A Portion Of Thyself
Sermon
From Upside Down To Rightside Up
Cycle C Sermons for Lent and Easter Based on the Gospel Lessons
At a graduation ceremony, the president of a Christian college stood at the podium and looked out over the huge crowd of people. He shook his head and said to himself (right into the microphone, of course!): “All these Christians in one place, and no one’s taking an offering!”
We take offerings a lot, don’t we? Every Sunday at worship services, the money plates are passed. In fact, we can hardly think of a meeting of Christians where there is not some suggestion about offerings, donations, or contributions. Money and religion seem to go hand in hand.
Indeed, someone told a story of an airplane that was experiencing problems. One of the engines had failed, and another was acting strange. The passengers were getting nervous. Some were beginning to panic. Finally, one fellow sitting near the front of the plane yelled out, “Is there a priest or a minister on board who can do something religious?!” There was; a clergyman got up, and passed his hat for an offering!
Money and religion often go hand in hand! But maybe they should. They certainly did for Jesus. The gospels record 37 of his parables, and in nearly half of them ― sixteen, to be exact ― Jesus talks about money and the way in which we use our possessions!
More than that: one-tenth of all the verses in the gospels deal directly with the subject of money. That’s 288 verses! Again, when you look at the whole Bible, you find that less than 500 verses speak specifically about faith, and only 500 verses talk about prayer, yet more than 2,000 verses address the topics of money and possessions!
Religion and money go hand in hand. Of course, that is essentially what Jesus is saying in these verses; “Your money and your religion go hand in hand! Your faith and your finances are part of the same package! What you do with your checkbook is as important as what you do with your Bible!” Religion and money go hand in hand.
In that light, there are three questions we must face.
Are You Aware?
The first is this: “Are you aware?” Do you see others around you? Has your faith opened your eyes to the need and the concerns of your partners in the human race?
Probably no period in human history was as peaceful and as prosperous as the days of Antonius Pious (138-161 AD), who ruled Rome in the second century. Edward Gibbon, in his magnificent treatise The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, said that the times of Antonius Pious were the “happiest” on earth. He was probably right. There was more wealth and business success and domestic peace in those days than most civilizations have ever known.
Antonius Pious was a good ruler and his people knew it. In fact, one of his biggest supporters was the Athenian philosopher Aristedes. Aristedes couldn’t seem to write enough verses in praise of Antonius. He lauded the government, and the beauty of Rome. He praised the magnificence of its buildings and the character of its citizens. Aristedes was a one-man ministry of propaganda, telling the world of the pomp and splendor of Antonius Pious and his great government.
But Aristedes wrote about other things as well. One day, he sent a letter to Antonius, telling the monarch to keep his eye on a certain group of people in his empire. “You need these people,” said Aristedes. “You should find them and talk with them. You can learn much from them.”
“The unique thing about them,” said Aristedes, “is that they really have eyes to see others. They watch out for those around them. They take care of the widows, who are often pushed aside when their husbands die. They look after orphans, especially those who get sold as slaves. These people will even pay huge sums of money to buy the freedom of others.”
It is not that these folks are so wealthy. In fact, said Aristedes, they are often the very poor of most Roman cities. Yet if they know of someone in need, they will even go without food for two or three days in order to save a few coins that might help someone else.
“You should get to know these people, Antonius!” said Aristedes. “In all your grand empire, they are the only ones who make it a habit to see the needs of the poor and do something about it.”
Who was Aristedes writing about? Christians! He was writing about the followers of Jesus! Can you imagine it? A Greek philosopher telling one of the greatest Roman emperors to look for Christians because they were the ones from whom he could learn something!
So it is appropriate for Jesus’ followers always to ask one another, “Are you aware?” Do you see? Have you reached beyond yourself and looked at the lives and the circumstances of your partners in the human enterprise?
In 1966, evangelist Martin Higgenbottem was one of the main speakers at the Berlin World Congress on Evangelism. He told the gathering that his life of devotion and service had to do with his mother. He remembered coming home from school one afternoon to find her sitting at the kitchen table with a strange man. The fellow was obviously someone who lived on the streets. His clothes were filthy, his hair was slicked with unwashed grease, his body smelled of a mixture of unkind odors.
