Sharing Shares Life!

The More We GIVE Together, the Happier We’ll Be

by Charles Love

 

Numbers 11: 24-30

Acts 2: 1-21

 

Pentecost, Mother’s Day and communion- perfect sunshine, spring bursting out all around us, Bayfield bustling with the first of the summer people who add so much life and liveliness to our community and church… family visits, special Mother’s Day brunch and dinners happening…could the formula for “up-beat” make it any better! …Praise and thanksgiving… glory be- alleluia and amen: except that, in the midst of all the GREAT stuff of today, we open our Bibles and what do we get? Not one, not two, but THREE stories of good times gone bad- crisis at church and at home!

 

You maybe didn’t notice the first crisis as our lay reader read familiar words from Acts…We all so like the ending of the Pentecost story that if we’re not careful to notice the beginning we’ll miss the sickness for which Pentecost was the cure… Truth is, as the story opens what we meet is about the most miserable, defeated, going no where, getting no where, down and out depressed group of people ever to dare to call themselves a church... In his previously written gospel, Luke introduced this crowd for us in his telling of resurrection stories. Luke’s version has a group of women coming to the tomb, finding it empty, terrified by what they were seeing and what it might mean for the rest of their little, feeling perilously threatened, group…. Then Luke gives us a portrait of two disciples giving up and walking away, on their way to Emmaus. They meet the Lord and hasten back to the rest to report.… While they’re babbling on, the disciples trying to make sense of it all, Luke has Jesus “suddenly” appearing! The disciples are, at first terrified by what they are seeing, but then terror gives way to joy tempered by disbelieving and “still wondering (Luke 24:41)”-are we on an emotional rollercoaster here or what! …Jesus talks with the disciples for a few minutes and then suggests a walk out to Bethany where he, suddenly raising his arms, is lifted to begin his bodily ascension to heaven- leaving the disciples, we might imagine, more confused than ever…and on their own…. Not a healthy church! …Today’s story takes place on the day of the Feast of Pentecost- that is, about 50 days later and where do we find the disciples? Huddled together “in one place (Acts 2:1).”  A “house (read Upper Room)” and think, “Ah yes, the Upper Room where they were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews.” Here they are, 50 days later and they’re still cowering away, they have barely dared go out the door, they’re hiding in the city. They’re not out there being church. They haven’t been busy, as the mandate to Peter put it, “Feeding” the sheep. They haven’t cured any sickness, fed any hungry people, embraced any lepers, touched any blind…. And this is the church? A sick church, defeated by the threat of public censure, afraid for what people “out there” will say or do if they take up the cross and step back into the public forum-  a church ? Perhaps, but definitely not a healthy one…

 

And definitely not the first, nor the last “sick” church that ever has been or will be…. In our first reading today, we met up with another “church” – the fellowship of God’s people with Moses in the wilderness: and, they’re not doing very well at all… Numbers chapter 11 introduces this gang as a group of people complaining so much that even God himself lost his cool with them: and, calling down fire from heaven, set to incinerating them all. Would have burned them all up, too, so the story suggests: except that Moses set to praying and whatever he said, he somehow brought God up short –enough so that God, suddenly realizing what he was doing, turned off the flame thrower…

 

Now, you might have thought that after a “Father-God-fit” like that people’d mind their p’s and q’s for at least a while, but the very next story has them moaning and groaning louder than ever. Stirred up by a group the Bible disdainfully calls “the rabble (Numbers 11:4)”- a group of non-Israelite “others” who left Egypt with Moses and company, the people of Israel get to driving Moses half-crazy with their demands that he find “meat” for them: and, they let him know, desert or not, that they’d also like him to come up with cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic! The implied threat? If you can’t get it: we’ll fire you and find a leader who can… Moses hears the threat and, though it doesn’t explicitly say so, clearly he sees the power play motivating it- the agenda of the “rabble” which would see him and his God shunted aside so that they could take over the “church” and have it their way. A conflicted congregation: or, as Lloyd Rediger would call it today- a “Toxic Congregation”[1].

 

OK- where are we at? Two sick churches…and, oh yes, it’s Family Sunday- let’s toss in one messed up family… Their story is buried in what was our first reading today: history always kind to its heros, it takes a bit of digging to find the family gone awry here. A bit of digging, but nothing hard….What you’ve got to know is that the two obscure characters whose names for some reason are remembered and carefully recorded in the Book of Numbers- Eldad and Medad are, in fact, half brothers to Moses and Aaron. Huh? How can that be, you ask. Well- happened like this….

 

