Mark 10:35-45 "Service and Generosity"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         There is a pattern developing here in the Gospel of Mark.  It is quite a simple one too:  Jesus talks to the disciples about his impending death, and they ignore the plain language of what he is saying, seeming not to have a clue about where they are ultimately headed with him. 

         Three times it has happened!  The first time Jesus =mentioned dying, Peter jumped all over him for his doom-and-gloom mentality, and Jesus in turn rebuked Peter for his insolence and deep misreading of the situation – “Get you behind me, Satan!” 

         The second time Jesus does one of his death predictions, the disciples get into a big “hush hush” discussion about which one of them is the greatest.  However, Jesus could not help but overhear their conversation and takes them to task, explaining in no uncertain terms what really constitutes greatness. 

         Today, in the verses preceding our Gospel reading, Jesus tries a third time to bring his followers up to speed.  “Listen to me carefully (he says).  We’re on our way up to Jerusalem. When we get there, the Son of Man will be betrayed to the religious leaders and scholars. They will sentence him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Romans, who will mock and spit on him, give him the third degree, and kill him. After three days he will rise alive.”

         And for the third time, his haunting words simply fly right over the heads of the Twelve.  We call them “disciples,” but perhaps, as Methodist preacher Alyce MacKenzie said tongue-in-cheek, it would be more accurate to call the “duh-ciples” in light of all the stupid ways they react to the most profound things that Jesus says. 

         This time, James and John (You might remember them as two of the first disciples Jesus chose – “come with me, and I will make you fish for people” – and so they should have known better.) came to Jesus and made what was a pretty stupid and irrelevant request under the circumstances:  “Teacher (they asked), we have something we want you to do for us.”

         Jesus, always open to possibilities, answered, “What is it? I’ll see what I can do.”

         “O goody!” they must have thought.  “This could be better than a genie giving us three wishes! We had best ask away before he changes his mind.” 

         So the conversation continued.  “Arrange it,” they demanded, “so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left.”

         Or - “Yo, Jesus.  “We have this blank check . . . would you mind just signing your name right here so we can cash it in?” 

         James and John are bold and brash – and maybe shrewd and crafty to boot.  Maybe they want a shortcut. Maybe, as religious blogger Carson Witnauer speculates: “Their message is, ‘Hey Jesus, you know how we’ve been helping you out here in your ministry? Well, how about a little favor in return – give us whatever we ask for.’’’

         Or maybe they are insecure.  Perhaps for once they had heard and understood exactly what Jesus had said about his impending death.  In their anxiety, they just wanted to be sure they were taken care of in the aftermath. 

         Or then again, maybe they are deeply faithful. That is what Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor speculates as she “acknowledges the possibility of their ‘gross ambition,’ but their question may also illustrate their profound confidence in Jesus and his final triumph.

No matter how bad things may look or sound, James and John ‘are so sure of Jesus' final victory that they sign up to go with him.’” (Kate Huey)  

         Craftiness?  Anxiety?  Stupidity?  Faithfulness?  We do not know for sure what motivates these two. However, if nothing else, you have got to admire the two disciples for their honesty. 

         Surely, however, Jesus must have thought they were a tad on the audacious side.  Maybe that is why he quickly responded, “You have no idea what you’re asking. Are you capable of drinking the cup I drink, of being baptized in the baptism I’m about to be plunged into?”

         Not intuiting what lay behind those words of impending anguish, James and John blithely responded, “Sure, why not?”

         They did not get it; they just did not get it.  So Jesus ended the conversation by remarking that he did not have the final say over who would sit where when the kingdom finally was established.  God is responsible for the seating chart. 

        Interesting!  You know, I cannot help but wonder if Jesus’ words came back to haunt James and John when, from a distance, some months in the future, they saw our rabbi hanging from a cross, the only smacking of a kingdom being the crown of thorns that cut into his forehead, a petty thief similarly crucified to his right, and another nameless criminal in agony on his left.  “Can you drink the cup of suffering that I must drink?”