But Martin’s mother was chatting pleasantly with him while they devoured a plate of sandwiches together. She had gone shopping that morning and found him cold and hungry, so she brought him home with her.
When the man was ready to leave, he said passionately, “I wish there were more people in the world like you!”
Martin’s mother casually threw the compliment aside. “Oh,” she said, “there are! You just have to look for them!”
The man broke down. He shook his head, and tears rolled across his cheeks. “But lady!” he said, “I didn’t have to look for you! You looked for me!”
You looked for me! “Are you aware?” asks Jesus. Are you aware?
Will You Share?
A second question follows: “Will you share?” Will you take what you have and give to those around you? Will you use your blessings to touch the lives of others?
There is a wonderful story told about Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City during the Great Depression. Before he became mayor, he served for a time as a police court judge. One cold winter’s day, a man was brought before him was charged with stealing a loaf of bread. La Guardia asked if he was guilty. The man nodded. He had taken the bread because his family was starving, and he had no money to buy food. What was he to do?
The law bound La Guardia. “I’ve got to punish you,” he told the thief. “The law makes no exceptions! I fine you $10!” And he brought down his gavel.
But where would the man get the money for the fine? Now they would have to throw him in jail as well!
La Guardia wasn’t finished, though. He already had his hand on his wallet. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill, handed it to the bailiff and said: “Here’s the money for your fine.”
Then he took back the ten dollar bill, put it into his hat, handed the hat to the bailiff and said, “I’m going to suspend the sentence, and I’m going to fine everyone here in the courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread in order to eat!”
When the man left the courtroom, he had the light of life in his eyes and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents in his pocket!
“Will you share?” Will you share what God has given you with others around who have needs today?
It was a requirement of the Jewish religion to give alms for the poor. That’s what Jesus was talking about in the verses of Matthew 6. In fact, the Old Testament rules and regulations had a built-in system that guaranteed help for the poor. You were not even allowed to come to the temple for worship unless you had given alms to the poor.
Tithing was a standard practice. One tenth of everything you ever earned was to be given back to God as a confession of faith. But how can you give money to God? Do the deacons take the offerings and go into the back room of the church and toss it all up to heaven, and whatever God doesn’t want falls back to the floor?
No, God’s instructions were very clear. When you give your tithes to the poor, he said, you are giving them to me! Jesus echoed that idea in a later teaching. In Matthew 25 he talked about the end of time, and the day we will all appear before the throne of God for judgment. God will say to some of us: “You took care of me! When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was sick, you looked after me.”
We’ll shake our heads, according to Jesus, and have this puzzled look on our faces. We’ll say to God: “When was that? I don’t remember ever seeing you on earth! When did we help you out like that?”
The Father will look at us, Jesus said, and he will say: “When you gave to the poor among you, when you offered help to those who needed it, when you went beyond yourself in mercy, you did it to me!”
We don’t always do well at that, do we? The Internal Revenue Service tells us that few of us even admit to giving for charitable causes. Americans give only about 1.65% of their incomes to charity! That included all charitable causes, like the arts, universities, hospitals, and cultural centers! That’s 85% less than tithing!
It’s not that we are isolated from the needs in our world. We hear the news, we see the pictures, we are challenged by the requests that come every day in the mail. When Jesus asks us, “Are you aware?” we can only say, “Yes! Painfully so! Enormously so!”
But when Jesus asks us, “Will you share?” that’s a different story. We are programmed to take rather than give. We are taught by our society to receive, but not necessarily to share. We are challenged by our aged to grab for all the gusto we can get and not to deprive ourselves of anything for the sake of others.
John Bright, a British politician of the nineteenth century, was walking down a street one day when a fellow was seriously injured in an accident. The crowds gathered around, gasping in delighted horror at the blood and the gore. But Bright took off his hat, grabbed a ten-pound note from his wallet, and stuffed it into his hat. Then he pushed his way through the crowds and said, “I’m ten pounds sorry for this man! How sorry are you?!”
In moments, he had turned the sickening curiosity of the people into sympathetic compassion.
Are you aware?
Will you share?
Those are the questions of Jesus for us.
Do You Care?
Then comes the most important question of all. “Do you care?”
Do you really care about others? Is compassion a way of life for you?
