Gracious Living

I read those verses from Joel and thought to myself, “Read them. Step back from the pulpit. Give the folks about ten minutes to drink the truth in. Say, ‘Amen’ and then sit down.” Beloved, there is the essence of our Judeo-Christian faith, the theme that echoes through the entire Bible, God’s abundance and generosity. The Hebrews have a word for it, and a song they sing about it at Passover, ‘dayenu.’ It simply means that there is enough in God’s goodness. The theology of ‘dayenu’ is thus based on God’s all sufficient goodness and founded on God’s promise, “I will be with you always.”

From Genesis onward, as Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann points out, we see Israel singing the “lyrics of abundance.” The Psalm we read this morning, Psalm 65, certainly is a lyrical thanksgiving for God’s gifts of nature and all that is good. For it is with God, as the Psalmist says, that “we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house.” The language of the Psalm is the language of abundance, with water and harvest and sunshine “overflowing.” The Lord even “crowns the year with beauty” and even the wagon tracks overflow with riches. What we hear there is the Bible’s recurring theme of generosity and abundance. God is the source of both and we are the recipients.

Joel’s prophecy is a reminder to the people that God’s abundance, the enough and more than enough, is greater than our scarcity. Brueggemann talks about the “myth of scarcity” that has been with us from the famine in Egypt, if not before. As he says, it drives the economy, but it also can – and does – drive us to being concerned only for ourselves and our own, rather than thinking in broader, more inclusive terms of the created world. If we are people of ‘dayenu’ then there is always enough to share and scarcity is overcome when we give of ourselves.

When we live with the “myth of scarcity” there is never ‘dayenu,’ there is never enough. We always have to look for more and we can’t depend on anyone else. We’ve got to do it for ourselves. So the “myth of scarcity” is self-fulfilling. Anyone who has lived through a period of straightened resources, like the Great Depression or even the gas rationing during the first “Arab Oil Crisis,” knows that. Now we’re seeing it again with flu vaccine.

‘Dayenu,’ enough, is what Joel is telling the people, calling them back to their heritage and their foundations. God is with them, they will have all that they need, and more than they need. The “Day of the Lord,” and any time God breaks into our consciousness is that day, brings transformation. The “myth of scarcity” is overcome. ‘Dayenu’! It is enough!

The Pharisee needed to remember Joel’s prophecy. He was not living the theology of ‘dayenu.’ Oh, he probably led the singing of the song at the Passover Seder, but it hadn’t made its way from his head to his heart – and then that crucial journey from heart to hands. He knew it, but he didn’t live it. How can we tell? Well, the parable says it all.

The contemporary New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson explains the parable this way: “The love of God can so easily turn into an idolatrous self-love; the gift can so quickly be seized as a possession; what comes from another can so blithely be turned into self-accomplishment. Prayer can be transformed into boasting. “ [Sacra Pagina ‘Luke,’ p.274] The Pharisee in the parable was so busy counting up what he had, laying out his possessions to God, that he had no room or time to receive God’s gift. He had to keep track and so there couldn’t be ‘dayenu.’

So what happened? He ends up letting his prayer be turned into what Johnson calls, “peripheral vision,” as he looks out of the corner of his eye at someone he counts as less than himself. Even more, his lack of enough, leads him to take God’s place as judge. He not only lays out his own claim to righteousness, but sets out the short-comings of the tax-collector, just so God won’t miss them or miss the Pharisee’s wondrous righteousness.

God’s abundance, God’s enough, is mitigated by the attitude of the Pharisee. The great southern preacher Fred Craddock has pointed out that perhaps the utmost danger for church people is that we will too easily identify with the repentant tax collector and then leave the meeting house thinking, “Thank God I am not a Pharisee.” To tell the truth, dear ones, all of us – and I put myself first – all of us can be and are Pharisees more often that we want to even think about. Why? Because we too easily forget ‘dayenu’ and buy into the “myth of scarcity” thinking that there isn’t enough of anything – including God’s love and righteousness – to go around.

