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11th Sunday after Pentecost

The Good News Written

From the wisdom of Anne Sexton:

“Look to your heart that flutters in and out like a moth. God is not indifferent to your need. You have a thousand prayers but God has one.”

From the wisdom of Eric Butterworth:

“Your personal welfare begins with your consciousness. It is not what happens on Wall Street. It is not the ‘state of the economy.’ It has its inception in the state of your mind. You can be prosperous when business is poor, and you can experience financial difficulties even when business is booming.

Consider if you will, the responsibility you have toward conditions as a whole. For what happens in your mind and is reflected in your affairs will have a definite, even if minuscule, influence upon the nation’s business.”

Luke 12.32-34 (NAB)

³² [Jesus said], “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your [divine Parent’s] good pleasure to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The Good News Proclaimed

Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, August 8, 2010.

In today’s lesson, Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” We say we love something or someone, but love is actually demonstrated by what we do. If we love our friends, of course we want to show them. Hugs are nice, cards or emails on birthdays are nice, a shoulder to cry on in the difficult times is very nice. Love is a verb. If we say “I love you” and never encourage our friends, or comfort them when they are down, or praise them when they succeed…then, what good is our professed love?

A Yiddish proverb says, “Love is a fine thing; but love with noodles is tastier.”

When we love someone, we give! We give a helping hand, a kind word, quality time, even personal resources. To love is to give. Wherever your treasure is… whatever you lovingly give to, THERE is where your heart can be found.

But you know what? Love is a risk, isn’t it? Or so it seems sometimes. What if we love, and we aren’t loved back?

What if we get in so deep there’s no getting out? Don’t we want an exit strategy just in case things aren’t easy or fun at some point?

Love feels risky, and costly. To give time, talent, resources, encouragement, hope, goodwill… to give those things over and over and over… what if we run out? What if we just don’t have enough love to give?

But Luke’s Jesus isn’t just reminding us that what we love we will support consistently and enthusiastically… that’s true, of course, but there is more to today’s lesson. Jesus today actually tells us how to deal with the anxieties that keep us from giving ourselves more fully to those people and things we say we love. The treatment he gives is quite simple… not easy, but simple; it is: Don’t be afraid. Have faith in divine goodness. Put that faith to work in your life.

Simple. Three little steps. Not always easy. In fact, I can promise you, it can be very difficult to let go of fear, or to trust that there is good for little ol’ me, and to move from affirming that trust to acting on it and truly depending on it. It’s a process, a lesson that some of us have to learn and re-learn throughout our lives. But the good news is, whether we have to learn it once or 100 times, whether it takes us an hour or a year to learn it each time, we can learn it, we can live it, and if we need to re-learn it we get to re-learn it and it is as rejuvenating and liberating every single time we learn and apply the lesson to our lives. Let’s look at each step of Jesus’ treatment.

1.     Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.”

A Course in Miracles teaches, “the opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”

Isn’t that what the psalmist was saying in the 139^th psalm, “even the darkness will not be dark to you (God); the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

God is light and love and joy, and God is omnipresent, all-encompassing, everywhere fully present… so anything unlike those divine attributes can’t be ultimately real. Fear is the opposite of love, but God is love, and God is omnipresent, and what is omnipresent can’t have an opposite. The writer of 1 John wrote that God is Love (1 John 4.16) and he also said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4.18). What are some of our deepest fears?

The fear of being unworthy…

The fear of being rejected by God…

The fear of being unlovable…

I know, trust me I know, that the old tapes can be reactivated and play in our minds…the old tapes that say, “See, you couldn’t control your drinking, or your eating, or your shopping, or your gambling…that proves you’re no good.”

Or, “See, that fatigue or that depression or that access weight or that insomnia came back… you’re just no good.”

Or, “See, your parents ignored you, or beat you, or said cruel things to you or kicked you out, that proves you’re no good.”

Or, “See, that lover or that friend or that colleague betrayed you, said terrible things about you, how could that happen if you were any good?”

Or, “See, the Church or a political party or your family condemned you… you must be no good.”