Helmut Thielicke tells of a time he was hospitalized in great pain. The nurses were wonderful and took great care of him. One nurse, in particular, impressed him. She worked the night shift. Every evening she was there: prompt, pleasant, and efficient. She seemed to care deeply about her patients. She always had a bright smile for them.
In fact, in the sleepless hours of the night, she often sat next to Thielicke and talked with him. For twenty years she had been on this shift! For twenty years she had worked while others slept! She had given of herself in the darkest hours of the night.
“Isn’t it a pretty stressful thing for you?” Thielicke asked her. “Don’t you ever get tired of it all? How do you keep it up, year after year?”
Thielicke said she beamed at him, and this is what she told me: “Well, you see, every night that I work sets another jewel in my heavenly crown! I already have 7,175 in a row!”
Thielicke said he was stunned! Suddenly his gratitude toward her was gone. She didn’t really care about him! She wasn’t helping him through his tough times because she felt compassion for him! She was only doing this in order to earn some kind of reward! Every night she kept count of her good deeds! Every smile was sold at a price! Every shift was a deposit in the bank of heaven, and that’s all!
Sure, she was aware! Yes, she was willing to share! But did she care? Did her heart go with the gift? Did her spirit reach with her fingers and touch the one she tended? When she told the reason for her service, it seemed not.
Jesus talks in these verses about the rewards we get from God for the gifts of charity we give during our lives. Yet there is something crass and dirty when the rewards become our goals.
Some years ago, a man in Florida brought a lawsuit against his church. He demanded that the church return to him the $800 that he had given to it the year before. His court documents included this testimony: “On September 7 I delivered $800 of my savings to the ( ) church in response to the pastor’s promise that blessings, benefits, and reward would come to the person who tithed his wealth. I did not and have not received these benefits.”
You foolish man! Jesus would say. You silly beggar! Do you give in order to get? Do you tithe to earn a profit? Do you offer your services on the floor of the trading markets? Says one writer: “He that serves God for money will serve the devil for better wages!” (Sir Roger L’Estrange).
He is right! That is exactly Jesus’ point. “Are you aware?” he asks us. “Yes!” we tell him. We see the needs around us.
“Will you share?” he requests of us. “Well, that’s tough for us,” we answer, “but we’ll try.”
Then comes the hard part. “But do you care?” Do you reach yourself with the gift? Do you touch the heart of the needy, and feel his hurts and know her wounds and stretch your hand in love and compassion? Do you care?
So often we don’t even hear his question. We are too busy asking a question ourselves: What’s in it for me? What do I get out of it? Will anybody notice? Do I get the “Good Citizen of the Year” award? Will there be a write-up in the papers?
One man I know served in the church all his life. In his senior years, however, he became bitter. Nobody had ever really thanked him! None of the younger people in the church realized how much he had given! So he pulled back and wrapped himself in a security blanket of self-pity.
One woman’s face was wet with tears when she came to see me. All these years she had volunteered her time and talents! Other women went out, got jobs, and earned money. But she always felt it was her responsibility to visit the needy to make meals for the poor, and to call on the sick at the hospital every week. Now she was tired of it all. Nobody cared what she had done! Nobody has ever stood up and thanked her publicly! Why should she give any more of herself if people were so ungracious?!
“Why indeed?” asked Jesus. If that’s what it’s all about, why indeed?
In C. S. Lewis’ sermon The Weight of Glory, he talked about the idea of rewards in the Christian faith. He said, God promises us a reward for what we do in his name. But that doesn’t make us mercenaries, giving in order to get, selling our good deeds on the open market.
If a man would marry a woman with great wealth in order to get her money for himself, said Lewis, we would call him mercenary, and rightly so! We would thumb our noses at him, and be appalled at his audacity!
But if a man marries a rich woman only because he expects the reward of love, said Lewis, we would think him the greatest fellow on earth! He would be getting his reward, but it would actually be the fulfillment of what he is himself giving to the other! His reward is the extension of his gift!
So it is with us, said Lewis. We give of ourselves in Christian charity. We give of our time, our talents, our money. And, as Jesus said, God will reward us.
But what will that reward be? A million dollars? A life without sickness or cancer? A public declaration of our good deeds?
No.
