my soul as she recounted a mid-air collision and the death of one her fellow pilots.  The woman’s body was recovered but since she was not full military, the army would not ship her body home to be tended to by her family.  When the other women heard this they were trapped in gloom – beaten by mourning and death.  And then she told of how light broke through – somebody passed a hat, and the women took up a collection, giving from what little they had and they shared and they gave and they raised the money to see her, their fallen sister, home.

            Sharing changes things and 65 years later the women bear witness to the tale.

VI.

            Then too, one doesn’t need to go all the way to World War II to find an inspiring story about giving.  You only need to go back to 1961 when a young man with a gift for music chose to share it, with beautiful abandon, shedding light and giving music to this sanctuary and church for nearly 45 years.  Where would we be if Terry had not shared with us?  If you don’t think sharing your gifts and giving from your talents is meaningful, your giving financial and otherwise, then I suggest you meditate upon Terry’s life.  A life he shared to a fault with every breath he drew around this place.  Terry’s gift was stewardship of music, sharing his song for any willing ear and we are richer for it.

VII.

            We are because we share.

            It may be true that some gifts are not worth the cost and some trades should not be made.  Ask the preacher who loved his bike, the one who couldn’t part with it until he had to, the one who wouldn’t mow his grass except when it was about to cost him something.  When we give or share from fear out of what may happen if we do not give or act, then one wonders rightly so about the motivation for our giving and our sharing.

            It may also be true that some gifts are gifts of necessity – seeing the right thing done regardless of the cost.  Like those young women, easily overlooked, who sent a sister to a dignified grave.  But if the only gifts we give are the ones we have to give – well then that is not the only label we should aspire to either.  It is well enough some of the time, but not good enough for all of the time.

            While these are acceptable, sometimes even very good motivations for giving, I should hope that we would apply Terry’s final lesson.  I’ll call it his curtain call, his encore lesson.  It is the gifts we share for love, for faith, for light’s sake that matter most.  Why?  Because that is how God gives and shares.  Why?  Because it is the noblest form of giving.  Why?  Because it emulates graciousness and graciousness is the  light of lights, the calling card of the king of kings.

            Let us give, let us share, because we have received.

            And let our giving be testimony that we trust the light, and our proclamation that light will rise.  Yes it will.  Light will rise.

            Amen.