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To lead a life worthy of the calling
of the Gospel takes one to have an “attitude of gratitude.” This means putting
on the Big “H” of humility. The Israelites were certainly not grateful and were
bellyaching and complaining in the middle of the wilderness. They were even
ready to go back to Egypt and be re-enslaved! The Jews in the Gospel were
just as ungrateful, in the sense that they more or less told Jesus to “prove
it.” He had just fed 5,000 people with the loaves and fishes and they still
didn't understand and basically chose not to believe what He was saying about
who He was and His being the bread of life.
Having an “attitude of gratitude” is
the definite challenge of the Christian journey. It's very hard for us to put
on the New Nature, push the 3rd eyeball back in the middle of your forehead,
and not be “Old Nature…” with people and live into all the beautiful things
that we hear in St Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Bearing one another in love,
is making every effort to be unified in peace, patience and gentleness.
Essentially the church must be Christ’ instruments of unity in the world. As
we've been talking about the last several weeks, the world, yet alone the
church, is hardly unified and hardly at peace. These are sad times for Society.
But we need to face these challenging times with a “glass-half-full attitude.” This is being humble enough to know that we're
not perfect as well as know that we are striving for a life lived to the perfection
of God's standards.
You know for a “chosen people,” the
Israelites were certainly acting spoiled and frankly out of line with God... You
have to have a little sympathy for them, because what I read manna was thought
to be was like some sort of lichen dust, or dew on plants also known as a type
of fungus not in the mushroom family mind you.... but they were starving...
Part of that truly was their own fault, for God provided for them and they chose
to complain, about it instead. I thought it was terribly amusing the other day,
when I was reading a lot of different commentaries for creating this message I
am delivering to you this morning, that this young 20 something year old
commentator said that it was important to complain. Essentially, she made the
argument that complaining is an important right to the individual and in our
society. Mind you now she was writing this commentary on our reading from
Exodus this morning so essentially, she'd be one of the people joining the
Israelites and complaining to God that well I'd like to have my gluten free
bread and a glass of merlot to make this manna taste better...
I guess it would be fair to say that
the "me" generation would perfectly fit in with the attitude that the
Israelites in Exodus and the Jews and today's Gospel, had against Jesus. When
everything is being operated from the world of the self, it's hard to be
grateful for much of anything yet alone be or realize compassion received.
Learning to live in compassion, become a compassionate person, is at the heart
of the Gospel’s calling. Whatever gifts we have been given, the Holy Spirit
builds us up and equips us to do ministry in the world, spreading this love
mercy and peace that Christ has taught us. Learning how to speak the truth in
love to others as the Body of Christ in this world is building up the world to
see the reality of the New Nature—the kingdom of God.
It is very hard to realize the
fruits of the New Nature in our world today since everything is so indentured
to money as well as other evil things such as politics and indifference. Our
Spirits at times can feel fragile and challenged but the world hardly gives us
real responses, that heal us spiritually within. This is where Jesus is going
with today's Gospel. He's trying to have them see what the spiritual fruit from
God, partaking in it, living into it, truly does for the world. We are
God's children, we are His creation. We are children of His Grace and to live
into this, as our Promise. God continually provides for us even when our minds
are closed to what He's done and what He's revealed to us to do. We are so
wound up into the wilderness of this world that we become lost in it. We've
gone past sounding like the Israelites bellyaching in the wilderness and have
been led by our own devices and delusions of completion, closure. Nothing
however is truly closed yet alone answered.
Governmental red tape, in regard to
complications and problems in healthcare, are always sad to witness. Every
little aspect of offering care for someone who is incapacitated financially as
well as physically, is utterly controlled by money. The people in charge of
these systems must go by the bottom line and conveniently people fall through
the cracks because of it. Even if the person is now legally blind and their
spouse must work 24/7, there is very little compassion to be found or heard
from many of these places. Just this past week before I went back to
Chicago to see my family, I was helping to interview a caregiving company to
offer "bridging the gap care" as they call it for Linda. I was not
only saddened by how ridiculously controlled every little aspect was by the
bottom line of money, but I was angry as well. It basically seems that what
happens to people don’t really matter over money. What an awful thought compassion
has a price tag on it! It's beyond the sin of greed and indifference, those two
systemic sins, but it is just truly or frankly evil. What money
prioritizes over the well-being of others is tragic and sad.
This past week visiting my parents
in Chicago, was very challenging since my dad has been doing poorly with his weekly
dialysis treatments and other complications. Just like many people who are
seniors, and can't work anymore, they have very little to even afford their
prescriptions. The world doesn't care enough really, that’s the cold hard
truth. If they don't fall into a certain demographic or fall into this or that
or that, they won’t help. When peoples’
Spirits are very challenged and hurting, money rules any kind of aid. Some
people who call themselves practitioners of compassion think medications will
help to make things all better as well. Drowning out your anxieties with
different drugs are not going to solve your problems.... God is. The love of
God fills those gaps, and this is speaking from experience of having moments in
my life that have been very challenging. If it wasn't for God feeding me the
true bread of life, through His love and peace, spiritually feeding my soul, my
hungering and thirsting soul; I would be very lost and broken in the wilderness
of the world.
It took a while to learn how to be
grateful, especially before Christ was back in my life. This is also true for
so many people when we even unknowingly have our eyes and hearts closed to God.
Even when He's wanting to provide His healing Grace and love for us, we don't
realize how to solve the problems. This is what I think is so interesting
about this story from Exodus. Moses is this faithful servant listening to God's
every Word, trying to guide the people and encourage the people and God's truly
being active in giving, providing things for them. They were freed from
Egypt and didn't even understand or realize Yahweh’s Grace with that. They were
all ready to give up and go back to be re-enslaved. Here’s an interesting
thought— perhaps, they weren't ever truly free spiritually. They were
indentured to things through what they thought was the right way.
