November 17, 2019
Stewardship Week Three
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Philippians 4:10-13; Luke 20:45-21:4
“Live Simply”
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“For I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” (Philippians 4:11)
Fear has a way of dominating our lives. It seeps in through crevices of doubt and affects our decisions. How much of our actions are directed – subtly or not so subtly – by fear?
One fear that assails us is the fear of running out of resources. The fear of not having enough. That fear of running out can cause us to store up our belongings. Even when we have great plenty, we still live with the fear of not having enough to survive.
The generation of people who went through the Great Depression were strongly affected by that experience. “You never know when you’re going to need it!”
How much is enough? In a good way, we’re taught to store up what we can for a rainy day. But how much do we need stowed away before we feel secure?
Benjamin Franklin said, “Money has never made man happy, nor will it; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.”
St. Paul found himself in a wide variety of situations. His itinerant ministry demanded him to travel lightly. He carried very few assets with him. On top of it, his future had no guarantees. He didn’t know where he would lay his head at the end of the day. He operated without a rainy-day fund. He just trusted that God was going to see him through.
And he had seen it all! He’d slept between towns on the open road. He’d been robbed. He’d been hosted in the homes of the wealthy, but he’d also stayed in the homes of the poor. He ate what they ate. When they went hungry, he went hungry.
When he wrote his letter to the Philippians, Paul was in jail. His varied experiences left a profound affect on him. He writes to the Philippians, “For I have learned to be content with whatever I have.”
The fear of running out no longer cast a spell on him. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul addresses fear. He tells Timothy, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”
God did not give us a spirit of timidity. We are invited to live courageously. Our courage is built upon the reliance that God is going to be there for us! And if God is for us, who can be against us?
This is a reality that those with little know better than those with much.
Our reading from Luke paints a picture of two very different classes of people. Jesus is in Jerusalem with his disciples. They’re sitting in the temple mount area. All sorts of people are coming and going. It’s like people watching at the State Fair.
Jesus points out the scribes to his disciples. Scribes were a class of religious professionals. They were biblical experts and well versed on Jewish law. Jesus points out that they wear elegant robes. They like to flaunt their wealth.
But then he draws their attention to a very different figure. He notices a very poor widow. She’s come to the temple that day to make her offering. As poor as she is, she still desires to make her offering to the Lord. She puts two pennies into the treasury box.
Jesus says, “Did you see what she just did? She just put all she has to live on into the treasury box!”
Wealthy people had come to that same treasury box to make their offerings. They put in sums much larger than her two copper pennies. But Jesus explains how her gift is different. In fact, she had contributed far more than the wealthy people did. “They gave out of their abundance. But she gave everything she had, everything she had to live on.”
Fancy clothing and large bank accounts may give the impression of control and self-assurance. But it’s a false image. No matter the size of our bank accounts, we are every one of us dependent upon God for our daily life and our daily bread.
But for people who have more than two coins to rub together, our wealth can mask that fundamental truth. Wealth has an alluring effect. We’re tempted to rely and believe more strongly on our money in the bank than we are on the steadfast love of God. That God provides our life and all that we need from day to day seems like a distant reality. We acknowledge it on paper, but we don’t feel it in our bones.
But the poor do. They live it every day. The widow didn’t fear giving away her last penny because had a deep, settling trust in God. God had brought her thus far, and God would see her through.
Dolly Parton is well known for her song “Coat of Many Colors.” The song tells the story of a real-life event that happened when she was a young girl. Dolly grew up in a poor family in the Appalachian Mountains. But like many poor people, Dolly didn’t really know she was poor. In her eyes, her family was rich. They had each other, they had love. And God provided.
In the song, someone gives a box of rags to her mom. She writes:
I recall a box of rags that someone gave us
And how my momma put the rags to use
There were rags of many colors
But every piece was small
And I didn’t have a coat
And it was way down in the fall
Momma sewed the rags together
Sewin’ every piece with love
She made my coat of many colors
That I was so proud of
Dolly is so happy to have this colorful new coat that her mother made for her. She proudly wears it to school. But when she gets to school, the other kids couldn’t see how special her coat was:
So with patches on my britches
And holes in both my shoes
In my coat of many colors
I hurried off to school
Just to find the others laughing
And making fun of me
And my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Dolly tried to explain to her classmates how special her colorful coat was. She valued and prized her coat over any of their store-bought ones. She wasn’t poor. She was rich:
And oh, I couldn’t understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told them of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
But they didn’t understand it
And I tried to make them see
That one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me
Paul writes, “For I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” Contentment. Contentment in our living brings great liberation. It frees us from the merry-go-round of chasing after more. When we can live simply, we can simply live. And then we recognize how we are blessed.
Down to our bones, we are rich. And when we are rich in God’s providence, then we live courageously.
