Overcoming Obstacles: When There Isn't Enough to Go Around (11am service)

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 30, 2011

at the 11am service at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

“Overcoming Obstacles:

When There Isn’t Enough to Go Around”

Matthew 14:13-21

What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around? 

This is the dilemma Jesus and the disciples find themselves in: the needs are great yet their resources are small.   After all, Jesus didn’t plan this event on the eastern shore the Sea of Galilee.  He just heard about the death of John the Baptist and in an effort to get some privacy and time for prayer he sails across the Sea of Galilee to the less populated side.  Nobody lined up the caterer for this gathering.  No water or any beverages readily available.  No brunch buffet was available for everyone to enjoy.  No Nanny Goats, no Napoli’s pizza.  And no portable toilets either.  What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around?

There are times when the needs of the world seem so great and our resources seem so small.  No other time is this more clear than when the leaders of the church put together the church budget for the following year.  They are very aware of the human needs in our community and the world, the financial demands of our church’s ministries, not to mention funding for repairing the sprinkler system or the air conditioning in the sanctuary.  I know what we the church are called to do, but there are so many times when we feel so squeezed to know how to respond people’s needs with our meager resources. 

What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around?

Let me offer to you these four observations about what is happening in our scripture today.  First, Jesus has compassion for the people when he arrives on the lakeshore.  He is empathetic and begins to heal the sick and bind up the broken-hearted on the spot.

Sure he was tired.  Sure was exhausted and upset and mourning the loss of his cousin John the Baptist.  But he didn’t treat the people of the crowd as a nuisance.  He didn’t ask if they had an appointment. He was never too busy for people.  He gave of himself.  He sacrificed his personal time, his personal schedule to meet the needs around him. 

It’s overwhelming to handle the needs of the crowd when our resources seem so small.  Compassion for others makes the difference and helps us focus on what must get done.

In the January, 2002 issue of Esquire, the late George Steinbrenner was quoted saying about giving of our resources to others in need, “The ability to have is so you can do things for others. If you can do things for others who are less fortunate, then it will come back to you.”  This is a sign of compassion as well as a voice of gratitude.

Gracious living through gracious giving: this is what Mr. Steinbrenner is talking about and it’s what Jesus portrays for us, except with a much more modest bank account.  Here we see Jesus showing that it is God’s gifts which he brings to each of us.  The grace of gratitude is rare among people and it is even more rare towards God.  When we truly recognize that all that we have, all that we are and everything we will become are gifts from God, that’s when our attitude changes.  We possess our possessions and not the other way around.  We are free to share and give our gifts to others to the glory of God.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”  The disciples have a place in this ministry.  They are not Jesus’ personal assistants.  They are not chaperoning a school dance or a field trip.  The disciples are not on the outside looking in; they are in the thick of it.  As much as they may want to high tail it back home, they will not escape their responsibilities as Christ’s disciples.  Jesus tells them, “We’re not going anywhere.  You give them something to eat.”  Jesus insists that the disciples offer their own bread and fish.  With the five loaves and two fish, Jesus works through the hands of the disciples to reach the crowd. 

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are helpless without the Lord.  But I would also submit to you that the Lord is helpless without his disciples.  Jesus needs disciples like you and me through whom he can work as living vessels pouring forth God’s truth and love into the lives of others.  He needs people to whom he can give in order that they may give to others.  The Lord asks us as his disciples to be gracious givers at all times, in both bad and good times.

Gracious living through gracious giving: Jesus calls each of us to share and tell the world about the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ regardless of our bank account balance or our abilities and skills.  God does not demand we do this with any great magnificence or grandeur we don’t possess.  A little is always a lot in the eyes of God. 

Paul Harvey tells the story of an eight-year-old named Ben who won a contest at the local McDonald's. His prize was a brand new bike. When Ben got home, he told his parents that he already had a bike and that he didn't need two. Ben decided to give the new bike to a friend who didn't have a bike and whose parents were unable to buy one for him. When the manager of McDonald's heard about this, she invited Ben and his family to dinner and presented him with a $100 gift certificate. The next day Ben used the gift certificate to buy a crash helmet for his friend. For some people, gracious living through gracious giving is second nature.   

