Do you feel like you need more protection in life? I sure do. The doubling of oil prices, the uncertainty of whether Mr. Bush will start another war with Iran, the collapse of housing, the cost of medicine – these all make me wonder whether I will be one of the ones who make it. Do you ever fantasize about what it would feel like to have 10 million in the bank? Or one million? Never go less than a million. If you’re going to use your imagination, aim high. The former CEO of Countrywide Mortgage, the mortgage company that failed, was let go with a severance package of 210 million dollars. It’s hard to imagine.

Jesus compares protection in life to the need for lilies to be protected. Biblical lilies are part of Genus Allium. Genus Allium. There are 250 species of this variety of wild lily. These 250 species are located in the Middle East, from Israel to Turkey to Iran. Dr. Ori Fragman-Sapir says that “Alliums are characterized by a tall stalk, all of the flower stalks emerge from one point.” The wild lilies or wild flowers of Israel do not look like what we think are lilies. There are no less than 39 different wild alliums species grow in and around Israel.

I can’t get over the beauty of the prayer garden. The forsythia and a few other flowers were the first to appear and each week now brings a new set of blooms. The flowers are a picture of the richness that God offers in life. I encourage everyone to simply walk through the garden once a week.

We live in a world with so many problems and yet the lilies continue to grow. You would think that lilies would disappear with the first hint of war, be exterminated in the first act of a drought, fall forever after a wildfire. And yet the lilies of the world continue. And if you follow what God wants, you will be protected and flourish like lilies of the field.

Today we are looking at what God wants most from us as disciples. The challenge is not easy, the bar is high. But God says that if we rise to the challenge of what God wants most, God will take care of you and protect you. Do you feel like you need more protection in life? I pray that you will trust the Lord today and get the protection you need.

In 6:24-34 we are coming down from the Sermon on the mount, having just passed warnings about wealth (6:19-23). As we enter our passage we need to do so with the previous verses ringing in our ears: don't hoard up earthly wealth! and a greedy eye corrupts the whole person (6:22-23). When we read then in 6:24 about not being able to work for two bosses, it is clear that one of them is greed for wealth and possessions. That is what "mammon" means. To serve God is something opposite; it sets opposite priorities.

We are culturally trained to accept one of the most serious sins of the Bible. A capitalist economy depends on competition and self centeredness. It works well because capitalism has a Biblical understanding of sin. Capitalism assumes that we are all out for ourselves. Our cultural problem is that we accept wealth accumulation, even if other people starve. We know its wrong and put an extra $10 in the plate, but ignoring the needs of the poor for us is a misdemeanor. For God, it’s a scandal. Angelo Mozilo, president of Countrywide walked away with $210 million and I doubt that any church near his home, Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical or Liberal, discussed whether to picket his home. I would not be surprised if God told me that no Christian prayed for Angelo Mozilo after they read the news. We just don’t see what he did as a crime against humanity. God does.

The New Testament says a lot about the poorest of the poor because there were so many of them in Israel when Jesus walked there. The rise of cities and empires in antiquity took place because peasants were able to produce an agricultural surplus. The rich removed this surplus with a legal system of taxes that Jesus considered criminal. We confuse moral and legal. In Jesus day, the elite of Rome and Jerusalem wanted to create larger estates so they kept raising the taxes. One by one, peasants with small holdings failed to pay the tax and lost their homes, living in the hedges and begging for the help of strangers. This is why Jesus so often speaks about absentee landlords. Matthew 21:33 The landlord rented the vineyard to a farmer and left on a journey. Matthew 24:45 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Matthew 25:14 14"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Luke 16:1 There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. The translation of the Lords Prayer is often “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Lazarus begged at the gate of the rich man in Luke 16. When John the Baptist is confused as to whether Jesus is the Christ, Jesus replies, “the poor have good news preached to them.” In Matthew, when the Lord separates the sheep from the goats, it is because I was hungry and you gave me food.

I was stunned again for my own life as I considered just how many Bible references there are to poverty and God’s challenge to help the poor. Let’s be honest, I tithe but beyond the tithe, I get donor fatigue. I worry about my own stability. I have goals of things I want to buy. I don’t want to keep giving and have to trust God to take care of me. Like Angelo Mozilo, I want to have a lot and give a little. I have no complaint about giving. Just not that much.

Before starting this sermon, I had not given to the needs of Burma and China. I reasoned that some small portion of my gift to the church goes to Burma. That’s true. Maybe a penny. Over 90 percent of our gifts funds our own programs here. The denomination gets $15,000 and most of that pays for programs to run the Annual Conference. And there is a national structure over that. And one area of the national structure is mission. And one area of that is global relief. 

God has blessed and protected me. In the 13 years that I have been here, you have been a generous congregation to me. I flourished. So I want to make a special gift for Burma and China today. I know that the need is far greater than any gift I can make. I have to leave that to God. No, the gift is for my soul. I want my soul to be hurt whenever I hear of suffering. I want to join the suffering of others through my gift. I don’t ever want to grow cold to needs of others if I am ok. I don’t want to let my culture tell me its moral if its legal.

And most of all, I want the protection that God gives to the lilies of the field. No matter how hard I work, I can’t begin to protect myself as well as God. So my gift today is a statement back to God, O Lord, protect me as I share the suffering of the poor today. Do you need protection? What statement will you make to God today?

 

May 25, 2008