Tangled Up in Stuff
Stories
Contents
“Tangled Up in Stuff” by C. David McKirachan
“Foundations of Our Gratitude” by C. David McKirachan
“Cheerful Givers” by Frank Ramirez
Tangled Up in Stuff
by C. David McKirachan
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
Here we are on Thanksgiving Day. But who are we thanking? That is the central question for us who claim to be people of faith. It’s a hard question. After all, we come from a culture that focuses on little — aside from stuff. We are a materialistic bunch. We earn, own, give, and appreciate stuff. The limits of our understanding have to do with what we can touch and understand. We send our kids to school so they can get a good job, which means a job in which they are secure, which means make more money, and have good advantages and benefits. We want them to live in good neighborhoods, which means where there are low crime rates, good schools, low taxes. We don’t like to pay taxes, even the little bits it might take to plant trees or support the poor or pay for things like education and the arts. We feel uncomfortable when we receive gifts, because then we feel obligated, etc.
We are tangled up in stuff. And so, it is hard for us to remember where it all comes from and what’s important. Obviously, we can’t touch or understand God, so our understanding or our need to understand anything beyond stuff is little but a children’s fairy tale.
So, who are we thanking? The large fairy god mother in the sky?
Moses speaks to the children of Israel of what they have been given, manifest reasons for thanksgiving. But Moses has just told them that “human beings do not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” Then he tells them what they have been given. Then he tells them, “…watch it, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping God’s commandments.”
A warning. On Thanksgiving?
There are two kinds of ministries, pastoral and prophetic. One is focused on comforting the people. The other is telling them God’s truth. Guess which one Moses is using here.
One of the things I am thankful for in my life is this schizophrenic nature of my own calling. For me, I couldn’t get comfortable with a single focus. I was stuck with a terrible balancing act. Which one was more important? Both. Like I said — schizophrenic.
I was told a long time ago that in the midst of the most horrific situations of conflict, loss, and pain, that my role was to represent the non-anxious presence of Christ. I wasn’t there to solve the problem or to heal the pain or the wounds. I was there to remind people that Christ had compassion on the excluded, the wounded, the sick, even the grieving. And when I spoke in his words and called on his spirit, it brought comfort and hope. It is an amazing and a humbling experience to offer Christ’s presence to the broken and the broken hearted. I thank God for that opportunity.
But then there is the prophetic, the moments when the still small whisper of God’s voice speaks through God’s word and through the preached and witnessed word. God’s truth illumines the darkness like lightning in the night. It does not solve problems or win the day or even lead to any kind of acceptance. But it reminds God’s people of God’s presence and of God’s truth. It burns through us and through them. And I thank God that the Spirt has used me to speak God’s truth.
It’s hard to work night and day to heal and comfort and preach when the results don’t offer the harmony or the justice that we would prefer. But we the pastors and the preachers are tangled up in the culture of stuff, too. We’ve got bills to pay. We’ve got egos that are often stomped on by the people we seek to minister to. When was the last day off we took? And, what kind of equity can we develop on our salaries, etc.? The webs of stuff…
But perhaps, that’s what Thanksgiving needs to be about. I am so grateful for my family, my home, my nation, and the bounty that surrounds me. But perhaps even more I am grateful for everything that proceeds from the mouth of God and what it has given us — we who know the good news, the good news that we are loved. And perhaps we need to be grateful for the opportunity to bring the healing and the hope and the truth that God is more than a flag, or a steeple, or a giver of stuff.
After all, God said through Moses, “Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me all of this stuff.” (A loose translation.)
Pass the stuffing, please. Don’t eat too much, there’s pecan pie for dessert. And that’s the truth.
* * *
Foundations of Our Gratitude
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 65
The psalmist in this case is grateful. But I can just hear my homiletics teacher saying, “Stick to the point. Where are you going with this? Specificity, specificity!” He said stuff like that a lot.