But those messages are all lies…and if we ever believed them we may be tempted to believe them again, which is why it is so wonderful to have a progressive, positive, and practical community of seekers and students of truth, who are willing to learn and relearn and share and share some more that God is love, unconditional, all-inclusive love and is as present in your heart and in mine as in anyone’s ever! When we believe the lie, we become afraid, but those fears are the nightmares from which we will awaken if we continue on our spiritual path.

2.     Jesus gives us more reassurance. He says, “Do not be afraid… for it is your divine Parent’s good pleasure to give you the heavenly Realm.”

That’s a different image of God than some of us grew up with. Some of us were given an image of a punishing God, or a judgmental God, or a voyeuristic God just trying to catch us in some unsavory deed that would forever be held against us. Maybe, now and again, those old images of God resurface for us. Some of us grew up believing that God demanded the best of us while assuming the worst about us? How could we trust such a devious deity? What a different notion it is, that God takes pleasure in giving to us…not doling out suffering, but abundantly offering comfort, strength, even joy?!

Rev. Jean DeBarbieris is a Unity minister; wrote an essay about her adopting a baby girl from Russia. The little girl spent her first year or two in an orphanage where she was seldom held. When Rev. DeBarbieris got her, she wanted to do motherly things, of course. She wanted to hold her and rock her to sleep and shower her with love and attention. But her new daughter didn’t trust those gestures…they were just too foreign to her. The best she could do is allow her new mom to extend a finger to her, and she would grab that finger and hold on until she fell asleep. The mother wanted to give so much more than her child could accept.

Isaiah 66.13 tells us, “Like a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” Could it be that our mothering God aches to give us more than we so far have allowed ourselves to receive?

Trust that God is good and wants to share only what is good with you – that’s progressive.

Because you can trust divine goodness, you don’t have to be afraid – that’s positive.

And finally, Jesus wraps up with the practical; telling us how to put all this stuff into practice. He says – Give. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

3.     Why is it important that we give? We are made in God’s image! One of the ways we worship and honor God is to recognize that God is expressing in, through, and as us, and then to act on that discovery. Of course we want to consistently give a percentage of our income to the place that nurtures us spiritually, but we’ll also want to give our time and talent to our church, we’ll want to give quality time to our friends, we’ll want to give words of encouragement to those who are struggling, we’ll want to give our best efforts to our place of employment, our loyalty to those who have been good to us, we’ll want to pay our taxes and tip generously those people who serve us in taxis and restaurants and hair salons. We’ll want to support businesses that support us, and we’ll want to give our votes to candidates who are committed to justice and inclusion for all people…regardless of their sexual orientation, ethnic heritage, or religion. We’ll want to give because as we joyously, generously and consistently give, we are giving body to the presence of God in our world; we are the channels through which God can then give more to more people…what God does for us, God does through us. What we value, what we appreciate, what we treasure…we’ll want to give to, and by such godly giving, we are contributing to the betterment of our world. What we treasure, we’ll support, and what we support is where our hearts really are.

Now, what we’re really talking about is giving love. Love expressed as time, as good deeds, as financial generosity, as good citizenship, as friendship, as loyalty. But the truth remains we can’t give what we don’t have. And so my final word on treasure today is about you…will you be willing to see yourself as a treasure today. That may seem silly or odd or ridiculous, but can you just be willing? Can you say to yourself, “I love you.” Put your hand on your heart right now, and just whisper to yourself, “I love you.” It may take a day, or a month, or a year, or a decade…but when we can look in the mirror and say without shame, “I love you,” we’ll know we have all the love in the world to give, and as we give it, God’s will can finally be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the good news. Amen.

The Good News Affirmed

I am willing to love myself for who I am.

I am willing to accept God’s love in my life.

I am willing to share love with others.

I am loving, lovable, and loved.

And so it is.

The Good News Repeated

“Deep at the centre of my being there is an infinite well of love. I now allow this love to flow to the surface. It fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being, and radiates out from me in all directions and returns to me multiplied. The more love I use and give, the more I have to give. The supply is endless.” Louise Hay

Audio readings and sermon (http://sunshinecathedral.org/sermons/audio/20100808_1.mp3)