Givers or Takers?

But imagine that you changed the question.

The question no longer is what do I need?

The question is: What could I give to myself?

How could I give to myself?

739 Givers or Takers

Luke 3: 7-18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” ¹⁰And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” ¹¹In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” ¹²Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” ¹³He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” ¹⁴Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

¹⁵As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, ¹⁶John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” ¹⁸So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

Matthew 22:1-14

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ ⁵ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶ while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹ Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, ¹² and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Three or four of years ago there was a movie, a Romantic Comedy that went by the name of “Wedding Crashers.” In it a couple of men played by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson spend their weekends in the spring summers and fall crashing weddings.

Basically it’s a good gig. They show up at weddings without invitations and pretend that they are invited. They get a free meal, they get lots of booze, they have fun, there’s lots of dancing…

And they get lots of women.

This is their way of picking up women for one night stands.

And you know, it was a fairly popular movie, did well in the box office. Relatively funny.

I think, at least for guys, that a lot of men who would see that movie would be somewhat envious of the wedding crashers.

The way the movie portrayed it, they were having fun, they were getting drunk, they were getting lots of good food, they were the life of party. They were attractive and they were getting lots of women.

And it was all free…

Hey, by our society’s standards it doesn’t get any better than this. Wine women and song. All for free….

And the two wedding crashers had all the psychology down in order to pick up the women.

They would put something irritating in their eyes so they would cry during the wedding so the girls would think they have hearts.

One line that one of the guys would say: You know how they say that we only use 10 percent of our brains. It think we only use ten percent of our hearts.

And of course it all works. It’s a movie after all, and they get all the girls.

But what the two protagonists Jeremy and John really are: they are takers…

They are popular because they are typical Western archetypes of what Western society is all about.

Consuming.

They are people who consume and take and give nothing.

They get free food, free booze, free parties, free women….

And they don’t give.

And so what, if it’s unethical, or immoral or rude.

In fact when you watch the movie, and it is not a family movie…

But if you watch the movie, our sensibilities are not overly offended. It looks like a couple of guys just having a kind of harmless bit of fun.

They are not kidnapping women or raping women, the woman are freely giving themselves to the men.

And yet when you stop and think about it.

How often does this get played out in our world.

Takers and not Givers

First World Nations taking advantage of poorer nations.

Rich people taking advantage of poorer people.

Big Corporations taking advantage of whoever they can…

We can see that the Wedding Crashers are just a microcosm of what happens when so many people think that they are entitled.

They are entitled to money, to power, to women, to jobs, to whatever…

They deserve it.

And they take and they take and they take.

We live in an all-you-can eat society….

We live in a supersize society…

Let’s take out meal and supersize it.

More than what we need.

Take and take.

Consume and consume.

John the Baptist  recognized this. He spoke out against the domination powers of his day.

He told the people that they had a choice.

They could easily collude with the dominant system of exploitation that John names in the first two verses of chapter 3.

CeasarTiberius, Procurator Pilate, King Herod, King Philip, Tetrarch Lysanius, High Priests Annas, and Caiaphus

John names the entire power structure of the military-industrial-financial-ecclesial system of exploitation that was impressive and all-powerful.

The news from John, then, (and I suppose now), is that we do not need to collude, need not count on pedigree or entitlements.

You don’t have to be a taker.

What counts is deliberate, concrete, countercultural action.

Give and don’t take.

John offers three examples of such actions that are against collusion and taking.

The first is that people instead of taking should give. If you have two coats give one away to someone who doesn’t have a coat.

If you have food share it.

The second is for tax collectors. Now tax collectors collected for the Roman Empire and didn’t get paid by the roman Empire, that added what we might euphemistically call, a small service fee.

I practice, however, the small service fee, ended up to be a pretty heft service fee. Tax collectors were pretty darn wealthy fleecing their own people.

And John tells them.

Don’t fleece the people. Don’t take from the people. Collect no more than what is prescribed.

