Luke 13:22-30
August 22, 2010
Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
I’m about to say something that a lot of us think, but rarely say out loud. We keep it to ourselves because we worry that saying it out loud will somehow offend God. But here it is: You know, sometime Jesus can be really frustrating and irritating. I know we’re not supposed to think of Jesus in that way, but the truth is that he can be really, really frustrating in his teachings. As easy as many of his teachings are to understand, some are really, really tough to understand, and when they are, it’s aggravating.
For example he says elsewhere in Luke, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword. I came divide father against son, mother against daughter,” and so on. Wait, didn’t he come to bring peace? If this is true, why do we call him the Prince of Peace? Why does he tell us that “blessed are the peacemakers.” Very confusing. There are a number of Jesus’ teachings like this one that baffle pastors and laity alike.
Then there’s our passage for today. It is quite confusing and frustrating. What does he mean when he says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able”? What’s frustrating is that he doesn’t actually tell us in the passage what it is that we need to do to be able to enter through the narrow door. He just tells us that we have to strive to enter through it. But where is it. What’s the password to get through it? The whole narrow door metaphor kind of reminds me of an after hours nightclub where you knock on a door, and a bouncer opens a small, sliding panel on the door and says in a rough voice, “Yeah? What’s the password.” And we say, “Uhh,… Jesus?” And he goes, “Nope! Go away.” It’s like Jesus tells us we have to get through that door, but then says nothing about how. Very frustrating. Very irritating.
Over the years I’ve come across a lot of Christians who have been convinced that they know what the narrow door is. And they’re never shy about telling you what the secret is, and why they have entered through it and you haven’t. Basically you can put them in one of three groups. They are either right believers, right behavers, or right belongers. The worst of all are the ones who are all three because they are the most sure that they’ve not only entered through the narrow door, but that they are now the bouncers behind the door, deciding who passes and who doesn’t. Let’s look at each group in a bit more detail.
Who are the right believers? They are the people you come across who are sure they know everything. They think that if they can just know Christian theology well enough, know the Bible well enough, be orthodox enough (which means “right teachings or beliefs”) they can get through the narrow door. They are quick to tell you why your beliefs are inadequate. They quote scripture loud and often to back up their points, even though what they quote doesn’t always support what they say. They are so certain about their own rightness that to them everyone who disagrees is steeped in wrongness. They also drive you crazy because you can never get a word in edgewise, and if you can, you feel like you are in a court of law, with them as the prosecuting attorney, judge, and jury.
The basic problem with the whole “right belief” approach is that we can never know enough to be right. Our years are too short and our brains are too small to ever know all the theology and the Bible that completely. Also, they run into a little, itty-bitty problem highlighted in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Fill in the blanks of this sentence: “We are saved by _____ through ____.” Did you say “by grace through faith”? That’s the problem. Neither Jesus nor Paul ever say that believing the right things, having the right theology, or knowing the Bible well enough gets us through that narrow door. They tell us that the narrow door is a gift of God’s grace, freely given, that we accept through faith. Not right belief, but faith. Not right knowledge, but grace.
Then there are the right behavers. These people also bother you. They are moralists who always see their behavior as perfect, and everyone else’s as sinful. To them, they are without sin, or, if they do admit to some sin, they push it off as a minor sin in comparison with everyone else’s. What they don’t see is how strong the sin of pride and judgment is within them. They are so certain of their own rightness in the way they see the world morally that they become judgmental. They take the place of Christ in judging us, and in the process never see the plank in their own eyes. You know these people because you avoid these people. They are sure their behavior gets them through the narrow door, and ours doesn’t.
Finally, we have the right belongers. These are the people who are certain of their own salvation because they belong to the “right” church or the “right” group. When they talk with you, you are always wrong, not because of your beliefs or behaviors, but simply because you aren’t part of their church, denomination, or Christian movement. You could pray all day, be faithful in so many ways, go on mission trips through your church, but it’s all for naught because you simply belong to the wrong church.
I’ve come across Roman Catholics who are like this, non-denominational evangelicals like this, Orthodox who are like this, and so many more. You don’t find these types much in the Presbyterian Church nowadays, but go back fifty years and earlier, and you would have found these types all throughout our own churches. Generations ago, many thought that the only true church was the Presbyterian Church. Episcopalians saw themselves as the only true Church. Lutherans saw themselves as the only true Church. In our denominations today, we aren’t like this much anymore, and many Roman Catholics and Orthodox have let go of this kind of belief, but in any religious denomination or group you will still find some who are certain that they can get through the narrow door simply because they are part of the right group.
There’s a problem with each of these approaches, which I pointed out above. The basic problem is that Scripture points to salvation by grace through faith, not through right belief, behavior, or belonging. The process that gets us through that narrow door is a process by which we simply accept the gift of love that God offers us all the time.
So, what is the key that unlocks the narrow door? It may seem like a mystery, but you can find the answer. You find it by doing a little trick that we pastors sometimes use. It’s called “reading the rest of the Bible.” ☺ If you read our “narrow door” passage in context by reading what precedes it in chapters 12 and 13, you will find what Jesus says gets us through the door.
Our passage for this morning is part of a very large group of teachings Jesus gives in which he lays out what the narrow door is. First, in chapter 12, Jesus contrasts his approach with the Pharisees who are obsessed with the law. Luke tells us about a woman Jesus healed. She had been bent over for 18 years, and he healed her. Afterwards the Pharisees are furious and critical of Jesus. Why? Because he healed on the Sabbath. It doesn’t matter that God did something amazing through Jesus and healed a woman from her suffering. All that mattered was that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, thus breaking God’s law. Jesus does God’s will by breaking God’s law. Jesus basically is saying that when we do God’s will no matter what, even if it means breaking religious convention, we become ready to enter through the narrow door.
Then Jesus talks about the heart and treasure, using the passage that I preached on several weeks ago, saying that where our treasure is, there our heart is, too. When our treasure is in possessions, money, and security, then the door is closed to us. But when we place our treasure in heaven, in God, and in sharing God’s love, the door becomes opened to us. He goes on to say that we need to let go of our worries and trust God. He points out that God takes care of sparrows and lilies, and God will take care of us, too, if we let go of our anxieties and worries.
