Repository of Sermons / Calendar of Events / Activities

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
November 11, 2007 Sermon by The Rev. Barb Hauck, Deacon
                                                                                       Readings                                                                                    
   Got 2, Give 1

Whose wife will she be? Forgive me for saying so, but this Gospel reading reminds me of a game I used to play as a young child. As bedtime neared, I would start playing ‘what if’ with my parents (much to their exasperation!). What if the sky were green and the grass were blue? What if I were an only child (instead of the youngest of 4!)? What if, what if, what if. It was my delaying tactic – I wasn’t really interested in the answer to my questions… I simply wanted to stay up later.

In today’s Gospel reading, the Sadducees were asking the same sort of silly question I used to ask. Silly for them because it was a question about Resurrection – a subject about which their minds were closed, for they didn’t believe in Resurrection. The Sadducees were a group of priestly folks – they were, primarily, wealthy aristocrats. And they were the ‘conservatives’ of their day – believing only that which was written in the Torah – the 5 Books of Moses. If it wasn’t written there, it was not part of their belief system. It was clear to them that Jesus had a much more wide-ranging view of Scripture… one more in line with the Pharisees on some points – including interpreting the written Torah, oral traditions, and the prophetic writings. Sounds a little like the difference between today’s Christians who interpret Scripture literally and those who interpret it in light of knowledge and insights gained about God and God’s world over the past 2,000 years.

So how did Jesus respond? He showed them he finds their question silly – remarking that “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age, and in the resurrection from the dead…. cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God.” Jesus then went on to use a passage from the 3rd chapter of Exodus. He reminded the Sadducees, in a passage that is included in their holy Scriptures, that God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, saying “I am the God of your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” I am. Could the evidence be any clearer in speaking to Moses from the burning bush that God is affirming that the ancestors are alive and with him? What other conclusion could be drawn except that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must have been raised from the dead?

We live in a time when many people find it difficult to believe in a resurrected life. There are many Christians who, if they don’t dismiss the idea entirely, find it challenging to accept the idea with any measure of confidence. But not I…. I’ve witnessed resurrection, and can deny it no longer.

Many of you know that my sister, JoAnne, struggled with kidney disease for more than 10 years. For much of that time her health was in a slow decline… and then suddenly about 5 years ago, her health took a nose dive. She was teetering on the brink of kidney failure. It was then that I took a leap of faith and asked her permission to be tested as a potential donor. It was a long process…. 6 months, in fact. During that time JoAnne grew weaker. By April of 2003 she was spending most of every day sleeping. Her body was slowly being poisoned by the toxins her kidneys could no longer remove.

The testing continued and by late May I was on my way to Portland. JoAnne’s skin tone had taken on a sickly pallor. This person who had been my role model for planning and executing fun-loving practical jokes, now no longer laughed. Her eyes had lost their light.

In early June we both went through a transformation unlike anything we’d ever known. On June 10th, a little more than 24 hours after our surgeries, Steve took me to see my sister in the Intensive Care Unit. It was as we paused at the sink to scrub before entering her cubicle that I witnessed resurrection. It was vibrant, rich, and full of life. As I followed the music of JoAnne’s laughter, my resurrection experience continued. Her skin was rosy, her voice was strong, her eyes twinkled with excitement. All I could do was sit in my wheelchair and cry.

Isn’t that strange? This huge, momentous occasion, and all I could do was sit there and cry. The fears JoAnne and I had shared had been transformed into real hopes and dreams for our future. My heart was so filled with gratitude, that all I could do was weep tears of joy. New life out of death. Resurrection.

In all my work with people through the years, one thing I’ve observed is this: when we feel grateful, living from a place of abundance, we are more generous than we would otherwise be. When we live with grateful hearts, I believe we have a stronger desire to share whatever it is we have – time, talent, and treasure – with others. And resurrection experiences play a part in how grateful we are – and how generous we are in thought, word, and deed.

This is the dawn of a new day and my prayer for each of us is that we spend some time reflecting on those times in our lives when we’ve each experienced resurrection. I’ve been blessed to hear some of your stories, so I know that for some of you it’s been in nature. For others among us it was the arrival of a child. Some here embraced new life when a long-awaited career opportunity presented itself. I know that a few of us have felt new life stirring within us when a prayer was answered that we weren’t even sure had been heard. And some of the veterans here this morning may have experienced resurrection when they first saw the face of humanity – the fears & hopes, the darkness & light within each of us – saw it in the eyes of the enemy they encountered in war.

For some of us it’s been more subtle. Perhaps it was the look fear erased from a hungry person’s face when you served them a meal. Or the look of gratitude in the eyes of someone when you paid for a night’s room when they had no place to sleep. Or the look of hope on the faces of the residents of a nursing home when they listen to children singing Christmas carols.

Maybe it’s the sight and sound of the little ones at St. Paul’s running up the aisle to go to Children’s Church. Or the opportunities our delegates embraced in the decisions made at Diocesan Convention two weeks ago. Whatever resurrection experience you’ve had, remember it. Claim it. Cherish it. Believe it.

When I was discharged from the hospital, the Transplant Team presented me with a ‘graduation gift’ – a sweatshirt that says, “Got 2, Give 1”. It refers to the fact that we are each born with twice as many kidneys as we need to live a rich, full life. In this stewardship season, it’s a message we each need to hear. As we all know, that’s the sort of abundance that surrounds us – compliments of God. Next Sunday is Consecration Sunday. I believe God calls us to embrace the spiritual discipline of responding to the opportunities life presents to us… responding with generosity. Consecration Sunday is the day we will each be empowered to do just that.

Now here’s a not-so-silly question: what if we offered our gratitude to God by sharing even one-half of our excess time, talent and treasure to God’s church and its mission of spreading the Gospel as we reach out to those on the margins of society? Yes, “Got 2, Give 1” strongly suggests that we be good stewards with what we are blessed to have – by sharing out of our abundance with those whose needs are great. It is my hope that we will each spend some time in reflection this coming week. May we return to this place next Sunday with heart-felt gratitude for God’s blessings showered on us in these resurrection experiences and ready to take a leap of faith into this new life God is calling us to embrace. May our offerings be a reflection of our gratitude and devotion to the One who has provided an abundance of blessings to us… and may we all have reason to shed tears of joy.

Let us pray.
Holy One, grant us the gift of time in the coming days… the time to reflect on those moments when we have each embraced the life that comes out of death, the time to give thanks for your presence in our lives, and the time to reflect on how we have shown our gratitude to you for the abundant gifts showered on us through your ever-lasting love. Grant us the gifts of faith and courage… the faith to loosen our death grip on what we think we must have so that we might open our hands, hearts and minds to receive whatever might be, and the courage to share the abundance we take for granted in this life – who we are, what we do, and what we have – with your church. All this we ask in the name of your beloved son, Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

 Click here for earlier sermons