(The pastor takes a bag of rice, and carefully counts out aloud ten measures of the rice placing each measure into a pot. Then taking back a single measure from the pot of rice, places that single measure on the Lord’s Table. The pot stays on the pulpit as the pastor reads the New Testament from Matthew’s Gospel. After the reading, the sermon begins...).
I bet you think I’m going to explain this pot of rice on the pulpit. Well, maybe later. First I’ve got something else to tell you -- I’m going to Hawaii!
I don’t know when! But “someday.”
It may be ten years from now. Or it may be next year. All I really know for sure is that I’m NOT going this year. Sad but true. Right now, I don’t have the time to go. I don’t have the money. I’ve got a son who is still in college who still needs my support. There are all sorts of reasons why I can’t go this year.
But someday!!!
Someday I am definitely going to Hawaii – as soon as I get the time. As soon as I get the money!
And if it works out, I hope I can afford to take my wife with me!
Now I know you have a wish list of things like that you want to do in your life.
There are places you want to go.
There are things you want to do.
What happens when the things we put off in our lives are the things God wants us to do?
Have you ever had that experience? I bet you have. God is calling you to do something and your response is to say, “I’ll be glad to do that, Lord. Later.”
We must learn to do that as children.
Mom or Dad told us to clean our room, “Later.”
Mom told us to brush our teeth. “Later.”
Dad told us to cut the grass. “Later.”
The teacher told us to do our term paper. “Later.”
God tells us to love others. “Later.”
How many things has God told us to do that we keep putting off?
This is Lent. This is the season when we are supposed to really be careful about listening to the voice of God. This is the season when we are supposed to be doing some self-evaluation about our spiritual life. This is the season when we are supposed to be doing – NOW -- what God has been calling us to do.
In our New Testament Lesson, the disciples have an amazing experience. Brothers James and John, along with Peter go with Jesus to a high mountain by themselves. There, Jesus was transfigured before them. There is a physical change that takes place. His body still looks like that of Jesus, but it is transformed. The Scripture says, “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”
Now, as you can imagine, this is a bit unsettling to Peter, James and John. But Peter gets his wits together enough to open his mouth and he begins to speak – and of course, it’s one of those times when a person who opens his mouth would have done a lot better just to keep it shut. Because what Peter says is a bit ridiculous and silly.
Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters-- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."
Now isn’t that always the way in the church?
Something amazing happens, and the church wants to campout right there and never move forward.
I’ve been to youth conferences at Montreat – which is the Presbyterian conference center in North Carolina. Young Presbyterians gather there from all over the country and they have an absolutely incredible time. Usually on the last night the young people gather around a lake at Montreat and have a candle lighting service. They pray. They sing. Many of them give their lives to Christ. And as the candles are blown out and the large circle around the lake breaks up and everyone begins to go back to their rooms to pack for the next day’s trip home, many of them will just sit there around that lake. And they will actually say to you, “I wish I could just stay right here.”
How many of you at the end of the 40 Days of Purpose wanted to stay right where you were. Just stay in your small group. Just keep doing things like we had been doing during the 40 Days. That program, for those of you who were here in September and October, will remember it was a great experience. But we couldn’t just stay there.
You can’t stay put. You gotta move on!
That’s true with all of life.
You get married, you go on a honeymoon, you have a great time but you can’t stay there – you’ve got to go home, and live, and work, and fight and argue, and love and grow.
That’s true with all of life.
You have move on.
You can’t just stay where you are.
I loved my childhood. I miss playing with toys and flying kites and having Mom and Dad around to bandage my skinned knees. But you can’t stay in childhood.
You have to move on.
You have to grow.
Peter, John and James had an amazing experience. It was literally and spiritually a “mountain top experience.” Peter just wanted to stay right there. He didn’t want to move on. Just build a tent for Jesus and Moses and Elijah and we won’t ever have to go anywhere else.
But you have to move on. You have to grow. As soon as Peter suggested building those tents – in fact it was while he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!"
Unfortunately, some of the things Jesus says are difficult. In fact, right before the transfiguration, Jesus has been telling his disciples that if they are truly serious about being Christians, they have to take up the cross and follow him daily.
And you know what our response to this usually is – “later!”
We’ll take up the cross – but we can’t do it now. We’ll do it later.
Well, when will that time come when you get serious about some of those things of the Christian life that you have put off?
We are so like Peter. We are so comfortable with the way our Christian life is right now – we just want to build a tent and camp right here.
We have salvation from Jesus Christ. Great!
We come in here to worship God, and we have a great choir.
We sit in our pews and we listen to the greatest sermons you can hear in all of the Greater Atlanta community – well, at least on those days that Will Dietrich preaches!
But we have it great. Let’s just stay where we are in our spiritual walk.
Got some sins in your life? Deal with it later.
Not reading the Bible like you ought to? Do it later.
Your prayer life non-existent? Someday your kids will go to college and you will have time then – so do it later.
Not tithing yet? Not giving generously of your money to God’s work? Well, someday when you get a raise, get the kids out of school, or win the lottery, then you can be generous. Do it later.
