Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 1/6/08
The Riches Given to Us
Colossians 1:24-2:5
I was talking to Cilla, our Financial Administrator, the other day; trying to get a sense of where we stand as we close one year and begin the next. We were looking at the breakdown of our pledges, and she mentioned that one couple has increased their pledge from $30,000 last year to $50,000 for the coming year. She thought I might be encouraged to hear that, and of course, I was.
The truth is, every dollar helps us fulfill our mission – whether it is $100 or 10,000. Every dollar is important to us. We aren’t like a business in which expenditures cut into profits. Here, it is just the opposite. Here, we exist to give ourselves away; it is how we impact the world for Christ.
You might be interested to know that about half our pledges fall between $1000 and $5000. We have quite a few, however, that are between 10 and 20,000 and then over 20,000. In the new members class people occasionally ask what the average is; for this coming year it is just over $3200. I think they ask because they want some sense of what is appropriate, some sense of where they stand in relation to others.
But someone giving $20 or 30 or $50,000 each year; that is a different kind of thinking. It is anonymous so it’s not about what others might think. It is so far beyond the average that it is clearly not shaped by what others are doing. There is something else going on there; something that feels more like the Kingdom of God.
That is the tie-in with our text, this morning. This isn’t an easy passage; the twists and turns of its phrasing makes it difficult to follow. But you don’t have to figure out how all the pieces fit together to get a feel for what the Apostle is talking about. It is clear that he has found something of extraordinary value; something that he believes is the single greatest treasure we can ever know.
It is that first phrase that gives us our clue. The idea of finding joy in our suffering sounds absurd at first, but then we remember someone like Michelangelo lying flat on his back for four years, paint dripping into his eyes, as he created for the centuries that masterpiece which is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Or the grinding, day-after-day discipline required to become an Olympic caliber athlete… Some things are worth the effort. Some passions justify whatever sacrifice is required. And the sacrifice itself becomes part of the joy in the achievement.
Isn’t that what we are looking for; something worthy of our very best? Something bigger than ourselves to which we might give ourselves?
That is what the Apostle found in Jesus Christ. When we look at the catalogue of his suffering in the eleventh chapter of Second Corinthians – the beatings, the deprivation, the dangers he routinely faced – we are left with the overpowering sense of just how much this Gospel meant to him. Did he regret it? Did he wish at times that he had followed a different course? Read his epistles and it is clear: Paul wouldn’t have traded his life with anyone. He found the greatest joy, the deepest satisfaction, in living his life for the Kingdom.
And it is not just the Apostle Paul. As Charlie Haeussner shared last week, there are Christians in some parts of the world who are risking their lives right now; Christians who are even giving their lives rather than turn away from this faith that has come to mean everything to them.
How much does this Gospel mean to us? In pointing towards the widow’s pennies, Jesus makes it clear that it is not the amount itself that matters most. It is what that gift represents. It is the sacrifice, the love, the commitment that lies behind it. I think we can all understand the very strong connection between what we give on the one hand, and how much we really care on the other.
Why is that so important? Because the choices we make now have the potential to impact the entire year that lies before us.
I came across the story not long ago of a man who was being honored as his city’s leading citizen. He was called on to share the story of his life. He rose up and began:
Friends, when I first came to this city thirty years ago I walked in on a dirt road with only the suit on my back, the shoes on my feet, and all my earthly possession wrapped in a red bandanna tied to a stick. Today I’m chairman of the board of the bank. I own hotels, apartment buildings, office buildings, three companies with branches in forty-nine cities, and I’m on the boards of all the leading clubs. Yes, this city has been very good to me.
After the banquet as people were offering their congratulations a young guy asked the great man, “Sir, could you tell me what you had wrapped in that red bandanna when you first walked into town?” The man replied, “About a half million in cash and $900,000 in government bonds.”
What we carry with us is going to have an enormous impact on the year that lies ahead. We are all carrying something. None of us are starting from scratch. We come with our own unique histories; that accumulation of life experience that so shapes who we are. We bring all our different relationships; our families, our friends, our coworkers. We have our different gifts: our education, our various capacities, the resources we have inherited or accumulated through the years.
We bring all these different things with us and there is just no question that they are going to have an impact on this coming year – they are going to profoundly shape what we are able to accomplish, and the quality of our experience along the way.
Yet at the same time, they do not have the final word. We aren’t simply pawns in all of this. Our future is not determined solely by our past, because in addition to everything else we bring, we also bring our choices. We always have a freedom of choice, and it is, ultimately, those choices that can have the greatest impact of all.
For some of us it may be a choice between being bound by our past on the one hand, or doing the hard work of therapy to move beyond that past on the other. Or perhaps it is a choice between playing it safe and sitting on our gifts, or risking instead the possibility of failure in the pursuit of something truly special.
Maybe it is a choice around our anger and bitterness: bringing that stuff with us into the coming year where it will poison all our weeks; or beginning the hard process of moving beyond through it towards forgiveness and letting go. Or maybe it is the choice between putting ourselves first and seeking our own interests above all else, or choosing instead the way of love – opening our lives to that surprising joy that comes of putting others first.
But there is one choice that every one of us has; one choice with the potential to impact this coming year far beyond any other – the choice of faith. We can choose a faith that stands on the periphery of our lives – a faith that is safe and comfortable and won’t place too many demands upon us – or we can choose the kind of faith that we find here in Scripture: a faith that demands everything of us; a faith that calls out our very best; a faith that is real and authentic and utterly life-changing.
That guy with his red bandanna is a metaphor for every one of us. All of us have certain things that we are going to bring into this coming year. Around some of them, we don’t have any choice. They just come with being who we are. But there is a lot around which we do have a choice, and ultimately it is those choices that can have the greatest impact of all.
My hope, my prayer, for each of you is that you will choose the living Christ; not some pale imitation of our own creation, but that living Christ who demands our all and who offers in return life at its very best.