The King's Great-Grandmother

Scripture Lessons: Mark 12: 38-44 and Ruth 3: 1-5, and 4: 13-17 Sermon Title: The King’s Great Grandmother Preached on November 14, 2021 Do you remember your great-grandmother? I knew mine, just barely. My grandmother was the oldest of my great-grandmother’s children. I am the oldest of my great-grandmother’s great-grandchildren, so I was lucky enough to know her, even just barely before she died. I remember only a few things about her now: that she loved her poodles so much that she had their toenails painted, she had beautiful azaleas in her backyard, and she said the secret was fertilizing them with cow manure which she got right out of the cow pasture, and she made chicken and dumplings for me. Do you love chicken and dumplings? She made them better than any I’ve ever had. My mother learned how to cook them using my great-grandmother’s recipe. The water must boil hard before you put in the dumplings. That’s the trick, I remember. But this is the point: now I know that chicken and dumplings is a dish people made when there wasn’t anything else. It's one of those dishes that became popular during the Great Depression. You don’t need much to make it. Flour, water, what else? It tastes good, but people like my great-grandmother didn’t make it because it tasted good. If they’d had pasta or bread or pot roast, they wouldn’t have messed with chicken and dumplings. They made chicken and dumplings because they had children to feed while all they had to feed them was a chicken cercus, some flour, salt, and some lima beans. What about your great-grandmother? What about the King David’s great-grandmother? The story of Ruth, King David’s great-grandmother, is one of the most beautiful in the Bible, and it’s true. Do you know how I know Ruth’s story is true? It’s because you wouldn’t make it up this way. That’s how I know. Historians who make things up tell stories that make the king look good. Had the story of King David’s lineage been made up by a royal historian he would have told us that the king’s great-grandmother was a princess of noble origin. She’d never worked a day in her life. She certainly had no calluses on her hands from gleaning wheat in a field, and by no means had she ever lay down on a threshing floor. She was well born, wealthy, royal, and perfect. She positively was not a migrant who survived by her wits and her desperation. We know that the Bible is true because only the Bible would tell you what everyone else never talks about. Only the Bible would tell you that the greatest of Israel’s king’s is the great-grandson of a refugee. Only the Bible would tell you that in desperation she gleaned from the field. Only the Bible would take the time to tell you how this Ruth, this widowed, foreign, refugee is not only the great-grandmother of King David, but stands in the line of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of Creation. Do you hear what I’m saying? On this Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday, one of my favorite Sundays of the year. The only day of the year when I wear this kilt. I’ve never had it dry cleaned because I’ve only worn it four times before today. On this Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday we celebrate the Scottish Roots of the Presbyterian Church, for years ago the first Presbyterians came to this country from Scotland. They came searching for what they didn’t have back in the old country. They wanted freedom, and here, what did they find? They might not have gleaned for wheat in the field, but you know that they settled in places called Cabbage Towns, so prevalent was the smell of cooking cabbage, because they didn’t have anything else to eat. They took jobs in textile mills, even the children. They stacked the field stones into fences, like the ones back home. They kept their heads held high, though life pushed them down. Of course, some came over here from Scotland with plenty, but think for a second about your great-grandmother. What did she have? How did she live? How is your life today better because of sacrifices she made? Consider her faithfulness. The book of Ruth is named after Ruth. It’s not called the book of Boaz. That’s because Boaz isn’t the hero. The hero in David’s story and most every family’s history is a poor woman who kept going even though everything was taken away. We celebrate her today even if we forgot her name. Who was your great-grandmother? Who was David’s great-grandmother? Who are the great-grandmothers of this church? Did you know that there were only about 12 families, around 90 people, who collected their coins, sold a hog or two, went without, made a sacrifice, so that we could have our Sanctuary, built by the less than 100 of them to seat 400? That’s how many they said it would seat. And you can’t seat 400 of us in there. We’re talking about some malnourished fannies if 400 are going to be seated in those pews. But consider their sacrifice, consider their idealism, think about how they dreamed of a better life for us. On the other hand, what are we doing with it? Who are we? Are we heirs to their legacy? Do we honor their sacrifices? Sometimes I just don’t know if I do because I have more than my great-grandmother ever did. You could fit two of her houses inside our one. Now our dogs’ toenails aren’t painted, but we’re living high on the hog. We don’t need to make chicken and dumplings because there’s more than we need in our pantry. Yet, are we giving as much as she gave? Are we sacrificing as much as she sacrificed? Are we giving our great grandchildren as much as our great-grandmothers gave to us? Today is not only Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday. It’s also the day when we are all asked to think about what we’ll be giving to this church in the coming year. How much will it be? How much can we afford? Those are good questions. But here’s a better one: how much did your great-grandmother do for you? What did she sacrifice so that you could have a better life than she had? We keep telling the story of Ruth, it’s there in the Bible, so that we’ll all remember where we came from. King David is the decedent of a woman not so different from the lady who cleans our houses and the men who cut our grass. She didn’t speak the language, she didn’t have any papers, she was the most at risk, she was desperate and in danger, and without out her and what she was willing to do, there would be no King David. Without your great-grandmother where would you be? What did she sacrifice so that you could have a better life than she had? What all has been sacrificed so that we could have this church and the life we all live? And what might we give today, so that our great-grandchildren might have it even better. Our church is one of the pillars of this community. We’ve been here for nearly 200 years, but it’s up to us if we’ll be here for another 200. My friends, I’ve filled out our pledge card. It’s right here. We’re giving more than we did last year. Why? Because this is our church. This is the church of my wife and our children, and I’m going to give what I have, the breath God has put in my lungs, the strength of my words, and the dreams of my heart, that this church be a beacon of hope, a sanctuary for sinners, and light to the darkness for generations to come. What about you? Are you with me? Are you ready to take up the example set by our great-grandmothers? Then fill out your pledge card. Don’t worry so much about the amount. Remember the widow’s mite. Just make a commitment to give. For ours is a culture of fast-food fixes. We get hungry and reach for fried chicken, then to be happy our consumer culture sells us KFC for the soul. Let me tell you that despite what the commercials say, you’ll never be as happy as when you give to something bigger than yourself. The two best days for a boat owner are the day he bought it and the day he sold it. That’s because we keep and we spend and it leaves us empty, but when we give it fills us up. Take out your phone and use that QR code on the screen. Make a commitment to this church and carry on the tradition that is our inheritance. Amen.