St. Andrew’s Pictou, June 12^th 2005

 

Expressing the Essential Gift

 

Genesis 18:1-15

Romans 5:1-8

Matthew 9:35-10:8

 

 

You have heard it said that life is too short.

 

I am here today to tell you that the problem is not that life is too short. The problem is that when we die, we are dead for so long!

 

Each one of us has received a gift and that gift is “the gift of life.”

 

You have often heard the comment that if one person saves another, they gave them the gift of life, or if we donate blood we are giving the gift of life, but I am saying that each of us start out with “the gift” when we are born.

 

This message is about expressing that gift; expressing the gift of life, using the gift of life, expressing the essential gift that each one of us is given.

 

You may say that this is hardly worth talking about: it may seem too utterly simple to say that we need to discuss living the gift of life that we have each been given, but there are many things, ideas, and people who will conspire to deny you using that very same gift.

 

You will hear people tell others that they can’t do “this and that” because they don’t have the right qualifications.

 

People will tell you that you are not the right age, you are not the right gender, you don’t have the right approach or attitude, you don’t have enough money, you are from the wrong place, you don’t have the right skills or education, or any number of reasons that you can’t accomplish what you feel called to do.

 

I remember Dr. Robert Schuller telling us that his English teacher once told him he would never write a book. He has now written over 35 books!

 

There will always be someone telling you what you can’t accomplish! I am suggesting that you not believe them!

 

How long has this negative kind of thinking been around?

 

Three thousand years ago, Abraham was sitting outside of his tent in the heat of the day and the Lord appeared to him in the guise of three men.

 

When they appeared, he being hospitable jumped up and offered them water to drink and to clean themselves, something to eat, and a time of refreshment under the tree.

 

Abraham ran into the tent and had Sarah prepare three measures of the finest flour to makes cakes for the strangers. Abraham also ran to the herd and took a calf and gave it to a servant to have it prepared for the strangers, and stood by as they ate.

 

“They said to him, ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’

And he said, ‘There in the tent.’

Then one said, ‘I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife shall have a son.’

 

And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him.”

 

Sarah laughed!

 

This passage is none of the few in all scripture where anyone just laughed because something was funny. The idea of she and Abraham having a baby when they were so elderly was hilarious to her. (Of course we now have grandmothers having babies.)

 

As the text so delicately states, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.”

 

When she was accused of laughing, she tried to cover it up, but there was no denying it, let’s face it: she didn’t think that the old guy had it in him, nor did she!

 

As history tells us they did have a baby and so with God the impossible is possible.

 

God is a possibility thinker and the hope for humanity rested with these two seniors, Abraham and Sarah, and history was made. In this case, instead of one person telling another what they can’t do, we have people telling God what God can’t do.

 

As Christians we are people of hope, and as the Apostle Paul wrote long ago to the church in Rome, “… and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”

 

In this passage, Paul draws all of our life’s experiences together in a positive way:

“…we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

 

Parents who are desperately trying to shield their children from the normal difficulties and suffering of life, need to hear that Paul said, “Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character.”

 

We don’t have to create suffering for our children; we just have to let them know it exists. We can’t hide reality from them and then wonder why they act outside of reality.

 

Years ago, a woman phoned me to tell ask me for some help for Christmas as they had a car accident: now the car was a wreck sitting in the driveway with the monthly payments still to be met and they had no means of transportation. She said that if she could just have a few groceries and a few dollars for some Christmas gifts, it would make a great difference to their Christmas. I said that this would not a problem and we would be happy to help.

 

When I tried to set up a time to bring over the groceries, she kept being evasive, and in frustration, I said “I am trying to bring you over the groceries you asked me to bring and I am fighting you. What is wrong?”

 

She said, “Well I am trying to find a time when the kids won’t see you bringing the groceries into the house.”

 

I said, “What are you trying to teach you kids? Are you trying to teach them that there is no such a thing as hard times in life? Are you trying to teach them that there is no God and that the church is not there for them? Is this what you are trying to teach you kids?”

 

Immediately she replied that I could bring the groceries over which I did. The children were there and there was no visible crisis. I don’t know how she explained it or who I was and they never came to church, but remember that our job is just to dispense the gifts.

 

“When (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’”

 

This passage from Matthew has Jesus articulating a vision of the kingdom of God and they were subsequently to use their gifts with the people:

“Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and sickness.”

 

Jesus was also very clear about their mission as he sent the disciples out and how they were to use their gifts:

As you go proclaim the Good News, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’

Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.

You received without payment; give without payment.”

 

Be very clear Jesus did not ask us to be doormats with our gifts. We are not to lie down and let people walk over us and call this invited abuse “Christian charity.”

 

“As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it;

but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.

Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

 

Jesus is telling us that our job is to dispense the gifts of God, but it is up to the other person, town or village to accept the gifts, not ours. IF they don’t want what we offer, Jesus says, “Move on!”

 

The bottom line is that the gifts are to be shared; to be expressed. The glory of God is that the gift of life be celebrated and lived: expressed with joy and boldness for God’s glory, but also for ours.

 

I have never seen the imperative need for us to express the gift of our lives better expressed than the following words by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King:

 

If a man happens to be thirty six years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just, and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer and is afraid his home will get bombed, or he is afraid he will lose his job, or if he is afraid that he will get shot… he may go and live until he is eighty, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

 

Man dies when he refuses to stand for that which is right. Man dies when he refuses to stand for that which is true. So we are going to stand up right here… letting the world know we are determined to be free.

 

INCLUSIVE Version of preceding paragraph:

(We die when we refuse to stand for that which is right. We die when we refuse to stand for that which is true. So we are going to stand up right here… letting the world know we are determined to be free.)

 

One man or one woman expressing their gift can change the course of history.

Will it be you?

Will it be me?

 

AMEN               Rev. Alan Stewart