Jesus then tells us a parable about a master who returns home and sees what his slave has been doing. Now, typically, when a master goes away, what would you expect the slaves to do? Hang out and do nothing, right? But this master finds that his slave has been working hard to do the master’s will. This is a way of living that Jesus says we need to have if we are to enter through the narrow door, which is to have a passion for doing God’s will, even when we don’t sense God anywhere near.
Finally, he uses the example of a fig tree to show that to be truly in sync with God. He says that our lives must produce good fruit. He basically is saying that when we are doing God’s will, when we are overcoming all obstacles to doing it, and when we do it whether or not we sense God, we produce good fruit. The fruit is the proof of our openness to God. When our hearts are with God, goodness flows out of our actions.
The whole point is that we make the narrow door complicated, which is why it seems so confusing to figure out how to enter. Entering by the narrow door can be simple, although being simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy. Entering is a matter of simply being open to God in all things, and letting God’s grace flow through our lives in everything. But that doesn’t mean it’s not hard. Opening to God’s will is always hard, but when we do it, our lives can become very fruitful in amazing ways. Let me share with you an example.
Back in 1992, Susan was sitting at home when the telephone rang. Her son answered it. He called out to her, “Bob Thompson is on the telephone.” “Bob Thompson? Bob Thompson?” she thought. “That name sounds familiar. Who’s Bob Thompson?” Suddenly she realized who he was. He must be related to Beverly Thompson. As she thought this, she reflected on her experiences during the past year.
It was almost a year ago that she prayed to God to help her find a way to serve God. She felt disconnected from God, and overwhelmed by being a single mom for three children. Every morning and evening she was making a 45-minute trip from her home in New Hampshire to her job in Vermont. She worked in the accounts receivable department of a toy company. It was difficult, and she was becoming overwhelmed. So one morning she prayed as she drove. She prayed to God about her three children and about her situation as a single mother raising them. She thought about how much her church had supported her, and how attending worship and the weekly women’s Bible study were important parts of her week. Still, she wished she could find a way to serve God more and better. So she prayed. She said to God, “I want to serve you so much, but I don’t know how. How do you want me to serve?” She expected an answer that would call her to do something active and unique, but bubbling up from her heart she heard the answer: “Pray.” God wanted her to simply pray. This is not the answer Susan expected, but she responded to God by saying, “Okay, I’ll pray, but you have to give me people to pray for. I’ll devote my trips to and from work to prayer.”
A few months later she came across Beverly Thompson’s name. Beverly owned a toy store. She had sent a check for a shipment of teddy bears, and with it a note apologizing for being so slow with the check. She said that she had been ill and to please forgive her tardiness. Susan knew then and there that she was called to pray for Beverly, and so she did. Every day, to and from work, Susan prayed for Beverly even though she didn’t know anything about her.
After several months, Susan decided to send a letter to Beverly saying that she was praying for her. There was no response. Several months later she sent another letter telling Beverly that she was praying for her and also a little bit about herself. Again, there was no response. Every few weeks she would send a short note, but there never was a response. Still, she continued to pray.
When Susan answered the phone, Bob Thompson introduced himself as Beverly’s husband and told Susan that Beverly had died recently. Then he said, “While we were going through her things, we found your cards and notes tied up with a red ribbon. I know she must have read them over and over because they looked worn. My wife had been diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of forty-eight. She never suffered any pain at all. I know that this was a result of your prayers. The reason you never heard back from her was that she also developed brain cancer. Our relationship with God amounted to going to church once in a while, but it was nothing that had much effect on our lives. I wanted you to know that my wife asked to be baptized two weeks before she passed away. The night before she died, she told me it was okay for her to die because she was going home to be with her Lord.” (adapted from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul, 2000).
Entering through the narrow door is simple, although it’s not always easy. It requires us to be open to God in everything, everyday. The question for you to ponder is this: Are you prepared to enter through the narrow door?
Amen.
Forming a Passionate Faith: 2. Getting Set
Luke 12:32-40
August 15, 2010
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Do you know who Millard Fuller was? He died last year, but before he died he made a tremendous impact on the world. He spent his life giving, which was a direct contrast to his early life, which he spent obtaining. As a child he grew up as a kid who loved money. From the earliest ages he had a gift for making money. His gift surfaced when he was six years old. Fuller wanted a pig, so his father bought him one. He built a little pen in the back yard and taught Millard how to set up a bookkeeping system to understand cost and profits. Millard scrupulously kept a record of everything it cost to feed and keep the pig, and after he had fattened the pig up a bit, he sold the pig for a profit. Millard was hooked. He loved making that profit. He moved on to raising and selling chickens, and he made a profit from them, too. As his profits increased, so did his appetite for larger projects. He bought and sold rabbits, and made a profit there. He and his father bought and sold cattle, and they made a profit in that business, too.
By high school, Millard was an entrepreneur. He was a member of Junior Achievement and had his own little company that manufactured mops and house number signs. By college, Millard was beginning to bring in larger and larger profits. His college roommate, Morris Dees (whose story is equally inspiring – he is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that fights racism), and he sold birthday cakes that parents could have delivered to their college children. They also sold advertising on desk blotters, holly wreaths through the mail, doormats, trash-can holders, and lamps made out of cypress. They invested their profits in real estate and owned half a city block and a small trailer park. As law students at the University of Alabama in the early 1960s, they were making $50,000 a year. By age 28, Fuller was a millionaire. Who wouldn’t be happy to be in his shoes? He was living the American dream. He had everything we say should make us happy: money, homes, cars, a wife and kids. So, why did he feel like his life was falling apart?
The problem is that Millard Fuller had become so focused on achieving and acquiring that his life had become horribly unbalanced. At a time when he should have been reveling in how great his life was, he turned around to find that his wife had left him. He was alone. She left because she had everything she could possibly want, except a husband, and that was all she really wanted in the first place. Facing the possibility that he would lose his family, Fuller realized he had to do something to get his life back in balance. After talking to a pastor in New York, and engaging in deep discussions with his life with his wife, they decided they should follow Jesus’ advice to the rich young man – to sell everything and give it to the poor so that they could follow God (Matthew 19: 16-30). They began to give their money away and got involved in a Christian ministry called Koinonia Partners.