But you know, if there is one thing that the Transfiguration can teach us it is that God interrupts life. God doesn’t wait for a convenient time. God doesn’t wait for later. He interrupts our life and transfigures everything. And all that “future” of all those “laters” are now.
The Messiah isn’t coming later.
The Messiah is here right now!
We can’t listen to Jesus later.
We have to listen to him NOW.
God himself says in our New Testament Lesson, “This is my son. Listen to him!”
Are we listening to him?
Or are we telling him, “later.”
You may say that you don’t have time to pray. You have kids to take care of and clothes to wash and meals to fix and homework to help with. You don’t have time. So you say “later.”
Later the kids will be gone and you’ll have lots of time to pray.
But folks, the time is now. You can’t wait to pray.
You’ve got to become a disciple right now, you have to take up the cross now, you have to follow Christ now – you have to pray, now.
You may say you don’t have time now, but if you have kids to take care of and clothes to wash and meals to fix and homework to help with – then you have a lot to pray about right now. Not later.
How many of you know a specific sin that you have in your life. You have struggled with it, but it’s comfortable. It hasn’t killed you – yet. Your husband or wife don’t know about it – yet. You plan to remove that sin from your life, eventually. But not now. You still enjoy that particular sin. So you’ll deal with it “later.”
But folks the time is now.
You’ve got to become a disciple right now, you have to take up the cross now, you have to follow Christ now – you have to confess and repent of your sins, now.
You know, generosity is another thing we can put off until later.
The Bible teaches us to be generous. One of the Seven Marks of Discipleship that is printed on your bulletin is to be generous with your time, talent and money.
Tithing – is the biblical principle of taking ten percent of what the Lord gives to you and to give it back to the Lord.
Now that is hard to do because we need all the money we can get!
I know how it is!
I’ve got a kid in college. He is a senior. Been a senior for about a year now. I have to pay his tuition bill. And food. And room. And books.
And I have a mortgage – big thing – mortgage. You have to pay it.
And I just went to India not long ago. I appreciate Mission India paying most of the cost of that trip, but it cost me a little bit.
And I got a kid in college – did I mention that already?
And hey, there’s that trip to Hawaii. Someday!
It is tempting to say “later” to tithing. It is tempting to say that someday when my expenses are lower and my salary is higher – then I’ll tithe.
OK, are you wondering what this pot of rice is all about?
I brought it to illustrate a story about one of my experiences in India.
One of the churches I went to was in a slum. India is a beautiful country and there are a lot of people there who are well off, but a lot of the ones I met were the poorest people I have ever encountered.
The neighborhood was built of tents. The tents were made of moldy, rotting cloth. Everything was jammed together. There was hardly any room to walk between the tents. There was no water system, no well.
People drank water that was running along the gutters of the streets.
And in the midst of this slum was a little church.
It was nothing more than a concrete block building. Four walls with a doorway. The roof was nothing more than some metal sheeting laid on the top of the building.
It measured about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long. Inside there were 30 people. They were all crammed together, sitting on the floor and they gave me a chair to sit in at the front of the church. If I had crossed my legs I would have knocked out three people on the front row.
We did everything Christians do in worship.
We sang.
We prayed.
I preached with an interpreter.
And there was an offering.
These were the poorest people I’d ever met.
Here in America, poverty is defined for a family of two as having less than $12,120 per year.
In this country, 60% of those living in poverty have a VCR.
You know how they define poverty in India? I was told that the definition of poverty is to have less than a full meal per day.
And there are these people gathered in this tiny little church – our narthex is three times the size of that church.
And when it was time for the offering, every single person gave.
They gave eagerly.
They reached and strained to put their single coin into the offering.
One lady had no money.
She gave a single, tiny bag of rice.
After the service, I asked what they used the offering for.
Part of it was to pay the pastor’s salary, which was not much.
Part of it was to buy Bibles for the church.
Part of it was to go to Missions. Imagine that!
Missions!
They can’t feed themselves, but they are giving to missions.
And then part of it goes to feed the poor.
Feed the poor? I can’t imagine that there are people more impoverished than these folks!
And then I asked about the lady who gave the bag of rice.
I was told she had no money to give. But IF she had food to eat during the day, she would carefully measure out the food and set some of it aside.
Every day – IF she had food to eat, part of it was set aside for the offering. A tenth of it. A tithe.
And on Sunday, when she came to church. She would bring her bag of rice as an offering – so it could be used to feed the poor.
Imagine doing that on Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and on up to Friday.
And imagine not having any food at all on Saturday.
Church is tomorrow, but there on the table is the rice you’ve set aside every day. It would be tempting to reach into the bag and cook that rice. Skip church. Or go to church and skip the offering.
But no, she never did that.
The pastor told me she always brought the bag of rice.
And here we are – we keep saying “later.” When our expenses are down. When we make more money.
You know, I kept thinking about that. I kept wondering when we, here in America, will be as wealthy as that woman. When will we have enough so that we can be as generous as she?
The time is now. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. Don’t do it later.
Copyright 2005, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
