God created us for generosity

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17, Year C (August 28, 2022).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Proper 17C (Track 2)

Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, Jordan, New York

Like what you hear? Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher.

Jesus said, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:12-14)

Edited Transcript

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, oh God, our rock and our Redeemer.

I invite you to be seated.

So, I actually like that we're getting to use our books. And I, and I appreciate I said to Paul, this morning, I was like, if this is the only Episcopal Church I've ever been in, where we actually have Bibles in the pew, that's just not that common.

Thank you. And thank you. And I also appreciate that we have the opportunity—just as a side note, it's really quite nice to have the opportunity just to hear the scripture without having necessarily having something in front of us to read. That's how, through most of the history of the church, most Christians wouldn't have read, there certainly weren't enough books to go around. And we would have mainly received the scripture through hearing. So it's kind of neat to have that experience today.

Now this Gospel, got me thinking about Mr. Rogers again. So that's twice in like three months that I'm going to preach about Mr. Rogers, which if you've saw me as a child watching Mr. Rogers would not have surprised you.

It might not surprise you that he was a very like, sought after commencement speaker. And there was a movie in 2018 called, "Won't you be my neighbor" where they talked about how whenever he would give a commencement speech, to the graduates to the audience, he would always say,

Now, I want you to take a minute to think about someone who loved you, believed in you, gave you something, blessed you.

Maybe a teacher, or a parent, a family member, a neighbor or a friend, but he would actually invite the whole assembled group and that commencement time at this at a new beginning, to reflect on someone who had been a blessing to them, who had loved and encouraged and believed in them and help them get where they were.

I want to invite you to do that now. Can you picture in your mind, the face of someone who encouraged you?

Can you see them gazing at you with love and pride?

Think about the ways that they blessed you.

What are the gifts that that person gave you?

Maybe it was a tangible gift, something you can go home and hold on to and look at.

Very likely it was something intangible: a feeling or an experience knowing that you were loved. Believing that you could try something. Think about that gift, that blessing that that person was for you.

Now I want to ask you: did you repay them?

Did you pay them back for the blessing, for the gift that they gave you?

I hope that question feels a little bit unfair. A little bit ridiculous.

Because the truth isthat there are gifts and blessings—each one of us can name gifts and blessings that we have received from someone else that we couldn't possibly hope to repay. We might have said thank you. But some of the greatest gifts and blessings that we've received in our lives are not gifts that we can check off and return in a ledger. They were generous, sheer, simple gifts.

That I think is what Jesus wants us to be reflecting on.

In a world where there is an awful lot of ledger checking, there's a lot of awful lot of what do I owe and to who, and who owes what to me... In a world where there's a lot of jockeying for position to get the best place at the table —you know, maybe the person who did the most for us to get to sit closest to us—you know, we're very familiar with the idea of giving and taking, receiving and paying back. We're very comfortable with that.

But in the Gospel today, Jesus is saying, What if, instead of worrying about paying and repaying, what if instead, we were giving? What if on purpose we gave to people who couldn't repay?

And we read that and we might think, oh, gosh, Jesus, that is weird. I'm not going to invite all these strangers to my wedding.

But then you reflect on the people who maybe made the biggest impact on you. And they were doing just what Jesus invites us to do today. They were giving a free gift, without any expectation that you would be paying them back or making it worth their while.

They were giving freely. And Jesus wants us to see that it's not for "fair exchanges" that God created us. God created us for generosity.

And not only to give generously, but also to be a person who learns to receive with gratitude, and amazement.

After all, we were created. When God created us, God said, Let us create man and woman, let us create humankind in our image.

You were made in God's image. And one of the things that God is, is generous. God gave us this. God gave me my life. God gave each of us our lives, each of us. God gave us one another. God gave us this place that we live. Should we be worried about repaying God?

Could we repay God for what God has given us?

And so Jesus is inviting us to really think about that, to say, there are gifts, so many that I can't hope to repay. And Jesus is saying maybe that is how it ought to be.

Because that's how God made the world and that is who God is. God is a giver of what cannot be repaid, but can be received with deep gratitude and amazement.

So this week, I invite you to be looking for opportunities to give to someone who doesn't deserve it and can't repay it. You know, I think about at this church, how we're out there all summer, giving away brown bag lunches.We're not doing it to get paid back. And if someone were to walk through this door right now, we would invite them to the parish picnic, even though they didn't bring a dish and we would probably sit let them sit next to the Senior Warden if they wanted to. These are little ways of practicing the reality that we are made in the image of God to give generously and without expectation of being repaid.

And it's worth practicing that. It's worth practicing that because it makes us realize how much we depend on God, how much we have received from God and from one another, how dependent we are on generosity. It gives us a grateful heart and an ability to receive with gratitude.

So this week let's practice giving and receiving what can't be repaid. Amen.