Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

An elderly man bought a lottery ticket and gave it to his wife for safe-keeping. When the winning numbers were announced, she was the first to know that he had won two million dollars. But she decided not to tell him immediately since he had a bad heart and she feared he might drop dead from the shock. Consequently, she asked their pastor to break the news to him, gently. When the pastor met with the big winner, he engaged him in small talk for a while. Finally, as casually as possible, he asked, "What would you do if you were ever to win a couple of million dollars?" Without hesitation the man replied, "I'd give half to the Church!" Whereupon, the pastor dropped dead.

"If I Were A Rich Man," from the hit musical "Fiddler On The Roof," is a song many of us -- perhaps most of us -- can identify with easily. On the original cast album, Tevye, the leading character, sings it with enormous gusto ...

"If I were a rich man ... I wouldn't have to work hard ... all day long ... all day long I'd just 'deedle deedle dum, bidi bidi bum," he intones.

I don’t want you to raise your hands this morning but I wonder how many of us have NEVER suffered one moment of anxiety over money? I would venture to say that the results would prove that every one of us at some point has had to rob Peter to pay Paul. I mean did you listen to the presidential candidates prior to the election? My biggest concern and question to each candidate was “Are you going to do something to help with the cost of medications for Senior Citizens? And if you are what does your plan look like?” Who here hasn’t paid an outrageous price for medicine? There was a period of time in my life where I was facing the horror of having NO medical insurance. Don’t you know I had some degree of concern about how I was going to pay hospital costs and for meds if a catastrophic illness had occurred? Sure I did! I probably worried more about that than any other thing and I dare say it caused me some anxiety.

Worry over money is an awful and powerful thing. It can cause families to break apart, marriages to disintegrate; it can even push people to contemplate suicide and murder. It can also cause us physical problems. When I was diagnosed with cancer I asked the doctor what I had done to cause that nasty disease to come into my body. His reply? “Ray you have done nothing to cause this.” I disagree. I know I’m not a doctor but I do know my own body fairly well. I am convinced without a shadow of a doubt that I developed cancer as a direct result of stress in my life. If you were to look at a stress factor guide which is an instrument that gives numerical values to different situations we face in life, I guarantee you that the summation of all the stressful factors in my life were completely off the scale. People hear me, when we allow our lives to become so stressed out over money or the love thereof, we are headed for nothing less than an emotional crisis in our lives.

As the man said to his psychiatrist: "By the time I found out that money doesn't buy happiness, I already had five million dollars. What do I do now? Where do I go from here?"

I wonder how many of us have ever received one of these Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes mailings? No I take that back. Let me re-word that. EVERY one of us here have at one time or another received a mailing from Publishers Clearing House declaring us to be among an elite list of finalists for the grand prize of 10 MILLION DOLLARS! And probably everyone of us have anxiously filled out all the appropriate information including our order for a new magazine, because we all know if you don’t order a magazine your entry goes into the trash, but we fill that out and order that magazine hoping that OUR name will appear on that huge 10 million dollar check!

We all have said, “If only I could win the jackpot. If only I could hold the winning lottery ticket! If only I could become rich, Rich, RICH!!” Kind of like the character in Fiddler on the Roof, "If I were a rich man ... I wouldn't have to work hard ... all day long ... all day long I'd just 'deedle deedle dum, bidi bidi bum,"

But whoa! Wait a minute. Jesus comes into our lives and tells us that this could easily turn into the very worst thing that could happen to us. Not just once, but over-and-over again in the Gospels, He tells us that preoccupation with money can destroy our ability to enter and rejoice in the New Life He is offering us.

You are going to get sick of this phrase: “Jesus is calling you and I to live like 1st century disciples in the midst of a 21st century world.” I’m telling you that this is the most important element in our lives. It is not who we are going to marry, or where we are going to live, or what we are going to be when we grow up; the single most important thing in life is our relationship with our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

The story is told of a hen and a pig who were walking down the road. They see a sign on a café that says, “Ham and Eggs Special.” The pig asks the hen, “What do you think about that?” The hen answers the pig, “It doesn’t bother me at all.” “Of course not,” the pig answers. “For you, it’s just an offering, for me, it’s sacrificial giving!”