From that point onward, his marriage and his life began to improve as they centered their lives more in God and God’s work. In 1973, they and their four children moved to Zaire, Africa to help build modest housing for low-income families. Their project became so successful that they decided they were being called by God to apply this idea worldwide. They moved back to Georgia in 1976 and created the housing ministry, Habitat for Humanity. This is an organization that builds affordable, safe, and reliable housing for low-income families. Since its inception, Habitat for Humanity has built homes for over 60,000 families in more than 1400 American cities and in 57 countries around the world. This is an organization that cuts across denominational, religious, and national boundaries. Among the volunteers are former presidents, senators, congressmen and congresswomen, executives, and people from every walk of life.
Today, Millard Fuller receives a salary of only $52,000. The focus of his life is on serving God by serving the poor. As he says, “I feel that I am close to God, and I think I am pleasing God. I know that my heart’s desire is to express love in a way that touches people. Providing a home for people who need a place to live is an incredible way to touch people” (adapted from Biography Magazine, July 1998).
The inspiring lesson of Fuller’s life isn’t necessarily that we should sell everything and start an organization that builds homes for poorer people. The lesson is that a life lived focused on getting and acquisition is a life wasted. But a life lived focused on giving and generosity is a life blessed.
I'm not sure why, but I think that when it comes to trying to live out our faith, many Christians don't necessarily make the connection between generosity and being ready for God. We think about qualities such as love, believing in Christ, and having faith, but not necessarily about the ongoing call to being generous. And we certainly don’t connect generosity as preparation for death, but our passage makes that connection. In our passage Jesus begins with a call to give, and then follows it up by teaching us that we have to be ready because our lives can end at any moment: “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”
If today was your last day, would you be set? Would you be ready? How would God judge you? Would God say to you that you did a great job of being generous in your life, giving of your time, money, and of compassion?
We get opportunities to give all the time, not only opportunities to give money, but also to give time, because both embody love and compassion. In fact, that’s what giving is all about. Many people believe that they love, but for love to be real it has to be evidenced in our actions, and being generous is the height of loving behavior. It’s this call to generosity that makes giving so central to the church. You know, one of the complaints I’ve heard from people in our culture over the years is that “all the church wants is our money. Every time you are turn around there’s a collection.” It’s not just other people complain about the church’s focus on giving. I used to say the same thing all the time when I was younger. I used to complain that the church was all about money and not about God. But that was when I was young and before I returned to the church in my twenties. I’ve learned a bit since then about the nature of churches. What I’ve discovered is that, yes, we are guilty of wanting people’s money. But there’s a reason. The reason is that our church and any church is a weigh station for giving. The whole nature of the church is to give. We receive as a way of channeling people’s generosity.
Think about every part of the Calvin Presbyterian Church. Everything we do is related to giving. Start with the staff. Take me out of the equation for a moment. Every staff member in this church is committed to giving. Bruce Smith, our music and youth director, doesn’t take his pay, sit home, and say, “Wow! This is great. I get to get paid for hanging out at home listening to cds.” He lives his life giving. If you come to the church or track him down almost any hour of the afternoon or evening, you’ll find him talking with youth, working with musicians and singers, or doing something to make others’ lives better. Look at Toni Schlemmer, our associate music director and drama director. She spends so much of her off time giving voice lessons, or directing plays both here and outside of Calvin Church. And she rarely gets paid to direct the plays outside of Calvin Church. Steve Polley, our pastor of pastoral care, spends his week giving his time to visit people. Connie Frierson, our program director is tired this morning because she’s just partied out. She had a party at her house on Thursday evening for fifty women of the church, just so they could have an opportunity to come together and get to know each other. Then, on Friday evening, she had sixty singles over to her house for a get-to-know-you as part of our singles ministry. I could go on because everyone on our staff lives a life of giving.
We collect money from members and others to give even more. We offer worship services every Sunday to help improve people’s lives and help them grow closer to God. We give a tremendous amount of money to giving organizations beyond our walls, such as the Pittsburgh Project, VOICe, the Samaritan Counseling Center, Habitat for Humanity, the mission projects of the Presbyterian Church (USA), supporting Janet Guyer—our missionary in Southern Africa—Carrie Baker’s trip to South Africa this summer, Project Hope, SERRV, the Ladle and the Hearth soup kitchen in Ambridge, and so much more. Our building is a place of giving, and our upkeep of it helps with that giving. We do Christian education on Sunday morning for so many children and adults, and we have over 45 adults volunteering their time and efforts for no pay in order to teach these children. We have committees set up to reach out and help, all staffed by volunteers. Being generous to Calvin Church means giving to a giving place. Despite what cynics think, churches don’t want money because they are moneygrubbers. They want money to give away and make a bigger and bigger difference in the world.
It’s not just in and to church that we’re called to give. We’re called to be giving in all of life, even when it’s a pain and it’s not planned. Sometimes we’re at our most generous when we want to do anything but give. Let me give you an example of a giving time when it made sense to do something else.
Six years ago, while on vacation in the Boston area with Diane and the kids, I had to make a choice to either give or to do what I wanted to do—and I wasn’t gravitating towards giving. It was a late Sunday afternoon, and Diane was taking our kids and my cousin’s kids swimming in our hotel’s swimming pool. I decided that it was a fine time for me to take my walk, but I was told to not be gone too long because we had dinner plans. So I mapped out my four-mile route, put on my hat and t-shirt, clipped headphones onto my ears, drove to the starting areas, parked my car in the local Starbuck’s, and set out on my walk.
I had only walked about three blocks when I saw a young, African-American woman walking toward me. It was obvious she wanted to talk with me. I kind of avoided her gaze because I was worried that she wanted to sell me something. She was persistent, though. Despite my downcast eyes, she walked up to me and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me where Powell Street is?” I told her that I really didn’t know the area all that well and that she needed to give me some landmarks. “It’s near Shaw’s Supermarket on Nahatan Street.” I told her that I knew where that was, but that it was over two-and-a-half miles away. “Oh my,” she replied. “I’m supposed to be at work there at three o’clock, and it’s almost three now. When I got off the bus, the driver told me to just walk down Nahatan Street, and I kept walking but couldn’t find it.”
Now, you need to understand that giving this woman a ride to her job was not part of my plan, so I had to make a decision. Do I tell her that I’m sorry she won’t make it, or do I give her a ride? I really wanted to walk. I really wanted to do my own thing. I really wanted to stick with my plans. Finally, I broke down and said, “You know, you’ll never make it. Let me give you a ride.”