In the end, there were twelve baskets of leftovers, one for each disciple.  In the economy of God, the disciples who offered all their resources to the Lord received back everything they needed.  There is no wasting of God’s great gifts, even the leftovers.  God’s generous giving and our wise using must go hand in hand.

There’s a church I once heard about some years back that kept a loaf of bread on the Communion Table.  Since they didn’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week, someone coated the loaf in polyurethane, so it wouldn’t need to be replaced.  Not too long after, the congregation gasped when their interim pastor stood behind the Table and broke the bread with the words, “This is my body, broken for you!”  They breathed an audible sigh of relief when they discovered the minister had, in good fun, switched their ceremonial loaf with real bread.  After the service someone commented, “You upset us for a minute; we thought you broke our communion bread.”  The pastor responded, “Don’t you understand?  If it’s not broken, it can’t be shared.”[1]

What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around?  We break ourselves open and give.  We give of ourselves to others, time, talent and treasure, in order to reflect the light of Christ in a very dark world, a world groping in the dark looking for the answers, searching for the truth, desperately seeking direction and purpose for living.  We give of ourselves to others because we can’t help ourselves.  It’s something we want to share.  It’s something we want to live and tell about, so others may know the joy we discovered.

In the Kingdom of God, there is always enough to go around and then some.  Amen.

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[1] Stewardship Magazine for Congregational Leaders. Published by Stewardship and Mission funding PC)USA). (Louisville) September 2006. P.27-28.

Overcoming Obstacles:When There Isn't Enough to Go Around (9am service)

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 30, 2011

at the 9am service at the First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

Overcoming Obstacles:

When There Isn’t Enough to Go Around

Matthew 14:13-21

Once upon a time, there was a little boy the other children called “Sparky,” after a comic strip horse named Sparkplug. Even though the boy hated that nickname, he could never shake it.

School was difficult for Sparky. He failed every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked physics in high school. In fact, he still holds the school record for being the worst physics student in the school’s history. He also flunked Latin, algebra, and English. He didn’t do much better in sports. He made the school’s golf team, but his poor play ended up costing his team the championship.

Throughout his youth, Sparky was a loser socially. Not that he was actively disliked by other kids—it’s just that nobody paid much attention to him. He was astonished if a classmate even said hello outside of school. He never dated or even asked a girl out. He was afraid of being turned down. Sparky didn’t let being a loser bother him that much; he just decided to make it through life the best he could and not worry about what other people thought of him.

Sparky did, however, have a hobby. He loved cartoons, and he liked drawing his own cartoons. No one else thought they were any good, however. When he was a senior in high school, he submitted some cartoons to the school yearbook and they were rejected. Sparky kept drawing anyway.

Sparky dreamed about being an artist for Walt Disney. After graduating from high school, he wrote a letter to Walt Disney Studios inquiring about job opportunities. He received a form letter requesting samples of his artwork. The form letter asked him to draw a funny cartoon of “a man repairing a clock by shoveling the springs and gears back inside it.”

Sparky drew the cartoon and mailed it off with some of his other work to Disney studios. He waited and waited for a reply. Finally the reply came—another form letter telling him that there was no job for him.

Sparky was disappointed but not surprised. He had always been a loser, and this was just one more loss. In a weird way, he thought, his life was kind of funny. He tried telling his own life story in cartoons—a childhood full of the misadventures of a little boy loser, a chronic underachiever. This cartoon character has now become known by the whole world. The boy who failed the eighth grade, the young artist whose work was rejected not only by Walt Disney Studios but by his own high school yearbook, was Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schultz—creator of the “Peanuts” comic strip and the little boy loser whose kite never flies: Charlie Brown.

We have all experienced rejection and failure in life, but God has gifted each one of us with unique talents and abilities that enable us to make a significant contribution to the world. What are your gifts?