And the when the soldiers come to John. These soldiers are Roman soldiers although not necessarily Romans, because Rome employed lots of soldiers from all over the world.

But, if you were not a Roman, you were paid less as a soldier, as so the practice as a soldier was to enhance one’s meagre income, by threatening business people with the proverbial cement shoes if they didn’t pay a little insurance money to the soldiers for protection.

John encourages people to not be takers, but givers.

…to refuse the world of violent greed.

And I say violent deliberately.

Because in that day when one extorted and took money from the poor, the poor could literally starve…

And is it any different today, when poorer countries have to pay crippling interest rates and frequently their governments are corrupt and often other countries and corporations take advantage of the poor.

Millions of people in this world starve.

Just take one example. Cocoa farmers.

If Nestle’s and Cadbury and Hershey put the price up one penny on a chocolate bar and gave it to cocoa farmers, then the cocoa farmers could make a decent living.

But these big corporations have maintained that they cannot afford to pay any more for the cocoa….

Cocoa farmers such as in the Ivory Coast and Ghana  are poor because they can’t get paid fairly for their Cocoa.

Although as recently as last week I see in Britain all KitKat bars will be Fairtrade and will pay a better, fairer wage to Cocoa farmers.

Will live in a world of takers, not givers

Later on Jesus will tell a story about a king who throws a wedding banquet. The invited guests will not come.

So the king tells his servants to go out into the streets and bring in good and bad.

Bring in everybody you can.

And of course we can all understand that the invitation to a life with God, a spiritual life is open to everybody.

But as the king is going around greeting all the guests there is somebody who has showed up without a wedding garment.

In other words, this chap has rented the tux, or bought the suit or whatever is considered the appropriate attire for the wedding.

And the King gets angry at him and has him thrown out.

Not just outside, but into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This wedding crasher has a bit of a comeuppance.

Because as we all know, this is not about a wedding, it is about one’s relationship with God, one’s spiritual life.

It is also about being invited into the community of faith.

And it is more that just taking.

It is also about giving.

To have a spiritual life one has to give as well as get. One has to prepare, one has to clothe oneself in a different kind of garment.

Not a tuxedo or a suit or a beautiful ball gown or evening dress.

One needs to put on a garment of expectation, a garment of penitence, a garment of self-scrutiny and soul searching, a garment of humility, a garment of faith, a garment of reverence, a garment of openness…

In the spiritual life, the getting, the peace, the joy, the trust, the relationship with God, is in direct proportion to how much one gives to the relationship,

How much one prays, meditates, reads scripture, thinks, remains open to God, talks to God, gives to God and others..

If one gives nothing, then one gets nothing.

One ends up in darkness. One ends up in frustration and sorrow. One ends up gnashing their teeth so to speak.

Not because God is punishing them directly.

Because they don’t do anything in their spiritual lives.

They are empty.

One  might be a taker when it comes to food, and money and power and control, when it comes to material things.

But when one tries to be a spiritual taker, it backfires….

They end up with nothing, maybe even less than nothing…

This highly consuming society has had a big impact on Western church life.

We have witnessed a huge decline in church attendance over thirty years or so…

The more affluent we have become, the more church attendance has waned.

And the simple truth is that the church doesn’t compete with Wal-Mart and West Edmonton Mall.

We don’t give enough to takers.

There is not enough for them to consume.

The church you see is built on the truth that it is better to give than to receive.

That is not the North American Dream.

The North American Dream is that you too one day may be a big taker. You can be a Millionaire and have way more than you need or even want.

Jesus, John the Baptist say. Give it away. Share.

Another thing that has affected church in this consumer-oriented society is that when people look for a church, they are consumer oriented.

What is the best bang for my church buck?

So they go to a church and they look at the parking lot and the sanctuary and the gauge the quality of the minister and the choir. And they look at the youth programs and the children’s programs and the nursery…

And then they decide to attend the church that has the most to offer them.