As we walked, both of us were nervous. She didn’t know me. For all she knew I could be dangerous, and I didn’t know if her request for me to help was only a con. As we walked I talked with her. “What’s your new job?” I asked. She said, “I’m a children’s caseworker at a home for troubled youth. I just started the job two days ago.” I asked her if child-care was her background. “Oh no. Actually, I’ve been trained to be a political and a community activist, but I really like to work with kids and thought this would be a good job. I work with kids in my church and really love it.”
“You go to church?” I asked. “Yes, I go to the Holiness Temple in Roxborough.” I said, “That’s interesting. You don’t know this, but I’m a pastor.” She looked at me in my hat and t-shirt and said, “Are you really?” “Yeah, believe it or not. I normally dress differently, but I’m on vacation.” She said, “This is amazing. When I saw you, I had just been praying to God to bring me someone to help me, and look what God did. God brought me a pastor.” I laughed. We continued to talk all the way to her job. As she got out I said, “Remember this the next time you have doubts about whether God answers your prayers.” She said, “I already know that God answers my prayers! Let’s both remember it.”
I didn't really want to give my time, but in the end giving her my time got me more prepared for God. What gets us ready for God's kingdom is generosity because generosity is an act of sacrificial love, and it connects us with God's way of life. The Bible emphasizes the idea of tithing for this very reason. The whole idea of tithing is that we become aware of how much God has given us, of how everything is a gift from God, so we give back 10% of all that God gives us back to God for God to give to others. Giving is the nature of God, and God wants it to become our nature. God gives everything to us for free, and the whole idea of Christ coming into the world was the idea that God came in Christ to teach us. And we didn’t have to do anything to deserve it. The idea of Christ dying on the cross is that he gave up his own life willingly so that in the end we could be given even more—the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, Christianity teaches that the more we give, the more we are given. The more we share, the more we become prepared. Giving transforms our souls because the nature of God is generosity
Do you want to really experience God in your life? Do you want to really know God in your life? Begin with becoming as generous as you can, and you'll discover something wonderful.
Amen.
August 15, 2010
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Do you know who Millard Fuller was? He died last year, but before he died he made a tremendous impact on the world. He spent his life giving, which was a direct contrast to his early life, which he spent obtaining. As a child he grew up as a kid who loved money. From the earliest ages he had a gift for making money. His gift surfaced when he was six years old. Fuller wanted a pig, so his father bought him one. He built a little pen in the back yard and taught Millard how to set up a bookkeeping system to understand cost and profits. Millard scrupulously kept a record of everything it cost to feed and keep the pig, and after he had fattened the pig up a bit, he sold the pig for a profit. Millard was hooked. He loved making that profit. He moved on to raising and selling chickens, and he made a profit from them, too. As his profits increased, so did his appetite for larger projects. He bought and sold rabbits, and made a profit there. He and his father bought and sold cattle, and they made a profit in that business, too.
By high school, Millard was an entrepreneur. He was a member of Junior Achievement and had his own little company that manufactured mops and house number signs. By college, Millard was beginning to bring in larger and larger profits. His college roommate, Morris Dees (whose story is equally inspiring – he is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that fights racism), and he sold birthday cakes that parents could have delivered to their college children. They also sold advertising on desk blotters, holly wreaths through the mail, doormats, trash-can holders, and lamps made out of cypress. They invested their profits in real estate and owned half a city block and a small trailer park. As law students at the University of Alabama in the early 1960s, they were making $50,000 a year. By age 28, Fuller was a millionaire. Who wouldn’t be happy to be in his shoes? He was living the American dream. He had everything we say should make us happy: money, homes, cars, a wife and kids. So, why did he feel like his life was falling apart?
The problem is that Millard Fuller had become so focused on achieving and acquiring that his life had become horribly unbalanced. At a time when he should have been reveling in how great his life was, he turned around to find that his wife had left him. He was alone. She left because she had everything she could possibly want, except a husband, and that was all she really wanted in the first place. Facing the possibility that he would lose his family, Fuller realized he had to do something to get his life back in balance. After talking to a pastor in New York, and engaging in deep discussions with his life with his wife, they decided they should follow Jesus’ advice to the rich young man – to sell everything and give it to the poor so that they could follow God (Matthew 19: 16-30). They began to give their money away and got involved in a Christian ministry called Koinonia Partners.
From that point onward, his marriage and his life began to improve as they centered their lives more in God and God’s work. In 1973, they and their four children moved to Zaire, Africa to help build modest housing for low-income families. Their project became so successful that they decided they were being called by God to apply this idea worldwide. They moved back to Georgia in 1976 and created the housing ministry, Habitat for Humanity. This is an organization that builds affordable, safe, and reliable housing for low-income families. Since its inception, Habitat for Humanity has built homes for over 60,000 families in more than 1400 American cities and in 57 countries around the world. This is an organization that cuts across denominational, religious, and national boundaries. Among the volunteers are former presidents, senators, congressmen and congresswomen, executives, and people from every walk of life.
Today, Millard Fuller receives a salary of only $52,000. The focus of his life is on serving God by serving the poor. As he says, “I feel that I am close to God, and I think I am pleasing God. I know that my heart’s desire is to express love in a way that touches people. Providing a home for people who need a place to live is an incredible way to touch people” (adapted from Biography Magazine, July 1998).
The inspiring lesson of Fuller’s life isn’t necessarily that we should sell everything and start an organization that builds homes for poorer people. The lesson is that a life lived focused on getting and acquisition is a life wasted. But a life lived focused on giving and generosity is a life blessed.
I'm not sure why, but I think that when it comes to trying to live out our faith, many Christians don't necessarily make the connection between generosity and being ready for God. We think about qualities such as love, believing in Christ, and having faith, but not necessarily about the ongoing call to being generous. And we certainly don’t connect generosity as preparation for death, but our passage makes that connection. In our passage Jesus begins with a call to give, and then follows it up by teaching us that we have to be ready because our lives can end at any moment: “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”
If today was your last day, would you be set? Would you be ready? How would God judge you? Would God say to you that you did a great job of being generous in your life, giving of your time, money, and of compassion?