         It was about this time that the other ten disciples got wind of James and John carrying on their power brokering and jockeying for position in the kingdom to come.  The others were miffed, to put it bluntly.  And can you really blame them?  Surely they too had many of the same questions, if not the presumption that sacrificing everything to follow this man Jesus should merit some sort of reward Perhaps they merely lacked the hutzpah of the two erstwhile fishermen. 

         Jesus, however, used this situation that bordered on anger and was rooted in a basic misunderstanding of his mission to make a point – a point he had made many times before in parable and sermon and evening conversation, a point about the Kingdom he so desperately was attempting to usher in, a point about God and what was important to God, a point about what it means to be made in God’s image, to be sons and daughters of the Holy One, a point about the world they knew and the world as it was meant to be, a point about power, real power, the power of love, the power of generosity of spirit. 

         “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around,” Jesus said, “and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant, and if any one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all.”

         Real power, Jesus seems to say, lies not in the wealth we accumulate, in the spacious homes we own, in the cars we drive.  Real power lies not in insulating ourselves from the daily lives of others in our world, but real power is the courage to leave this building behind – this sanctuary, this place of holy safe keeping - and be of service - washing feet, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, rising up in righteous anger about income inequality.

         Real power means letting go of that which makes us so secure in our lives.  Theologian Marcus Borg highlights two images in the passage we read – the image of the “cup of suffering” and that of “baptism.”  He writes that those are traditional metaphors of death – and so Jesus is asking James and John if they are up to dying with him – a question he also asks of us because such dying lies at the core of our Christian faith. 

         Borg goes on to say that he means "a dying of the self as the center of its own concern" and "a dying to the world as the center of security and identity." 
That kind of dying, Borg says, leads to transformation: "a change so sharp that it can be described as dying to an old life and being born into a new life."

         Real power then means allowing ourselves to be transformed from slaves to our culture to servants for all the world.  It means recognizing that the Kingdom, which we say we so desire, is predicated not on the values of our culture (achievement, whoever dies with the most toys wins) but on our ability to give and to serve.  The kingdom is predicated on our ability to love and to be generous in all we do. Thus, for Christians, generous serving – loving ministry - is not optional, something to be tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time.  Service is the heart of the Christian life.

         You know, we come to church for a variety of complicated reasons, a strange mix of spirituality and social contacts.  We come for support and for community and because our kids are acting up.  As Methodist pastor Dale Miller notes, “People come to church with their consumer hats on, asking, ‘What will I get for the investment of my time at church? What services can I expect to get for my pledge dollar?’”

         Oh, sure, church is a place for getting – getting support, getting community, getting our kids straightened out, getting a good pot roast dinner every now and then.  However, if we take Jesus’ words to his disciples to heart, at its most vital, church is less a place of getting and more a place for giving.  Church is a place where generosity of time and resources is highly valued – in fact, is essential to the church’s survival.   Church at its best and most vital is a place where serving is a reality.  It is a place where service - this heart of the Christian life – is boldly exposed and explored and, above all, affirmed.  And maybe in the giving, we get what it is that we are really seeking – a closer relationship with God and with the loving community surrounding us.

         The power of a church – like the power of the disciples - lies in its ability to serve – not in its building or in its accumulated wealth – but in its ability to serve.  The power of the church then lies in its congregation – in their willingness both to serve and to generously support those ministries of service.

         This church that you call your spiritual home needs your generosity if it is to be powerful, if it is to survive.  It needs the generosity of each one of you, and no one is exempt from that need.  This church needs your time – as a Sunday School teacher for our children, as a deacon, as a trustee.  This church needs your financial support on an ongoing pledged basis.

         It we want this church to be great, it will need to be first in the many and varied ways we serve others.  If we want this church to be a place where even Jesus would feel at home, we – all of us – have a responsibility to fashion it into a place filled with opportunities to be of service.