Jesus is calling us into the kind of relationship with Him that enables us to grow into the complete, whole, fulfilled human persons He made us to be.

A little Church was having a homecoming service to which ex-members who had moved away were invited. One former member who attended was a man who had become a multi-millionaire. He, along with others, were giving a little testimony on their Faith experience. The rich man spoke of when, as a little boy in that Church, he had earned his first dollar -- a silver dollar. "I had decided," he said, "to keep it forever. But a visiting missionary came to the Church and preached about the urgent need for funds in his mission work. Consequently, when the offering basket was passed, a great struggle took place within me. As a result, I put my treasured silver dollar in the basket. And I am convinced that the reason God has blessed me richly is that when I was a boy I gave God everything I possessed."

The congregation was spellbound by the multi-millionaire's tremendous testimony until an elderly lady in the front pew rose and said, "Brother, I dare you to do it again!"

In today’s Gospel lesson we find the all-familiar story of “The Widow’s Mite.” Jesus was sitting near the Temple Treasury and was in a position to see what people were putting in the offering plate. Most of the people came along and put in their usual amount. Then came the widow who placed into the collection only two mites yet Jesus says, ”Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have given out of their substance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

On the surface, if we are not careful in our exegetical handling of the Scripture we might be led to believe that this text, and perhaps you have been thinking this sermon is about money. I will admit that when I sat down to write this sermon I intentionally allowed the message to flow the way the text tries to lead us. Well let me tell you that while I believe tithing to be a biblical concept, and while I believe that if we aren’t giving God His due that we aren’t living within biblical boundaries, this sermon is more about our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ than anything else. See, I’m of the opinion that when our relationship with Jesus is what it ought to be, then everything else fall into the right place in our lives, including giving God an honest tithe.

Like with much Scripture we must go beneath the surface to find the true implications for our lives today. Now the emphasis here isn’t on the amount she gives, but rather on the spirit in which she gives. She gave everything she had.

Beloved hear me when I say, Jesus wants us, you and I, to give Him everything we have. If we are going to live like 1st century disciples in a 21st century world we MUST give 100% of who we are and all we have to Jesus. This is where the true blessing begins. Some of you may be familiar with the word “Co-Dependent.” For those of you who aren’t let me try and explain it quickly. Co-dependency can be described as a dysfunctional pattern of living in which one overreacts to things going on outside of oneself and under reacts to what is going on inside. It involves compulsive behaviors and dependence upon approval from others in order to achieve a sense of safety, identity and self-esteem. Co-dependents put all their efforts into those around them, neglecting to fully take care of themselves, especially emotionally.

When I say we are to live like 1st century disciples living in the midst of a 21st century world, I am in no way talking about becoming co-dependents. I DO however believe that our relationship with Jesus ought to be one in which we are in tune with what’s going on outside of ourselves and what’s going on inside of us and respond to those circumstances appropriately in light of our relationship with Jesus Christ. We should be 100% sold out to Jesus! So sold out that we have placed everything we have and all that we are into His trust. And if causes us to give sacrificially from time to time, if it causes us to live on the edge of life for a while, rather than becoming so stressed out that casualties occur, be it marriages, family, or physical health, our confidence lies in the fact that we have placed everything in the nail-scarred hands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Completely trusting in Him to deliver us according to His time frame from whatever it is that we perceive as a danger in our lives.

There is a wonderful thing that happens to us when our lives are totally sold out to Jesus, we rest within the realm of calm assurance and peace of mind. As your pastor, I pray for you each and every day. My prayer for you this day is that every one of you might know the assurance and peace that I am speaking of today.

Amen.

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