The Most Amazing Thing

I want to tell you about one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.   When I went off to seminary (priest school) Chrishelle and I had one car. We had had two cars but decided to go with one in an effort to save some money.  About a year into seminary we began to realize that we were going a second car, I was starting an internship and Chrishelle seemed to be working more.. So we began to save a little bit.  Going to seminary is often hard financially -we had left two jobs and moved to an area with much higher  cost of living.   Student loans were discouraged and we had drained most of our savings to make this happen  --we like many other seminarians were scraping by. At one point, we even qualified for WIC. 

So the car hunt was on. At the time Chrishelle was doing some professional organizing with different folks and it just so happened that she had a client who was selling a car.  We had scraped together 4-500 dollars to buy her very used Saturn.   On the day we were supposed buy it Chrishelle went over to the woman’s house. 

When Chrishelle arrived, the woman said she couldn’t sell us the car. She told Chrishelle that she had been trying to sell the car for quite some time, but hadn’t been able to do and now felt like God wanted her to give us the car. Chrishelle said, “you can’t just give us the car—let us at least give you something for it.”  

So they talked and ultimately settled on ten dollars.  As you can imagine we were flabbergasted but also felt very blessed.

Well  later, probably about a year or so that car died and we were back to the one car show—we had spent the money we had saved and were back to square one.  Somehow we got connected with a mechanic in the area who had developed a ministry where he would fix up cars and give them to folks in need -- single mothers  or folks just getting out of prison, or sometimes seminarians.  

This time the car didn’t cost ten dollars—it was actually free.  Again we felt very blessed.   

Well another year or so went by and the car we came to seminary in kicked the bucket.   We limped along with one car—I graduated and we moved—I got a job, but still no car—we still weren’t quite out of the financial black hole-- so we made one car work for a little while—I walked to work and we coordinated schedules if I was going to need the car.

 

This went on until a person we used to go to church with got wind that we needed a second car.  Well this guy was turning 90 and he had promised his son that when he turned 90 he would give up his car.  His birthday present was to give us his car

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 So across three or four years we received a total of 3 cars  and paid just $10. —if I ever question the existence of God or of my call to this ministry--- remind me of this story.  In the generosity of those three people I could not help but feel the hand of God working.

In the lesson from the acts of the Apostles we hear from Luke say that one of the hallmarks of the early church was a radical generosity-Luke writes,  “ All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

We hear this wonderful story about the early church --selling all they had—giving away cars—sharing and making sure that everyone in their community had their needs met.

Now passages like this might begin to make us feel a little bit uncomfortable.

You might read this and say, “we have to do what—sell all our possessions and share them with everybody.”Good luck with that.

Well I have good news to tell you.  Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles--- may have been fibbing a bit about this early Christian community—he might have been painting a picture of what he thought the early church should look like. 

From what I understand there were political thinkers and philosophers at the time who thought that the sharing of possessions was an important attribute for an idyllic community.  Luke may have been borrowing their ideas for the early church.

So this will not be a sermon exhorting you to sell all you have and give to the poor, but it will be a call to radical generosity- we may not be called to give it all away, but we are called to take care of each other, we are called to make sure that our neighbors needs are met,  we are called to contribute to the work of the church-- we are called to radical generosity.   Those themes are certainly part of the bible.

Now when I begin to think about radical generosity—when I begin to think about giving exorbitantly—like giving away a car—there is a part of my brain that begins to say, “what about me? what about Sean? am going to have enough?  If I do that-- what’s left over for me? “

That’s the scarcity brain, that’s the  I won’t have enough brain kicking in.   

Often that’s the real challenge we face with being a generous people.

And I don’t think that God wants us to live that way—worried—circling the wagons grasping on so tightly that our knuckles turn white.  

I believe God invites us to an  abundant life—Jesus says today in the Gospel that he came to bring -abundant life and not just abundant life when our hearts seizes up and stop beating, but abundant life in us right now.    Abundant life isn’t found when we hold onto what we have— but abundant life is found in generosity-giving away our cars, our possessions, giving away ourselves.

Have you ever been really generous and it felt like you received so much more than you gave away.  I think that feeling  is a sliver of the abundant life Christ offers.

Generosity allows us participate in something bigger than our meager little lives , generosity allows us to join God in God’s work—those three people that gave  us cars—they got to join God is God’s works.

A scarcity mindset doesn’t build the kingdom, holding on tightly to our stuff doesn’t build the kingdom generosity does.  

Where might you be called to be generous today, this week?   Because That might just be the place where abundant life is waiting.

AMEN