Is that you, Lord,
changing the diaper in the nursing home,
holding the spoon for the woman in her wheelchair,
wiping down the toilet and the floor;

is that you
serving the dinner at the homeless shelter,
sorting the cans at the food bank,
mowing the aged neighbour’s lawn;

is that you, Lord,
bandaging the wounds of the bomb victim,
erecting the tent for the refugees,
handing out the water and the food;

is that you
driving the patient to the treatment center,
sitting through the night with the family,
making the call to the forgotten friend;

is that you, Lord,
lighting the candle in the darkness,
keeping vigil for compassion and justice,
loving in us and through us and with us

until the world that you love has been changed?

         “Whoever wants to be great must become a servant, and if any one of you wants to be first, he must be the slave of all.”  Let’s all of us – all of us – make our church great – not because we have to or because we should, but because the church is who we are – loving children of God.  As eighteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Secker said, “God has three sorts of servants in the world: some are slaves, and serve (God) from fear; others are hirelings, and serve for wages; and the last are sons [and daughters], who serve because they love.”  And when we serve generously in love, we receive back more than we could ever imagine.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine

Mark 10:17-31 "Wealth and Generosity"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

        I heard a story about a preacher who got a Monday morning phone call from someone in his congregation.  It seems that the man was in a bit of a panic because his daughter had just decided to drop out of graduate school.  

         It was odd, her father thought.  She had come home for the weekend and had even been in church that Sunday.  Everyone in the family was shocked by her decision, and so he was asking the preacher to give the young woman a call and “talk some sense into her.”

         So the preacher did. He reminded her how hard she had worked to get into graduate school and how she should not just throw it all away.

         ”What inspired this decision anyway?” he asked.

         “Well, it was your sermon,” she replied.

         Then she told him how she had realized that she was only in graduate school to meet her own selfish needs and her parents’ expectations.  She told him that the sermon he had preached on how God is calling everyone to do something important in this life had shaken something loose in her.

         She told him how she had remembered feeling so enriched and worthwhile during the mission trip the youth group had gone on a couple of summers ago – how close she had felt to God then and how she intuitively knew that she was making a difference in the world.  She told him that she wanted to feel that way all the time and had concluded – right there in the middle of the sermon - that she would not find what she was looking for in graduate school or in the profession her degree would lead to.

         The preacher listened intently and then said to the young woman gently and most paternally, “I am flattered, my dear, that you took my words so seriously, but remember…it was just a sermon…”

         “Go and sell all of your things and give them to the poor,” Jesus had said.  Were those shocking words of Jesus “just a sermon” too?

         That would be convenient now, wouldn’t it?  Seriously though:  if we are honest with ourselves, we have got to admit that we are always tempted to monkey around with these verses, working overtime to convince ourselves that they do not really mean what they say. “Go and sell all of your things and give them to the poor”:  It is just a sermon, right?

         It is almost irresistible not to soften the demands that Jesus’ words place upon us, and that tendency has been around for a long, long time.  For instance, a ninth-century Biblical interpreter fabricated the idea of a low gate into Jerusalem called "the eye of the needle." It was so low, he conjectured, that camels could pass through it only if they stooped and were not laden down with baggage.  For that particular Biblical scholar, it was an easy segue into the presumption Jesus was criticizing only the proud rich (those too proud to stoop), or only the rich who were not motivated enough to enter the kingdom.  Interesting slant to the story!  Unfortunately, no archeological evidence for such a gate exists.

         Then there are the preachers who have told us that, as seminary professor Matt Skinner noted, Jesus did something akin to looking into a crystal ball and seeing that “wealth was this particular man's special ‘weak spot,’ zeroing in on it only to expose the man's distinctive shortcoming, thereby giving us permission to assume that Jesus would not ask us to part with our possessions, just those things that we really do not want to give up--only our aggressive driving or fried foods, for example.” 

Or there are the preachers who assert that Jesus’ is merely testing the man, preaching a guilt-inducing sermon, but just a sermon none-the-less.