The reward is simply to become one with love itself, to give as we have been given, to share in the delights of his sharing, to stretch our souls and to find ourselves.
“I think,” said Annie Dillard, “that the dying prayer at last is not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.”
She was right. Life on earth is not about a demand for recognition, but a quiet “thank-you” for all that we have been able to see, show, and share.
That does not necessarily make good copy in the morning newspaper. Nor does it necessarily mean that we will be “successful” in life, at least in the ways many count success.
King Oswin, an early ruler of a northern territory in Britain, once gave his prize stallion to the local bishop as a token of appreciation. As the bishop traveled, he met a beggar along the road. Since the man had nothing at all, the bishop got off his fine steed and put the reigns in the man’s hand. “Take him!” ordered the bishop. “Sell him and live! He’s all I have to give you.”
When King Oswin found out what the bishop had done he said, “Why didn’t you sent him to me? We have dozens of old horses that are more fitting for a beggar!”
The bishop quietly asked, “Is that stallion worth more than a child of God?”
King Oswin thought about the question for a moment, and suddenly threw off his royal robes, falling at the bishop’s feet and crying to God for forgiveness. The bishop blessed him and sent him away in peace. But for a long time he stared after the king with sorrowful eyes. When one asked him why he was so troubled, bishop Adrian replied: “I know that the king will not live long, for I have never seen a king so humble as he is. He will be taken from us, as the country is not worthy to have such a king.”
His words proved true. In 651 AD, the king was murdered by a neighboring rival who used Oswin’s own kindness to gain an audience. And the world was poorer that day.
But you are still here, and I am still here. And today we have heard again the questions of Jesus.
“Are you aware?” Do you see the needs of others around you? Are your eyes open to the plight of the poor and the troubles of the destitute? Are you aware?
“Will you share?” Will you take whatever God has given you, and put it at the disposal of others? Will you see your goods and property as a loan on deposit from God to be shared in his name as others call for it? Will you share?
“Do you care?” That most of all says Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.” Is that the gift you give? Do you care? Does your heart stretch out with the love of Jesus? Does compassion flow in your veins? Have you found his reward in the act of love?
As we enter this season of Lent, walking in the servant footsteps of Jesus, we need to ask these questions. Am I aware? Do I care? Will I share?
We take offerings a lot, don’t we? Every Sunday at worship services, the money plates are passed. In fact, we can hardly think of a meeting of Christians where there is not some suggestion about offerings, donations, or contributions. Money and religion seem to go hand in hand.
Indeed, someone told a story of an airplane that was experiencing problems. One of the engines had failed, and another was acting strange. The passengers were getting nervous. Some were beginning to panic. Finally, one fellow sitting near the front of the plane yelled out, “Is there a priest or a minister on board who can do something religious?!” There was; a clergyman got up, and passed his hat for an offering!
Money and religion often go hand in hand! But maybe they should. They certainly did for Jesus. The gospels record 37 of his parables, and in nearly half of them ― sixteen, to be exact ― Jesus talks about money and the way in which we use our possessions!
More than that: one-tenth of all the verses in the gospels deal directly with the subject of money. That’s 288 verses! Again, when you look at the whole Bible, you find that less than 500 verses speak specifically about faith, and only 500 verses talk about prayer, yet more than 2,000 verses address the topics of money and possessions!
Religion and money go hand in hand. Of course, that is essentially what Jesus is saying in these verses; “Your money and your religion go hand in hand! Your faith and your finances are part of the same package! What you do with your checkbook is as important as what you do with your Bible!” Religion and money go hand in hand.
In that light, there are three questions we must face.
Are You Aware?
The first is this: “Are you aware?” Do you see others around you? Has your faith opened your eyes to the need and the concerns of your partners in the human race?
Probably no period in human history was as peaceful and as prosperous as the days of Antonius Pious (138-161 AD), who ruled Rome in the second century. Edward Gibbon, in his magnificent treatise The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, said that the times of Antonius Pious were the “happiest” on earth. He was probably right. There was more wealth and business success and domestic peace in those days than most civilizations have ever known.
