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Seventeenth Sunday after
Pentecost
September 23, 2007 Sermon by
The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings
I heard a very compelling story last week. Over the summer, it seems a whale entered San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and became entangled in buoy lines and ropes attached to fish traps.
The whale became very agitated, which only made the ropes and lines pull harder and tighter; one large line was even caught in the whale’s mouth. The whale was going to drown.
People gathered to do something but there was concern that the frightened creature might unintentionally capsize any boat that would come near. But, a team of 5 divers decided they would try to free the whale using special curved knives and ships. They approached the frightened animal and began their work.
The woman who was in charge of the team worked on the line that was caught in the whale’s mouth, and in the San Francisco Chronicle she described how the whale never took her eyes off of her.
Carefully the divers cut the lines away, eventually freeing the whale, and the lead diver said that, once freed, the whale, “as if to say ‘thank you’” approached each diver and gently nudged them and then it swam off. “It was the look in her eyes” the diver said, “that has forever changed me; I will never be the same”.
I find that story extremely compelling because I love animals, especially whales, but also because the story is a wonderful testimony of the human capacity to do good. We have enormous capacity to do good within us.
The stories are all around us: the hundreds of people who volunteered at St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City to provide food, fresh clothing and books, massages, counseling and comfort to the workers at Ground Zero for months after 9/11.
The group of doctors who recently worked to bring a severely burned Iraq boy to the United States for a series of re-constructive surgeries that they will perform over the next months, free of charge; the thousands of people who have gone to Mississippi and New Orleans to rebuild houses and lives after the devastating hurricane Katrina.
These are just 3 notable examples – if I gave you a minute to think about it this morning, each of you could easily come up with three more examples of good. We have enormous capacity to do good, right within us, right now.
That’s the lesson the dishonest manager learned in today’s Gospel. The manager had gotten himself in trouble with his boss – “squandering the boss’s property” – and the manager beings to think about how to get out of the jam.
“Maybe if I do something good” he thinks to himself, people will be good to me in my hour of need. And so he does. He eliminates the commission he was charging for collecting his master’s debts: 100 jugs of oil to 50; 100 bushels of wheat to 80; and this deed of generosity is good for all involved. The master gets repaid, the debtors are now free of the burden of debt and the manager has won their hearts (and, perhaps saved his job).
This one good deed, eliminating the heavy commission he was charging for collecting the debts, resulted in good things for the master, the debtors and the manager himself.
The truth Jesus is pointing out in this story, is that we have enormous capacity to do good, right at our very fingertips. And the good we do not only helps the person in need, but doing good changes us, it changes hearts, like the diver who freed the whale, we are never the same.
And the Good News is these deeds are all around us and within us – good deeds.
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When a busy young father coaches a High School soccer team or pee wee hockey
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When people volunteer to read to children at Grant and other schools
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When a man says “yes” to being a mentor and guide for a young person
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When someone quietly and generously supports our outreach fund to assist the needy who walk though our doors
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When people work and give to build a hospice house
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When we sit on boards at the battered women’s shelter and Lifehouse
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When we support CHUM, the food shelf, and serve a meal at Damiano
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When we write a check to Episcopal Relief and Development
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When we visit an elderly neighbor who has memory problems or bring communion to a shut in, or participate in the Crop Walk.
I could go on all day, and maybe I should, because we all need reminding of our enormous capacity to do good, even if we do not have a lot of money or a lot of time, or we think we don’t have a lot of talents.
Everyone has enormous capacity to do good – in big and small ways. But we also have the capacity to be selfish, to be so afraid. To fear that if we are generous in big and small ways, we won’t have enough for ourselves, or that we’ll get taken advantage of. Our fear tempts us to accumulate – that’s Jesus’ admonition today – that we “cannot serve God and wealth”.
Wealth is what happens when we accumulate, when we keep more than we need, when we stock our bank accounts and guard our time and convince ourselves someone else has more capacity to do good than we do – more talent.
Jesus doesn’t criticize money in today’s Gospel. Money itself is neutral. It can do great good but it can also do great harm when the focus becomes accumulation and wealth – because of fear.
We are called to see our money and our time as gifts from God and tools to do good. Good for the people who are the recipients of our generosity, yes, and also good for us.
For like the divers who freed the whale, doing good and being generous with our time, talents and treasures changes us. It builds community, it makes our church, our city and our world better places – it makes us better people.
I’ll say it one last time: we have enormous capacity to do good. Let us celebrate the good we do, recognize the good things others do, and always be open to the ways we are called to do good in the name of Christ. Amen.