Scripture Lesson: Luke 1:26-38

Sermon Transcript for December 21, 2008

By Pastor Bob Coleman

Let’s join together for a prayer. “Lord, it is your mercy, your peace, and your love for which we thirst. We thank you that you have provided it in abundance. Help us to hear your word. Most importantly, may your Spirit speak to each of our hearts. Amen.”

It’s good to have Stacia back in the community and back in our congregation sharing the gift that God has blessed her and singing about the “breath of heaven”. Of course, that’s a reference to Mary. Now the Scripture that’s listed, I encourage you to read it and all of the Nativity-related Scripture at this time of the year. I’m not going to read it for you today other than to reference that Mary had to be reconciled to what was happening to her.

That’s a good word—reconciliation. As a noun it means when you come to a point of an agreement, at peace with someone or something. You are reconciled. In relationships it means that what has been broken has been put back together. It means in the world setting that which was your enemy has now become your friend. Who of us who were alive during the time of WWII would have thought that Japan, and Germany and Italy, then mortal enemies, would someday be trading partners and, in a sense, friends within the world? That’s what reconciliation is about.

And I wanted to talk more about that today. But I am going to postpone some of those heavier topics around reconciliation like the truth and reconciliation experience down in South Africa because that’s an important part of what we are talking about. But there is something that’s looming around us that I can’t ignore this morning. In a sense I have to be reconciled to what we are carrying, all of us, on our shoulders and in our hearts. It is the economy! We might as well name the elephant that is in the room. The church can not avoid it any more than anyone else can.

It’s interesting that in a recent survey done by Bill Hybels of Willow Creek, that he contacted an association of fifty different churches. Fifty churches that are growing churches! And 49 of them are, as we say in the mortgage world, upside down. Their mortgage now is too great for what they are able to support so they are having to do something. They have to become reconciled to that crisis, if you will. Mary’s reconciliation was a different peace. It was internal, spiritual or is that really any different? Spiritual, definitely! She was reconciled to carry God’s Son within her and then to raise God’s Son as her own. And truly it was.

Reconciliation when it comes to this matter of the economy or Mary in her situation or South Africa—all of these we have to come to three basic steps that are important. The Catholic Church lines them out in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Conversion—you have to convert, you have to change from the way you were before to a different place so that you can move forward. Your mind needs to change, your heart needs to change, and you have to confess that where you have been is not the right place to be. You deny God, Mary says, “How can this be for me, just a young girl? It’s not possible God!” God says, “Oh yes it is.” So she was confessing how she was feeling. People of reconciliation around the world are confessing how they are feeling. And how you can have people who have murdered each other one day, ten years later sit down and have a meal together as they have done in Rawanda. It’s that confession.

And then the celebration that there is a new thing among us. It is a peace, a forgiveness, a power that is greater than what even human beings can contrive and think of on their own. When the economy comes along in to our world, it is there all along of course, but then there is something that happens and changes our whole perspective. Just a few months ago it was like this. Just keep on that roller coaster, that escalator is going up, this is what we believe we are given as a gift from God! Then all of a sudden, did God take it away? People are losing their jobs, the auto industry is on the brink, and banks are still in deep trouble. And it’s not just us, it’s around the world.

There is a rule in Economics 101. It says it in this way, “An economic downturn will always expose the weaknesses of the economy of personal economies, national and world.” An economic downturn always exposes the weaknesses that were already there but we were ignoring them. We were believing it really wasn’t us. We were cashing in on the wrong ride. In August I contracted with Ernst and Young through the Board of Pensions to look at my portfolio and determine whether and when and how I might retire. Now I’m 62. I wasn’t planning in the next few months. But it’s going to be so, you know, good planning. I sat down and they gave me all these wonderful figure projections. And they said based upon a very conservative 3% growth, but we think six could be also, but we’ll go conservative with 3, that you will have this in 2-3 years. And they gave all of these wonderful projections. That was at the end of August. No more! Nothing at all like that at least. As one gentleman was quoted as saying, “I was going to retire in two years. It will be eight now if I can.”

