Thursday, November 15, 2018

October 14 2018 Marriage Is A MIssion, Greed Is Ghastly


October 14 2014 Pastor Jacqueline Hines *Mark 10.17-31,  Psalm 22.1-15 “Marriage is a Mission, Greed Is Ghastly”
You have heard the expression, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” Still in matters of the heart, we tend not to hold back. We often give our all to love, so we can receive it all. It is true that the more we give, the more we get. But, when we realize that that is not true one hundred percent of the time, some of us become desperately disappointed, denigrated, and doggedly determined to never let it happen again. No one wants to be a loser. We do understand that we cannot win them all in this life, but we persist in trying.
Perhaps a certain young man thought of himself as a real winner when he knelt in true Middle Eastern style, approaching the great rabbi Jesus. [slide # 1 man bowing before Jesus] It was all over town that Jesus was offering a way to have eternal life, everlasting life, and this young man was wise enough to seek good things for himself, even if he had not experienced eternal life or could even comprehend it, he believed in it and he was willing to take a chance that it was worth his while to invest in it.
It is wonderful to know what is good and to make every effort to get all the good we can. For the more God gives us, the more God entrusts us to be a blessing wherever and whenever God guides us to be a blessing. Our marriage to God is a mission, wherein God is constantly pouring love and everything good into our lives, and we dare not hold it too tight, lest it become like sand. The tighter we hold it, the more it spills. [slide # 2 mission/generosity] Our mission is to pour into the lives of others, as God assigns us. Greed is ghastly – despicable, disagreeable, distasteful…Greed reveals my heart not totally trusting in God, a heart afraid that if I am left with nothing but God, God will not be enough. Greed, perhaps, reveals a lack of appreciation for the blessings I have and a lack of hope that God will provide what I need, even if it is not what I want. Greed reveals my longing for some other love – the love of stuff and status – even though I have pledged my allegiance to an all-loving God. Greed is ghastly, despicable, disagreeable, distasteful…
The young man was smart enough or perhaps impressed enough to compliment Jesus. He called him good teacher, but Jesus pointed him to God. [slide # 3 player pointing to God] Perhaps Jesus was like those football players who make an amazing play and while everyone is excited and tells them how good they did, the player points toward Heaven, letting the crowd know that it’s is not about their being good, it’s about God who is good.
Jesus was known around the region as a good teacher. In every age, there are those who when we hear their names, we think of their sermons, their books, their programs that we call exceptionally good. Jesus was known as a good teacher.
Jesus gave this student a very significant and affirming piece of information. No doubt the young man did not have to take notes, he would remember for the rest of his life what Jesus was about to say.  “You know the commandments, Jesus told him.” Every serious student appreciates knowing that the teacher notices that they are smart. In fact, students remember every word their teachers and those in authority say about them. “You know the commandments,” Jesus said to him. Knowing the commandments is not something that Jesus could say about every student.
At the same time that Jesus was giving him kudos for knowing the Ten Commandments, [side # 4 good job] Jesus had some lessons for this student to learn. Jesus listed only gave him credit for six of the ten. It was the last six, the six that direct us how to relate to other people: honoring mother and father, do not murder, no infidelity, no stealing, no lying, and no fraud (which is coveting to the point of cheating). Intentionally, Jesus left out the first four commandments, those commandments that deal with how to relate to God: no other Gods, no idols images, no taking God’s name in vain, and honoring the Sabbath.
How is it that we can have good relations with our neighbors and not with God? Isn’t it one and the same? Perhaps in some ways, doing right by our neighbor reflects our right relationship with God. In another since, we do right by our neighbor because it pays off immediately. The chaos in our neighbor’s house can easily impact our own house. It is worth it to have good relations, to be nice, to share and care. If we smile at our neighbor, our neighbor smiles back then all is good. If not, we know the rules for working things out until all is good again.
God is more patient and merciful than our neighbors. If we make God our top priority, if we make things right with God first, then our priorities will be in the good order rather than upside down. It is not easy to give our all to God. It [slide # 5 God is top priority]  is not easy to surrender our loved ones, our dreams, our comfort, or our money. C.S. Lewis wrote that Christian charity is neither Christian nor charity unless our giving “cramps our style” and causes us to sacrifice some needs as well as luxuries. And that sort of giving, he added, is just the starting point of the Christian Journey, not its end.
One Christian talked said “When I get my check at the beginning of each month, the first thing I do is give a tenth to God. Then I pay my bills. If there is anything leftover, I spend it on myself.” Of course, giving to God is not always that simple for there are crises and overbearing economic restraints to take into consideration, but he has the basic idea, and we all do well to count our blessings and pray for God to guide us.
We all have different perspectives of what God has before us to do. You may have heard the story of three people looking at a tree; One may see the tree as so many boards and feet of valuable lumber worth so much money. The second sees the tree as so much firewood to be burned, to keep a family warm in the winter. A third may see the tree as a masterpiece of God’s creative art, given as an expression of God’s love and enduring strength, with a value far beyond its worth in money or firewood. We all see a vision of what God has before us and if we are willing, we can be the church united, with one purpose, one goal, one vision, to be and do whatever the father, son, and Holy Spirit  stirs us up to be and do. For, without a vision, God’s people cannot be the church, passing the baton on to our neighbors, our family, our friends, or our children.
I heard one of the men of God of Bethel say this week – “The world is in such chaos, but I am not concerned about myself. I am concerned about my grandchild.” That Bethel father’s heart is like the heart of God and if we all are just as concerned about the next generation, we will be willing to ask God to guide us to not only to see the chaos that surrounds us but to see God’s will and to be willing to follow where God leads us, to surrender our all and put our all in the hands of an almighty God – our loved ones, our dreams, our comfort, our gifts, our talents and our money. May it be so today! [ slide # 6 giving God our whole heart ]

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