I’m supposed to be talking about stewardship and, believe it or not, I am. Stewardship, at least as I read the Scripture, begins with understanding God’s abundance, God’s ‘dayenu,’ and then responding to it. I remember meeting someone when I was here as the teaching minister who taught me about ‘dayenu,’ though he had probably never even heard the word. I used to take communion to Clarence Schmelzer. Clarence lived in Butler, but the first time I met him I knew he was from Southwestern Pennsylvania. Long story short, Clarence and I hailed from the same neck of the woods, and he was from Crabtree, Pennsylvania, a town where I had ministered. Needless to say, we bonded. But what sets Clarence apart for me, and holds him in my memory, is something he said to me about stewardship. “Dr. Peay,” he said, “I give ten per cent of my income to charity off the top. Those checks are the first that I write and the church’s is first among them. God gets first crack, because I know God has a bigger shovel than I do.” Clarence told me he had done that from the day he got his first paycheck and he said he and his wife always had more than enough. ‘Dayenu’ – Clarence Schmelzer, God rest him!, lived it! He touched my heart and Julie and I try to do the same thing. Know what? ‘Dayenu,’ there is always enough and more than enough.

I read something from Julian of Norwich this morning that struck me and explained the ‘why’ of ‘dayenu.’ She writes:

Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, in chapter twelve, Jesus talks about stewards. Stewards were officials who were placed in charge of someone else’s possessions. In that chapter Jesus is telling us that we are stewards of God’s creation – everything that we have and are is a gift from God. As one prayer says, “even our desire to thank you is itself your gift.” So we are stewards, Saint Paul goes so far as to say in Ephesians that we are stewards even of “the mysteries of God.” God shares, entrusts abundance to us and we are to do something wondrous and productive with it.

I challenge us to examine our stewardship. We know that our faith relationship is the core of our life – or at least, should be – and the core of our life together. Are we cherishing the gift God has placed into our hands? Hearts to God implies that our faith will bear fruit in what we do and what we say. Luke’s Gospel stresses that prayer is faith in action – if our hearts are raised to God it will show. I want us to understand something clearly – stewardship is not just about money and budgets. Stewardship is about life. It is how we live and move and have our being in the presence of God’s abundance. That said, we do have bills to pay and that’s life, too. Yet, I want us to get away from the “myth of scarcity” that pops up every year when it comes time to pledge. It is strange to me that a people of abundance get so anxious, I could use the Biblical term for that kind of anxiety “hard hearted,” when it comes time to give some of the abundance we have back to God. God’s abundance breaks through our anxiety and gives us new hearts, hearts ready to share and to love. Where is the abundance in your life, the ‘dayenu’ God gives? If you have it, then it is to be shared. It’s that simple. Look at your shovel and then at God’s. Who has the bigger one? If God gives so generously how can we not?

For far too many years here at First Church we’ve lived with a strange twist on the “myth of scarcity.” We’ve lived with the myth of the “wealthy church.” Well, we’re not. There may have been a time when we could have turned to a core group of wealthy industrialists and asked for help and filled the deficit, but those days are passed. And, quite frankly, if we had to turn to our endowment to run this place, we could do so for one year and that would be the end of it. We’re rich in many ways, but we’ve got to understand that just because we’re the “tall steeple church” in Wauwatosa we’re not rolling in money. All of us need to give of our selves if the work here is to continue and to grow. If nothing else, taking a hard look at ourselves reminds us that our true wealth is in our life together, in the rich heritage of faith that draws us, and in the good we do for our community.

God’s love, God’s presence, God’s goodness abounds. In that goodness there is ‘dayenu,’ there is enough for us and more than enough for us to share. To have hearts to God is to live as good stewards of this abundance. As Christians we understand this and we sing hymns about it. I came across a hymn by Fred Koan that sums it up wonderfully:

Jesus calls us in, sends us out
Bearing fruit in a world of doubt,
Gives us love to tell, bread to share:
God (Immanuel) everywhere!
Jesus lives again,
Earth can breathe again,
Pass the Word around:
Loaves abound! [“Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ”]

Loaves do abound, God’s generosity, God’s abundance is all around us. Rarely do I use this word, but I will use it again this morning, I challenge us all to live as stewards of abundance. God is enough for us. Hearts to God. ‘Dayenu’! And all the people said, ‘Dayenu!’ And all the people said….’Dayenu!’ Amen.