         However, as Skinner goes on to say, “Jesus' explanation is rather clear: just as large animals simply do not fit through tiny openings, so the wealthy do not fit in the kingdom of God. Even a rich man who has successfully kept all the (commandments) governing social responsibilities, as this devout man has, cannot fit.” 

         In the end, it is not rocket science.  Even a camel could figure it out.  A preoccupation with financial resources and the Kingdom of which Jesus preached and sought to usher in – have nothing – nothing in common.

         What are we to do?  We who are poised at the corner of grateful and generous, what we are we to do?  We who are Americans with income levels – both collectively and individually – that surpass the rest of the world – and if you do not think that applies to you, check out www.globalrichlist.com and see where you stand – we who are Americans, what are we to do?

         Surely Jesus would know better than to set the bar that high.  Surely he would understand the ramifications of connecting the kingdom we all so desire with our willingness to part with our possessions.  That would not be very user-friendly of him and, besides, if he wanted us to take his words that seriously, why, he would need to realize that his church would be empty overnight.  It is just a sermon, right?

         And yet, and yet…. “Wealth and generosity; money and abundant sharing; riches and giving it away: The combination of these concepts lies at the very heart of Jesus’ teaching. (He tells us over and over again that) the richest person in the world is the person who gives it away. Jesus teaches us to give away love. To give away time. To give away (one’s) self. St. Francis, in the spirit of Jesus, said it well when he wrote: ‘for it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born again to Eternal Life.’   (Edward Markquart)

         Once upon a time, there was a young man.  His name was not Bill Gates of Microsoft or Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Travis Kalinick of Uber.  He did not live in Silicon Valley.  He did not develop an ap and sell it to Google for a million dollars. 

         He was a teacher – or a plumber – or a data entry operator – or a med tech here in the USA.  He was religious too – in the sense that he went to church sometimes – but more than that he cared about the world.  He recycled, and he planned to have solar collectors on the roof of the home he someday hoped to own.  He had gone to Safe Passage once and worked with Guatemalan children living in the City dump.  He did not cheat on his taxes and would never have stooped so low as to leer at the blonde in the cubicle next to his – lovely though she was.

         One day, as our young man was jogging down the city streets where he lived with his dog, he met Jesus, certainly not someone he was expecting to meet, and even before he caught his breath, he found himself kneeling, kneeling like every other person in need of healing had once knelt before Jesus, kneeling like the lepers and the blind beggars and sick and the halt and the lame had once kneeled. 

      

         And kneeling, he asked a question that had long been on his mind.  He cut to the chase because his heart was so in need of healing.  He grabbed at the opportunity because, really, how often do you meet Jesus when you are out for your morning run? 

         “Yo, Jesus.  I am in a sort of holding pattern here.  I get up each day, go for my morning run, go to work, come home, enter the day’s expenditures in my new budget software, watch a movie on Netflix, and go to bed.  It is not that I am bored, but I am just wondering what comes next?  How do I move to the next level?  What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

         Though the question was thoughtful and heartfelt, Jesus responded with a disappointingly stock answer:  “Keep the commandments.  No murdering, stealing.  No adultery or cheating of any sort.  No false accusations – you know, pointing the finger and laying the blame on someone else.  And be respectful, especially of your Mom and Dad.”  And with that, Jesus started to step around our young man and headed toward the bagel shop on the next block. 

         However, like I said, how often do you meet Jesus on your morning run?  No wonder the rich man would not let him go that easily.  “Seriously, Jesus?  I have done all these things.  Are you saying that I am a cinch for heaven?”

         And Jesus stopped then in his tracks and turned to face the young man.  “You lack one thing,” he said. 

         “Lack?” he thought.  “What do I lack?  I have a flat screen TV.  I have money to pay my bills – most of the time.  I conscientiously budget.”

         What did our young man lack?  The capacity to appreciate his own abundance?  A consciousness of others’ scarcity?

         “You lack one thing, “Jesus said as he looked at him with love – because Jesus always looks with love at anyone who is trying so hard to follow in his way. 

