Sunday Sermon - afterthoughts (Feb 9/25)

Why after thoughts…

Every Sunday I prepare the equivalent to an essay. The discipline of this practice is both gift and bloody aggravation. Week after week, year after year, my life is focused on the essay for Sunday and then in an instant Monday comes and I start again. Most weeks, by Monday afternoon, I can’t even tell you what I spoke on Sunday. Those who listened on Sunday, however, are still picking up the treads, asking how they might be woven into some new insight or deeper understanding on the spiritual journey.

For many years I wrote a full manuscript, complete with Chicago style footnotes. But then the pandemic coincided with my midlife hormonal wackiness and by the time it was all over, my sermons have devolved into a smattering of bullet points. Maybe that’s just as well. An essay can give the impression of being finished, a complete thought. My scribbled notes look unfinished, almost inviting my listeners to add to them.  

Let’s try this. Here are some things I intended to say on Sunday. I welcome your thoughts, your insights, your questions and challenges. You can engage directly on my website or head over to Facebook and chime in there.

The Details...

Sermon Date: February 9, 2025

Sermon Title: Oh Lord It’s Hard to be Humble

Scripture: Jeremiah 17:5-10, you can find the text here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jeremiah%2017&version=NRSVUE

Sermon Video Link: You can find the sermon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsw0sZPX48 It begins at 39:33.

Walter Brueggemann quote that inspired my thinking:

From a biblical perspective, the rich – the ones with abundance – rely on an ideology of scarcity, while the poor – the ones suffering from scarcity – rely on an ideology of abundance. How can that be? The issue involves whether there is enough to go around – enough food, water, shelter, space. An ideology of scarcity says no, there’s not enough, so hold onto what you have. In fact, don’t just hold onto it, hoard it. Put aside more than you need, so that if you do need it, it will be there, even if others must do without.  An affirmation of abundance says just the opposite: Appearances notwithstanding, there is enough to go around, so long as each of us takes only what we need. In fact, if we are willing to have but not hoard, there will even be more than enough left over. 

Find the full text here: https://mattanslow.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/enough-is-enough/

Key message of sermon: An invitation to imagine a divine story of abundance

Sermon thoughts for further reflection:

1.    Last Sunday I suggested…

• that it’s time to tell a new story, deepen and broaden our imaginations

• This week I asked: “do we get in the way of deepening imagination when we seek to play God?” Do we lack humility? Do we lack trust that God is truly active in the world (functional atheism)?

• Are we called to be people who live from an ideology of abundance? Could this abundance orientation help us to live a new story?  

2.     Deserts – a metaphor from Jeremiah

• Don’t be like stunted vegetation he says. Stunted means it’s alive but is dwarfed and has a “loss of vigor.”

• If you’re dead you’re going back to the earth and if you’re living your flowering and such - but stunted/loss of vigor – you are stuck in a perpetual place of nothing….

• The story of scarcity leaves us as stunted vegetation, and from that perspective it’s harder to see that we are not planting our lives beside rivers, because we settle for stunted growth, it’s alive, but not thriving, do we settle sometimes?  

3.     Riverbeds a metaphor of Abundance

• There is another story, one that takes root in abundance but It’s more complex and nuanced than we first imagine

• Why is the soil along rivers so rich and arable? Because when the river floods its banks it deposits rich minerals in the soil

• In the moment of flood it sure doesn’t feel like abundance in a good way – it’s disaster for the farmer. Yet, eventually rich soil benefits crops

• Tree planted by river – gives back, roots stabilise soil, leaves drop as food for organisms: becomes food for creatures

• Trees by river –are rooted in the good stuff of life AND they give back in countless ways that bring life – but they can’t avoid hardship.

• Abundant life is not easy life

4.     Modern Story of Scarcity

• See Brueggemann quote above!

• Story of scarcity whether it’s about money, resources, it spills into things like love, kindness, generosity.

• We look for who to blame, who to push aside to secure what is for those who think they’re entitled to it

• We set up tent in our right and left camps

• The blame goes wide and far: immigrants, people of different faith, the poor, those with brown skin, broken bodies, queer people

• Do we blame an all-loving God – too weak to fix it OR an all-powerful God who doesn’t seem to be involved in our lives?

5.     How Shall we live in Exile?

• Jeremiah spoke to people living in exile, settling for loss of vigor. How about us?

• Are we in a sort of exile, from God’s vision of abundance? From one another? Exile because we have lived leaves us in exile – like Jeremiah’s people, as the story of scarcity takes root and those who cling to it, grab for more than their share – how will we live?

• Are we in a sort of exile, in a place between what was and what will be?

• Will we settle for living like stunted vegetation in the desert or one of abundance, that is not easy but is good?

Questions for engagement:

1.     In the sermon I said: “when we step through these doors on Sunday morning, we are entering a sanctuary where we should expect to regularly hear a story that is utterly different from the story in which we live and move all week.” What do you think?

2.     How would you understand abundant life? Is it different from an easy life? Does the biblical idea of abundant life, which suggests there is always “enough” in a life grounded in trust that a God of love is at work in the world – does this makes sense, feel too sentimental…?