Once upon a time the father of all these guys- a man named Aram, married his father’s sister- wrap your mind around that one and what do you get? …Aram married his aunt. At the time that was considered perfectly kosher. So they were married and they had several kids- including Miriam, Aaron and Moses. Circumstances led to Moses being raised in Pharaoh’s palace- you know that story. Meanwhile, Aaron began life in servitude…. Before you start to imagine the resentment and jealousy, and, later, competiveness that that set the stage for between Moses and Aaron, listen to some insightful words written by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker- a Canadian rabbi working in Winnipeg, who reminds us that- “Sacred texts and mythologies all over the world testify to certain universal themes regarding the nature of family life. All families are to some extent dysfunctional, and favoritism, neglect, jealousy, competition seem to be part of every conceivable constellation of humans living or working together.”[2] Families aren’t perfect- that’s the reality playing out in Aram’s family. So far Moses vs Aaron: but, on with the story… The church gets into muddling in matters of sexuality and marriage and they start making arbitrary rules about who can be married to who and, suddenly, new rules: now it’s NOT ok to be married to your aunt. Aram dutifully divorces Jochebed: and, still being of vital age- although never, I don’t think quite “over” her, he “finds comfort” in the arms of a new wife -whose name is never recorded (that tells us something): hint of second wife/second fiddle, second choice- never quite measuring up to the first! How sad for her…Actually more than sad as the degree of resentment comes clear in the names Aram gives to the sons she bears for him. He calls the first one Eldad -which means born “not of an aunt” and, the other, Medad which means born by someone- a second wife in this case- “in place of auntie.”[3] So, see what have we got here? One dad, two Moms, 4 boys, one girl and enough jealousy and resentment to more than explain, getting back to today’s story, why Eldad and Medad weren’t about to show up in the tent to kneel before big brother/half brother for his blessing…And, of course, we now see why, despite such arrogance, Moses is reluctant to let Joshua go ballistic over such a public refusal to submission to Moses’ authority…. 

 

Ok- where are we? We’ve got two messed up churches and one, we’ll call it challenged, family and it sure would be nice, before we leave here today, to get them all to some kind of a happy, and maybe even edifying-for-us, place. Well- listen up because that’s what God does for them all…

 

Now, before we get back into the particulars of each of our three stories, I want to share with you a bit of wisdom- the key bit of wisdom, that God uses to intervene in each and every plot playing out before us. Nothing mysterious here- in fact, I’m going to share the secret with you by reading, not from the Bible, but, instead from the Toronto Star- an article that they ran back on March 20- suitably titled for this morning- “Mom Was Right: Giving Really is Better Than Receiving.”

Journalist Joseph Hall tells us -

Money can buy you happiness — so long as you're spending it on someone else.

New Canadian-led research, being published tomorrow in the prestigious journal Science, says that spending your money on other people makes you happier than lavishing it on yourself.[4]

And, as the article goes on, it tells us that it doesn’t have to be money- whether what you give is time or money or compassion, the giving can be rewarding and as groups- be it families or churches or other associations, share the giving and the satisfaction of having worked together to make a difference, giving can be the transformative glue that sparks and creates enduring fellowship and community… The more we give together the greater the church we are- we know that. That’s a living reality of the life we share here in St. Andrew’s: nothing new, just affirming! Hold that truth in mind and we’re back to the story…

Remember the New Testament church that we read about in Acts today- all wrapped up in themselves and their woes, their fears and excuses, living behind closed doors, getting no where, doing nothing… How did God cure them? All of a sudden there was a crowd outside- shouting and hollering, calling the disciples a bunch of souses, daring them to come out and fess up to whatever was wrong with them. And Peter comes out blazing- “We’re not drunk!” and before he’s done explaining otherwise, he finds himself talking about Jesus- remembering his compassion, telling tales of miracles- help given, blessing received….How good it was to be with Jesus, at each days end, giving thanks for the wonderful things they had done for others along the way… Peter told an enticing story and, responding to it, more than 3000 people started living lives of giving and sharing- discovering new fellowship, equitable community, justice realized, goodwill, praise and joy.  Three thousand people of every race and language, of varying customs, huge diversity but one thing in common- beyond what any one could give or do alone, they realized that what they could do together could generate joy beyond measure…In their giving, like us, they received and they became healthy community…OK- one church fixed, on to the next…back to Moses and gang…

Now, we’ve come to appreciate the “strain” between Moses and Aaron and Eldad and Medad we can realize just how potent the giving cure would have to be at overcoming barriers for the sake of creating community united around the common purpose, if indeed, the people of Israel were going to make it together... Giving! Moses might have been tempted but he didn’t shut his brothers down: he gave them space. They were out there, in the camp, among the people offering encouragement and advice that comforted and consoled, that gave direction, that helped heal souls and Moses wasn’t about to deprive anybody of that gift. For the sake of others, Moses and his brothers came to unspoken understanding and, as necessary, mutual aid and respect- tattered familial bonds held in healing tension for the greater good that then could happen….Sometimes at the end of a day of common endeavor, they maybe even liked each other! Family- not perfect: but, it works!

And the Exodus community- those people who were busy complaining because they had, as the Bible puts it, “a craving” for meat- the rabble (the outsiders inciting discontent among God’s people), in the story following where our lay reader finished off this morning, another story tells how God sent quail- so many that here was way too many: and, what happened then was that the rabblers greedily gathered: and, not knowing much about food preservation, hoarded more than they could keep safely… In the end, the spoiled meat they ate poisoned them: and that’s the flip side to today’s message… Greed kills: sharing shares life! That’s the moral of the story and it can serve us well.

As the rabbi said- there isn’t a family that’s perfect yet- but it is possible for every family to remember that sharing shares life! The more we give together, the happier we’ll be!

And, as we all know, there isn’t yet a church that’s perfect either: but, as we struggle and grow and change and adapt along the way, we too, can make it if we remember that sharing shares life. The more we give together, the happier we’ll be!

May we live and love and share and care- at church, at home, at work, at play living always in God’s good way.

Amen

Charlie Love

St. Andrew’s United Church

Bayfield

May 11 2008

Pentecost/Mother’s Day