Haggai
2:6-9
For thus says the LORD of hosts:
Once again, in a little while,
I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;
and I will shake all the nations,
so that the treasure of all nations shall come,
and I will fill this house with splendor,
says the LORD of hosts.
The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,
says the LORD of hosts.
The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former,
says the LORD of hosts;
and in this place I will give prosperity,
says the LORD of hosts.
Psalm 98
O sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things.
His right hand and his holy arm have gotten
him victory.
The LORD has made known his victory;
he has revealed his vindication in the sight
of the nations.
He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the
victory of our God.
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises.
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD.
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who live in it.
Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing together for joy
at the presence of the LORD,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
Luke 12:15-34
And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of
greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.
And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to
store my crops?’
Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger
ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many
years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’
But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being
demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not
rich toward God.”
He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither
storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you
than the birds!
And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry
about the rest?
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I
tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and
tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of
little faith!
And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to
drink, and do not keep worrying.
For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things,
and your Father knows that you need them.
Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as
well.
“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to
give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do
not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no
moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
===========================================
This guy in
the parable had it made, didn’t he?
Wouldn’t
we want to be like him?
His
investments have shown abundant returns.
He has
more stuff than he knows what to do with.
So what
does he do?
He makes
big plans to tear down his property
so he can build even bigger places to
live and store all his stuff!
THEN he
will say to his soul, you are ALL SET.
You have
ample goods laid up for many years.
RELAX!
EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY!
Woo hoo!
And then,
we are told, his life ends abruptly.
And God
says to him, what treasures have you stored up for me?
Jesus ends
the parable by saying,
“so it is with those who store up
treasures for themselves
but are not rich toward God.”
And from
there he sets out to teach his disciples
about what it is they should – and
should not – be worrying about.
He says to
them, “THEREFORE I tell you.
(Therefore is referring to the parable about
this rich man).
THEREFORE
I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will
wear.
INSTEAD,
strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.
And this
is our basis this morning for thinking about the sources of our discontentment,
and our contentment.
James
Mackintosh was a Scottish philosopher and politician of the late 18th
and early 19th centuries.
He said,
“it is right to be contented with what we have,
but never with what we are.”
Being
discontented with what we are,
our ability to love,
our spiritual life,
our desire for justice,
our pursuit of God –
these are
worthy discontents.
These are
areas where God calls us to improve and to grow.
We are
meant to become more than we are today.
We have
hearts that are restless to know God more,
to follow God better, to love God and
to trust God more completely.
We have
“restless heart syndrome” for God.
The
problem is that we misinterpret this restlessness.
We think
that our restlessness and discontentment
is somehow related to our stuff.
Something
must be wrong or missing or insufficient with our homes, or our cars, or our
televisions, or our gadgets, or our clothes.
Something
is less than perfect in our marriages, or our children, or our parents, or our
jobs, or our church.
The grass
is always greener.
So we go
out “shopping” for the better smart phone, or wardrobe, or job, or car, or spouse,
or church, or leader, or whatever.
Surely
that will relieve our restless heart syndrome.
So we
struggle with discontentment, focusing it more on our stuff,
and less on our relationship with God.
If we are
honest, we are pretty content with our relationship with God.
We tend to
be content with how often we read the Bible and pray,
with our level of involvement in
pursuing justice in the world,
with how much we love our neighbors and
our enemies
and those we consider “others”.
We don’t
think we need to work on those so much.
But the
stuff of our lives – well, we are hopelessly discontented with that.
Jesus
reminds us, “you can’t take it with you”.
By it, of
course, he means all this stuff that we want to be so perfect,
so it will assure our happiness.
Jesus
reminds us that the treasure that matters
is the treasure we store up with God.
How much
have we loved God’s children?
How much
have we pursued justice?
How much
have we put others before self?
How much
have we sought God through prayer
and through time with scripture?
How has
our restless heart moved us to go out into the community,
to find where God is discontent,
where God’s heart is breaking,
and to give of ourselves and our
resources
to help heal those broken places?
How
restless are we about those things?
In our Old
Testament reading today,
we hear “the silver is mine, and the
gold is mine,
says the LORD of hosts.”
It’s not
ours, no matter how much we try to acquire it and cling to it. Whatever we get
for “ours” will only be “ours”
for our brief time here on earth.
What are
we doing to increase the treasure of the kingdom of God
while we are here?
What are
we doing to extend and increase compassion for the world,
for God’s children, while we are here?
What
choices are we making that reflect our trust in God,
while we are here?
What
matters to us most? How important is all this stuff?
(video)
The Rev.
Adam Hamilton provides four tips in this week’s chapter
from the book “Enough”
to help us reset our contentment and
our discontentment,
to reset our focus.
1.
Remember that it could be worse.
2. Ask
yourself, "How long will this make me happy?”
3. Develop
a grateful heart.
4. Ask
yourself, "Where does my soul find true satisfaction?"
Jesus
calms us with these words:
“do not be afraid, little flock,
for it is your Father’s good pleasure to
give you the kingdom.”
What
reassuring words are these!
And he
follows this with instruction
to “sell your possessions and give
alms.
Make
purses for yourselves that do not wear out,
an unfailing treasure in heaven.
No thief
will take those away.
No moth or
flood or fire or earthquake will destroy them.
And what’s
more, where you place your treasure,
that is where you will place your
heart.”
St.
Augustine said,
“our
hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
The
apostle Paul said,
“I have learned to be content with
whatever I have.
I know what it is to have little, and I know
what it is to have plenty.
In any and all circumstances
I have learned the secret of being
well-fed and of going hungry,
of having plenty and of being in need.”
When Paul
wrote these words, he was sitting in a prison cell in Rome, waiting for news of
whether or not he would be executed.
Writer
Anne Lamott says,
“I do not understand the mystery of grace
–
only that it meets us where we are
and does not leave us where it found
us.”
When we
turn our discontent about our lives
toward contentment about the God who
has our lives in our hands,
God will
not leave us contented where grace has found us,
but will create in us the holy
discontent
that calls us to seek the kingdom of
God
and to reflect the kingdom of God to
everyone around us.
As the
children heard earlier,
we are connected by an invisible string
to one another.
The string
is love. the string is God.
That is
what connects us, across time and space,
spanning across heaven and earth.
That is
what defines for us what our life’s purpose is,
what our dwelling place is, what God
calls us to participate in.
That is
what we make space for in our time and talent and treasure,
to participate in the kingdom of God.
Today we
come together around the table that Christ has set for us,
the joyful feast of the people of God.
Here we
receive Christ, who is all that we need,
who is the source of our contentment
and our discontent.
Here we
are nourished to go out into the world and to follow Christ,
to seek out the places where God has a
plan, and the plan is us,
to use every resource we have –
our time, our talent, our treasure, our
words, and even our votes,
to love God with all our heart, soul,
mind and strength,
and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
And God
has assured us that this will be enough.
Brothers
and sisters, let us come together at this table in unity.
Let us go
out from this place and share abundant love in generous ways,
responding to the call of God,
nourished by the body of Christ,
content with the great gift we have
been given,
and always restless, always
discontented
about how much more we can do,
in the
name and in the power of the triune God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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