I think back to groups standing in circles, each person saying something they’re thankful for. Almost always the prayers are generic. “My home. My family. My church.” That’s all very good, and nice, but when I consider what I’m thankful for, I get pictures filled with details. I’m grateful for my family because of my wife’s smile the other day when I was up to my elbows in sand and mud, laying paving stones, trying to get them square and level, and failing miserably. There she stood, wearing the sun like a shawl, loving me. I think of my 35-year-old son being excited about going to see the Teen Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with me.
If we can find our gratitude in the specific, and seek moments and details that provide centers of glory and peace in our lives, gratitude becomes even more powerful. Such gratitude is less likely to be crushed or clouded by pandemics or grumpy neighbors or sociopathic wierdos, or even our own failures and flaws.
Every Thanksgiving we have an ugly, beat up root vegetable on our table. It just sits there, we don’t eat it. Why, you might ask? Well, that rutabaga, that’s what it is, is named Fred. (Why, you might ask?) Fred was my brother. For a while, he lived in Texas. He was known to be very wild and crazy (fit right in with the rest of us) and in his exile to this foreign land he couldn’t get rutabagas, which he had to have at Thanksgiving. So, as my mother was wont to do, when her children wanted something, she mailed him a few. He and my mother have both moved on. They are missed. While they were around, they were sources of thanksgiving. But in general, “Thanks for them” somehow doesn’t express the depth of that gratitude. Fred the rutabaga draws them near, puts them right in the middle of the feast.
This year, with this viral beast isolating us, even at this time of the gathering of families and friends and communities, it is vital that we reinforce the foundations of our gratitude. And the wonderful thing about this discipline of making our thanksgiving specific is that we can do it even if we are by ourselves. Take a walk, or even a wander around your room. Find something that sparks a memory of grace and beauty. A book that gave you a sense of direction or insight or escape when you needed it. A team memento from a time when you cheered yourself raw with friends. A shell from a sojourn at the sea. A figurine that was your mother’s. A tree that lifts your spirit, even though you forget its existence most of the time. Each and every one of these are reminders of the grace and glory that sparks our lives and deepens our faith when we consider them as evidence of God’s steadfast love.
One year we came up with a theme for the stewardship campaign and turned it into a yearlong focus for the congregation. “Developing an Attitude of Gratitude.” It was decided that if we could help the congregation deepen its sense of gratitude, not only would it become more generous, but it would be more forgiving, joyful, hopeful, etc. All in all, it worked. During the stewardship season, September, October, and November, they put together a book of devotions written by the congregation. Some of the pages were kind of generic, but most of them had to do with moments, easy and hard, that had done just that, developed an attitude of gratitude in the writer. Someone later told me that the book was a source of comfort and inspiration for them long beyond that year. But, the most common comment was that writing the devotional for the book really helped them see gratitude differently. It made it more specific.
I don’t think my teacher would want to criticize the psalmist. After all, the writer did get published. But my professor would appreciate the specificity mentioned, though I doubt he’d admit it. He had a reputation to protect.
* * *
Cheerful Givers
by Frank Ramirez
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)
When the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture opened in September of 2016 there were over 35,000 artifacts scattered over 400,000 square feet in a building that had cost more than $500 million to construct.
But eleven years earlier, when Lonnie G. Bunch III left his home in the midwest and his job as President of the Chicago Historical Society to move to Washington DC in order to take the position as the founding director of the new museum, his office was locked and no one would let him in. Building security had no record of him, and despite the fact Bunch made phone calls to confirm his identity, he remained locked out… at least until a maintenance worker happened by and loaned him a crow bar.
It wasn’t like creating such a museum was a new idea. In 1915 a group of Black Civil War veterans proposed that such a museum be built in the nation’s capital. Fourteen years later President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation authorizing its construction, but the sudden onset of the Great Depression put that on hold.
After World War II the idea was revived and then shelved again, facing stiff opposition from Congress. The idea persisted. Famed congressional representative John Lewis of Georgia pushed harder during the 80’s and finally, in 2003, during the presidency of George W. Bush, the museum was finally given the green light.
