Parallel Lines

This sermon was delivered on the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2007 at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-13
Luke 12:32-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Euclid is the father of geometry. Euclidian Geometry[1] is based on five axioms or rules. From these rules, hundreds of proofs follow which help mathematicians deal with space. The fifth of these rules is called the Parallel Postulate. To make a jargon loaded sentence simpler, parallel lines are lines on a plane that never meet. The distance between the two of them never changes, they are always equidistant. They run together never to converge. The word parallel has been adopted by other fields of study to describe similarities in shape and structure. I want to use it today to talk about the first two verses from our gospel reading.

When I was looking at these verses, I was drawn to one thought; as the Father has given to us, we are to give to others. To me, this is the parallel. The Father gives to us; we give to others. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” is followed with the call to “Sell your possessions and give alms.” The similarity between these two is daunting; so I have come to think of this in three ways.

The first is that the father gives to us so we give to others. A good word for this is reciprocity, a direct relationship of giving and receiving. In this case, we receive, so we give. “In international relations and treaties, the principle of reciprocity states that favors, benefits, or penalties that are granted by one state to the citizens or legal entities of another, should be returned in kind. For example, reciprocity has been used in the reduction of tariffs, the grant of copyrights to foreign authors, the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments, and the relaxation of travel restrictions and visa requirements. The principle of reciprocity also governs agreements on extradition.”[2]

But this kind of giving and receiving has some snags, particularly in extradition. There are nations that will not extradite people accused of capital crimes to the United States in fear that, if convicted, the accused will be executed. Nations that behave this way believe that capital punishment, the death penalty, is not appropriate, regardless of the crime. So while capital punishment may be “in kind,” a basic element of reciprocity, it is considered barbaric by nations who believe capital punishment is too harsh, so they will not extradite people accused of capital crimes to the US. Human reciprocity hits a snag because even where there is significant agreement between the two parties there are limits.

I thank God that if reciprocity is one of the pieces of this parallel, the Father wants to give us the kingdom while all I have to give is my possessions. Frankly, in my opinion, I’m getting the better end of this deal. What do I have that could compare with the kingdom? If you think of the Father’s kingdom as the territory,[3] that’s one thing. For all of my stuff, I get the Father’s land. That’s cool. But if you think of the kingdom as the Father’s rule, power, and authority,[4] then we come out even further ahead. If it is the Father’s good pleasure that we receive his rule, power, and authority and we are expected to give our miniscule possessions in reciprocity, sign me up.

Frankly though, as true as this may be, this doesn’t strike me as filled with grace. Yes, it’s true the Father wants to give first and gives more than we ever could; yet it seems harsh to think of this giving in simple economic terms. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s the point of such radical grace; nothing we could ever give would ever match what the Father gives us.

Another way to think of this is to think of the extravagance, how the Father gives is how the Father wants us to give. Fear not, it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom![5] So fear not, have faith. Easier said than done, eh? It is for me. Hebrews tells us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen and by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called, and the Lord sent him from his home even though he was not told where he was going. By faith he left his home and lived in tents in a foreign land, even when his household numbered seventy people. By faith, he received the Lord’s many extravagant blessings, but it was not until generations after his death that the Lord’s ultimate promise to Abraham was fulfilled when he was made a great nation.

The Father is able to give extravagantly; it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. And by faith, we are to give extravagantly too. We are called to sell our possessions and give alms to the poor. The next verse gives us a warning worthy of following: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” But here’s another warning worth heeding, our treasure is more than our possessions.

Perhaps our most valuable, most limited commodity is time. On Thursday, I went to the Nursing Home. I don’t go as often as I should, and with Marie in the hospital it was tough finding the time. But since Thursday was Elizabeth Beck’s ninety-ninth birthday,[6] I knew I had to make the time. So I went to the home, down her hall, and saw her sitting and waiting; for what I don’t know, but she was waiting. I walked up to her and said, “Miss Elizabeth, it is so wonderful to see you, happy birthday!” She was overjoyed to see me. I took her hand and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to get a card off to you, but I knew I had to drop by today.” Lifting my hand in hers she said, “I’ll take this over a card anytime.” Her joy made my heart swell.

In the grand scheme of life, how important was this? It didn’t bring peace to the Middle-East. The stock market kept falling. It didn’t even help Marie’s anemia or migraine. But in the work of the Father’s kingdom, when Elizabeth told me she would rather hold my hand than receive a card, I knew what I was doing was important. I didn’t cure cancer that day, but for thirty minutes, the loneliness of a widow whose world is slowly slipping away with age and Alzheimer’s was held back. On a one-hundred degree day, I was able to bring warmth to a woman dressed in compression bandages and covered in a quilt. This is the sort of treasure of heaven that no thief can take nor any moth destroy.