Things change because the economy is not to be at fault or even necessarily the individuals who are running it to be at fault. Collectively though we have this mindset of seeing the world this way and we’re wrong. And God has said all along “It’s this way” and we need to be reconciled to those coming together. We need to be converted. We need to confess. And we need then to celebrate. Downturns, when they occur ruthlessly, expose weaknesses without regard to gender, faith, position. Those who are at the top can fall; those who are at the bottom get crushed even more. And that’s the truth of what we are experiencing and will probably be going on for a long time. This deep, cold weather outside ruthlessly exposes the weakness of your furnace. Did anybody have it go out last night? Well, good for you. That doesn’t mean it won’t yet. Last summer when it was 75 and 80 degrees, were you sitting down wondering, “I wonder if my furnace is going to be really in good condition this next?” No, you were enjoying the 70-80 degrees. Maybe air-conditioning was something you were concerned about, but the furnace itself, you can put that off. The weaknesses were there though. We haven’t had it go out yet, but it could. The weaknesses in our cars—I had it tested for 40 below. Well, it’s not there yet, but that doesn’t mean something can’t go out at zero. If it’s a weak piece the stress of that downturn in temperature will finally find that weakness.

When the sun shines and everything seems good, then we don’t pay attention to the weaknesses that are still there nonetheless. And we’ve had weaknesses all along. The weaknesses we have sort of ignored but the signs were there all along. We have people who come in seeking help from the church. Some are routine seekers. They’ve been in the hole for a long time and they have learned how to call upon the system to help them. Let us not be too judgeful of them for who of us knows whether or not in six months or a year, if things continue to get as bad as they are projected, some of us may be in that position. When we served with United Way and all of the other agencies through the Santa Shop it was both heartening and disheartening to go through and watch families of approximately 500 with nearly 900 children receiving presents coming there because they had been filtered through the system for United Way that they truly had a need. And they came in, some of them I could probably read, and this is my objective observation, they’d been here before, they kind of know the routine, they’ve had to beg before, they come with a hand out. But then the others, they were embarrassed, they kept their head down. Some had tears of thankfulness but I believe they also masked tears of disappointment that they had to be there in the first place, a sense of guilt.

And this is one thing we must remember through all of this is that part of reconciliation is that we not continue to beat people up if they confess that they have done something wrong. Reconciliation between warring factors has to finally come to a point that we accept the confession not to continue to pick away at it. We can’t beat ourselves up over this circumstance but there are true weaknesses that have been there all along. Yes they are economic and you can tinker with all of the aspects that you want. But I think it is deeper than that. It’s a spiritual problem that we have and it’s been there all along. The weakness of our spiritual foundation has been there lurking in the background waiting to have the shining light of an economic turndown point out ruthlessly the weaknesses in our life and in our understanding.

Will Willimon, a Bishop in the United Methodist Church, in a letter written regularly to his pastors and churches in the conference where he serves, wrote this recently. He said that we are famously called the people that are called the Methodist. And we quote John Wesley but you remember what John Wesley said, “Make all you can, save all you can and live all you can” with the emphasis decidedly on the third part of that exhortation. Early Methodist dressed simply, lived simply, they founded societies for thrift not in order to horde but in order to give away. He goes on, Bishop Willimon, in quoting a book by David Tucker called, The Decline of Thrift in America. In the 70s and earlier, savings was an important part of what people did. As much as 15% of income, generally speaking, was saved. It was an all-American virtue. But since the 90’s, credit got easy, borrowing became a way of life. It was a dramatic change. And now we know today that credit card debt is higher than it has ever been in history, not just in dollars and cents but proportionately. And this is not a political statement because I think we produce Presidents and leaders out of our own culture. We can’t necessarily jump all over them when they reflect what we feel. But after 9/11 when we were told to go shopping to counteract what those terrorist were against, I think it was thought later it was probably not the best answer. But it was at the heart of the weakness, you see? Fix our problems, go spend money! You have a problem in your life, it’s a spiritual problem, go buy something it will make you feel better! If you have a problem in your life, go have comfort food! Just think of all the ways that we have taken the things of this world and turn them in to spiritual icons but they are really only shadows of what we are called to be. In fact we’ve built the American dream that you have filled the American dream if you can build your wealth and have a wonderful, soft retirement and have a wonderful nice house. When we bought our first house in Newberg, we were amazed that they told us we could buy a house for nearly $300,000 on a single salary. It was the projections of the bank and the mortgage company in particular. They said we could afford it. I guess they didn’t know that we tithed and we had school debts even though they were listed. But they thought we could buy that much. Well, we bought a house half that value and it was still tight!