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”  There is enough to go around.  There is enough need for us to take on all around us.  There are enough resources in this very room, in this very church, in this very town to make a positive impact on the world in the name of Jesus Christ.  What will you contribute?

Unless you attempt to use them, you will never discover how God prepared you to play your part. We need to be like the disciples in Scripture who gathered together those five loaves and two fish and used it to feed the 5000 men, women and children who gathered to see and hear Jesus on the rural hillside on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee with leftovers.  God takes our little loser selves and does something remarkable. Don’t waste it.  Don’t ignore it.  Don’t put it on the shelf and admire it from a distance.  Give your life away.

The time is now; for we have been called; so let us give and not be afraid.  Now, us, give.  Give.

Overcoming Obstacles: God Loves a Hilarious Giver

A sermon preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on November 13, 2011

at First Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.

“Overcoming Obstacles: God Loves a Hilarious Giver”

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

You’re home.  It’s dinner time.  You and your family are gathered around the table ready to enjoy a delicious meal when suddenly, out of nowhere, the phone rings.  You get up from your seat to answer the phone.  Who is it?  It’s not Uncle Jerry or your cousin Tom.  It’s not a friend from church.  It’s the dreaded call from a telemarketer, who after a long pause and mispronouncing your name or worse yet calls you by someone else’s name and yet still wants to talk to you, wants you to give financial support to dig water wells in Africa, to pledge support for your alma mater, or give money to support the Fraternal Order of Police.

If you ever find yourself in this situation and you are anything like me, you are not very happy about this interruption.  And if you’re the person on the other end of the line, you’re not going to be real happy with what I’m about to say and do; with my response to your call.

All of us are constantly approached for financial help whether by phone, letters, emails, text messages, or personal invitations.  We want your money is their battle cry.  And we get tired of hearing all the requests.  We experience compassion fatigue after some time.  We respond reluctantly to these requests, no matter how important they may be to us.  Our response lacks generosity, compassion and joy. 

Are you a reluctant giver or a cheerful/hilarious giver?  I prefer hilarious over cheerful.  The original Greek word translated as “cheerful” is the root for “hilarious”.  I’m sticking with hilarious; an attitude of hilarious giving.

The Apostle Paul offers us some principles of hilarious giving in our text today. 

The first is that nobody who ever lived was a loser because he was generous.  The classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, plays on this theme through the characters of George Bailey and Mr. Potter.  George, like his dad before him, was compassionate and generous treating people with respect and dignity.  Mr. Potter was painted as a warped, frustrated old man who treated people not like people but like cattle.  When we invest in others, we will receive a significant return on our investment.  A hilarious giver reaps what they sow.

One day an angry little boy ran around his village shouting, “I hate you! I hate you!” No one knew quite how to respond to him.

Eventually the little boy ran to the edge of a steep cliff and shouted into the valley, “I hate you! I hate you!”

Back from the valley came an echo: “I hate you! I hate you!”

Startled at this, the boy ran home. With tears in his eyes, he told his mother that there was a mean little boy in the valley who shouted at him, “I hate you! I hate you!”

His mother took the boy back to the cliff and told him to shout, “I love you! I love you!”

When he did, back came the reply: “I love you! I love you!”

From that day on, the little boy wasn’t angry anymore.  When we give hate, we receive hate in return.  When we give love, we receive love in return.  We reap what we sow.

Giving is like sowing a seed, just as our scripture passage describes: “The one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly.  The one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.”  Giving affects the giver.  If we practice generosity, God promises to change us and enrich our lives.  The enrichment is not material.  It doesn’t promise the wealth of things, but the wealth of the heart and spirit.  We are made in rich in love.  We are made rich in friends. 

At the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the angel Clarence leaves a copy of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” with George Bailey with the inscription: “Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends.  Thanks for the wings!  Love Clarence”. 

We are made rich in help: help we give to others and the help others give to us.  And we are made rich toward God.  What we do for others, the Bible says, we do for God.  Jesus says, “When you did it for the least of these, you did it unto me.”

The second principle of a hilarious giver is that it is the happy giver whom God loves and favors most.  God desires for us to replace the grumbling giving with hilarious giving.  When we do, this is where the healing in our lives begins.

