Sermon - 2014-01-26

Today, I would like us to draw our attention to the First Corinthian reading.  Paul is writing this letter to the church in Corinth.  The people are gathering there and arguing about why they are gathering together in the first place.  Some are saying that they are gathering together in the name of Paul, or other teachers whom they have heard from and liked what they heard.  Along with that, the people are confusing the aspects of this earthly world with the aspects that God created and would like to happen here in this world.  

Paul writes the letter in hopes to get the people to stop arguing amongst themselves, but instead realize why they are gathered together in the first place.  Paul is having them get back to the basics and real purpose of the church. He is having them go back to the very beginning, to their Baptism.  He calls them to know and understand that teachers come and go, but what truly matters and what our focus should be upon is that of Jesus Christ.  As the people in Corinth argue about who they are following and why they gather, they also seem to be struggling also with the life that God is calling them to live out.  

The people in Corinth are living their lives according to the standards of this world and not the standards that God has for all people.  For the church in Corinth is comprised of people who have great wealth, but also the very poor.  There are men and women, young and old, merchants and slaves.  However, the rich and the people who have great influence within society are making all the decisions for the whole people.  They are not thinking or even considering the great gift that the poor truly offer within this congregation.  And what is truly sad is that the poor are willing to let the rich make all the decisions because they think that by association, they will benefit also.  

Yet this line of thinking is terrible. For it is the way the world looks at things.  It places people on a scale to understand their value.  That someone has a set of gifts and talents that are far more valued than others within the community.  That one person should be lifted up because of their success within the world.  An understanding that because a person is wealthy, that it is a sign that God has blessed them.  When a person is poor, it is because God is against them. That they have done something wrong and they are being punished.  This is the way in which society and the world encourages us to work better and to pull ourselves up by our own boot straps.  This is seen within many of our shows, such as MTV Cribs.  The shows report to us on what Hollywood Celebrities are doing within their life, and how even you could achieve or work towards this.  

And yet, God does not call us to do that at all.  For each person who is created is created with gifts, talents and abilities that will shape and form the whole community the way in which all are benefiting.  Within the letter of 1 Corinthians, Paul is calling them back to God’s understanding of the world.  By bringing the people back to the place in which God humbled himself in God’s own humanity and the place in which we are all made equal in the eyes of God, at the cross.  Yes, at the cross, we are all brought equal and fully realize that we need God within our lives.  For it is here at the cross that we come on our knees with humility to ask God for our own forgiveness.  Here at the cross, we are all God’s redeemed so the status of this world truly does not matter.  What matters is your status in Christ.  

For the rich do have something to bring to the table.  They can bring their knowledge of how they succeed and share that wealth with everyone.  However, with great wealth, many lose their faith and trust in God being a part of their life.  They focus on money and their own hard work that has given them.  When we gather with all of God’s People, we help one another be reminded of the returning to the cross and having all who we are is found within Jesus Christ.  

So what does this look like within our life? This is a story called:

The Rich Family In Church

By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed—I didn't even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

It is one of those lessons that we teach our children, but then when we become adults, we often forget. We do not remember, why it is important.  Here Paul is reminding us that it is at the very foundation of the cross, the purpose of why Christ came, to live and dwell among us.  To make us all equal in the eyes of God so we are no longer separated from God, but we gather in the presence of God because of the work of Christ on the cross.  

As we go through our days, we should not be focused upon how rich we are.  We cannot focus on our status within the community, but rather we should be caring about those who are around us.  Caring for them with the resources, gifts and love that God has given to us.  

I pray that we do this today and every day within our lives, for this is living out the cross and living out our Baptism.  To God be the glory of all our works. Amen.