“Car Lust”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Homewood, AL
August 30, 2009 (Proper 17, 22d Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Text: James 1:17-27
The Federal government’s Cash for Clunkers program ended last Monday-- not a minute too soon as far as I am concerned. Sad fact of the matter is I am ‘pea green with envy’ of those 700,000 fellow Americans who are now driving shinny new cars. I am afraid I have a stubborn case of car lust, which, as any good therapist--for $100/hr or more--will agree, is all my parents’ fault.
You see, as a child, I was terribly ashamed of the cars my parents drove. They were stripped-down, second-hand models, four-boxy doors each, with decidedly un-cool straight shifts on the column. No air conditioning save for the roll-down windows. And my mother’s car didn’t even have a radio! Secretly, as a seventh-grade safety patrol officer, I would stand on my assigned street corner, lusting after each sleek automobile passing by.
Of course, I did not bring this issue to my parents’ attention--my shame and disgrace at being carpooled in a clunker. A mere child in those days I had no right of inquiry into parental motivations. What’s more, I basically knew the answer. Even as a younger person, I knew why our family lived in a more modest home and why my folks drove more modest cars than so many others in our community. First, my parents, coming of age in the depths of the Great Depression, would never, ever, borrow money to buy a car, or anything else, save a home. It was either cash or keep on driving Old Nellie, keep on watching the black and white TV, keep on spending family vacations in a borrowed, pop-up camper. But then, their entire generation suffered through the Depression and that did not stop others from enjoying the “finer things of life.”
So there had to be another reason for what I, as a child, considered as my family’s deficiency. It was this: my parents were “practicing Christians,” as described in our scripture reading today. “Not hearers of the Word only,” says James, but sincere “doers of the Word.” For example, they tithed from the top--before taxes, before insurance, they paid the tithe. Of course, I never knew how much money my Dad made in the insurance business, or later, my Mom, as a librarian--modest incomes, to be sure. But I suspect they made enough to cover the cost of a new car every few years had it not been that the first check they wrote every single month was to the Church.
Now comes epistle-writer James telling me what the therapist likely does not know. My parents were acting on divine initiative: 17 Every generous act of giving, (James reminds us) . . .is from above . . . .
What a novel idea! Imagine, every pledge you make, every check you write, every dollar you place in the offering plate has behind it--divine initiative. Not obligation, not your “fair share,” but God’s own initiative coursing through your veins as you are “doing the Word.”
Of course, we humans are free to resist God. God has given us “free will.” We can go our own way, use our gifts of time, talent, and money for other purposes. But James warns that in so doing we are liable to “lose it”-- to lose our sacred bond with God, and with one another--just as our image in a mirror vanishes when we walk away.
Epistle-writer James goes on to say, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God . . . , is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress . . .”(v.27). None of us would lay claim to a religion that is “pure and undefiled” but this congregation does have a passion for “the least of these our sisters and brothers.”
Think about this. Popular religion goes all the way to the bank preaching, ‘As you give, so shall we receive’--as if God paid dividends in cold hard cash. Faith of the matter is, our text says that God does pay dividends, but those returns do not come in cash. Rather, James says, “the blessing is in the doing.” The blessing--God’s blessing--is in the sharing of tithes and offerings. The divine blessing comes through the faithful participation in worship each Lord’s Day. The sacred blessing is in the faithful study of God’s Holy Word. The blessing is the doing good deeds for friends and family, as well as for “widows and orphans” and strangers in the land.
This divine blessing is my most gracious inheritance from my parents and, I pray, my bequest to my family--and to you.
To the God of all grace,
who calls you to share God's eternal glory
in union with Christ,
be the power forever! 1 Peter 5:10,11
Amen.