People, Get Ready! (8/7/16)
Eugene-Joseph Verboeckhoven, Shepherdess with Her Flock
On August 7th, we examined Jesus' call to get ready for the coming of the Kingdom of God, our obsessions with our stuff, and a great song by Curtis Mayfield.
Sermon
Good
morning! I’d like to thank my dear friend Kirk for providing the music this
morning. Kirk is an old friend of mine. He’s a member of Sixth Presbyterian
Church of Pittsburgh, where he sings in the choir and occasionally fills in on
the organ. He is also the father-in-law of my dear friend, the Rev. Charissa
Howe. Charissa and I met in seminary and she is often my running partner. So
clearly, I am greatly indebted to the Howe family and I’m thrilled that Kirk
could be with us on this warm Sunday morning. For his part, I’m sure Kirk is
glad to play in an air-conditioned chapel.
A
couple months ago, Charissa and I were talking about sermons that we were
working on and she said she was having a tough time finishing her sermon. She
asked me what I do when I’m suffering from writer’s block. I told her, when I’m
stuck, I look at the hymns that I selected and I read over every verse. Often,
the piece of theological insight that I need is there in one of the hymns.
I
borrowed the title for this morning’s message from a gospel song written by
Curtis Mayfield. The song was released in 1965 by Mayfield’s group, the
Impressions. It’s been recorded by many artists since then, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked “People Get Ready”
as the 24th best rock song of all time. As I was studying this
morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, this song jumped into my head and I
couldn’t stop singing it to myself. Kirk, can you play a few bars for us? Here
are the lyrics:
People
get ready, there's a train a comin'
You
don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All
you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't
need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
People
get ready for the train to Jordan
It's
picking up passengers from coast to coast
Faith
is the key, open the doors and board 'em
There's
hope for all among those loved the most.
There
ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who
would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have
pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For
there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne
So
people get ready, there's a train a comin'
You
don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All
you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't
need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
As far as I can tell, this song wasn’t written with
any particular scripture in mind, but wow, the theology is clear and correct. And
it’s really helpful today.
Jesus
tells us: “Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves
that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes
near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.” Jesus just won’t let us off the hook about money, will he?
Now
maybe you thought we were done with this question after last Sunday’s sermon. But
it seems that Jesus doesn’t want us to miss the point. So he tells us to sell
our possessions, and then he offers a couple short parables to drive home his
point: We all need to be watchful because Christ may call us to service—or call
us home—at any time. We don’t know when we might be called home, but our money
and our possessions scream for our attention. If we’re busy listening to our
money and our stuff, we’re not attentive to Christ’s call. What’s more, the parables
suggest that when we are judged by God, we will be called to account for the
way we used our resources; that is, the way we used our money and our stuff.
Have we devoted our resources to building God’s kingdom? Or have we been busy
buying flat-screen, high-def TVs, and then building man caves for those TVs?
And
let’s face it. It’s tempting to think we’ve done enough, especially if we’re
here in worship. It’s easy to say, “That’s not my responsibility; I’ve done all
I can!” But the problems of our world make it plain: none of us has done
enough! Look at the hunger and the homelessness, even right here in our
communities. Are we busy making peace, or are we building higher walls around
our homes? Are we busy upgrading our home security systems? Have you made sure
that your 401(k) is doing all that it possibly can for you?
People get ready,
there's a train a comin'
You don't need no
baggage, you just get on board
All
too often, we repeat these same behaviors in church. We pack our treasures from
years past into cardboard boxes. Then we label those boxes and put them into a
closet somewhere. And then we build extra shelves to store all the boxes. When
the closets get filled up, we find a small Sunday school classroom and turn
that into another storage room. We don’t want to let go of our stuff, so we
turn more and more of our space over to storage. Often, the things we save
remind us of our glorious past, when we had 200 people in worship and every
Sunday school room was bursting with children. And that’s the problem. We’re so
anxious about the future that we spend all our time looking at and living in
the past.
People get ready,
there's a train a comin'
You don't need no
baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith
to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket,
you just thank the Lord
In
our anxiety, we might also emphasize the wrong parts of what Jesus is telling
us. So often, we focus on the judgment and we ignore the grace that God offers
us. Jesus begins this morning’s Gospel lesson with the words, “Do not be
afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom.” Do not be afraid! We are
living in anxiety and Jesus tells us not to be afraid. God’s kingdom was
created for us and God wants to give it over to us! “Don't need no ticket, you
just thank the Lord!”
To
get ready for the coming of the Kingdom of God, Jesus tells us to be watchful.
Thus, we are called to cast off the things that draw our attention away from
Christ. That can be money or an abundance of possessions. In the church, it’s
usually just stuff, but that stuff is connected with memories of the past. Of course,
our temptation is to dwell in those memories of what we did in the past. But
again, all that stuff draws our attention away from what God is doing right
now, and where God may be leading us.
The
Episcopalian priest, Anna Olson—no relation to me—argues that cleaning out
closets and Sunday school rooms is a sacred task. I think she’s right and I
think her message is in keeping with Jesus’ call to sell our possessions. Olson
writes: “Cleaning [Sunday school rooms] allows us to let go of our dreams of recreating
past glory and look toward the future for new ways to connect with our children
and equip them for life on the Way in their own era.”[1]
So
how do we work through this task? How do we live into Jesus call to trust God
and let go of the possessions that hold our attention? How do we determine what
to keep and what to let go?
This week Jesus is
asking us, what is it that encapsulates the Kingdom of God for you? What is the
one thing that if someone asked you about it, you would be able to give witness
to your faith in God, your belief in the work of Jesus, your confidence in the
presence of the Spirit? Is it a bible gifted to you? A confirmation keepsake? A
baptism remembrance? A picture that hung on the wall in your grandmother’s
living room? An icon? A doo-dad?[2]
The
test is this: are we using these treasures to invite other people into the
story? If the treasure is stashed in a closet, who is invited into its story?
Is the treasure so valuable that you need to invest in a burglar alarm? If so,
are you sharing it with anyone? If the stuff you have causes you to buy more
stuff, so that you can store and protect the original stuff, you might have a
spiritual problem. This is another manifestation of the man cave. So let go!
Clean! Make space in your home and your church and your heart! This is how you
get ready for the inbreaking of God’s kingdom! There’s a train a-coming! Thanks
be to God. Amen!
BENEDICTION
Now, Beloved,
as you depart from this place, remember that God wants to give us the Kingdom!
There’s a train a-coming. You don’t need any baggage, just get on board. So use
your talents, your time, and your treasure to show your love for God. Go forth
and be instruments of God’s peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for
evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are
called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. This is the truth and the love
in which we were created. Go forth and live fully and abundantly into that
love. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!
[1] Anna
Olson. Claiming Resurrection in the Dying
Church: Freedom Beyond Survival. Louisville: Westminster John Knox (2016).
[2] Karoline
Lewis, “Treasured Possessions? Part Two,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4694
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