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.

The Value of Wealth-The Wealth of Value

Hosea 11:1-11
Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

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

The study of Economics is a social science, just like Political Science or the Humanities. Like any good social science, lingo and jargon go a long way to help Economists understand each other. A difference between Economics and many other social sciences is that we participate in Economics every day. We don’t participate in Geography or Information Science on a daily basis, but economics happens every time we fill up the gas tank or go to the store. While we may not be very familiar with the jargon of Law or Architecture, we are familiar with some of the jargon of Economics.

The first and most important example is money. We know what money is, but Economists have a more complex view of it. To an economist, money is a medium of exchange. We receive money in exchange for providing goods and services and pay money to receive goods and services. When purchasing something, it’s easier to exchange something that has a standard value instead of a box of chicken. When we gave to the “Two-Cents-a-Meal” Offering[1] we gave cash. Could we have given a box of chicken? Yes, but in a large economy, the barter system is too inefficient to transact business; money makes the system much easier. For example, it would be inefficient for Tyson to pay its employees in nuggets and just as inefficient for the employees to receive their pay that way too.

So in Economics, money is worthless until it is spent on something. The bills and coins we carry do not inherently have the value their faces claim. Gold coins went out of production in the 1930’s and silver in 1964. The metal and production costs of coins today are worth less than their face value. The most common piece of paper money in the US, the twenty dollar bill, contains twenty dollars worth of nothing. But we have faith that when we go to the store, we can make our purchases using the green back dollar, the fin, and the sawbuck. Since going off of the Gold Standard in 1933 in favor of the Federal Reserve System, our financial faith is faith in the Federal Government which tells us that “this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”[2]

It is a common belief that scripture tells us that money is the root of all evil. But that’s not quite right; Paul’s letter to Timothy[3] says that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. Money, in and of itself is not evil. It’s not good either. At that, a C-note isn’t worth $100.00 of anything, especially while it’s just sitting in the bank. It’s just a medium of exchange, what we think about it and how we use it makes the difference.

Jesus is a trusted teacher, a Rabbi whose judgment is trusted by the people, and in our reading he is suddenly accosted by someone who wants to him to mediate a property dispute. “Tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Probate, the legal process of settling the finances of someone’s estate, is as old as death and lawyers. Jesus doesn’t take the bait; he has bigger fish to fry. He warns those who will listen to guard against all kinds of greed, “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Life is found somewhere else.

Jesus makes his point in the parable of the rich fool. As for me, I don’t like this editor’s title for this parable. In my opinion, this man isn’t foolish because he’s rich. It looks like he’s very industrious and pretty savvy. This farmer is on a plot of land that produces abundantly. He’s able to grow more crops than he has places to store it. We are told he has extensive holdings, so much that he needs bigger barns to contain it all. He must have been a shrewd businessman to accumulate the land and the tools he needed to become such a successful farmer/rancher/entrepreneur. Jesus does not say he is foolish because he is able to produce an abundance of earthly wealth. This is important: having riches is not what makes him a fool.

What follows, his plan of safety and security, is what’s foolish. His plan is simple, tear down the old, build up the new! This way he will be able to keep his riches and live off of them for years to come. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. I’ll make a new place for my stuff and I’ll be on easy street. That’s a plan, a foolish plan.

Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. As in Ecclesiastes and Isaiah,[4] this quartet isn’t a blessing; it’s a foreboding of impending doom. Resting on his laurels, watching the world go by as he sits on the veranda in his porch swing, this is not the life we are called to live with the blessings we receive from God. As I said before, I do not think the man is a fool for being rich, but he is foolish by how he trusts in his wealth.

When we trust our lives to the security of our finances, we trust in something that is fleeting. As the rich man learns, life can be over in a flash. Our lives can be demanded of us in any given moment. When this happens, Jesus asks, who will receive the blessings that have been trusted to us? I ask, isn’t it better to develop a relationship with a brother than with the father’s property? One will last; the other will become dust in the wind. We have received so many blessings, and so often they are squandered on things that don’t last until the next season.

To me, Monday October 19, 1987 is one of those days that will live in infamy, it is known as “Black Monday,” or at least 1987’s version of “Black Monday,” the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average took the second largest one day decline in its history. The Dow lost 22.6% of its value, in the neighborhood of $500 billion. The drop was not as devastating as “Black Thursday” or the following “Black Tuesday” of 1929 which precipitated the Great Depression, but it was still scary. In a time of excess and greed, “Black Monday” was a sobering reminder to Yuppies everywhere that faith in wealth could be even more fleeting than the paper it was printed on.

I remember hearing about an interview with Sam Walton about the blood bath on Wall Street that day. When asked how he felt about the sudden loss of wealth when Wal-Mart stock took a perilous drop along with the rest of the market, he asked the interviewer, “Did I lose any stores? Did I lose any inventory? I’m no poorer than I was yesterday. That wasn’t real money.”

Sam had a point. He and the company he founded were invested in more than paper. They were and still are invested in land and stores and inventory and people, and the local community and any perceived loss of wealth from the stock drop wasn’t going to matter in the long run as long as people shopped at Wal-Mart. Sam didn’t put his trust in Wall Street wealth. That wealth was just a paper tiger. Sam placed his faith in people, people who still shop at Wal-Mart.

So if Sam is right, if the value of paper wealth is little more than nothing, then where does true wealth lie? One answer comes from our reading in Colossians. Colossians reminds us to “Set our minds on things that are above, not on things on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is in your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.” When we set our minds on the value of wealth from the earth, we trust in what will one day be dust. When Christ is revealed through our lives, wealth lies in the values we accept from his life and the example we are to follow.

We receive—so that we might give to others.
We are blessed—so that we might be a blessing to others.
We are loved—so that we might love others.
We are reconciled—so that we might reconcile.
We are forgiven—so that we might forgive.[5]

God doesn’t have a problem with wealth, or with industriousness, or the Protestant Work Ethic; but when we place our trust in the stuff that is created instead of the word of God there’s a problem. Especially when we forget that the blessings we receive aren’t for our personal use and enjoyment; they are for the work the Lord has put us to in God’s good creation.

John Wesley, the leader of the Methodist movement, has a simple thesis about wealth. He said, “Make all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.” This simple treatment is a blueprint for how we should handle wealth. As Christians, we are called to greater things. We are called to increase wealth not for our own comfort, but so that we may be a blessing to others. These ideals give our money true value.

As I said, monetary wealth is worthless until it is spent. As long as it is in my pocket, this dollar is just so much linen-paper and ink. When I put it in the plate, it gains value by what it can do for the work of the Kingdom of the Lord while we are here on earth. This will buy school supplies so that young children can go to school with the materials they need. This dollar will be used to purchase rice for the Arkansas Rice Co-op to help fight hunger in this state. This dollar will go toward the Loaves and Fishes Food Bank to help local people fight hunger. When we spend our money in reflection of our God given priorities, then our wealth has value.

[1] The “Two-Cents-a-Meal” offering is taken by the Presbytery of Arkansas. Its proceeds go toward three hunger relief agencies annually, one state-wide, one national, and one global.
[2] All paper money in the US carries this statement.
[3] 1Timothy 6:7-10
[4] Ecclesiastes 8:15, Isaiah 2:13
[5] Rich Fools, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=93000344 accessed June 11, 2007.