How many times have I heard people say to me, in one of my churches.

We enjoyed your service but the Baptist church down the road, or the Alliance church across the Block has a better Sunday School, or a better youth group, or a better parking lot… we are going to go there.

And so the “have churches” take from the “have-not churches.”

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if people came to church and said, “Which church really needs me? Which church is the church I could give my gifts and abilities to and they could be put to good use?”

And another effect one sees in North American churches is that some of the bigger churches are the one who promise a lot to their congregants.

“Come to Jesus and he will heal your body”

“come to Jesus and he will repair your broken marriage.”

“Come to Jesus and your finances will improve.”

“Jesus is the answer  for all your questions.”

“Jesus does it all for you.”

It is in its own way no different than the lotto 649 ads which promise that you too can do your happy dance when you win.

And some win, but very, very few.

And of course some Christians will have good things happen to them and say it was God’s miracle….

But I think that North American Christianity often produces a Christianity of Takers…

Who are continually looking to God for gifts and miracles…

And it seems that in our consumer society, the message of taking up one’s cross and giving one’s all in the service of God and others is maybe not as popular.

The interesting thing in the history of spirituality, one of the real trends is spirituality was towards less.

Less material things, less complications…

You heard about people who went out into the desert and lived lives or silence and even solitude, just to be with God.

You heard about people who took vows of poverty, who decided they would not own anything but the clothes on their back.

They decided that all one needed was God and very little else. Rude shelter, basic food.

And some of these people were spiritual giants.

But who do we idolize today? Not people with high moral fibre, not people who live lives of quiet altruism, not people who live alone with God…

But the Rich and Famous…

The Takers…

Maybe we should have more tv shows on the givers, not the takers.

But I want us to stop and think for a moment not about giving and taking from an external point of view.

Not about what I give financially and materially and not about what I get financially and materially…

But look at your own life….

And think about this for a moment…

Most of us have some idea of what we think we want or need. We need some money, some financial independence.

We need some peace and quiet.

We need a new house or a reliable vehicle.

We need an education.

We need more fun and recreation.

We need better physical health.

When we think that way we are in taking mode.

Basically when we think that way, we are thinking of what we could take from this world that would make life better, or happier or easier.

But imagine that you changed the question.

The question no longer is what do I need?

The question is: What could I give to myself?

How could I give to myself?

My daughter went on a course and when she came home she started putting on her walls this statement.

I am creating for myself the possibility that ….

I am creating for myself the possibility that….I am happy

I am creating for myself the possibility that….I am a giving person

I am creating for myself the possibility that….

I am creating for myself the possibility that…. I am educated

I am creating for myself the possibility that…. I am a good daughter…

I know you could put a whole lot on the end of that statement but what I am suggesting is that we have the possibility of giving ourselves a whole lot.

When we are takers we assume that what we want comes from the outside from others.

I need others to give me happiness and if I am not happy then it is their fault.

I need money from other to fulfil me and if I don’t get it I can’t be fulfilled.

That in some ways is the nature of addiction.

Something from the outside has to come in and fix me. I will use alcohol or some other substance, to try and alleviate the pain and make me feel good.

I take to make me happy

And yet it never completely fulfils. I need to take more and more.

But when we give to ourselves, all kinds of possibilities are opened up, because we don’t need anyone else.

I can give to myself the gift of reading.

The gift of education

The gift of happiness.

The gift of peace.

The gift of time alone with God.

The gift of generosity.

The gift of patience.     The gift of love.

I can choose to do these good things.

And this is all possible because someone much stronger than I is going to baptize me, immerse me in grace and love and compassion and understanding and peace…

He is going to baptize me, immerse me in a fire that will burn away this desire to be a taker…

He is going to drown me in love, until I die to selfishness and be born again to be a giver…

A giver of grace and love….                    Amen.