From Whom All Blessings Flow

Scripture Lessons: Jeremiah 17: 5-10 and Luke 6: 17-26 Sermon Title: From Whom All Blessings Flow Preached on February 17, 2019 Isn’t it amazing how things can change? Our two Scripture Lessons deal with change. Jeremiah reminds us that those who put their trust in their own strength are cursed. Why? Because human bodies change. Human strength may be here one day but gone the next. Jesus reminds us of the same thing – those who are blessed now will not be forever, and those who are poor today may not be tomorrow, for no one but God can completely control the way things are. That’s more obvious sometimes than others. Last Tuesday it was obvious. That’s because last Tuesday I got caught in the rain and it became obvious how things change and how little control I have over it. Do you remember how much it rained last Tuesday? Back in Tennessee they’d call it a gully washer. In South Georgia they call it a frog strangler – and Justis Brogan and I were walking back from lunch at Stockyard, that place with the really good hamburgers on the Square. Neither of us had an umbrella or anything, so just we ran to take cover. The first place safe to stand was under an awning at Jane Pratt’s office. Jane Pratt works right on the corner there, and she has great big windows in front of her office, so she saw us standing out there looking pathetic. She invited us in and gave us both plastic bags, that was the best she could do – but at least our perms wouldn’t go flat. Jane was very helpful and kind, but there wasn’t really anything she could do. It was raining too hard, and sometimes that’s how it is. We don’t always have control over these things – and one might be dry one minute but wet the next. We don’t have control over all our blessings or our woes. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” is what Jesus said – but that only makes sense – to say that the poor are blessed - if you recognize that the way things are now isn’t how they’ll always be. We don’t always recognize that. We tend to take blessings for granted, and wind up feeling stuck in our woes. Natalie Foster was nearby working the car rider line for our preschool when Justis and I ran up soaking wet. Natalie notices every time I go out to lunch, because she never gets to. She works at the preschool as their assistant director, so she has to eat lunch here and her lunch probably always gets sneezed on by preschoolers. So, she looked at me all wet, like a drowned rat and said, “You might expect me to feel sorry for you, but I don’t.” I mean – I was soaked. I was so wet, but Natalie Foster said, “Ate lunch out again, I see. Even if you’re all wet, that’s still better than some people’s lunch hour.” I thought I had it pretty bad, but sometimes you don’t know how good you have it. You take blessings for granted and get stuck in your woes. That’s true. There have been plenty of times when I was ignorant as to just how good I have it. I learned over lunch that Justis works at the airport. 45-minute commute. I can ride my bike back and forth from our house to here 7 or 8 times in the amount of time it takes him to get to work once. Sometimes you don’t know how good you have it – until you look around and see what it’s like for other people. That’s one of the things that happened to me when we went to Mexico on a Mission Trip with this church back when I was in High School. I’d gone my whole life thinking that I was born into a middle class, average American family. Two cars in the garage, running water, heat in the winter, AC in the summer, biggest problem: teenage acne. I’d gone my whole like thinking those things made me average, but in Mexico I went to a neighborhood that made me realize just how lucky I was. Do you know what I mean? To get water in that neighborhood we went to, not unlike the neighborhood in Mexico where we go and build houses now – you walked to the store to buy it. I’m not talking about buying fancy drinking water in 12 packs at the store. See, we buy water at the store by choice, they have to buy water at the store because clean drinking water piped into the house is a luxury not available to all God’s children. One of the many problems with our society today, isn’t just that some have, and others have not – it’s also that many of us who have, are blind to how good we have it. The problem with that can be obvious after watching the news. The government shut down recently. It may be shutting down again, and maybe that has to happen every now and then. Maybe it’s too much to ask that politicians deal with controversy in a decent and civil manner, but it’s not too much to ask that wealthy politicians be empathetic to those government employees who live pay check to pay check. “Let them take out loans,” someone said, which is too much like Marie Antionette saying, “Let them eat cake,” and what they don’t realize is that any second everything could change, and they could end up in the same boat with those employees losing their homes. In our world today, many wealthy people suffer from a certain kind of arrogance. Some suffer from an absence of empathy – unable to understand what it’s like when you’re working 9 to 5. Dolly Parton understood: Tumble out of bed and stumble in the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition. You know that song? It’s catchy, but it’s also pretty radical. It’s a rich man’s game no matter what they call it And you spend your life putting money in his wallet. And she keeps going: In the same boat with a lot of your friends Waitin’ for the day when your ship’ll come in And the tide’s gonna turn And it’s gonna roll your way. That sounds like the Beatitudes. Sounds like the whole Gospel of Luke as a matter of fact. Mary sang about it in the Magnificat way back in Luke chapter 1: He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, And lifted up the lowly; He has filled the hungry with good things, And sent the rich away empty. Throughout this whole book of Luke runs the theme that Dolly sang about: But the tide’s gonna turn And it’s all gonna roll your way. Why? Because God’s in charge. “Blessed are you who are poor,” Jesus said, “for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” “Blessed are you when people hate you, for surely your reward is great in heaven.” In the Gospel of Luke, he said these things to a crowd assembled on a level place – not on a mountain, but in a place where all people sat on one level; no one higher than the other. There was no partiality – no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free – just one people sitting before the Son of God hearing the truth – that those who have nothing now have everything to gain, but those who have everything now – they have everything to lose. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep,” These are harsh words for those of us who go out to lunch on the Square every day of the week to eat $10.00 hamburgers. These are harsh words for most all of us – but they’re important to hear, because too many of us have forgotten that we’re only doing just fine, because it hasn’t started raining. Then once the rain has started – we forgot how to see rain for the blessing that it is, and we’re too slow to give thanks to God who is the source of it. Rev. Joe Brice, the Sage of Paulding County, he told me that last year on Father’s Day his son called him up, and he said, “Dad, since it’s Father’s Day, I’m wanting for us all to come over to your house, so you can cook us anything that we want. And, while you’re at the store buying the food, why don’t you pick yourself out a card from all of us. Something real nice.” CS Lewis once wrote that we’re all like Joe’s kids – our Father in Heaven, He gave us $10.00 so we could go to the store to buy him a birthday present, but we spent $9.00 on ourselves and $1.00 on the present. And that’s if we’re tithing. We don’t know how good we have it, and we’re ignorant as to where it came from, as though wealth and blessings just fell from the sky. What’s more entitled than that? “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus said – but “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation” and you never even stopped to thank God for it. Jeremiah said it like this: Blessed are those who trust in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves will stay green; In the year of drought, it is not anxious. Why – because they know from whom all blessings flow. Let us live as those who daily thank the source of all our blessings – who put our trust in the Lord, and who daily live caring for our brothers and sisters who have less, knowing that any minute we could be in the same boat with them. Amen.