We get opportunities to give all the time, not only opportunities to give money, but also to give time, because both embody love and compassion. In fact, that’s what giving is all about. Many people believe that they love, but for love to be real it has to be evidenced in our actions, and being generous is the height of loving behavior. It’s this call to generosity that makes giving so central to the church. You know, one of the complaints I’ve heard from people in our culture over the years is that “all the church wants is our money. Every time you are turn around there’s a collection.” It’s not just other people complain about the church’s focus on giving. I used to say the same thing all the time when I was younger. I used to complain that the church was all about money and not about God. But that was when I was young and before I returned to the church in my twenties. I’ve learned a bit since then about the nature of churches. What I’ve discovered is that, yes, we are guilty of wanting people’s money. But there’s a reason. The reason is that our church and any church is a weigh station for giving. The whole nature of the church is to give. We receive as a way of channeling people’s generosity.
Think about every part of the Calvin Presbyterian Church. Everything we do is related to giving. Start with the staff. Take me out of the equation for a moment. Every staff member in this church is committed to giving. Bruce Smith, our music and youth director, doesn’t take his pay, sit home, and say, “Wow! This is great. I get to get paid for hanging out at home listening to cds.” He lives his life giving. If you come to the church or track him down almost any hour of the afternoon or evening, you’ll find him talking with youth, working with musicians and singers, or doing something to make others’ lives better. Look at Toni Schlemmer, our associate music director and drama director. She spends so much of her off time giving voice lessons, or directing plays both here and outside of Calvin Church. And she rarely gets paid to direct the plays outside of Calvin Church. Steve Polley, our pastor of pastoral care, spends his week giving his time to visit people. Connie Frierson, our program director is tired this morning because she’s just partied out. She had a party at her house on Thursday evening for fifty women of the church, just so they could have an opportunity to come together and get to know each other. Then, on Friday evening, she had sixty singles over to her house for a get-to-know-you as part of our singles ministry. I could go on because everyone on our staff lives a life of giving.
We collect money from members and others to give even more. We offer worship services every Sunday to help improve people’s lives and help them grow closer to God. We give a tremendous amount of money to giving organizations beyond our walls, such as the Pittsburgh Project, VOICe, the Samaritan Counseling Center, Habitat for Humanity, the mission projects of the Presbyterian Church (USA), supporting Janet Guyer—our missionary in Southern Africa—Carrie Baker’s trip to South Africa this summer, Project Hope, SERRV, the Ladle and the Hearth soup kitchen in Ambridge, and so much more. Our building is a place of giving, and our upkeep of it helps with that giving. We do Christian education on Sunday morning for so many children and adults, and we have over 45 adults volunteering their time and efforts for no pay in order to teach these children. We have committees set up to reach out and help, all staffed by volunteers. Being generous to Calvin Church means giving to a giving place. Despite what cynics think, churches don’t want money because they are moneygrubbers. They want money to give away and make a bigger and bigger difference in the world.
It’s not just in and to church that we’re called to give. We’re called to be giving in all of life, even when it’s a pain and it’s not planned. Sometimes we’re at our most generous when we want to do anything but give. Let me give you an example of a giving time when it made sense to do something else.
Six years ago, while on vacation in the Boston area with Diane and the kids, I had to make a choice to either give or to do what I wanted to do—and I wasn’t gravitating towards giving. It was a late Sunday afternoon, and Diane was taking our kids and my cousin’s kids swimming in our hotel’s swimming pool. I decided that it was a fine time for me to take my walk, but I was told to not be gone too long because we had dinner plans. So I mapped out my four-mile route, put on my hat and t-shirt, clipped headphones onto my ears, drove to the starting areas, parked my car in the local Starbuck’s, and set out on my walk.
I had only walked about three blocks when I saw a young, African-American woman walking toward me. It was obvious she wanted to talk with me. I kind of avoided her gaze because I was worried that she wanted to sell me something. She was persistent, though. Despite my downcast eyes, she walked up to me and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me where Powell Street is?” I told her that I really didn’t know the area all that well and that she needed to give me some landmarks. “It’s near Shaw’s Supermarket on Nahatan Street.” I told her that I knew where that was, but that it was over two-and-a-half miles away. “Oh my,” she replied. “I’m supposed to be at work there at three o’clock, and it’s almost three now. When I got off the bus, the driver told me to just walk down Nahatan Street, and I kept walking but couldn’t find it.”
Now, you need to understand that giving this woman a ride to her job was not part of my plan, so I had to make a decision. Do I tell her that I’m sorry she won’t make it, or do I give her a ride? I really wanted to walk. I really wanted to do my own thing. I really wanted to stick with my plans. Finally, I broke down and said, “You know, you’ll never make it. Let me give you a ride.”
As we walked, both of us were nervous. She didn’t know me. For all she knew I could be dangerous, and I didn’t know if her request for me to help was only a con. As we walked I talked with her. “What’s your new job?” I asked. She said, “I’m a children’s caseworker at a home for troubled youth. I just started the job two days ago.” I asked her if child-care was her background. “Oh no. Actually, I’ve been trained to be a political and a community activist, but I really like to work with kids and thought this would be a good job. I work with kids in my church and really love it.”
“You go to church?” I asked. “Yes, I go to the Holiness Temple in Roxborough.” I said, “That’s interesting. You don’t know this, but I’m a pastor.” She looked at me in my hat and t-shirt and said, “Are you really?” “Yeah, believe it or not. I normally dress differently, but I’m on vacation.” She said, “This is amazing. When I saw you, I had just been praying to God to bring me someone to help me, and look what God did. God brought me a pastor.” I laughed. We continued to talk all the way to her job. As she got out I said, “Remember this the next time you have doubts about whether God answers your prayers.” She said, “I already know that God answers my prayers! Let’s both remember it.”
I didn't really want to give my time, but in the end giving her my time got me more prepared for God. What gets us ready for God's kingdom is generosity because generosity is an act of sacrificial love, and it connects us with God's way of life. The Bible emphasizes the idea of tithing for this very reason. The whole idea of tithing is that we become aware of how much God has given us, of how everything is a gift from God, so we give back 10% of all that God gives us back to God for God to give to others. Giving is the nature of God, and God wants it to become our nature. God gives everything to us for free, and the whole idea of Christ coming into the world was the idea that God came in Christ to teach us. And we didn’t have to do anything to deserve it. The idea of Christ dying on the cross is that he gave up his own life willingly so that in the end we could be given even more—the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, Christianity teaches that the more we give, the more we are given. The more we share, the more we become prepared. Giving transforms our souls because the nature of God is generosity
Do you want to really experience God in your life? Do you want to really know God in your life? Begin with becoming as generous as you can, and you'll discover something wonderful.
Amen.