Antonius Pious was a good ruler and his people knew it. In fact, one of his biggest supporters was the Athenian philosopher Aristedes. Aristedes couldn’t seem to write enough verses in praise of Antonius. He lauded the government, and the beauty of Rome. He praised the magnificence of its buildings and the character of its citizens. Aristedes was a one-man ministry of propaganda, telling the world of the pomp and splendor of Antonius Pious and his great government.
But Aristedes wrote about other things as well. One day, he sent a letter to Antonius, telling the monarch to keep his eye on a certain group of people in his empire. “You need these people,” said Aristedes. “You should find them and talk with them. You can learn much from them.”
“The unique thing about them,” said Aristedes, “is that they really have eyes to see others. They watch out for those around them. They take care of the widows, who are often pushed aside when their husbands die. They look after orphans, especially those who get sold as slaves. These people will even pay huge sums of money to buy the freedom of others.”
It is not that these folks are so wealthy. In fact, said Aristedes, they are often the very poor of most Roman cities. Yet if they know of someone in need, they will even go without food for two or three days in order to save a few coins that might help someone else.
“You should get to know these people, Antonius!” said Aristedes. “In all your grand empire, they are the only ones who make it a habit to see the needs of the poor and do something about it.”
Who was Aristedes writing about? Christians! He was writing about the followers of Jesus! Can you imagine it? A Greek philosopher telling one of the greatest Roman emperors to look for Christians because they were the ones from whom he could learn something!
So it is appropriate for Jesus’ followers always to ask one another, “Are you aware?” Do you see? Have you reached beyond yourself and looked at the lives and the circumstances of your partners in the human enterprise?
In 1966, evangelist Martin Higgenbottem was one of the main speakers at the Berlin World Congress on Evangelism. He told the gathering that his life of devotion and service had to do with his mother. He remembered coming home from school one afternoon to find her sitting at the kitchen table with a strange man. The fellow was obviously someone who lived on the streets. His clothes were filthy, his hair was slicked with unwashed grease, his body smelled of a mixture of unkind odors.
But Martin’s mother was chatting pleasantly with him while they devoured a plate of sandwiches together. She had gone shopping that morning and found him cold and hungry, so she brought him home with her.
When the man was ready to leave, he said passionately, “I wish there were more people in the world like you!”
Martin’s mother casually threw the compliment aside. “Oh,” she said, “there are! You just have to look for them!”
The man broke down. He shook his head, and tears rolled across his cheeks. “But lady!” he said, “I didn’t have to look for you! You looked for me!”
You looked for me! “Are you aware?” asks Jesus. Are you aware?
Will You Share?
A second question follows: “Will you share?” Will you take what you have and give to those around you? Will you use your blessings to touch the lives of others?
There is a wonderful story told about Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York City during the Great Depression. Before he became mayor, he served for a time as a police court judge. One cold winter’s day, a man was brought before him was charged with stealing a loaf of bread. La Guardia asked if he was guilty. The man nodded. He had taken the bread because his family was starving, and he had no money to buy food. What was he to do?
The law bound La Guardia. “I’ve got to punish you,” he told the thief. “The law makes no exceptions! I fine you $10!” And he brought down his gavel.
But where would the man get the money for the fine? Now they would have to throw him in jail as well!
La Guardia wasn’t finished, though. He already had his hand on his wallet. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill, handed it to the bailiff and said: “Here’s the money for your fine.”
Then he took back the ten dollar bill, put it into his hat, handed the hat to the bailiff and said, “I’m going to suspend the sentence, and I’m going to fine everyone here in the courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a man has to steal bread in order to eat!”
When the man left the courtroom, he had the light of life in his eyes and forty-seven dollars and fifty cents in his pocket!
“Will you share?” Will you share what God has given you with others around who have needs today?
It was a requirement of the Jewish religion to give alms for the poor. That’s what Jesus was talking about in the verses of Matthew 6. In fact, the Old Testament rules and regulations had a built-in system that guaranteed help for the poor. You were not even allowed to come to the temple for worship unless you had given alms to the poor.
Tithing was a standard practice. One tenth of everything you ever earned was to be given back to God as a confession of faith. But how can you give money to God? Do the deacons take the offerings and go into the back room of the church and toss it all up to heaven, and whatever God doesn’t want falls back to the floor?