Even so, Bunch and his staff faced some serious problems that were greater than a matter of design and construction.
It wasn’t that long ago when African Americans were barely alluded to in American histories. Slavery was very nearly eliminated as the major cause of the Civil War. A visit to National Historical sites involving the founders of this nation barely alluded to the slaves who performed almost all of the manual labor. The accomplishments of African-American scientists, inventors, educators, soldiers, and innovators were ignored, when they weren’t actually written out of histories. In some cases African-American history was actively destroyed.
As a result, there was no also no great store of artifacts relating to African-American history. When photographs were found no one knew who was in the picture. So where were the pieces of this history going to come from? Fundraisers, traveling exhibitions, and educational events were planned. But what about stuff?
According to Bunch, within a month the first object just walked into his door. It was a carved object from Ecuador brought in by a Black Ecuadorean named Juan Garcia. It was made, he claimed, by former slaves who had escaped into the swamps and created a new life.
That’s when he realized that the prizes he sought were treasures stored in basements, attics, and archives. Bunch created a program he called “Saving African-American Treasures,” and he travelled around the country, regardless of obstacles, weather, or barriers. Ordinary people came forward with the objects they’d treasured. They told stories. And many cheerfully gave these treasures to the museum.
Now their story was becoming the nation’s story — to be remembered, lamented, and celebrated. A Pullman Porter’s hat, Nat Turner’s Bible, a teapot crafted by a former slave, and once, incredibly, photographs from Harriet Tubman’s funeral.
Cheerful giving was on the mind of the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians. The people of Corinth were more prosperous compared to most of the rest of the Achaian peninsula. A famine that caused great distress for Christians in Jerusalem, the "mother" church, led to Paul collecting a great love offering from the mission churches for fellow Christians who had preserved their shared past in the form of the scriptures and the faith they had become a part of. This they were to do joyfully, because, as Paul pointed out, the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 26, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Tangled Up in Stuff” by C. David McKirachan
“Foundations of Our Gratitude” by C. David McKirachan
“Cheerful Givers” by Frank Ramirez
Tangled Up in Stuff
by C. David McKirachan
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
Here we are on Thanksgiving Day. But who are we thanking? That is the central question for us who claim to be people of faith. It’s a hard question. After all, we come from a culture that focuses on little — aside from stuff. We are a materialistic bunch. We earn, own, give, and appreciate stuff. The limits of our understanding have to do with what we can touch and understand. We send our kids to school so they can get a good job, which means a job in which they are secure, which means make more money, and have good advantages and benefits. We want them to live in good neighborhoods, which means where there are low crime rates, good schools, low taxes. We don’t like to pay taxes, even the little bits it might take to plant trees or support the poor or pay for things like education and the arts. We feel uncomfortable when we receive gifts, because then we feel obligated, etc.
We are tangled up in stuff. And so, it is hard for us to remember where it all comes from and what’s important. Obviously, we can’t touch or understand God, so our understanding or our need to understand anything beyond stuff is little but a children’s fairy tale.
So, who are we thanking? The large fairy god mother in the sky?
Moses speaks to the children of Israel of what they have been given, manifest reasons for thanksgiving. But Moses has just told them that “human beings do not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” Then he tells them what they have been given. Then he tells them, “…watch it, lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping God’s commandments.”
A warning. On Thanksgiving?
There are two kinds of ministries, pastoral and prophetic. One is focused on comforting the people. The other is telling them God’s truth. Guess which one Moses is using here.
One of the things I am thankful for in my life is this schizophrenic nature of my own calling. For me, I couldn’t get comfortable with a single focus. I was stuck with a terrible balancing act. Which one was more important? Both. Like I said — schizophrenic.