The final parallel is that to give to others is to give to the Father. As we begin to peel away the veneer from creation, the one thing we know is that all creation is a gift of God. What we do in almsgiving is a way of furthering the Father’s kingdom on earth. There’s a sort of a symbiotic, yin-and-yang effect going on when we give to those who need. Hebrews 13 reminds us that when we help strangers it is very possible that we have unknowingly helped angels, messengers of God. When we give to one another we return to creation what has been created, for the glory of the one who creates it.

Last week, we read about a rich man who trusted his wealth instead of the things that are greater than wealth. So when giving alms to those who are in need, what is at stake, at the most basic level, is how we use things to proclaim our understanding of God and God’s plans. The rich man from Luke 12:13-21 takes no account of God in his plans, he trusts in his wealth instead of the Lord, and is led by his greed.[7] What good is it to hoard? Like all of our possessions, we are a part of the Father’s good creation. When we take the things which are from the Father to hoard, we hide creation from creation. We act like the rich man from last week’s reading, trusting in the possessions provided by the Lord instead of the Lord. As disciples of Jesus, we are liberated from the peril of possessions and enabled to reorder our lives to care for the needy.[8]

Giving alms is a conversion in how we understand God and how God’s practices lead us into transformed practices related to…possessions, social relations, and more.”[9] Isaiah teaches us that as we give alms, we make ourselves clean. We cease to do evil and learn to do good. In almsgiving we seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow. In giving to others, we return to God what God has given to us, not only in terms of physical treasure, but in terms of dignity.

There is a wonderful parallel quality in these verses. To give us the kingdom pleases the Father, and likewise, our almsgiving to neighbors in need pleases the Father. We do not give alms or do any kind of work to earn our salvation. We are to give alms in thanksgiving for what the Father has all ready done. We are to give alms for the glory of God, to show gratitude to God, and for the benefit of others.[10]

But now, it’s time for me to come clean. There is more to this story than the parallelism I am talking about. There is more to Geometry than Euclid, and more to our story than a simple parallel construction. There is an entire field of Non-Euclidian Geometry, a field that exists because the world, and the universe for that matter, is not flat. In Non-Euclidian geometry there are two choices. One of the choices is that in an elliptical universe, parallel lines always meet.[11] It’s counter-intuitive for those of us who grew up on Euclid in high school geometry, but it does help explain a lot of things in higher math and physics.

The non-Euclidean parallel, so to speak, is that the Father intersects us at every point in our lives. There is no time that we are ever distant from God, much less equidistant, never to meet in the ways Euclid teaches. Our courses do not travel never to converge. Our lives are constantly intersected by the Lord, even at times when we do not expect it or hope that it is possible.

It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom while all we have to give is our possessions; this is hardly a good trade for the Father. The Father wants to give us his power and his glory, much in the same way the bride groom wants to serve his servants. Our call, our vocation is first to be Christian, to read and pray and follow the Lord our God. At the same time, our call, our vocation is to serve God by serving what God has created and ordained. For this purpose, God has given the Son, Jesus who is the Christ. We have been called to give our treasure, our time, and our talents that we may benefit those who have not received such abundance. It’s not much of a trade, and for this, let us give alms and let us give thanks.

[1] Euclidean Geometry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_geometry, accessed August 11, 2007.
[2] Reciprocity—International Relations, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_%28international_relations%29, accessed August 11, 2007.
[3] “Basileia” entry, Bauer, Walter, Greek—English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd Edition. Editor Danker, Frederick William. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000
[4] Ibid.
[5] Yes, it’s true, “Do not be afraid” is the more accurate translation than “fear not,” but I can’t help it. In the Greek Old Testament this phrase is used more than forty times meaning “fear not.” “Fear not” just has more of a “King James” feel, and more oomph to it than “do not be afraid.”
[6] Happy birthday Elizabeth!
[7] Note for Luke 12:13-34, The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, New Revised Standard Version with Apocrypha. Harrelson, Walter J., General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003. Electronic Version, 2003.
[8] Ibid, notes for verses Luke 12:1-13:9.
[9] Ibid Luke 12:13-34.
[10] Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.), Office of the General Assembly, The Book of Confessions. Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Distribution Service, 2003, section 5.123.
[11] Non-Euclidean Geometry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Euclidean_geometry, accessed August 12, 2007.