What Is Good
Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9
February 28, 2016
So, I lost a button on one of my favorite shirts a while
back. It’s not big deal, of course. It’s pretty simple to find a replacement
button for a shirt, but when one falls off, there’s a noticeable gap. Sometimes
there’s even a bit of a draft. Buttons play a pretty important role in holding
things together.
This year through the season of Lent we’ve been talking
about practices of the faith that hold us together, that help make us whole, and,
quite specifically, that bring us joy. Even more specifically, we’ve shared
stories of how we have found deep joy in carrying out what the constitution of
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – our Book
of Order – calls “the ministry of members.”
This morning we’ve heard a bit of how “participating in the
governing responsibilities of the church,” can be a source of deep joy, and, in
a few minutes, all of the members of this congregation will have an opportunity
to participate in the governance of the church when we elect a new ruling elder
to serve on session.
The questions I posed on Ash Wednesday remain before us:
what brings you joy, what keeps you from joy, and, this morning, what specific
practices or habits of life or particular relationships in life keep you
attached to deep joy. In other words, for our purposes this morning, what
buttons you to joy?
You can see where this is going, and that’s great. I
actually invite you, this morning, to let your mind wander as it may during the
sermon, and guide that wandering toward those questions about attaching
yourself to deep joy.
Over many years in ministry I have become increasingly
convinced that Jesus was on to something particularly important when he said “I
have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.” This invitation to
a deeper life is the heart of Christian faith.
The common faith of followers of Jesus rests not on shared
convictions about intellectual assertions about the person of Jesus or the
nature of God, but rather on a deep trust that as we try to follow the way of
Jesus in the community of fellow travellers we find, along the way, that which
is good.
We discover, in each other, and through our shared service
to one another and to the wider world, what brings us alive. What brings us
into this life abundant? The common ministry of members –
proclaiming the good news in word
and deed;
taking part in the common life and
worship of a congregation;
lifting one another up in prayer,
mutual concern, and active support;
studying Scripture and the issues of
Christian faith and life;
supporting the ministry of the
church through the giving of money, time, and talents;
demonstrating a new quality of life
within and through the church;
responding to God’s activity in the world
through service to others;
living responsibly in the personal,
family, vocational, political, cultural, and social relationships of life;
working in the world for peace,
justice, freedom, and human fulfillment;
participating in the governing responsibilities of the
church.
We could look at this list and say, “this is what the world
needs.” But if we focus only on the question of need, I fear, pretty soon we’ll
arrive at a place of burnout. The world does not need a bunch of burned out
wannabe followers of Jesus. “Don’t ask what does the world need,” the great
Howard Thurman insisted; rather, “ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
What makes you come alive? I am convinced that the things in
life that bring us fully alive are the very things that bring us deep,
authentic joy. Thus they are the things on which we should spend our time.
That’s what troubled Isaiah. He looked around and saw a
people wasting their lives and so he asked, “Why do you spend your money on
that which is not bread?”
He poses this question to a hungry exile community. The
people hunger for a lot – indeed, pretty much everything from basic sustenance
to human freedom, and yet, the prophet points out, they are perfectly willing
to spend their resources, and their time, on that which does not feed them.
He calls them to deeper lives. He calls them to give
themselves to something beyond themselves, to greater, deeper life in the
community of those who seek after God.
Writing this month in Christian
Century, pastor Emily Heath puts it this way: “never give the best of
yourself to someone or something that can never love you back.”[1]
How many times in our lives do we do exactly that? Give
ourselves to someone or something that can never love us back? How many times
have we spent the best of who we are on a job that cannot return the favor? How
many times have we given the best of who we are to an addiction that may numb
us for a while but that cannot give us love? How many times have we given the
best of ourselves to a relationship with someone who cannot love us back?
Perhaps even more to the point, how much time have we wasted
trying to understand this pattern – or making excuses for jobs, habits,
relationships – rather then breaking the pattern?
That question gets to the heart of the strange little
parable from Luke. Tired of wasting space, the landlord tells the gardener to
cut down an unproductive fig tree. The gardener negotiates a reprieve for the
tree, and promises to tend to it with great and extravagant care, and they
agree on a firm deadline: one year.
The season of Lent, beginning as it does with the Ash
Wednesday reminder that we are dust and to dust we shall return, holds up a
deadline reminder to us. Why do we keep on spending our money and our lives on
that which does not feed us deeply? How much time are we willing to fritter
away? How much time do we think we have?
We are dust, and to dust we shall return, so what are you
going to do while this amazing dust is filled with the breath of life? What are
you going to do with this one wild and precious life?
I hope your mind has wandered a bit during this homily. I
hope you’ve thought about one way you spend your time, your money, your
talents, your love on that which is, truly, bread for your life.
I invite you, now, to let your body wander just a bit. Take
the button you were given when you came in this morning, and using one of these
liturgical paperclips, pin the button to one of the empty banners. The buttons
will hang through the remainder of Lent as reminders to us to spend our lives
on that which feeds us deeply, that which brings us deep joy, that which brings
us life abundant.
When you feel a bit burned out, a bit like a fruitless fig
tree, button yourself back to that which feeds you most deeply and brings you
the deep joy of the abundant life Jesus calls us to live together. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
9:21 AM
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