“Decorative”

 (Thanks)Giving

“There is a boy here . . .”

(John 6:9a)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Consecration Sunday, November 11, 2007

First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6^th, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653

 

 

In one of my favorite Family Circus cartoons Jeffy comes home from baseball practice, pure Little League from the cap on his head to the bat and glove in his hand.  Offering mom and dad an assessment of the team, he expresses reservations about his coach.  “I don’t know about coach,” he says.  “He hasn’t taught us ANYTHING yet about contract negotiations.” 

 

That’s delightful commentary on what happens when a child’s worldview collides with a grown-up worldview, pointing out a well-lamented problem – that children seem to lose their childhood too early, forced to “grow up” too fast, their outlook on life too soon jaded by experiences of disappointment and disillusionment.  To stay with a sport’s analogy, we’ve all heard of professional sports figures, deeply involved with the business aspects of the game -- agents and negotiations -- craving to return to their original love, for just having fun.   How many college and professional coaches in the midst of an embattled season say to their players when eyes glaze over with dissatisfaction – “We’re the luckiest people in the world to be able to get paid for playing a game!  Let’s just go out there and remember why we got in this game in the first place. Let’s go out and have fun today.”

 

We’ve just finished four weeks of Consecration emphasis.  It’s a very adult thing, is it not.  Our church’s Financial Leadership is involved in the planning and implementation of this annual Stewardship emphasis.  It seems all about budgets and banking and business -- very, very adult. 

 

But let’s not forget the childlike element of wonder and imagination in this. This is who we are as a church, a faith community gathered together because we believe in the unseen (Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things UNSEEN).  In this place we are called and inspired to step out in faith, dreaming and believing, even when the way may seem impossible. 

 

Reading John 6, I wonder if the church is best represented by the adult point of view, or by the boy?  “There is a boy here,” said Andrew to Jesus, who has brought 5 barley loaves and 2 fish.  The text introduces a wrangling between the adult and the child’s viewpoints.  The child’s perception?  “Yep, Jesus, I do have something to offer!  These 5 loaves and 2 fish should do it!”  The adult perception? “Sweet offer, kid!  Thanks anyway, but your small offering won’t feed this crowd.  If you don’t mind, step back and let the adults handle this.”  

 

Guess which solution Jesus preferred?

 

“There is a boy here.”  The disciples would have schooled that child in adult negotiations, but Jesus would have none of it, suggesting that Little Leaguers shouldn’t need to face adult issues like contract negotiations.  I can hear the disciples now, represented by Philip.  “Why, it will take six months wages to feed this crowd, Jesus!  If you’re going to attempt something like this, we need to schedule ahead.  Let’s set a date for next summer, giving us time to make serious preparations.  And kid, you’ll have to grow up if you ever want to be a mature disciple.  The way you feed 5,000 is not with a sack lunch.  You call the Galloping Galilean Gourmet catering service, choose your menu, and then negotiate the price per plate.  Negotiate.  Negotiate.  Negotiate.  That’s the adult way of getting things done.  It’s all business, kid.”

 

The disciples proved good at adult negotiations, arguing about who would sit at Jesus’ right hand when he entered his Kingdom!  That’s when Jesus looked at them in disgust with their adult maneuvering for position and said, “Unless you become as a child, you will not see the kingdom of heaven.”

 

C. S. Lewis was not only a brilliant apologist for the faith, but perhaps is best known for his children’s stories.  Christmas a few years ago brought us a film version of his classic:  Chronicles of Narnia:  Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Lewis spoke of giving himself to a story in delightful self-abandonment, a full and free gift of oneself to a story that produces a state of enchantment.  The danger, he suggested, is that during emerging adolescence we naturally develop a fear of being deceived, of being caught believing what our seemingly more sophisticated friends have ceased to believe. 

 

To be found gullible is one of the great humiliations of new adolescence, having the potential to banish creativity and imagination, to make one so adult that they lose the ability to be childlike.  He writes, “When I was ten, I read fairy stories in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so.  Now that I am fifty, I read them openly.  When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”  

 

Lewis remained childlike, deriving pleasure from stories that give pleasure to children.  He believed, I think correctly, that when we adults become jaded with life’s realities we lose, not only our childlikeness, but also something very near to the core of our humanity, something that uniquely distinguishes us as created in God’s image.

 

My daughter Page forward to me a wonderful message as she approached 30 years old.  “I am officially tendering my resignation as an adult.  I have decided: I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year old again.  I want to go to McDonald’s and think that it’s a four star restaurant.  I want to think M & Ms are better than money because you can eat them.  I want to return to a time when life was simple.  When all . . . you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset.  I want to think the world is fair.  That everyone is honest and good. 

 

I want to believe that anything is possible.  I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again.  I want to live simple again.  I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month that there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones.  I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.

 

So . . . here’s my checkbook and my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements.  I am officially resigning from adulthood.  And if you want to discuss this further, you’ll have to catch me first, ‘cause . . . “Tag!  You’re it!”

 

I want to show you a couple of offering envelopes I took from the collection plate while in Warren.  One of the children our Bible Zone, perhaps 4 or 5 years old, was named Tiffany Kelley.  She was so precious that she became well-known fast.   In Children’s sermons she would sit at my left and tap my arm, saying, “Hey, Church Man.”  It stuck.  Still today I will occasionally get a call from a former church member in Warren who will say when I answer, “Hello Church Man!”  The child started something.  

 

These offering envelopes are decorated.  Tiffany’s Offering Money, she wrote, and decorated by drawing butterflies and flowers and by using smiley face stickers and stars.  Tiffany decorated her giving.  

 

I wonder how we might decorate our giving?   Let’s decorate it with faith.  Let’s decorate it with joy.  Let’s decorate it with a smile.  Let’s decorate it with prayer.  Let’s decorate it with generosity.

 

Let us learn, O God, to give with decoration.

 

 

Sources and notes:

The C. S. Lewis remarks are inspired by “Into the Wonder,” an essay by Alan Jacobs originally printed in Christianity Today, included in The Best American Spiritual Writing 2006, edited by Philip Zaleski, Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 154 – 161.