October 23, 2016 – Sirach 35:12-17
Sirach 35:12-17
Giving as We Have Been Given
Lectionary 30 – October 23, 2016
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Last year I wrote a sermon in an airport –
and after I preached it one of you said to me,
“You should write all your sermons in airports.”
Ahahahahaha!!!!!
This time I am taking it a step further.
I am writing my sermon on a Jet Plane, at 37,000 feet.
I figure I’m close to heaven – this has got to be good.
Only: I look out the window at 37,000 feet and what do I see far below?
A beautiful sight to be sure: the Rocky Mountains in all their snowy grandeur.
In a poetic frame of mind I reflect that yes, it is beautiful – very very beautiful.
But, I also realize, it is completely terrifying.
Suspended in air above jagged shadowed mountains,
I realize death could come so easily and quickly.
It wouldn’t take much, really.
I’m not a person who is afraid of flying, but really the sight out of my window is sobering.
I am flying back from a visit with my 94 year old father who lives in Vernon.
I also got the bonus of visiting with three of my five sisters.
We had a grand time.
In a conversation with my sister Jennifer the night before I left we started to think about,
well, death.
I’ll be 50 in a couple of months. She’ll be 60 next year.
We realize we are on the descent of the flight of life.
We talk about the meaning of our lives.
We talk about not looking back but looking forward.
We talk of the importance of each day and each encounter.
What we are really talking about is meaning –
finding meaning despite the uncertain certainty of death.
On the plane I look out the window and the view has changed.
I can no longer see mountains below but sunlight on textured cotton batten clouds.
And that is a comforting sight.
The clouds look friendly and soft, like you could curl up on them and have the sleep of your life.
I pull out my Christian Century magazine, which is always a good thing to do.
I read an article on – what else? – death.
The article is a review of two recent books on death and dying – of which there are many.
A publisher quoted in the review notes drily that right now, death is hot.
Death is having a moment.
One of the books reviewed has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks.
It was written by an American surgeon named Paul Kalanithi.
The name of his book is When Breath Becomes Air.
It chronicles the last year of his life beginning, at age 36,
he discovered he had stage-four lung cancer.
He had become a surgeon after studying literature with the intention of, as he writes,
“forging relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the questions of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.”
What he decided to do was to keep operating, even when it became difficult for him and
to continue to forge relationships with the suffering.
When it became clear he would lose the battle with cancer, he turned to another mode of
meaning-making: he decided to write.
And he wrote of where he found meaning in the final year of his life: he found it in faith.
Kalanithi was from a second generation American-Indian family of devout Christians.
He abandoned Christianity in university but eventually came back to it.
He returned to faith when he realized that if there was no God, then the best parts of living –
love, honor, redemption, sacrifice, forgiveness – were also false.
As the reviewer notes, “his need to believe in love and redemption led him back to Jesus,
in whom he saw the highest value of all: ‘the main message of Jesus . . . is that mercy trumps justice every time.’” (Shirley Hershey Showalter, “Somewhere near the End, Christian Century, Oct. 12/16, 32-35)
He died before finishing his book.
For people like Kalanithi, it seems the presence and certainty of death
clarifies and focuses their thinking about life and its meaning and purpose.
I don’t know if the writer of Sirach – whoever that may be – had death on his mind or not,
but he certainly sounds focussed enough:
Give to the Most High as he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford.
Not a bad recipe for meaningful living: Give as he has given to you.
“Give” is one of those biblical words that you might not notice all that much.
And yet it carries tremendous weight in our Christian life together.
To give is close to the heart of Christianity.
To give love, comfort and care.
To have is one thing, but to have is not Christian.
To be is one thing, but to be is not Christian.
To give is to be Christian.
Give as he has given to you.
Every week as bread is placed in your hand you hear this: the body of Christ given to you.
It is one of the most arresting phrases in the liturgy.
Here you are given a free gift: life, forgiveness, redemption, love, healing, worth – what a gift!
This transaction – at the heart of every worship service – makes clear what our life is about.
makes clear what the meaning of life is: giving.
Giving love, giving life, giving forgiveness, giving healing, giving dignity, giving worth.
It’s the gift we take with us as we leave, and it’s the gift we have to give.
We give as he has given to us.
As I have said many times, Christianity is not rocket science.
Give as you have been given.
And the thing is: here you are given good gifts.
It’s why we keep coming back.
Because the gifts we receive here are good ones, ones necessary for the blessing and the
healing and the loving of the world.
When he receives his diagnosis and is paralyzed with indecision over what he should do,
uncertain of how much time he has left,
Kalanithi, in incredible pain, comes to a turning point. He writes:
That morning, I made a decision. I would push myself to return to the Operating Room. Why? Because I could. Because that’s who I was. Because I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.
When I read that I couldn’t help thinking of Jesus dying on the cross in John’s Gospel,
Realizing as he looks down at two people he loves that without him they will each be alone.
And so he looks at his beloved disciple and says, “Son, here now is your mother.”
And, looking at his own mother Mary he says to her, “Mother, here now is your son.”
Because Jesus, until he actually dies, is still living.
Still loving. Still creating community and love, until he actually dies.
Maybe the proximity to death has a way of enabling you to focus on the things that matter.
When I was visiting my Dad, I participated in several activities at his assisted living residence.
And I met his new friends who are all pretty much closer to the end of their lives than we are.
But there were living – full of kindness, full of love, full of mercy.
One afternoon there was an entertainer singing all the old songs for the old folks – it was grand.
There was a Polynesian theme which was right up my street.
There was tropical punch and blue whales on offer to complement the theme.
There was a full bar for happy hour! In the middle of the afternoon!!!!!!!
Molly was having a grand time in her beautiful Hawaiian dress and
her lei with her drink in her hand.
Pearl wanted to know all about my ministry and my preaching.
My Dad was full of grace, spreading his magic and charm throughout the proceedings.
And there was joy, because these people were giving as they had been given.
Gifts of joy, gifts of love, gifts of life – because they were still living.
I received a lot of gifts on my visit.
Kalanithi found the meaning of his life in the Christian faith he’d been raised in.
Our faith does indeed invite us into a life in which giving bears meaning.
A giving that is, as the writer of Sirach notes, as generous as we can afford.
Jesus’ gift is his life – that is pretty generous; and he gives it to us.
His life of mercy, of forgiveness, of compassion, of love.
And he invites us to give as we have been given.
I’m still at 37,000 feet. And it is still terrifying.
But I’m still living – and so are you.
So let us live, and let us give, until the end.
Let us love, let us forgive, let us heal, and let us bless.
Let us give as we have been given – and together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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