         But alas! Love does not always point to the easy way.  Sometimes love is hard.  Sometimes love is tough.  Sometimes what is said in love is the most difficult medicine to swallow. 

         Go, sell, give, follow:  In a nutshell, that was both Jesus’ advice and his admonition. 

         “Seriously, Jesus?  This is just a sermon, right?”

         Go, sell, give, follow.  If it is a sermon, it is a sermon less about money and more about discipleship.  If it is a sermon, it is a sermon less about what we think we do not have and more about how grateful and generous we will choose to be with what we do have. If it is a sermon, it is a sermon about what needs to happen to us before we can really follow the Way Jesus sets out for us. 

If it is a sermon, it is a sermon about building up the human community through abundant sharing, about riches and giving them away, about gratefulness and generosity. 

         Go: Go from this place, from the safety of these four walls.  Go from this sanctuary, from this place of hiding or at least of safekeeping.  Go through those doors with your eyes wide open.  Go and look into the faces of those who panhandle on the street corners in Portland. They all have a story, you know.  Go and see what happens to the toilet paper and canned goods you leave in the Vestry for the food pantry.  Real people come in and shop for them, you know.  Go and seek out the world you do not want to see – the world where children hold out empty bowls, where refugees are crammed into leaking ferry boats, where young girls are married off while still in the single digits.  Go….

         Sell:  Get rid of everything that shuts off a living, breathing relationship with God.  Unencumber yourself from all that attaches you to the distorted views of your culture and detaches you from God.  Let go of that which blinds you to the way of Jesus, for you are surely at a fork in the road.  And, above all, do not say that you have nothing to sell – that everything you have is a necessity.  After all, you are an American.  Not that Jesus called you to a life of poverty, but he did call you to a live of discipleship, and how can you be a follower if you do not leave some of it behind you – if, for no other reason, than to know viscerally what it is like to not have everything you may want.  You have more than enough!  Really.  Sell….

         Give:  Jesus did not say to burn the stuff you do not need – or throw it away in the closest dumpster.  He said to give it away – to the poor.  And when you speak in those terms, it really does come down to money, so listen to what theologian Frederick Buechner had to say about it:  “MONEY - The more you think about it, the less you understand it.  The paper it's printed on isn't worth a red cent. There was a time you could take it to the bank and get gold or silver for it, but all you'd get now would be a blank stare.

         If the government declared that the leaves of the trees were money so there would be enough for everybody, money would be worthless. It has worth only if there is not enough for everybody. It has worth only because the government declares that it has worth and because people trust the government in that one particular although in every other particular they wouldn't trust it around the corner.

         The value of money (Buechner writes), like stocks and bonds, goes up and down for reasons not even the experts can explain and at moments nobody can predict, so you can be a millionaire one moment and a pauper the next without lifting a finger. Great fortunes can be made and lost completely on paper. There is more concrete reality in a baby's throwing its rattle out of the crib.

         There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up.”  Give….

         Follow:  Only after you have done those things, only then can you follow, really follow – only when you have gone, when you have sold, and when you have given. 

         This is just a sermon, right?

         We all know how the story ends.  Our young man stands back up and shakes his head.  He cannot do it.  He is sorry, but he cannot do it.  After all, his name is not Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or Travis Kalinick.  He does not live in Silicon Valley.  He never did develop an ap and sell it to Google for a million dollars.  He is a teacher – or a plumber – or a data entry operator – or a med tech.  What could he possibly sell – or give?  He needs it all.  So he tugs on the leash and he and his dog continue their run, and Jesus walks into the bagel shop. 

         Theology professor Paul Wadell once wrote an article on this Bible story.  In it, he observed that the young man knows in his heart that Jesus is right, and that knowledge is what makes him sad and grieving as he (goes) back to what he has not found satisfying all along.

         However, Wadell goes on to observe that "Love is a way of seeing, and those who love us best see us best," so "Jesus sees him as he truly is, but in a way that the young man is not yet capable of seeing himself."