No, God’s instructions were very clear. When you give your tithes to the poor, he said, you are giving them to me! Jesus echoed that idea in a later teaching. In Matthew 25 he talked about the end of time, and the day we will all appear before the throne of God for judgment. God will say to some of us: “You took care of me! When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was naked, you clothed me. When I was sick, you looked after me.”
We’ll shake our heads, according to Jesus, and have this puzzled look on our faces. We’ll say to God: “When was that? I don’t remember ever seeing you on earth! When did we help you out like that?”
The Father will look at us, Jesus said, and he will say: “When you gave to the poor among you, when you offered help to those who needed it, when you went beyond yourself in mercy, you did it to me!”
We don’t always do well at that, do we? The Internal Revenue Service tells us that few of us even admit to giving for charitable causes. Americans give only about 1.65% of their incomes to charity! That included all charitable causes, like the arts, universities, hospitals, and cultural centers! That’s 85% less than tithing!
It’s not that we are isolated from the needs in our world. We hear the news, we see the pictures, we are challenged by the requests that come every day in the mail. When Jesus asks us, “Are you aware?” we can only say, “Yes! Painfully so! Enormously so!”
But when Jesus asks us, “Will you share?” that’s a different story. We are programmed to take rather than give. We are taught by our society to receive, but not necessarily to share. We are challenged by our aged to grab for all the gusto we can get and not to deprive ourselves of anything for the sake of others.
John Bright, a British politician of the nineteenth century, was walking down a street one day when a fellow was seriously injured in an accident. The crowds gathered around, gasping in delighted horror at the blood and the gore. But Bright took off his hat, grabbed a ten-pound note from his wallet, and stuffed it into his hat. Then he pushed his way through the crowds and said, “I’m ten pounds sorry for this man! How sorry are you?!”
In moments, he had turned the sickening curiosity of the people into sympathetic compassion.
Are you aware?
Will you share?
Those are the questions of Jesus for us.
Do You Care?
Then comes the most important question of all. “Do you care?”
Do you really care about others? Is compassion a way of life for you?
Helmut Thielicke tells of a time he was hospitalized in great pain. The nurses were wonderful and took great care of him. One nurse, in particular, impressed him. She worked the night shift. Every evening she was there: prompt, pleasant, and efficient. She seemed to care deeply about her patients. She always had a bright smile for them.
In fact, in the sleepless hours of the night, she often sat next to Thielicke and talked with him. For twenty years she had been on this shift! For twenty years she had worked while others slept! She had given of herself in the darkest hours of the night.
“Isn’t it a pretty stressful thing for you?” Thielicke asked her. “Don’t you ever get tired of it all? How do you keep it up, year after year?”
Thielicke said she beamed at him, and this is what she told me: “Well, you see, every night that I work sets another jewel in my heavenly crown! I already have 7,175 in a row!”
Thielicke said he was stunned! Suddenly his gratitude toward her was gone. She didn’t really care about him! She wasn’t helping him through his tough times because she felt compassion for him! She was only doing this in order to earn some kind of reward! Every night she kept count of her good deeds! Every smile was sold at a price! Every shift was a deposit in the bank of heaven, and that’s all!
Sure, she was aware! Yes, she was willing to share! But did she care? Did her heart go with the gift? Did her spirit reach with her fingers and touch the one she tended? When she told the reason for her service, it seemed not.
Jesus talks in these verses about the rewards we get from God for the gifts of charity we give during our lives. Yet there is something crass and dirty when the rewards become our goals.
Some years ago, a man in Florida brought a lawsuit against his church. He demanded that the church return to him the $800 that he had given to it the year before. His court documents included this testimony: “On September 7 I delivered $800 of my savings to the ( ) church in response to the pastor’s promise that blessings, benefits, and reward would come to the person who tithed his wealth. I did not and have not received these benefits.”
You foolish man! Jesus would say. You silly beggar! Do you give in order to get? Do you tithe to earn a profit? Do you offer your services on the floor of the trading markets? Says one writer: “He that serves God for money will serve the devil for better wages!” (Sir Roger L’Estrange).
He is right! That is exactly Jesus’ point. “Are you aware?” he asks us. “Yes!” we tell him. We see the needs around us.
“Will you share?” he requests of us. “Well, that’s tough for us,” we answer, “but we’ll try.”