Forming a Passionate Faith: 1. Getting Ready
Luke 12:22-31
August 8, 2010
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Our passage reminds me so clearly of something that happened back in 1993. It was a time when I, and a bunch of other people, had to decide whether to let go of our worries and trust God, or hold onto our worries and let go of God.
At the time I had been ordained already for four years, and about three months earlier I had made the decision to quit working as a pastor so that I could devote myself full-time to finishing my Ph.D. at Duquesne University. The program I was studying in was really the one program, the Institute of Formative Spirituality, that Duquesne University was known for all over the world. It brought a lot of prestige to the university, and we were all very proud to study there. The students came from all over the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, representing many different denominations and traditions. All had come to Pittsburgh to study in the area of spirituality.
There was one major problem with the institute. If you look at the other graduate programs at Duquesne University, especially the MBA program and the law school, they generated money. Typically the alumni of those programs gave back a lot of money to the school after graduation, especially those that ended up in high-income careers. And Duquesne was interested in programs that generated revenues. Unfortunately, the Institute of Formative Spirituality, since it was educating mostly priests, pastors, and religious sisters and brothers, didn’t produce high-income graduates. Graduates of the MBA and law school contributed thousands and millions to Duquesne. Graduates of the Institute of Formative Spirituality contributed hundreds. From the school’s perspective, the decision was easy no matter how much prestige the institute gave them. They decided to discontinue the program in order to expand the pharmacy program.
We had heard rumors that the program was in peril, and then one week we were all invited to a meeting with a dean. Most of the students were there, and the meeting began awkwardly as the dean was introduced. Standing slowly, and beginning with words of thanks and appreciation for all we had done, and the value the program had had for Duquesne for many years, he then told us that the program was in peril and that the program was going to close down in the next few years. Basically, classes would end by 1995, and the Ph.D. students would be given till 1997 to finish their dissertations.
The students, whose anxieties were now leading to anger, peppered him with questions: “How can you do this to us? We’ve all made so many sacrifices. What are we supposed to do? How do we make plans for ourselves? What good is a master or doctoral degree from a program that doesn’t exist? Why didn’t you tell us this could happen when we applied.” The dean tried his best to answer everyone, but it was obvious that this was a hostile crowd.
The reaction we all had was a natural one. We had made all sorts of plans for our future. We had spent thousands of dollars on tuition, books, and the rest. And we had committed countless hours to study and prayer. What was it all for? How dare they ruin all our carefully laid plans?
Then God broke into the meeting. Keith Barron, one of our professors, stood up and said something that has stuck in my mind ever since. He stood before us and said, “You know, this is where your faith gets tested. You’re all worried, but I want you to listen to this passage of scripture.” He then read our passage for today: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” Afterwards, he said, “God is going to take care of everything. God didn’t lead you here to then let you down. God had a purpose for you in bringing you here, and God still does. So don’t get consumed by worries. Just trust that God will take care of you.”
Keith was 100% right. In the end, God did take care of us. Eventually, they did close the program, but everyone in the program received their degrees and are now making a difference in the world. Keith had been right. In the end everything worked out for everyone. We worried so much, though, because all our plans looked like they were about to crumble.
I learned a big lesson that day. I learned that if you really want God in your life, you have to lay a foundation for God, and calm surrender is the key. The degree to which we surrender our worry and let God in is the extent to which God can work in our lives to do wonderful things.
Let me shift gears for a moment because I want to talk about letting go of worry in a different way. You wouldn’t know this about me, but I’m an expert fire-maker, and I’ve learned that building a fire is much like building a passion for God. I am an excellent fire-maker. Building proper fires is so important to me that I’ve told my wife, Diane, that I have only one demand when it comes to buying a home. It must have a natural fireplace. No gas jets or artificial logs for me. I want a fireplace where I can build it, stoke it, and grow it. In fact, one reason we moved to where we live now is that it is a place surrounded by woods. I love to cut down dead wood and trees, chop them up, and burn them in our outdoor fire pit.
I learned how to build fires as a teen in summer camp. I was sent every year for eight weeks to a camp in New Hampshire, and one of the tasks we had to learn was how to build a fire. We were taught how to build one using only one match, and after we succeeded, we then had to learn how to build it in the rain, which mean huddling under a poncho while a counselor sprayed a hose over us. What I learned is that to build a good fire, you have to start with very small kindling and build up from there.
Many people can’t build adequate fires because they start out too big. They put large logs over newspaper, and then wonder why the fire fizzles. To build a good fire you have to patiently start small. If you use crumpled newspaper as a base (at camp I had to use pine needles), you start by putting a layer of really small twigs—the smaller the better—atop the paper. Once the fire gets going, you place finger sized twigs on top. Once that starts to burn, you build around it log cabin structure (some like to build teepee styled structures, but I like to build it cabin-style) using twigs the width of our wrist. Then, as that begins to burn, you place normal sized logs atop the cabin structure, topping it all off with a roof of larger logs. There are small variations on this, but basically if you do it this way, you eventually get a roaring fire. To keep it going, you have to stoke it and put new logs on, while maintaining that cabin structure, to some extent.
Becoming available to God, and building a passion for God, is very similar to building a fire. If we are going to really build a passion for God, a passion that really allows God deeply into our lives, we have to start small by giving God our small worries. I think that most people try to start too big, and that’s why their faith struggles. They wait until they are facing a major crisis, and then try to give it to God, but they can’t. The faith needed for that is too big. When issues are that big, our worry and anxiety become so big that we have a hard time letting go and letting God. The key is building our faith like a fire, which means learning to let go of our worries and turning them over to God by starting with the small worries of life. Nothing’s too small. Learn to give over the little things. Then build up. Start giving God the bigger things. Pretty soon, you can learn to give over to God the big things in life, and they don’t come back.
The secret of our passage is that when we learn to live life by doing our part, but then giving God our worries and the responsibility for the results, life gets better. We discover how to live anxiety-free lives that build God-full lives.
When I think of people who started small in giving their anxieties to God, which resulted in being able to give God worries in the big things of life, I think of one of my faith heroes: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the sad things about remembering him and his work is that many people today forget that he was a pastor. They see him as a Civil Rights leader, but they fail to recognize how much his faith and Christianity shaped him to do what he did. He was shaped by his Christian upbringing. He was shaped by Scripture. He was shaped by great Christian writers such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Tolstoy. He was shaped by Gandhi and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Without these influences, he never would have led such a great movement that changed this country in radical ways.
