Incredibly Generous
Romans 10:5-15[1]
There
was a time when one of the defining characteristics of communities across this
country was generosity. Because we believed that all our material possessions
were gifts from God, we felt almost duty-bound to share with any and all who
came our way. Whether it was a neighbor in need or a stranger passing through,
sharing friendship, a meal, or even at times “the shirt off our back” was
simply the way we believed we should treat one another. And in the most notable
examples of our practice of generosity, we didn’t let anything get in the way
of helping out a neighbor—not politics, nor race, nor creed. Especially in the
hardest of times.
Fast
forward to a new century and a whole different standard of living, and things
have changed dramatically. Yes, we still perform “random acts of kindness” for
individuals. But we are not nearly as prone to share with a neighbor these
days, let alone a stranger! Our society has grown many times more prosperous
since the days when our parents and grandparents were practicing simple
hospitality and generosity. And as we have done so, we have retreated to the
“safety” of our homes and cars, which effectively insulate us from the people around
us. When we do have to be around “strangers,” as when we are when flying
anywhere on an airplane, we use headphones to protect us from having to
actually interact with the person sitting next to us.
I
think that the tradition of sharing and hospitality in our culture originated
in the Bible. There are many reminders throughout Scripture that all that we
have and all that we are come as gifts from God. And we receive them not as a
reward for doing good or being good; they come from God’s grace. Grace is a
word we don’t use a lot these days to actually describe a person—at least not
the way the Bible does for God. Grace means that we can never do enough good to
deserve God’s love, but he gives it to us anyway because that’s who God is! We
can never be good enough to deserve all the blessings we enjoy, but God gives
them to us anyway because that’s who God is!
I
think that’s one of the points of our Scripture lesson from St. Paul’s letter
to the Romans. I particularly like verses 11 and 12: “The scripture says, ‘No
one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous
to all who call on him” (Rom. 10:11-12). I like it even better in Gene
Peterson’s The Message translation:
“Scripture reassures us, ‘No one who trusts God like this - heart and soul -
will ever regret it.’ It’s exactly the same no matter what a person’s …
background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to
everyone who calls out for help.”
“Incredibly
generous.” I think that’s got to be one
of the best phrases to describe God’s grace I’ve ever heard. I think that’s the heart of Paul’s message in
this passage. God is incredibly generous
to us all. God loves us all unconditionally. God offers new life to us all, without any
exceptions or exclusions. And all this
is something that God does simply because it’s who God is. It’s not something
we can ever do enough to deserve or earn, but that also means we don’t have to
do anything to earn it!
Now,
that’s the good news. What it requires
of us might come to some of us as “bad news.” The incredibly generous gift that
God has for all of us requires nothing less of us than to “turn to the Lord
your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deut. 30:10). I think that’s what Paul’s getting at in this
passage, much of which is quoted from Moses. Again, in The Message translation, Paul says that the incredibly generous
gift God offers us all requires “no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit
the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah.” Rather “The word that saves is right here, as
near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest” (Rom.
10:6-7, Message).
The
point is that God doesn’t ask us to cross land and sea in order to deserve the
incredible generosity God offers us all.
What God asks of us is that we open our hearts and trust that our
incredibly generous God loves us and wants us to thrive. But that kind of trust is not easy. In fact, many of us would rather cross land
and sea in some heroic venture than to open our hearts and trust anyone, even
God! But what our incredibly generous
God asks of us is this—that we embrace God’s incredibly generous love
completely, with open hearts, or as Paul puts it: “body and soul” (Rom.
10:9-10, The Message).
I’ve mentioned my Grandfather,
Harold Brehm, who was from Talmage. What I may not have mentioned is that he
wound up in the grocery business. In fact, he ran his own grocery store during
the Great Depression. When I was young, he liked to tell stories about his
life. One of the stories he told was about how he extended credit to many of
his friends and neighbors during the depression because they couldn’t make ends
meet. He wasn’t really bragging. It was simply a matter of my Grandfather being
a kind man and wanting to help his friends and neighbors when they were in need.
That’s the spirit of generosity that used to thrive in our country. I think it
could do so again. But for that to happen, we would have to rehabilitate our
view of God. God isn’t in the business of blessing the righteous, or the
deserving, no matter how much they may have achieved. God showers his blessings
on all of us, simply because that’s who God is. He’s “the same God for all of
us, acting the same incredibly generous
way to everyone who calls out for help.”
[1]
©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 8/13/2017 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
No comments:
Post a Comment