Leviticus 25: 1-23
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying:
Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land
that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord.
Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your
vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a
sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not
sow your field or prune your vineyard.
You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes
of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.
You may eat what the land yields during its sabbath—you, your male and
female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you;
for your livestock also, and for the wild animals in your land all its
yield shall be for food.
You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so
that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years.
Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the
seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded
throughout all your land.
And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty
throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you
shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your
family.
That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap
the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines.
For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the
field itself produces.
In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your
property.
When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you
shall not cheat one another.
When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of
years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining
crop years.
If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are
fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests
that are being sold to you.
You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am
the Lord your God.
You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that
you may live on the land securely.
The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it
securely.
Should you ask, What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow
or gather in our crop?
I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield
a crop for three years.
When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop;
until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old.
The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me
you are but aliens and tenants.
Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.
Luke 6:27-38 (CEB)
“But I say to you who are willing to hear:
Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as
well.
If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either.
Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from
those who take them.
Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.
“If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even
sinners love those who love them.
If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be
commended? Even sinners do that.
If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you
be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full.
Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in
return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way
children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people.
Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
“Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged.
Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Give, and it will be given to you.
A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into
your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in
return.”
=========================================
One thing that comes through crystal clear
throughout Scripture, is that we think we know how the world should work, what
we ought to expect out of life, but God knows better.
For all the plans we make, all the laws we
write, all the rulers we appoint and elect, all the shelters we build for all
our stuff, all this is temporary. None of it shall last.
We heard last week about the man who had a
huge bumper crop, more than he could store, so he set out on a grand expansion
plan, but then was unexpectedly called by God in death. And what treasure had
he stored up for God?
Today in Leviticus we hear about the law of
the seventh year. The Lord establishes a Sabbath upon the land, not just a
weekly Sabbath on the people.
“Six years you shall sow your field, and prune
it and gather in the yield, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of
complete rest for the land. You shall not sow, or prune, or reap the after-growth
or gather the grapes. Complete rest.
And then, after seven rounds of these seven-year
Sabbaths – after 49 years, the trumpet shall sound the year of jubilee, the 50th
year. In this year, all debts are cleared, both the ones you have with others
and the ones they have with you. We clear the slate and start over.
And, should you ask, what shall we eat in the
seventh year? The Lord says, I will bless you in the sixth year, with enough to
cover years 6-8. Trust me.
This passage ends with a strong reminder. The
land shall not be sold forever, used forever, for the land is mine. With me
you are but aliens and tenants.
We probably all know the great folk song,
(sing…)
“This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.”
Well, God says that is not true. This is not
our land; this is not our world. This is God’s land, God’s world, and we are
all aliens and tenants, according to scripture. We are all aliens, refugees,
immigrants, as it were. Renters; temporary dwellers.
Our true home is not here; this place belongs
to God.
And so we all probably say to ourselves,
“well, of course, but at least for now, God
has given me the right and responsibility and dominion over it.”
Well, that’s true, up to a point.
God intends for us to be good stewards over
what we have been given, or actually loaned, whether it’s a little or a lot.
And an important part of that stewardship is to be generous with what we have.
Of course, God expects us to use much of it to care for ourselves, our family,
our community. But a portion is intended to be given back to God. At the end of
Leviticus, that amount is defined as a tithe, which means a tenth. A tenth of
what we have is given back to God.
But you know, a tenth sounds like a lot,
doesn’t it? How are we supposed to make ends meet when a tenth comes off the
top to be given back to God?
Video from Enough:Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity / ch.4
We are in the last week of our sermon and
study series called “Enough” Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and
Generosity”. Over the past three weeks we have talked about ways to think about
our financial lives from a spiritual perspective, ways to simplify our lives to
make more space and time and resources available for God’s work, and now this
morning, we are talking about the nature of generosity.
As we are thinking about our life’s purpose,
as
we talked about and took home an insert
about
defining our life purpose
and
setting goals in line with those,
I wonder how we reflected generosity?
I wonder how much we think about ourselves as
generous people?
I wonder how we would hope to be defined by
generosity
in
the eyes of God?
Because the truth is, the only eyes that
matter are the eyes of God.
And the ultimate act of generosity is God
coming to us in Jesus Christ.
Christ has shown us what generosity looks like
in the flesh.
So now, when God looks at each of us,
how
does God see our generous hearts and our generous acts?