Then comes the hard part. “But do you care?” Do you reach yourself with the gift? Do you touch the heart of the needy, and feel his hurts and know her wounds and stretch your hand in love and compassion? Do you care?
So often we don’t even hear his question. We are too busy asking a question ourselves: What’s in it for me? What do I get out of it? Will anybody notice? Do I get the “Good Citizen of the Year” award? Will there be a write-up in the papers?
One man I know served in the church all his life. In his senior years, however, he became bitter. Nobody had ever really thanked him! None of the younger people in the church realized how much he had given! So he pulled back and wrapped himself in a security blanket of self-pity.
One woman’s face was wet with tears when she came to see me. All these years she had volunteered her time and talents! Other women went out, got jobs, and earned money. But she always felt it was her responsibility to visit the needy to make meals for the poor, and to call on the sick at the hospital every week. Now she was tired of it all. Nobody cared what she had done! Nobody has ever stood up and thanked her publicly! Why should she give any more of herself if people were so ungracious?!
“Why indeed?” asked Jesus. If that’s what it’s all about, why indeed?
In C. S. Lewis’ sermon The Weight of Glory, he talked about the idea of rewards in the Christian faith. He said, God promises us a reward for what we do in his name. But that doesn’t make us mercenaries, giving in order to get, selling our good deeds on the open market.
If a man would marry a woman with great wealth in order to get her money for himself, said Lewis, we would call him mercenary, and rightly so! We would thumb our noses at him, and be appalled at his audacity!
But if a man marries a rich woman only because he expects the reward of love, said Lewis, we would think him the greatest fellow on earth! He would be getting his reward, but it would actually be the fulfillment of what he is himself giving to the other! His reward is the extension of his gift!
So it is with us, said Lewis. We give of ourselves in Christian charity. We give of our time, our talents, our money. And, as Jesus said, God will reward us.
But what will that reward be? A million dollars? A life without sickness or cancer? A public declaration of our good deeds?
No.
The reward is simply to become one with love itself, to give as we have been given, to share in the delights of his sharing, to stretch our souls and to find ourselves.
“I think,” said Annie Dillard, “that the dying prayer at last is not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.”
She was right. Life on earth is not about a demand for recognition, but a quiet “thank-you” for all that we have been able to see, show, and share.
That does not necessarily make good copy in the morning newspaper. Nor does it necessarily mean that we will be “successful” in life, at least in the ways many count success.
King Oswin, an early ruler of a northern territory in Britain, once gave his prize stallion to the local bishop as a token of appreciation. As the bishop traveled, he met a beggar along the road. Since the man had nothing at all, the bishop got off his fine steed and put the reigns in the man’s hand. “Take him!” ordered the bishop. “Sell him and live! He’s all I have to give you.”
When King Oswin found out what the bishop had done he said, “Why didn’t you sent him to me? We have dozens of old horses that are more fitting for a beggar!”
The bishop quietly asked, “Is that stallion worth more than a child of God?”
King Oswin thought about the question for a moment, and suddenly threw off his royal robes, falling at the bishop’s feet and crying to God for forgiveness. The bishop blessed him and sent him away in peace. But for a long time he stared after the king with sorrowful eyes. When one asked him why he was so troubled, bishop Adrian replied: “I know that the king will not live long, for I have never seen a king so humble as he is. He will be taken from us, as the country is not worthy to have such a king.”
His words proved true. In 651 AD, the king was murdered by a neighboring rival who used Oswin’s own kindness to gain an audience. And the world was poorer that day.
But you are still here, and I am still here. And today we have heard again the questions of Jesus.
“Are you aware?” Do you see the needs of others around you? Are your eyes open to the plight of the poor and the troubles of the destitute? Are you aware?
“Will you share?” Will you take whatever God has given you, and put it at the disposal of others? Will you see your goods and property as a loan on deposit from God to be shared in his name as others call for it? Will you share?
“Do you care?” That most of all says Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.” Is that the gift you give? Do you care? Does your heart stretch out with the love of Jesus? Does compassion flow in your veins? Have you found his reward in the act of love?
As we enter this season of Lent, walking in the servant footsteps of Jesus, we need to ask these questions. Am I aware? Do I care? Will I share?
