Taking hold of life

A Sermon preached on Sept. 29, 2019, Pentecost 16 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Amos 6:1a,4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

At a family service, I’ve sometimes put on a dramatized, acted version of the Gospel reading. Today’s story of the rich man – who is not named – and the poor man Lazarus who is named, is certainly dramatic but maybe not entirely suitable, though the special effects for Hades would be fun! 

Today we celebrate Harvest Festival and we will kick off our annual Stewardship campaign. I think Paul’s Letter to Timothy has something to say about both of these topics, so I will focus on the Epistle.

What do we celebrate at Harvest Festival? Our gratitude for a successful harvest of course, symbolized by all the good gifts you see here, decorating the church. The tradition of celebrating Harvest Festival in churches is fairly recent, it began in 1843 at a church in Cornwall. The idea behind it however – to give thanks to God for God’s generosity in providing for all we need to live – is much older. In fact, as soon as humans started believing in the supernatural, they will have had some sort of religious ceremony at harvest time. Once it will have involved an animal sacrifice – but please don’t worry, that is not why we have animals with us today. Or part of the harvest might have been offered to a god or gods, the first fruits perhaps to be burned, or more often for the priest to take home. None of that will happen today either, and while I will put this all into my car tomorrow, that will only be to take it to the Teestube to be used for meals for the homeless! 

What we really celebrate at Harvest Festival is God’s generosity. We give thanks to God “who gives life to all things.” (1 Timothy 6:13) We give thanks to God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (6:17) We give thanks to God who “calls us to eternal life.” (6:12) None of us here live off the land. At the most we might harvest apples from a small orchard or vegetables from an allotment. But we still have a harvest to celebrate and be thankful for: our income and wealth, our relationships and friendships, our children and grandchildren, this community ….. and let’s take a moment to think about what we are grateful for. 

As far as wealth is concerned, Paul describes two possible responses.

One can be summarized under the heading “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” (6:10) These are, in Paul’s words, “those who want to be rich (who) fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” This is the nameless rich man in the parable we heard, the one who was so focused on amassing and enjoying his wealth – conspicuously as we heard – that he forgot God and his neighbor. As we already heard in last week’s Gospel: “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Luke 16:1-13) Too often, money, power and success become things we worship and serve.

The other response is what Paul calls “godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Timothy 6:6-7) The question is then, what do we do with it in this world? Shun the worship of wealth, Paul writes, instead “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” (6:11) Wealth is not bad in itself, it should just not be the source of our hope and joy. Do we love money or God? Do we rely on money or on God who richly provides? For Paul, the proper use of money and wealth is “to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.” (6:18) And when he writes that by doing this, “they may take hold of the life that really is life,” (6:19) he is not just referring to the future, to eternal life with God, but to this one. Only a life lived in love and generosity is really life. 

Money offers spiritual opportunities if it is rightly used. And one right use is what we call stewardship: tithing a portion of your income as a regular gift to God’s Church thereby enabling us to fulfill God’s mission as we have described it in our four visions. How much should you give? 

A $100 bill, a $20 bill and a $1 bill at the end of their useful lives were together, about to be shredded. The $100 says, "I've seen the whole world during my lifetime, Why, I've been on cruises in the Caribbean, safaris in Africa, and vacations in Europe." The 20 says, "Well, I've not done quite as well as you, but I have been to Atlantic City, Disneyland, and Starbucks." They both turn to the $1 and ask, "How about you? Where have you been?" Not wanting to be outdone, the $1 says, "I've seen the whole country as well ‑ going from church to church to church." The $100 bill asks, "What's a church?"

I know your $100 and € bills all know this church. And $1 can also be huge amount – just think of the parable of the widow’s mite. But I am asking you to give generously out of what you have. I am also not threatening you with Hades if you don’t! The final verse of today’s Gospel parable, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead," is probably one of the most ironic sayings in the New Testament. Jesus did not die and rise from the dead to teach us that we have to give generously and treat our fellow humans as that, as fellow humans. Jesus died and rose again for something much greater: to show us God’s unconditional love even at the moment when it was being rejected, to show us that death has no power over us and that our relationship with God will outlast death, and to tell us to take hold of the life that really is life now.

Amen.