         I like to think that in the days that followed, the man rethought his decision to return to his old way of existing and eventually chose instead to go, sell, give, and follow.  And when he did, he found that his life had far more meaning than he could ever have imagined. 

         As Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote, “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power.  Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. 

Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through."

         Perhaps someday, we too will rethink our decision as well, we who stand at the corner of grateful and generous.  I hope so – because, in the end, going, selling, giving, and following is not just a sermon.  It is not just a way of life even.  It is the only way of life that will ensure that the world is transformed – as God intended it to be.

         In closing now - listen to this prayer by theologian Henri Nouwen:

         Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me. And what you want to give me is love, unconditional, everlasting love. Amen.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine         

Colossians 3:12-14, 16: "At the Corner of Grateful and Generous"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!

         When Lori and I attended the Vital Worship Grant Colloquium in Grand Rapids, Michigan last June, John Witlivet told a wonderful little story about gratitude.  John is the Director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, which is the organization that awarded us our worship grant. 

         He told us about teaching gratitude to his young son.  Each morning at breakfast when the little guy sat in his highchair, John would give him his bowl of cheerios.  Setting the bowl down, John would say, “Say ‘thank you, Daddy,’” and the child would immediately begin gobbling down his cheerios.  Day after day, the same ritual occurred:  The bowl of cheerios placed before the child, the father saying “thank you, Daddy”, and the young boy snarfing up his breakfast.

         However, one day, John set the bowl of cheerios in front of his son, and before he could say the usual words, his child piped up, “Thank you, Daddy.”  What a wonderful surprise after all those days and weeks of patient teaching! 

        Of course, gratitude was not learned in that single breakthrough day.  The next morning, the child began to gobble down his cheerios without a single word, and the ritual began again.  However, over time, John’s child learned the words of gratitude – “Thank you, Daddy” – and began to say them more and more frequently with less and less prompting. 

         Gratitude is not a quality that we humans possess innately.  In other words, we are not born as grateful women and men. I mean, really:  You have got to admit it!  We are pretty selfish and self-centered.  We are inherently more concerned about ourselves and about our own welfare than we are about others and their welfare. And it is not just you and me - we being somehow uniquely dysfunctional.  Gratitude just does not seem to be in the human genetic make-up.

         Gratitude is something that we have to learn over time.  We have to teach one another how to be grateful – and we have to look to the Bible to teach us the true importance of gratitude. 

         Gratitude is a spiritual discipline, and it is something that we must practice day in and day out – just like John had to continue to teach and model gratitude to his son – even after that momentous first morning when the young child said, “thank you, Daddy” unprompted.

         Another thing about gratitude is this:  Gratitude is contagious.  If you witness me or your spouse or your parent or your friend being grateful, you are more likely to become grateful as well.  Gratitude that I see emanating from you begets gratitude flowing from me. 

         Gratitude lies at the very heart of our relationship with God.  “Sing to God with gratitude in your heart” as our Bible passage for today reads.  “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" - as the Apostle Paul writes in a letter to the congregation in Thessalonica.

         However, gratitude does not operate independently and in a vacuum.  Intertwined closely with gratitude is generosity.  As American author William Arthur Ward wrote, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”


         Generosity is really the only way to express our gratitude. And what is so awesome about this connection is that acknowledging what we are grateful for motivates us to be ever more grateful – but, even more than that, to be ever more generous. 

         This strong and binding connection between gratitude and generosity lies at the heart of being a disciple or follower of Jesus.  Grateful people are generous people, and generous people are grateful people – and grateful generous people are followers of Christ.  It is as simple as that!

         We recognize our blessings.  We intentionally affirm our gratitude for those blessings.  We respond in generosity to the fact of those blessings.  This intertwining of gratitude and generosity is a spiritual discipline – and a very important one at that. As Olld Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote, it is how “the God who sends and lives in the Spirit breaks old deathly patterns and makes all things new” – new in us and in the world. 