Let’s turn to the gospel to help us understand
this further.
Today’s gospel reading comes from Luke’s
telling of the Beatitudes.
We can’t really say it’s Luke’s version of the
Sermon on the Mount,
since Luke says Jesus said these words while
standing on a level place….. so we will hear them as Jesus’ instructions to us
about “blessed are you, and woe to you…”
And Jesus gives us a pretty simple,
though
not at all easy,
set
of instructions about what a generous heart is like,
what
a generous life looks like,
how
to be defined by generosity.
I want to read this passage again, this time
using the Message translation. Luke 6:27-38
“To you who are ready for the truth, I say
this:
Love
your enemies.
Let them (that is, your enemies) bring
out the best in you, not the worst.
When someone gives you a hard time,
respond
with the energies of prayer for that person.
If someone slaps you in the face,
stand
there and take it.
If someone grabs your shirt,
giftwrap
your best coat and make a present of it.
If someone takes unfair advantage of you,
use
the occasion to practice the servant life.
No more tit-for-tat stuff.
Live generously.
“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior:
Ask
yourself what you want people to do for you;
then grab the initiative
and do it for them!
If you only love the lovable, do you expect a
pat on the back?
Run-of-the-mill
sinners do that.
If you only help those who help you, do you
expect a medal?
Garden-variety sinners do that.
If you only give for what you hope to get out
of it, do you think that’s charity?
The
stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
“I tell you, love your enemies.
Help and give without expecting a return.
You’ll never—I promise—regret it.
Live out this God-created identity the way our
Father lives toward us, generously and
graciously, even when we’re at our worst.
Our Father is kind; you be kind.
“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures,
criticize
their faults—unless, of course,
you
want the same treatment.
Don’t condemn those who are down;
that
hardness can boomerang.
Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot
easier.
Give away your life; you’ll find life given
back,
but
not merely given back—
given
back with bonus and blessing.
Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity
begets generosity.”
Well, I don’t know about you, but these words,
this week, have personally convicted me.
This presidential campaign has been ugly.
And of course, as always, the campaign ends
with an election, and as always, there are winners and losers.
And
the winners exult, and the losers grieve.
And as always,
there
is much we do not know
about
what the next four years will hold.
What we do know is this, at least if the
voting results of a portion of our citizens are a good reflection of the entire
country:
half
the country is convinced
that
we are finally starting back on a path
to
make this country great again.
And half the country is convinced
that
meanness, bullying, abuse, even hatred of others
is
now considered acceptable behavior –
especially
for those in power, those with privilege.
And both halves seem to be convinced
that
the other half has completely lost its way.
And the risk of this is that we all begin to
behave
as
if each other – even here in this congregation –
is part of “the other”.
We can’t know just where this will all take
us.
But as Christians, through the living Word of
Jesus Christ,
through
the gospels,
brought
alive through the power of the Holy Spirit,
there
are some things we do know for sure.
We know that the only basis for our salvation
is
that we are loved by God,
who
knows us better than we know ourselves –
who knows our hidden thoughts and fears and
sins,
who
knows that in our heart of hearts,
we
are all despicable and deplorable, every one of us;
and even so, God loves us anyway.
It is grace alone that saves deplorable people
like all of us -
the
unearned state of forgiveness
that
God has offered to all God’s children.
No one of us deserves this any more than any
other one of us,
as
hard as this is to comprehend.
We know we are called by Jesus Christ to
love our enemies - especially those
who seem most unworthy of our love,
no
matter what is defining that for us, this week or any week.
And if you are feeling anything like I am
feeling
at
the end of this momentous week,
well, you are probably struggling with what it
means, now,
to
love our enemies –
not in the abstract, but to truly, fully,
love,
with
the love of Christ,
those
who we each and we all have identified
as
undeserving and unworthy of that love.
And as always, here comes the Christ,
not
to give any of us an easy answer to that question,
but
to challenge us, to convict us,
to
cause us to turn the mirror around and look at ourselves,
in order for us to know how to look at others.
Jesus reminds us – it’s not what you got, or
what you lost.
It’s
what you give. It’s how you are defined by generosity.
“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior
(so says Jesus):
Ask
yourself what you want people to do for you;
then
grab the initiative and do it for them!
If you only love the lovable, do you expect a
pat on the back?
Run-of-the-mill
sinners do that.
If you only help those who help you, do you
expect a medal?
