Surrender All Preached on September 22nd 2019 At Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Luke 16:1-13 In Step 3 we make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God … in other words we surrender. This week we read from the next chapter in the gospel of Luke. In today’s passage we heard Jesus tell the story of a shrewd manager. The manager is in trouble with his boss. An employee like the manager in First Century Palestine is more of a servant or a slave. His boss is known as his “master.” When the boss hears that the employee is mismanaging his property, the manager has no recourse. We don’t know whether he is guilty of squandering his boss’s wealth. We do know he is scared. He has no other way of making a livelihood. If he is fired he will probably have to beg for his living. There is no way another property owner will take him on. The manager comes up with a scheme. He goes to his boss’s debtors and offers them a deal. If they owe 100, lets make it 80 or even 50. He’s buying some currency with these people. Writer Diana Butler Bass describes this system of gifting and gratitude, called quid pro quo. This literally means “something for something.” She says … “[it] was … used as a means of patronage, power, and control: ‘I do something for you, so that you must do something for me.’ A gift incurred a debt, and the recipient owed a response—an act of gratitude—in return.” [1] This works for the manager, in that it will give him an entrance into the homes of the clients. It is his insurance policy if he is thrown out by his boss. Surprisingly, the boss is pleased with the scheme. He is proud of his shrewd manager. Perhaps this scheme brings in owed wealth more quickly than before. Or perhaps the boss now feels he can call in favors from his clients. Don’t you think this is a strange story for Jesus to tell? There is not much that is good or faithful in it. The manager and boss act entirely in character and in the culture of the time. Things get even stranger as Jesus appears to recommend the behavior of the manager too. He says to the disciples “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” However, there is one subtlety in this statement that we would miss in many of the English translations of this gospel. In the telling of this story, Jesus says the manager acts so that people will welcome him into their homes (or houses). But when Jesus comments on the story, advising the disciples, he says that when the wealth is gone they may be welcomed into the eternal … tents. The eternal tent or tabernacle is understood to be the dwelling place of God. And we are reminded that God is not to be found in earthly wealth, or houses built by human hands. God is not so limited, or so settled. God’s realm is other than this. And so, Jesus seems to be saying: this may be a shrewd manager. He has saved his skin and established good will with the clients. But what has he done to gain entrance into the eternal tents of God? This remains to be seen. Who does he truly serve? And so Jesus goes on to conclude that we cannot serve both God and material wealth. Sometimes we get confused. All things come from God: the environment, the food we eat, the homes we live in, the money we make. Alcohol comes from grape and grain, opiates from poppies, even opioids that are synthesized in the lab come from the created universe. There is nothing in our world that has not come from God’s creation. If God is God, all else is created. And the created world is a gift. There is no real separation between God and what Jesus calls Mammon. The problem arises when we begin to worship what is created, instead of who is creating it. The problem arises when we seek security in the temporary homes of those who owe us favors. And this brings us to our addictions and the addictive behaviors we all own. Richard Rohr writes: “Material satisfactions, while surely not bad, have a tendency to become addictive … instead of making you whole, they repeatedly remind you of how incomplete, needy, and empty you are. As alcoholics often say, your ‘addiction makes you need more and more of what is not working.’” [2] We have begun working through the 12 step program of spirituality in Richard Rohr’s book “Breathing Under Water.” Today we are on step 3 and, as I said, today’s step is about surrender. Rohr says that surrender is not “giving up” but “giving to.” It is reminding ourselves who is God. Not the gift but the giver. Surrender to God … may sound scary, yet it leads to joy. It leads to a full appreciation of God’s mercy and grace. It leads to dwelling in the eternal tents of God. Rohr quotes St Francis, who said “When the heart is pure, ‘Love responds to Love alone’ and has little to do with duty, obligation, requirement …” God’s love and mercy has nothing to do with quid pro quo … Rohr says “it is easy to surrender when you know that nothing but Love and Mercy is on the other side.” [3] But still we resist, whether we have a chemical addiction or another addictive behavior. We hold onto the illusion of being in control. And I wonder why. Some people I meet tell me that they practice spirituality, but struggle with belief. I meet them here in church and many of the places I go in the community. Most recently one young man told me that this was his struggle. Really, I think these are the people who are most likely on a true spiritual path toward surrender. The obstacle is simple and they have recognized it. It is a matter of their head and their reason getting in the way. A voice tells them that “this is too good to be true. There is no God of love and mercy.” I usually say “don’t worry about it” God doesn’t need your belief. Keep doing what works, eventually the need for belief will melt away. You will surrender. These are the easy ones. Other people I meet have a much more difficult obstacle. They are also both inside the church and outside. They are sure they know who God is … and they want no part of surrendering. They are locked in a battle of wills. They may think that God wants them to attend church … but they stay away until guilt gets the better of them. Or they think that God is after all their money and they don’t want to give. Or they think that God wants to get inside their heads, and they want to keep God out. The parables and teachings of Jesus offend them. They do not want to relinquish control over their lives. And, isn’t it true, that we here today are all a little bit like this? We conjure images of a demanding, control freak God. In the distant memories of childhood, I swing my legs from the pew in my small village Methodist chapel of 1960’s England. The message from the great high pulpit resounds: “God wants YOU! … And God wants your all.” At that time, my understanding of giving one’s all to God meant becoming a missionary. And my understanding of mission was an expedition to preach the gospel to the far away so-called “heathen nations.” I heard about these places in the old hymns we sang. The implication was that God would call me to give up on all my attachments, hopes and dreams and to substitute an alien and disturbing future. No wonder I resisted. And over the years, I have often thought of surrender as meaning that God will drag me kicking and screaming into submission, like a 2 year old in a tantrum. Life experiences, mentors and further study of the scriptures as well as books like “Breathing Under Water”, have changed my understanding. Yes, God sometimes calls us out of our comfort to metaphorical “distant lands.” God does want our all, our whole lives. And yet, to surrender to God looks more like giving ourselves over to a winsome beloved than a control freak. Resistance comes from fears we have accumulated over the course of our lives. We learn to fear when we are let down or hurt by those we have loved before. When the winsome beloved comes along, we convince ourselves that we don’t deserve them and they will find out soon enough. We ask how will we survive when that person leaves or abandons us? Self-loathing kicks in. It is our protective mechanism and we’d rather use it than believe ourselves to be loved without condition. The good news is that if we surrender to the winsome lover that is God, we will become equipped to face the truth without fear or denial. In our lives this might mean seeking help for something that is causing our health to suffer … a chemical addiction, a destructive relationship, or past trauma that we cannot get beyond. In our culture, this might mean listening to the young people who are crying out for the generation in power to take climate change seriously. In our church, this might mean questioning our thinking of how we are church and the way we sometimes channel our energies and resources into a temporary house rather than the eternal tabernacle. No, God’s gifts are not given “quid pro quo.” We do not owe God. We simply deny ourselves God’s overwhelming grace, when we act as though we do. And so may we surrender all and let God be God, because we are not. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Bass, Diana Butler. Grateful (p. 10). HarperOne. Kindle Edition. [2] Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ (p. 87). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [3] Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 28). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.
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