I was told a long time ago that in the midst of the most horrific situations of conflict, loss, and pain, that my role was to represent the non-anxious presence of Christ. I wasn’t there to solve the problem or to heal the pain or the wounds. I was there to remind people that Christ had compassion on the excluded, the wounded, the sick, even the grieving. And when I spoke in his words and called on his spirit, it brought comfort and hope. It is an amazing and a humbling experience to offer Christ’s presence to the broken and the broken hearted. I thank God for that opportunity.
But then there is the prophetic, the moments when the still small whisper of God’s voice speaks through God’s word and through the preached and witnessed word. God’s truth illumines the darkness like lightning in the night. It does not solve problems or win the day or even lead to any kind of acceptance. But it reminds God’s people of God’s presence and of God’s truth. It burns through us and through them. And I thank God that the Spirt has used me to speak God’s truth.
It’s hard to work night and day to heal and comfort and preach when the results don’t offer the harmony or the justice that we would prefer. But we the pastors and the preachers are tangled up in the culture of stuff, too. We’ve got bills to pay. We’ve got egos that are often stomped on by the people we seek to minister to. When was the last day off we took? And, what kind of equity can we develop on our salaries, etc.? The webs of stuff…
But perhaps, that’s what Thanksgiving needs to be about. I am so grateful for my family, my home, my nation, and the bounty that surrounds me. But perhaps even more I am grateful for everything that proceeds from the mouth of God and what it has given us — we who know the good news, the good news that we are loved. And perhaps we need to be grateful for the opportunity to bring the healing and the hope and the truth that God is more than a flag, or a steeple, or a giver of stuff.
After all, God said through Moses, “Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me all of this stuff.” (A loose translation.)
Pass the stuffing, please. Don’t eat too much, there’s pecan pie for dessert. And that’s the truth.
* * *
Foundations of Our Gratitude
by C. David McKirachan
Psalm 65
The psalmist in this case is grateful. But I can just hear my homiletics teacher saying, “Stick to the point. Where are you going with this? Specificity, specificity!” He said stuff like that a lot.
I think back to groups standing in circles, each person saying something they’re thankful for. Almost always the prayers are generic. “My home. My family. My church.” That’s all very good, and nice, but when I consider what I’m thankful for, I get pictures filled with details. I’m grateful for my family because of my wife’s smile the other day when I was up to my elbows in sand and mud, laying paving stones, trying to get them square and level, and failing miserably. There she stood, wearing the sun like a shawl, loving me. I think of my 35-year-old son being excited about going to see the Teen Aged Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with me.
If we can find our gratitude in the specific, and seek moments and details that provide centers of glory and peace in our lives, gratitude becomes even more powerful. Such gratitude is less likely to be crushed or clouded by pandemics or grumpy neighbors or sociopathic wierdos, or even our own failures and flaws.
Every Thanksgiving we have an ugly, beat up root vegetable on our table. It just sits there, we don’t eat it. Why, you might ask? Well, that rutabaga, that’s what it is, is named Fred. (Why, you might ask?) Fred was my brother. For a while, he lived in Texas. He was known to be very wild and crazy (fit right in with the rest of us) and in his exile to this foreign land he couldn’t get rutabagas, which he had to have at Thanksgiving. So, as my mother was wont to do, when her children wanted something, she mailed him a few. He and my mother have both moved on. They are missed. While they were around, they were sources of thanksgiving. But in general, “Thanks for them” somehow doesn’t express the depth of that gratitude. Fred the rutabaga draws them near, puts them right in the middle of the feast.
This year, with this viral beast isolating us, even at this time of the gathering of families and friends and communities, it is vital that we reinforce the foundations of our gratitude. And the wonderful thing about this discipline of making our thanksgiving specific is that we can do it even if we are by ourselves. Take a walk, or even a wander around your room. Find something that sparks a memory of grace and beauty. A book that gave you a sense of direction or insight or escape when you needed it. A team memento from a time when you cheered yourself raw with friends. A shell from a sojourn at the sea. A figurine that was your mother’s. A tree that lifts your spirit, even though you forget its existence most of the time. Each and every one of these are reminders of the grace and glory that sparks our lives and deepens our faith when we consider them as evidence of God’s steadfast love.
