St. Andrew’s Pictou; October 3, 2004     WORLD WIDE COMMUNION

 

You Get What You Pay For

 

Lamentations 1:1-6

Psalm 1

Luke 17:5-10

 

Everything modern creaks and groans over what the prophet Jeremiah laments in his grief over the destruction of Jerusalem; his beloved city of God.

 

In today’s society, we are simply just… not into grieving. Grieving is not cool. Prime Minister Tony Blair got world attention this week when he mentioned a sort of apology for the Iraqi war and the failure to find those weapons of mass destruction; something George Bush would never do. Blair’s apology sounded around the world. Why? Because we teach men that they should never, ever apologize, so when we men do apologize, it is world news!

 

“Real men” are taught to never say the words, “I am sorry.”

 

For a man to say, “I am sorry” means that there was a point in time when he was not in control a time when maybe he just didn’t know what he was doing.

 

For a man to say, “I am sorry” means that he was responsible for an undesired event; an admission of failure.

 

With that little word “sorry,” Tony Blair lamented that he held some responsibility for the dead, the maimed, the destruction, the lies, the pain, the murdered children, the suffering and the loss. With that little word, he and George Bush parted paths to some degree; one on the path to responsibility, the other on the path of denial which is: the path to further pain and loss.

 

The book of Lamentations begins with a lament; the prophet cries out in grief, Jeremiah laments that the very worst thing has happened: Jerusalem has been destroyed.

 

Over the almost 2,000 years the Bible has been written, the Bible is often “an evolution” of our understanding of God. As Christians we understand that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the God’s message to us, but the world of Jeremiah is much earlier. The God of Jesus is not a God, who punishes, but this lament uses language of the understanding of an earlier time; at this time in history God is seen as a punishing God. In talking about the destruction Jeremiah uses punishing language:

“Her foes (meaning Judah’s foes) have become the masters, her enemies prosper,

Because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions;”

 

But the real and time irrelevant judgment of the people back then is the same as it is now: we experience a kind of self-judgment as a consequence of our inadequacy. The deeper reality in this passage is the longing love of God for a child that has erred and not taken their responsibilities in a mature way. God always wants restoration.

 

We look at this passage though the lens of today: we live in a world where we loath to designate responsibility; a world where we keep going back to explain and disallow responsibility for past formative experiences in individuals and with peoples.

 

The prophets of the past would have none of this abdication of responsibility; no excuses allowed.

 

The message for the people back then is the same as it is for today: we are responsible for our choices and actions. The buck stops here with us.

 

If we drink and drive, we or others will get killed or maimed.

If we smoke we increase the chances of lung cancer.

If we wean our children on fat, they will get heart disease. (In the paper this week, it stated that obese children as young as 7 showing signs of artery disease.)

If we don’t exercise, our bodies will shut down.

 

For the ancient people of Judah and for us today, the message is that if we don’t follow God, we will go down destructive paths following other gods.

 

The simple rule of life is that: “We get what we pay for.”

 

We don’t always remember that truth. We all want the bargains of life. We want the best deal. We would rather get a little more for our money if it is possible and we sometimes run all over the place to save a few dollars and find that we didn’t save anything at all, in spite of our efforts.

 

Jesus plays with the same rules of life as Jeremiah: there are no “half price specials.”

 

The disciples are like us. They see what is going on. They have Jesus with them and they presume that this is the time to get a good deal: “the manager’s special.”

 

“The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’”

 

They have Jesus right there with them and they want to capitalize on that and make a better deal in life: “Increase our faith!”

 

Jesus doesn’t say, “No,” to the disciples but he gives them the way (since they are responsible for themselves) that they can increase and understand their own faith.

 

“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

 

The similar passage in Matthew 17:21 b says:

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

 

Now there is no evidence that Jesus ever told a mountain to move and it did. There is no evidence that anyone ever told a mountain to move and it did.

 

But literally moving mountains is not the issue! Faith is the issue and what and where your faith is, is the issue. The power of our faith is the issue.

 

Jesus is using the literary device he did to stretch our minds as to the power of faith and the need of our small minds to be stretched into the limitless possibilities of faith.

 

When I was out in the Rockies several years ago, I stood and looked at these magnificent mountains. Though you have faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, you can say to your mountain, “Move!” and it will move.

 

I visualized this magnificent 8,000 – 10,000 foot mountain moving. Not a lot, just an inch… moving. “Move” and it will move!

 

The area of faith is an area where there are absolutely no bargains. You get exactly what you pay for!

 

If you think that your child will amount to nothing and shame them, they will amount to nothing.

(I was talking to one of our senior members yesterday, Annie Griswold, who has attended this church for all of her 85 years. She calls her two sons “good boys.” She mentioned her husband’s words, “I am going to make them into good men.” The loss of one of her sons at 54 has broken her heart. She said the earth doesn’t hold the answer to why?)

 

The same is true of spouses. If you think that your spouse is worthless in your marriage, she/he will be worthless.

 

If you have no faith in yourself, you will reap in your life exactly the same amount.

 

Jesus explained the importance of expectation is in his language in the last part of this passage where he asks us why we would commend a slave for doing simply what we asked them to do.

 

In other words, there is nothing overly superior in doing what we are simply supposed to do. There is only superior value in doing something beyond the mundane; there is only superior value in doing something of superior value.

 

Well over one hundred years ago the church on this location burned to the ground.

 

The people must have been devastated. The church was only 27 years old!

 

What did they do? They simply got their act together and built another one, just as great or maybe greater. (The exact same thing just happened recently in Lunenburg. The Anglican church burnt and they built another six million dollar church, just exactly like it. I know that the town is a UNESCO site, but it all still happened.)

 

Re building this church 110 years ago was an amazing testimony to the faith of those people. Jesus said all you need a faith the size of a mustard seed, and they raised this beautiful church from the ashes with their mustard seed faith. They lived out the word of the Lord.

 

All we need is the same mustard sized faith (and the love and the welcome and the belief) to fill it with people today.

 

Jesus had faith in you and I and he paid what it takes for us to dine on the bread and wine of life we have before us.

 

Do you and I have the faith to accept its nourishment for our lives and for the life of our church?

 

“O taste and see that the Lord is good!”                                AMEN        Rev. Alan Stewart