Lent 4 (B) + Created for good + 3.11.18

(https://pixteller.com/designs/others/
for-we-are-gods-handiwork-created-in-christ-id11733)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Numbers 21:4–9; Ps. 107:1–3, 17–22; Ephesians 2:1–10; John 3:14–21)

Genesis and I recently learned about the surge of homelessness in the 1930s and how high unemployment led to scores of people, both educated and uneducated, roaming the US looking for work who became known as “ho-bos.” At this time there were not even the social safety nets we have today, so homeless individuals were entirely dependent on others’ charity. While some households were friendly, caring for those wanting to do odd jobs as they could, others disdained or feared them. So they developed a secret code. A plus sign on a door meant it was a place where they could get a good meal. A hashtag warned that a security guard or policeman paid to fend off homeless people lived at a house. And a vertical line with a snake-like squiggle across it meant a place where an injured individual could get some aid.

So it was in preparing for this sermon that I got to share with Genesis where the staff with a serpent as a sign of medical or other assistance came from in today’s scripture from Numbers. I read aloud about how God asked Moses to lift up a serpent on a staff in the desert and here, people who were destined to die- I mean, they were in a desert, with a poisonous snake bite after all- were saved. Miraculously healed. It must have felt like no less of a miracle for the homeless individual who stumbled upon that sign, having been attacked by an unfriendly individual or a run in with the hazards of train travel, and who got healed rather than rejected and left to suffer.

I like to think that our church has invisible signs on it, too. Signs that say that we provide a good meal, at least on Sunday nights, and via our food pantry when it hopefully gets going again on a few days a week. A place for healing, at least of the spiritual kind, even if an individual is better off going to the hospital for actual medical care. A refuge.

Tonight, we serve the Bread of Life dinner and again we reinforce that message. It also means that, as best we can, we welcome when folks wander in seeking a meal at other times, even as we respect those who serve us meals after the service. It was one of my most moving moments to see this church welcome a woman fleeing domestic violence some months back, who ran in barefoot into our coffee hour fellowship. She knew.

But this is not to say that we lift up the staff or reinforce that “Plus” sign – perhaps a cross? Just because we are such. Good. People? Indeed not.

We were, as Lady Gaga likes to say, “Born This Way.” Of course we may or may not have been literally born this way, with the giving preclusion. This is exactly why, before this passage in John, Jesus is having a nice talk with Nicodemus. And Nicodemus doesn’t understand how we can be born again. Well, we are, in baptism. In baptism we are both renewed in the very essence of ourselves and to that same essential nature is added something of the divine. God invites us in.
God, as Paul says, created us for good works.
So, when we serve, we do so as a natural extension of our being as Christians. This is why every young woman in preparation for her Quinceañera must complete some hours of community service. We even sometimes have other churches’ confirmands coming to our Bread of Life program in order to get some community service experience.

Yet, which of us has felt the twinge of not wanting to help?
I recently read Jojo Moyes’ book, Still Me, and in it she describes how the protagonist, recently inflamed with passion to prevent the shutdown of a local library that serves an underserved population in the New York City area, and what happens when she presents her very wealthy employer with the proposal for assistance. She suggests that he and his wife, Agnes, who is feeling isolated, can help the community by assisting to save a library in Washington Heights. He responds this way:

He tapped his fingers on his desk. “Have you spoken to Agnes about this?”

“I thought I should probably mention it to you first.”
He pulled the file towards him and flipped it over. He frowned at the first sheet, a newspaper cutting of one of the early protests. The second was a budget statement I had pulled from the city’s council website, showing its latest financial year. “Mr. Gopnik, I really think you could make a difference. Not just to Agnes, but to a whole community.”

It was at this point that I realized he appeared unmoved, dismissive. It wasn’t a sea change in his expression, but a faint hardening, a lowering of his gaze. And it occurred to me that to be as wealthy as he was, was probably to receive a hundred such requests for money each day, or suggestions as to what he should do with it. And that perhaps, by being part of that, I had stepped over some invisible employee-employer line.
“Anyway, it was just an idea. Possibly not a great one. I’m sorry if I’ve said too much. I’ll get back to work.”[1]

Was this what Jesus was talking about when he said it is so hard for the wealthy person to enter the kingdom of heaven? In this example, a person of untold wealth, who could do so many good works, holds off on helping others, even in a way that might seem like pocket change to him, because he is jaded by the world. Just tired by too many suggestions as to how to spend his money.

But this isn’t just true of the super-rich. Haven’t I felt this, even in my own heart? A slight sinking feeling when I am sitting happily in the office and someone comes in and I know, by their eyes and the anxious look they give me that they’ve come to ask for help? Then it switches, and I ask how I can help and I invariably feel very happy when I can help, however I can, whether it is with money or connections to resources. But often, if I am honest, my very first response is of fear for what that person may expect of me.

But herein lies the LIE. Whatever I have to give doesn’t come from me. It comes from the church, and more than that, it comes from God. That person may expect whatever thing or action from me. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what God has empowered me to do in that situation. I can neither withhold the gift I have been given to share, whatever it is, nor can I fear if I am not able or called to give in exactly the way I am being asked to, as long as I serve as well and as faithfully as I can. As long as I truly see the child of God who is in front of me. And hear them. And listen to God’s guidance. And all those are the hard part!
We are made for good works. But that does not mean we should be anxious about how and why and when we give, and here I preach to myself the most, but instead we are invited into something new. A totally new approach of being in flow with the Spirit’s generosity. Giving freely of what we have been given, no more and no less. And then accepting and giving thanks for what is. Accepting our natural limits and also the freedom and true wealth we have in Jesus.

The band Cloud Cult has a song, “You Were Born.” It ends like this:
“Oh my precious, oh my love
When they come to take me
I will hold you from above
I don't know why we're here
And I don't know how
But I'm here with you now, I am here with you now
Cuz you were born
To change this life...
Cuz you were born
To make this right...
Cuz you were born
To chase the light.”[2]

We were born to raise the pole with the serpent for healing. We were born to cook and serve a good meal. We were born to chase the light. And to change this life.  We were born to make this right. In our own small way, as we were created by God to do, every day. Amen.

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[1] Jojo Moyes, Still Me (Penguin Audiobook, 2018), Chapter 16.

[2] Cloud Cult, “You Were Born,” https://genius.com/Cloud-cult-you-were-born-lyrics.