         Of course, this deep and profound connection between gratitude and generosity is not the way the world works.  However, we always knew that following the way of Jesus would eventually lead us farther and farther from the values our culture upholds.  In a sense, then, the level of our gratitude and generosity reflects the level of our commitment to the way that Jesus beckons us to follow. 

        In short, if we want to become closer to God, then we must invest in the Kingdom of God.  As art historian Johannes Gaertner reminds us: "To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch heaven." Learning to be both grateful and generous is the path of our spiritual journey.

         Beginning today and for the next 60 days, we are going to have an opportunity to experience the link between gratitude and generosity.  We will be able to intentionally acknowledge the blessings God has given us in the hope of learning gratitude.  We will also be encouraged to express our gratitude through random and not-so-random acts of generosity. 

         These 60 days will be a spiraling ascent that has the potential for us first to grow in gratitude, then to deepen our faith, and finally to unleash God’s power in our lives through an intentional commitment to generosity.  We are calling these next 60 days, which will lead us from World Communion Sunday today through Thanksgiving Sunday to nearly the very beginning of Advent at the end of November, “RVCC: At the Corner of Grateful and Generous.

         Our worship for these next eight weeks will reflect the spiritual discipline of gratitude and generosity.  We will begin each Sunday with a Moment for Contagious Gratitude as we did this morning.  That is how we will enter into the spirit of worship – with a profound spirit of gratitude. 

          In addition, you will be challenged to intentionally reflect on the blessings you experience in your lives and in this your church by using a Gratitude Journal.   Part of that journal keeping will also include recording the random and not-so-random acts of generosity you initiate. 

         Oh, you might say!  I am so busy!  I do not have time to count my blessings.  However, as your pastor, I say to you that gratitude is a very important step of faith and one that we all need to make time for.  It does not have to be a lot of time.  Begin your day with a moment of gratitude – or end it just before you go to bed.  Ask yourself:  What are you most thankful for in your life this day? What are your unusual treasures in life?  What are you grateful for in your church?

         And acts of generosity?  “Well, I cannot afford to support another charity.  I do not have time to work in the soup kitchen or take a bunch of clothing to Goodwill or Salvation Army,” you might declare.

         However, acts of generosity are not always about writing a check or volunteering hours you think you do not have – though they certainly could be.  Look at the hours Lynn and Regan have given to painting and upgrading our nursery – or the time Rolf has put in keeping our church from floating away in the rain.   

         Acts of generosity may also be letting a car out in front of you when the traffic line is long, chatting with a bored cashier at the grocery store, calling someone you have not seen in a while, sending a card or a quick email.  As American comedienne Margaret Cho once said, “Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else’s life forever.”

         Now to motivate you to be part of our 60 days of gratitude and generosity, I have a “Gratitude and Generosity Journal” for each one of you.  It has 60 lines – one for each day to prompt you to remember what you are grateful for in your own life and in your church.  There is also a section for you to record your acts of generosity. 

         Part way through our 60 days, we will share our blessings and acts of generosity as part of our worship service.  I am also hoping that the older children and youth particularly will come up with a service project or two to demonstrate their generous spirits. 

DISTRIBUTE JOURNALS

         In conclusion, my hope as your pastor is that over the next 60 days, as you stand poised at the Corner of Grateful and Generous, you will see clearly that:

1.   A strong and sacred relationship between gratitude and generosity exists

2.   Intentionally reflecting on all that we are grateful for will prompt us to be ever more generous with our time, talents, and treasures

3.   Our generosity will bring forth even more blessings in our lives, will deepen our faith, and will strengthen our relationship with God

         And when all that comes together, it is my prayer as your pastor that a sacred fire will be lit in each one of us and in this church, a fire of compassion and gratitude leading to a deep generosity of spirit. And it will be as Theilhard de Chardin once wrote, “The day will come when we shall harness for God the energies of love.  And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, the human being will have discovered fire.”

         We stand at the corner of grateful and generous.  Let the journey begin!

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, U.C.C.