What most people don’t know is that King’s part in this movement almost ended as it was beginning because of his anxieties. He didn’t want to lead this movement. In fact, he was reluctant to even go to Montgomery, Alabama. He first became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to get out from under the shadow of his father, Martin Luther King, Sr. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a powerful and popular preacher in Atlanta, and Martin Luther King, Jr. needed to go somewhere else to find his own voice and his own ministry. Montgomery was far enough away culturally and geographically for him to do that.
He became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement slowly by getting involved in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, boarded a bus and refused to walk to the back of the bus after being ordered to do so by the white driver. In those days, blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus. The response of the driver and others led the black community to initiate a bus boycott. In looking for a leader, the other pastors and civic leaders chose King. Still, he was reluctant. The main reason he ascended to the leadership was that he was young, just in his late twenties, and he was willing to say yes to organizing things. An older, wiser pastor would have said “no.” King really didn’t know what he was in for. Over time, the death threats against his life grew, and they made him nervous. He realized that at any moment, he could be taken from his wife and toddler daughter, or they could be taken from him, through violence. He became fearful and doubtful. Should he continue? Was it fair to his wife and family?
It was as he struggled with his anxieties that he sought God’s voice and call in prayer. Let me share with you what he says in his book, Stride toward Freedom, about how he heard God in prayer. On one particular night, he received a death threat on the phone from a stranger saying, “Listen, nigger, we’ve taken all we want from you; before next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.” This threat was different from all the others. It somehow seemed more like a promise than a threat. King struggled to sleep that night. He says, “I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. ‘I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’
“At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.” He had found his call through prayer.
What made this prayer and his experience so profound was that a week later a bomb was thrown onto the porch of his home, almost killing his wife and child. Instead of being gripped by fear, King became more resolute. He felt God’s presence in his life, telling him that God would be with him no matter what. He heard God’s call, and this call made it possible for him to follow God not matter how difficult and dangerous the task ahead was. King had been struggling to give his worries to God in much smaller things all along. In just following a call to be a pastor, he was giving anxieties over to God. So when it was time to give something big, like whether to stay in the movement or not, he had built up the ability to give over those worries. And in experiencing God as he gave over his worries, he was able to let go and let God throughout the rest of the movement. Many people have reported that in the last six months of his life, before being shot in Memphis, he spoke openly about his acceptance that he would probably be assassinated soon. And they remarked that he never seemed to be afraid. He had learned the secret of our passage. King had a passion for God, and the true kindling for it was his surrender to God of all his worries.
If you want to really form a passion for God in your life—if you really want to experience God in your life—it begins with surrendering you worries. It’s never easy to do this, and the moment we give God our worries, we generally get them right back. It’s what I call worry echoes. We give our worries to God, and then they come right back to us. But if we keep giving them over, like an echo, they will diminish. Also, when I say we surrender our worries I don’t say that we sit back and do nothing. We do. We do our part, but surrendering our worries lets God do God’s part.
For today, learning to let go of your worries is enough. Come back next week and we’ll learn more about how to build a passion for God that makes a real difference in life.
Amen.
August 8, 2010
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Our passage reminds me so clearly of something that happened back in 1993. It was a time when I, and a bunch of other people, had to decide whether to let go of our worries and trust God, or hold onto our worries and let go of God.
At the time I had been ordained already for four years, and about three months earlier I had made the decision to quit working as a pastor so that I could devote myself full-time to finishing my Ph.D. at Duquesne University. The program I was studying in was really the one program, the Institute of Formative Spirituality, that Duquesne University was known for all over the world. It brought a lot of prestige to the university, and we were all very proud to study there. The students came from all over the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, representing many different denominations and traditions. All had come to Pittsburgh to study in the area of spirituality.
There was one major problem with the institute. If you look at the other graduate programs at Duquesne University, especially the MBA program and the law school, they generated money. Typically the alumni of those programs gave back a lot of money to the school after graduation, especially those that ended up in high-income careers. And Duquesne was interested in programs that generated revenues. Unfortunately, the Institute of Formative Spirituality, since it was educating mostly priests, pastors, and religious sisters and brothers, didn’t produce high-income graduates. Graduates of the MBA and law school contributed thousands and millions to Duquesne. Graduates of the Institute of Formative Spirituality contributed hundreds. From the school’s perspective, the decision was easy no matter how much prestige the institute gave them. They decided to discontinue the program in order to expand the pharmacy program.
We had heard rumors that the program was in peril, and then one week we were all invited to a meeting with a dean. Most of the students were there, and the meeting began awkwardly as the dean was introduced. Standing slowly, and beginning with words of thanks and appreciation for all we had done, and the value the program had had for Duquesne for many years, he then told us that the program was in peril and that the program was going to close down in the next few years. Basically, classes would end by 1995, and the Ph.D. students would be given till 1997 to finish their dissertations.
The students, whose anxieties were now leading to anger, peppered him with questions: “How can you do this to us? We’ve all made so many sacrifices. What are we supposed to do? How do we make plans for ourselves? What good is a master or doctoral degree from a program that doesn’t exist? Why didn’t you tell us this could happen when we applied.” The dean tried his best to answer everyone, but it was obvious that this was a hostile crowd.
The reaction we all had was a natural one. We had made all sorts of plans for our future. We had spent thousands of dollars on tuition, books, and the rest. And we had committed countless hours to study and prayer. What was it all for? How dare they ruin all our carefully laid plans?
Then God broke into the meeting. Keith Barron, one of our professors, stood up and said something that has stuck in my mind ever since. He stood before us and said, “You know, this is where your faith gets tested. You’re all worried, but I want you to listen to this passage of scripture.” He then read our passage for today: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” Afterwards, he said, “God is going to take care of everything. God didn’t lead you here to then let you down. God had a purpose for you in bringing you here, and God still does. So don’t get consumed by worries. Just trust that God will take care of you.”
Keith was 100% right. In the end, God did take care of us. Eventually, they did close the program, but everyone in the program received their degrees and are now making a difference in the world. Keith had been right. In the end everything worked out for everyone. We worried so much, though, because all our plans looked like they were about to crumble.
I learned a big lesson that day. I learned that if you really want God in your life, you have to lay a foundation for God, and calm surrender is the key. The degree to which we surrender our worry and let God in is the extent to which God can work in our lives to do wonderful things.
