Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 10/4/09
A Level Field
Mark 10:2-16
Another Harvest Fair has come to an end. The first fair was held in September, 1954 – that makes this the 55th Anniversary, and once again it was spectacular. And every cent of the tens of thousands of dollars in profit goes to mission.
One of the great things that happened this year was that the fair was able to provide for a family of nine adopted, special-needs children whose home just burned down. The family had lost virtually everything. Yesterday two packed truckloads of furniture were sent their way. What a blessing!
Each year there are three things that amaze me about this fair. First, there is the amount of stuff that comes in. Year after year, where does it all come from? And a lot of it is pretty good stuff. Second, there is the number of people who show up. You remember Friday evening – the pouring rain? Over five hundred people showed up. You couldn’t find a parking place. And it was like that Saturday, as well.
The third thing and most remarkable to me are the people who volunteer. What an amazing, faithful, generous group of people. The number of volunteer hours has to be in the thousands. And year after year they keep showing up. It is an incredible gift they offer every year. So kudos to the Harvest Fair and our many thanks to every one who was a part of it this year.
In our text this morning we find Jesus moving closer to Jerusalem, moving from Galilee into Israelite territory. Some of the religious leaders approach him and ask him a question that was fairly controversial in that time: “is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” While Roman law permitted a woman to divorce her husband, Jewish law didn’t. Only men could end their marriage. And for women, who weren’t allowed to hold property and who had no means of income, the consequences were devastating.
Jesus asks them what Moses had taught, and these religious leaders respond with a reference to Deuteronomy 24:1-4. And then, as happens so many times, Jesus calls them to a higher standard. Now note: he doesn’t make it a matter of law. His response is not prescriptive – at no point does he say “you shall not divorce” or “you shall not remarry – his response, rather, is descriptive.
The Pharisees were asking for a “yes” or a “no”. But Jesus refuses to go there. These leaders are concerned with their rights. They want to know how much they can get away with. They want to stay just inside the law so they can be righteous in their own sight. But the real question isn’t what the law says. The real question is what did God intend. Life in the Kingdom isn’t about staying just inside the line. It isn’t about being righteous or somehow proving our worth. If you are asking what’s legal or not legal, then you’ve already missed it. The Kingdom is about life at its very best; life as God intended it to be.
And so Jesus lifts up that ideal. He says in effect “here’s that best that you ought to be aiming for – not because you are going to change God’s attitude towards you, and not to prove how good you are, or to try and be a little bit better than everyone else – but because this is the very best that life has to offer.”
Do we fall short of that ideal? Absolutely. Jesus knew that. The religious leaders knew it. But the goal itself constantly beckons us to something higher, something better; constantly beckons us beyond ourselves towards God and those around us.
Sometimes people will ask how much they should give the church. Usually they will frame it around what’s the average gift here, or how much do most people offer. But that’s the wrong question. The truth is we have people who give in the hundreds, and people who give in the tens of thousands. What matters most isn’t so much the amount, but what that amount means to you.
You might remember Jesus extolling the widow’s pennies. What made her gift so incredibly precious in the sight of God was the sacrifice that tiny gift involved. For that widow, who had nothing, those pennies were everything. They revealed her great love of God; revealed just how important God was to her.
How much we give isn’t going to change how much God loves us. If we are trying to find that line, if we are looking to give as little as possible and still remain with the boundary of what’s acceptable, then like those Pharisees, we are asking the wrong question. We’ve missed it. Missed what giving is really all about.
What you give is between you and the Lord. Yes, this church couldn’t function without your support, but that’s really a secondary issue here. Far more important from God’s perspective is the spiritual condition of your heart. Generosity and sacrificial giving have an impact on our hearts. They expand our spirit. They nurture a part of us that nothing else can touch.
Yesterday evening I saw a guy down in Fellowship Hall who I know loves Penn State football. But he wasn’t home watching the game. He was there in Fellowship Hall helping with the clean-up. There were a lot of people there helping with the clean-up just as there have been so many people who have given so many hours these past weeks and months to help make Harvest Fair happen. That’s sacrificial giving. That’s giving from the heart. And that’s the kind of giving that makes a difference in us, and a difference for the Kingdom.
As you think about what to give or what to pledge for this coming year don’t fall into the trap those Pharisees did. Our giving isn’t about what’s right or wrong, what’s acceptable or unacceptable. It isn’t about the law. No, our giving like just about everything else in this life, is about our capacity to love.