The October 2011 issue of Presbyterians Today features a story about a ninety-year old retired Presbyterian minister and missionary named Arch Taylor.[1]  According to the story, giving has become a way of life; a life lived in a constant state of thankfulness. 

Upon retirement, Mr. Taylor inherited a sizeable inheritance from his father.  When he realized that his Social Security and pension provided sufficient funds on which to live, he began to look for ways to give away the “extra”. 

He shared this testimony of gracious giving through gracious living.  “During the time my wife was suffering with cancer, the mission board paid all of our medical expenses and they were generous in every way,” he says.  Mr. Taylor also remembered the full scholarship he received to attend Louisville Seminary graduating without any seminary debt.  So when it was time to give to a charitable cause, he gave to Presbyterian World Mission and Louisville Seminary.

“It’s not our money; it’s not their money; it’s the Lord’s money,” he says.  “I believe in the Presbyterian Church and I want it to succeed and I want to support it in any way that I can.”

Mr. Taylor knows what it means to be a hilarious giver. 

The third principle of hilarious giving from the Apostle Paul is that God can give each of us, like he has done with Mr. Arch Taylor, both the substance to give and the spirit in which to give it.  Paul writes in verses eight that God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8)  What is Paul saying here?  He’s not describing someone who has all kinds of material things in abundance: a thousand acre ranch, an S-Class Mercedes, a home in the Hamptons, etc..  Rather, it describes a state of independence, independence from material things.  It’s a life based on not amassing possessions but to eliminating needs.  It describes the person who has taught themselves to be content with very little.  It is obvious that such an individual will be able to give far more to others because they want so little for themselves.  They are free to be a hilarious giver!

Are you a reluctant giver or a hilarious giver?

One of the greatest experiences of my life in ministry has been leading mission trips for youth, especially the first mission trip I ever led.  The youth I worked with were the children of affluent, successful, driven parents.  These kids were blessed with so many things and opportunities to grow and learn.  They always had food to eat, a nice comfortable home to live in, they took exotic vacations and elaborate school trips.  The sad thing was that many of them didn’t realize how good they had it and that there are so many youth who don’t have what they have.

So off to rural Maine we would go with our 50 plus high school students and 12 adults ready to enjoy a week of summer in Vacationland.  The first night was always interesting to see how the youth reacted to their rustic accommodations.  There was an outhouse for us to use.  We slept in the boat restoration shop on the floor or on the third floor of the boat shop itself.  We cooked our own meals.  We did our own shopping.  Every day the youth went out to various work sites to help the poor of the area, mostly elderly folks on fixed incomes and working poor families.  They skirted trailers, built wheelchair ramps, replaced water heaters and toilets and all kinds of plumbing.  They roofed homes, caulked and painted windows and siding.  They did work that week they had never done before on their own homes. 

Each day had a set routine: breakfast, morning prayer, off to work sites, return to the boat shop, bathe in the river, have dinner, worship and a bible lesson, small group time and bed.  By the end of the week, new friendships are formed, old friendships are strengthened and restored.  By the end of the week, each one of us experienced a joy we had never known before.  At week’s end, many of the youth would testify that this was the greatest week of their life and because of what they experienced they saw life and their own life very differently.  The youth and adults who spent that week serving others didn’t sow sparingly and reaped a small crop.  They sowed bountifully and received a bountiful harvest.  They changed the lives of those they touched and in turn their lives were changed forever.  God loves a hilarious giver! 

Are you a reluctant giver or a hilarious giver? 

May God transform your heart to give bountifully to others, to ourselves and most importantly to God.  May others see our good deeds, how we treat others and meet others at their point of need, and give God prayers of thanksgiving he rightly deserves.  The glory found in the gift of God in Jesus Christ, a gift whose wonder can never be exhausted, whose story can never be fully told and whose grace and love is always present with us. 

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15)

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[1] “Generous Living” by Erin Dunigan. Presbyterians Today, October 2011, vol. 101, No.8. p.17-18.