I just don’t know how we can believe that we sold ourselves such a story. That the more you have the better your life is when Jesus Christ says, “The more you give away, the better your life is!” John Wesley coined it in that way. In fact, I came across this from another pastor who isn’t of the Wesleyan background but the Wesleyan influence is there. And if you will show the slide it says that there are Biblical rules. “Earn honestly as much as you want,” this pastor said. “Live well within your means. Debt is not your friend, it’s an enemy. Save all you can. Give generously to the poor. Give 10% to the Lord’s work. Trust God not your 401K.” Sounds like there is a quicker summary than that and it is when John Wesley said, “Earn all you can, save all you can, give away all you can.”

When we follow that plan, the world will look at us as strange and different because the world is still going to hold up the image that is where we are going to return to. Our future needs to get back to where everybody can get what they want, when they want, no matter what it costs. They’ll get back to buying bigger cars, bigger houses, and they will max out again on credit cards unless we learn something foundational and we as a church will do the same thing unless we remember our spiritual roots. That we have to be reconciled that this economic severity is not caused by God but might be able to be a great opportunity for God to teach us something. And that economic severity can become a friend and not an enemy.

Now I don’t discount the pain of the short-term losses of jobs. We have families in this church who have lost jobs; friends of families you have lost jobs and there will be more I fear. The church will be there. In fact the church must stand up even taller than it ever has before to be a beacon of a place where people can see it as an opportunity to get some help in some way. But as people come and ask for money and to pay for a utility bill, we must also step forward and do all we can to help them to see the deeper issues that they m a not even be aware of.

In I Timothy 6:17, Paul writes in that letter, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth which is so uncertain, but to put their hope God who richly provides us for everything for our enjoyment.” I’ve always thought that to be an interesting word—enjoyment. We translate that into all the toys with bells and whistles as a society and culture. But the enjoyment deeply within the context that Paul is speaking is the deep enjoyment of knowing whose God you are and that God will provide what you need, not necessarily always what you want. Continuing on Paul says, “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

That’s the spiritual truth that is there and we must reclaim it to move forward. For if we do not investigate the truth of the matter and ask the questions of our own souls individually and collectively, if we do not open ourselves to God’s leaning at this time we will just climb out of the hole and do the same thing over and over again. Now I don’t know if we can turn a whole culture around, but we need to know in our lives that we are following the way of God and to recognize the spiritual weaknesses that we have built our lives upon and replace them with the strength that simplicity is a good thing. Simplicity of spirit and love and life! We just don’t need more “stuff” in our lives and we do not need to raise our children to expect more stuff is better because the stuff just gets passed on into landfills. But what will last forever? That which is of the spiritual nature!

Paul in Philippians, Chapter 4, is thankful for the gifts as we read in the following way: “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed you have been concerned but you have no opportunity to show it. Now I am not saying this because I am in need for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” I know what it is to be in need, Paul says. I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, I can do everything through Him who strengthens me.

What a powerful image for us to portray not on the outside but from the inside. Economics 101, Spiritual Reality 101, when the troubles come into your life they will expose the weaknesses but they will also expose the strengths that are there too. Let us learn as we prepare for this Christmas. Yes, maybe the shopping is already been done. And maybe we can’t turn it around in the next few weeks. And, yes, together we’ll probably go into a deeper recession that will be even more painful. But every time we get disgusted with the decisions that people have made remember that we can’t really blame them any more than we can blame ourselves because for the most part, we are all ready and willing to be on the same train.

Be aware that preparing for Christmas isn’t about the presents, it’s about the heart of the matter, the spiritual base that we need to honestly learn all that we can, save away enough for the tough times, but give away as much as we can. For in that generosity is the spirit of God’s gracious love for us. And who will we know that will not learn new in their lives from what we did and how we live?

So with a joyful heart prepare for Christmas. Be mindful of the work we’ll have before us and the reorganization as the Trustees, and Finance, and Pastor Parish met last Monday night to say, well, we’ll have to do some things differently and here’s a plan that we’ll put into place. The plan may work, it may have to be adjusted, but we’ll look at things differently, we’ll treat it differently, we won’t just continue to believe we’ll have all we want when we want it. And you need to do also in your life for it is at the heart of that by which we can learn anew that Christ dwells in us so that we might know an abundance that is greater than anything we can imagine.