Being indentured to things and ideas
that we think are the “right way...” Yes, we're still not free. We are so not
free, that now we have even become justifiers of our own will and purposes over
and above God’s, losing ourselves further into the wilderness of the world.
Control is our Achilles heel in regard to choosing to do the “do's of the
Gospel,” which is living into the virtues of the Christian Life. Caving into the
temptations of following empty promises, evil in the world, or known as the “don'ts
of the Gospel,” is what indentures us. Right under everyone's nose was the work
of God, present in their very lives not only in Exodus and Ephesians, but in
today's Gospel with Jesus just having finished a miracle in front of them. They
couldn't understand, and they didn't believe in Him.
When we find ourselves living too
much into the ways of the world, is when we can't see, yet alone live into the
grace that is all around us as a spiritual manna always providing and guiding
us. We find worldly quote solutions that are hardly solutions but further
indenturement. Socialism is certainly not compassion, it’s ego-infused control
and indenturement, and neither is capitalism. Capitalism is the other side of
the coin in regard to control and freely to “be.” What we should have come to
learn from our past, yet alone the Gospel, has now entangled us into a quiet
civil war with one another over it. We're not laying down our verbal weapons
and coming to the table in peace to find and live into real plans of service
and compassion. People throughout history who have given us great
examples of living compassion were people like Mother Teresa, Francis of Assisi,
Martin Luther King junior, and so many more. They were compelled spiritually to
live into being compassion to others. Their battle ground with the Gospel
differed between them, but they were truly united in their goals. Some may have
been placed under sainthood, but the truth is they were ordinary people, who
felt the extra-ordinary love of God guiding them in their lives. They were
spiritually fed and lead to serve the Gospel of Christ to the world they knew,
needed to change.
We are all ordinary people here. The
world may say that we are only ordinary, but the gifts that God gives, gives us
the potential. He spiritually feeds us and encourages us to be extra-ordinary. The
season of Pentecost is the journey of the Spirit active in our lives and it is
certainly not ordinary. We should live into that extra-ordinariness by moving
the mountains of indifference and greed that try to stifle and control the
truth of the Gospel to love our neighbor and create a New Natured world—the
kingdom of God. One of the pleasures I had this past week was visiting the
troubled couple I've been lightly counseling on and off. This would be a
colleague and a congregant from another church. They've been through a very
rocky road and ugly things and are just now finally seeing the light at the end
of the tunnel. They are however, only “lightly surviving” at the moment. This
isn’t just an issue of finance, but the challenges they have been facing
spiritually have been very hard on them. I know that the man is very strong in
his faith, maybe not so much in the New Nature yet… but he will, with God's
help be able to survive.
The other friend who I was helping a
few months back is surviving but I do still feel sad about everything, I can't
help that. When you’ve known someone for 31 years it's hard to see their life
as struggling and “quietly unhappy.” There's a theme to pick up there: Are we
living in a world right now, that has a lot of “quietly unhappy” people? I know
happiness is one of those loaded Pandora's box words, but I think it's
important to think about, spiritually. Have some of us hardened our hearts so
successfully against God, that we oppress people into a “quiet unhappiness?” We
do live in an oppressive society that not only “subtly” and more forcefully
persecutes Christians but has indentured people through their ideologies and
agendas.
That's why I think it was comical or
ironic when that young commentator was talking about “our right” or “privilege”
to complain. Just like the Jews in today's Gospel, this person really doesn't
understand what the Gospel of Christ is all about. They can't see the spiritual,
more than they see their quote, “enlightened reasoning.” The “me” generation
has definitely become the toxic fuel for the ego and fairly much the polar
opposite of the “Big H,” humility. It takes humility for us to realize the
truth of service. It takes humility to transform our hearts to be grounded in
Christ and to share those spiritual fruits of blessing. It takes humility to
know real peace and share that peace in loving neighbor, being there for one
another, united by His gospel. The origins of the Body, what we see with
the early church was a missional purpose to be active compassion in the world
with God's Word as our fuel. Why aren’t we gassing up? Tap into the truth, for
it has been spoken with love!
In continuing to speak the truth in
love, I'm going to be looking forward to our informal helping hands ministry
opportunity as the family of First Congregational Church. I am looking forward
to some of you joining me in helping to help Linda and Dwane get unpacked and
clean up their house to be able to help make things easier for them. They are
just one example in our community here in Las Vegas, of hurting and suffering
people who need the world to stop, and really help them. We have
officially replanted as the Body, the Church. We should see that the soil has
been patted down and now we must go bear fruit together. We need to start
looking into activities every week. I get calls to the Parish Office weekly for
people asking about our former food pantry… Maybe there's another church we can
join in serving the homeless and hungry around us? Maybe there is another
opportunity to help with building one of those homes for the homeless that we
can investigate? All it really needs is our hearts, hands, feet and voices to
say YES to and DO it! God continues to provide for us. We need to learn how to
provide, carry His Word to others.
Let us pray
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus,
We thank You for all You have
provided
You do satisfy the hungry heart with
Your living, loving and restorative Word.
Help us to become one Body united in
spirit
To be able to move those mountains
of obstacles
And to truly free ourselves from
what our greed and difference has indentured us to.
Help us to transform, to be humble,
loving creatures dedicated to serving you and our neighbor
AMEN
August
5th, 2018; Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost; Year B; Proper 13; SOLA
Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
145:10-21; Exodus 16:2-15; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:22-35
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 10am
https://youtu.be/nXwZ96h9gY4
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