One year we came up with a theme for the stewardship campaign and turned it into a yearlong focus for the congregation. “Developing an Attitude of Gratitude.” It was decided that if we could help the congregation deepen its sense of gratitude, not only would it become more generous, but it would be more forgiving, joyful, hopeful, etc. All in all, it worked. During the stewardship season, September, October, and November, they put together a book of devotions written by the congregation. Some of the pages were kind of generic, but most of them had to do with moments, easy and hard, that had done just that, developed an attitude of gratitude in the writer. Someone later told me that the book was a source of comfort and inspiration for them long beyond that year. But, the most common comment was that writing the devotional for the book really helped them see gratitude differently. It made it more specific.
I don’t think my teacher would want to criticize the psalmist. After all, the writer did get published. But my professor would appreciate the specificity mentioned, though I doubt he’d admit it. He had a reputation to protect.
* * *
Cheerful Givers
by Frank Ramirez
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)
When the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture opened in September of 2016 there were over 35,000 artifacts scattered over 400,000 square feet in a building that had cost more than $500 million to construct.
But eleven years earlier, when Lonnie G. Bunch III left his home in the midwest and his job as President of the Chicago Historical Society to move to Washington DC in order to take the position as the founding director of the new museum, his office was locked and no one would let him in. Building security had no record of him, and despite the fact Bunch made phone calls to confirm his identity, he remained locked out… at least until a maintenance worker happened by and loaned him a crow bar.
It wasn’t like creating such a museum was a new idea. In 1915 a group of Black Civil War veterans proposed that such a museum be built in the nation’s capital. Fourteen years later President Calvin Coolidge signed legislation authorizing its construction, but the sudden onset of the Great Depression put that on hold.
After World War II the idea was revived and then shelved again, facing stiff opposition from Congress. The idea persisted. Famed congressional representative John Lewis of Georgia pushed harder during the 80’s and finally, in 2003, during the presidency of George W. Bush, the museum was finally given the green light.
Even so, Bunch and his staff faced some serious problems that were greater than a matter of design and construction.
It wasn’t that long ago when African Americans were barely alluded to in American histories. Slavery was very nearly eliminated as the major cause of the Civil War. A visit to National Historical sites involving the founders of this nation barely alluded to the slaves who performed almost all of the manual labor. The accomplishments of African-American scientists, inventors, educators, soldiers, and innovators were ignored, when they weren’t actually written out of histories. In some cases African-American history was actively destroyed.
As a result, there was no also no great store of artifacts relating to African-American history. When photographs were found no one knew who was in the picture. So where were the pieces of this history going to come from? Fundraisers, traveling exhibitions, and educational events were planned. But what about stuff?
According to Bunch, within a month the first object just walked into his door. It was a carved object from Ecuador brought in by a Black Ecuadorean named Juan Garcia. It was made, he claimed, by former slaves who had escaped into the swamps and created a new life.
That’s when he realized that the prizes he sought were treasures stored in basements, attics, and archives. Bunch created a program he called “Saving African-American Treasures,” and he travelled around the country, regardless of obstacles, weather, or barriers. Ordinary people came forward with the objects they’d treasured. They told stories. And many cheerfully gave these treasures to the museum.
Now their story was becoming the nation’s story — to be remembered, lamented, and celebrated. A Pullman Porter’s hat, Nat Turner’s Bible, a teapot crafted by a former slave, and once, incredibly, photographs from Harriet Tubman’s funeral.
Cheerful giving was on the mind of the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Corinthians. The people of Corinth were more prosperous compared to most of the rest of the Achaian peninsula. A famine that caused great distress for Christians in Jerusalem, the "mother" church, led to Paul collecting a great love offering from the mission churches for fellow Christians who had preserved their shared past in the form of the scriptures and the faith they had become a part of. This they were to do joyfully, because, as Paul pointed out, the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
*****************************************
StoryShare, November 26, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