Let me shift gears for a moment because I want to talk about letting go of worry in a different way. You wouldn’t know this about me, but I’m an expert fire-maker, and I’ve learned that building a fire is much like building a passion for God. I am an excellent fire-maker. Building proper fires is so important to me that I’ve told my wife, Diane, that I have only one demand when it comes to buying a home. It must have a natural fireplace. No gas jets or artificial logs for me. I want a fireplace where I can build it, stoke it, and grow it. In fact, one reason we moved to where we live now is that it is a place surrounded by woods. I love to cut down dead wood and trees, chop them up, and burn them in our outdoor fire pit.
I learned how to build fires as a teen in summer camp. I was sent every year for eight weeks to a camp in New Hampshire, and one of the tasks we had to learn was how to build a fire. We were taught how to build one using only one match, and after we succeeded, we then had to learn how to build it in the rain, which mean huddling under a poncho while a counselor sprayed a hose over us. What I learned is that to build a good fire, you have to start with very small kindling and build up from there.
Many people can’t build adequate fires because they start out too big. They put large logs over newspaper, and then wonder why the fire fizzles. To build a good fire you have to patiently start small. If you use crumpled newspaper as a base (at camp I had to use pine needles), you start by putting a layer of really small twigs—the smaller the better—atop the paper. Once the fire gets going, you place finger sized twigs on top. Once that starts to burn, you build around it log cabin structure (some like to build teepee styled structures, but I like to build it cabin-style) using twigs the width of our wrist. Then, as that begins to burn, you place normal sized logs atop the cabin structure, topping it all off with a roof of larger logs. There are small variations on this, but basically if you do it this way, you eventually get a roaring fire. To keep it going, you have to stoke it and put new logs on, while maintaining that cabin structure, to some extent.
Becoming available to God, and building a passion for God, is very similar to building a fire. If we are going to really build a passion for God, a passion that really allows God deeply into our lives, we have to start small by giving God our small worries. I think that most people try to start too big, and that’s why their faith struggles. They wait until they are facing a major crisis, and then try to give it to God, but they can’t. The faith needed for that is too big. When issues are that big, our worry and anxiety become so big that we have a hard time letting go and letting God. The key is building our faith like a fire, which means learning to let go of our worries and turning them over to God by starting with the small worries of life. Nothing’s too small. Learn to give over the little things. Then build up. Start giving God the bigger things. Pretty soon, you can learn to give over to God the big things in life, and they don’t come back.
The secret of our passage is that when we learn to live life by doing our part, but then giving God our worries and the responsibility for the results, life gets better. We discover how to live anxiety-free lives that build God-full lives.
When I think of people who started small in giving their anxieties to God, which resulted in being able to give God worries in the big things of life, I think of one of my faith heroes: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the sad things about remembering him and his work is that many people today forget that he was a pastor. They see him as a Civil Rights leader, but they fail to recognize how much his faith and Christianity shaped him to do what he did. He was shaped by his Christian upbringing. He was shaped by Scripture. He was shaped by great Christian writers such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Tolstoy. He was shaped by Gandhi and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Without these influences, he never would have led such a great movement that changed this country in radical ways.
What most people don’t know is that King’s part in this movement almost ended as it was beginning because of his anxieties. He didn’t want to lead this movement. In fact, he was reluctant to even go to Montgomery, Alabama. He first became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to get out from under the shadow of his father, Martin Luther King, Sr. Martin Luther King, Sr. was a powerful and popular preacher in Atlanta, and Martin Luther King, Jr. needed to go somewhere else to find his own voice and his own ministry. Montgomery was far enough away culturally and geographically for him to do that.
He became the leader of the Civil Rights Movement slowly by getting involved in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. Rosa Parks, a black seamstress in Montgomery, boarded a bus and refused to walk to the back of the bus after being ordered to do so by the white driver. In those days, blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus. The response of the driver and others led the black community to initiate a bus boycott. In looking for a leader, the other pastors and civic leaders chose King. Still, he was reluctant. The main reason he ascended to the leadership was that he was young, just in his late twenties, and he was willing to say yes to organizing things. An older, wiser pastor would have said “no.” King really didn’t know what he was in for. Over time, the death threats against his life grew, and they made him nervous. He realized that at any moment, he could be taken from his wife and toddler daughter, or they could be taken from him, through violence. He became fearful and doubtful. Should he continue? Was it fair to his wife and family?
It was as he struggled with his anxieties that he sought God’s voice and call in prayer. Let me share with you what he says in his book, Stride toward Freedom, about how he heard God in prayer. On one particular night, he received a death threat on the phone from a stranger saying, “Listen, nigger, we’ve taken all we want from you; before next week you’ll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.” This threat was different from all the others. It somehow seemed more like a promise than a threat. King struggled to sleep that night. He says, “I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. ‘I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.’
“At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.” He had found his call through prayer.
What made this prayer and his experience so profound was that a week later a bomb was thrown onto the porch of his home, almost killing his wife and child. Instead of being gripped by fear, King became more resolute. He felt God’s presence in his life, telling him that God would be with him no matter what. He heard God’s call, and this call made it possible for him to follow God not matter how difficult and dangerous the task ahead was. King had been struggling to give his worries to God in much smaller things all along. In just following a call to be a pastor, he was giving anxieties over to God. So when it was time to give something big, like whether to stay in the movement or not, he had built up the ability to give over those worries. And in experiencing God as he gave over his worries, he was able to let go and let God throughout the rest of the movement. Many people have reported that in the last six months of his life, before being shot in Memphis, he spoke openly about his acceptance that he would probably be assassinated soon. And they remarked that he never seemed to be afraid. He had learned the secret of our passage. King had a passion for God, and the true kindling for it was his surrender to God of all his worries.
If you want to really form a passion for God in your life—if you really want to experience God in your life—it begins with surrendering you worries. It’s never easy to do this, and the moment we give God our worries, we generally get them right back. It’s what I call worry echoes. We give our worries to God, and then they come right back to us. But if we keep giving them over, like an echo, they will diminish. Also, when I say we surrender our worries I don’t say that we sit back and do nothing. We do. We do our part, but surrendering our worries lets God do God’s part.
For today, learning to let go of your worries is enough. Come back next week and we’ll learn more about how to build a passion for God that makes a real difference in life.
Amen.
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