Garden-variety
sinners do that.
If you only give for what you hope to get out
of it,
do
you think that’s charity?
The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
I pray that these words dwell in our hearts,
in
order to humble us all, and to center us all.
And let them unite us all to share the love of
Christ,
even
if it seems that there is nothing else left to unite us.
Let us be united around generosity, and
community,
and
relationship; around caring for one another.
Let us be united across winners and losers.
Let us be united with the people who we like
to hang out with
and
the people we are angry with
or
afraid of
or
just done dealing with.
And if you think that unity in Christ just
means let’s all get together
and
hold hands and make nice,
or
let’s just let the system work,
let’s
just wait and see how God works all this out,
that
is not the case at all.
Christ is calling us to the kind of love that
is no fun at all.
The kind of love that causes us to stand so
close
to
the person being persecuted that we will be persecuted as well. The kind of
love that puts us in solidarity, that joins us together,
not
with our friends or the people who think like us
or
look like us
or
worship like us,
but with those who are nothing like us,
who
are hard to love,
but
who need our love and protection,
especially
when no one else is standing up for them.
Christ tells us in the gospels that this is
what being defined by generosity means:
·
to step in front of the person being spat upon to protect them,
to
give our coat as well when our shirt is ripped off of us.
·
to go sit next to the teenage girl or the woman or the Muslim or the
immigrant
when
someone starts to taunt them or frighten them –
to
talk to them and to behave as if they are our dear friend,
even
when we have never met them before.
·
To stand up for the one being abused.
·
To take in the immigrant family who is at risk of being deported.
To do all this in the name of Christ, and for
the sake of Christ.
This is generosity of the heart,
and
before we can ever think about generosity
of
our wallet or purse or bank account,
we must nurture generosity in our heart.
We call this place a sanctuary.
The word sanctuary means “a holy place, a place
of refuge or safety”.
We come here for refuge from the world, to
meet Christ, to rest in Christ.
And that’s good. But Christ doesn’t stay here.
Christ calls us to get up and take our
spiritual nourishment and our renewed sense of community and call,
and
to head back out into the world,
to
BE a sanctuary out there.
To BE a place of refuge or safety.
And that means that we are willing to take
risks
to
protect the safety others.
Our veterans understand the nature of this
risk,
to
protect the safety of others,
but none of us as Christians gets a pass on
this.
It means we are willing to give a tenth back
to God,
not
just of our financial resources,
but
also our time, also our courage, also our righteous anger.
When we give it back to God, we use it for
God’s kingdom work.
We use it for relationship, not for separation
-
to
encounter and engage with and meet,
and
listen to, really listen to, people we don’t typically get to know.
As we increase in relationship with one
another,
we
begin to understand the world from their perspective.
And
we begin to care in a different way.
We
begin to show compassion in a different way.
We
begin to love in a different way. In the way of Christ.
To be generous in our hearts with one another
does
not mean that we set aside our values and beliefs.
It does mean that, in the name of Christ,
we
will live out our beliefs with every encounter;
we
will work to lift up, with integrity, every human being.
It does mean that we are called by Christ,
to
not cross the street to avoid an uncomfortable encounter,
or
to walk or drive past and pretend we do not see,
but,
like the Samaritan neighbor,
to
engage with the person who is in trouble or is afraid,
to
comfort, to support, to provide safe space.
This is generosity of heart and spirit.
That generosity of heart and spirit
leads
to generosity in all aspects of our lives.
We can do this, because God is with us.
And we are called to nothing less than this.
Because our lives, just like our land, are not
our own.
We belong to God.
We are slaves of Christ, our Lord and Master,
our brother, our friend.
Our lives are intended for the purpose of
God’s kingdom work.
We are mere aliens and tenants, refugees, and while
we are here,
God
has plans for us.
God has a plan. God’s plan is us.
Let us respond to God’s call
with
the same generosity that we have received from God –
because
there is not one of us that deserves
the
grace and mercy that we have freely been given.
You have an insert in your bulletin this
morning
that
is for your personal use.
It is not meant to be handed in,
but
as a working paper for you
to
prepare your hearts for generosity to God.
As you take it home and pray about it
and
spend some time filling in the blanks however is best for you,
I pray that you will take a stand
for
how your generous heart will be defined in God’s eyes
in
the coming year.
Then sign it, and place it in your Bible,
so
it can be part of your spiritual practice in the days to come. Amen.
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