Givin Opportunities

I would like to start off today with a Christmas story.  Its an old one, but not as old as some.

My dad was very young during the great depression and his family in Spokane truly had very little. My grandfather was a disabled World War I veteran. No Bonus had yet been given Great War veterans and my grandmother tried to support the family with two boys on the small money she earned as a part time housekeeper. As Christmas season approached, my grandparents tried to prepare my dad and his brother for the fact that this year there would be no Christmas gifts. My dad’s older brother understood. He would have been about 12 then, and at that time, children knew how scarce money was. But my six year old dad kept telling his parents that Santa Claus would indeed come. As Christmas Eve approached, Grandma was beside herself. No matter how they tried to prepare my young dad for a giftless holiday, he would not believe it. Santa Claus would come, he kept saying. That Christmas morning, dad went charging out the door, out the door of that horribly poor flat as Grandma described it: he charged out the door and smacked into a little red truck sitting there outside the apartment. Santa Claus had come, he had come indeed.

 In the Gospel of John, Jesus explicitly invites Nathaniel to join him. He says, "Very truly I tell you, you will see 'heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on' the Son of Man." Wow, that is quite a clear call to service.

 In our first scripture, the boy, Samuel, has gone down to sleep in the temple with the ark of the covenant while Eli slept in another room. The boy hears a voice calling and three times arises and goes to Samuel to ask what he wants. Meanwhile, we know that it is God calling the boy, but he does not. Even Eli does not understand what is happening right away. Eventually, however, Eli figures out that God wants to talk with Samuel and tells the boy to answer the Lord. The lectionary reading ends at verse ten with Samuel doing as Eli has asked.

Pastor and professor Beth Tanner’s online scripture commentary includes an anonymous comment where a person told Mrs.Tanner, “My mother taught me to pray Samuel's prayer "Speak, Lord, your servant heareth and is listening." I liked that. Maybe we all need to spend a little more time listening for our call, listening for the opportunities that God provides. Samuel’s call, of course, was a little less obvious than that of Nathaniel’s and he needed Eli’s help to recognize it. Beth Tanner notes the ease with which we may often miss God's call, or attribute it to someone or something else. Tanner reports that many religious leaders speak of their call not as a major disruption in their lives or an audible announcement. Instead, they speak of a quiet, slow awakening−perhaps to a life of service or an injustice that needs to be addressed. Like Samuel, they often tell about a period of uncertainty regarding what they are being called to do or be. Also, Samuel needed Eli to explain to him what these stirrings meant. Tanner points out that it often takes others in our lives to help us understand when and how God calls.

To be honest with you all here, I don’t know for sure if I have ever been called to service. But I can truly say to you that there have been times in my life when I have felt the pull at my heart. Maybe it is the disabled vet with a can collecting money by the side of the road, maybe it is the family you hear on the news that had their home burn down, or maybe it was a fellow worker who you found out has a child with an inoperative condition from which her child will die. Sometimes the opportunities to help seem easy, like calling the Jerry Lewis telethon and making a pledge, and other times it require hours, days, or weeks of feeding, painting, working, or doing other types of service. Audubon Park United Methodist Church in Spokane, rotates with other city churches providing food and a place to sleep for their local homeless. They, like so many support organizations, are able to exist only because of the volunteers who are called to cook the food and stay with the homeless. Members of our congregation, many years ago, felt called to serve the people of this community, they were fundamental in the forming of Jubilee Ministries. Members of this congregation continue to serve there today and fill bags of food for the hungry in our community. There is nothing novel about being called to serve, I suspect that God has been providing us the opportunity to help our neighbors for as long as we have had neighbors. Whether it be providing a temporary shelter and food in your home for a stranded family or building a Habitat for Humanity home, or giving blood; the Lord keeps providing us opportunities to give and to serve. How have you been called? When have you heard or felt that tug at your heart?

 Going back to my dad’s red fire truck story I shared with you; My grandmother later learned that one of the poor men living in the apartment complex had heard that there was a little boy in the apartment and had decided to give this boy from a family he didn’t know a gift from the very little money he had. Did that unknown man here the voice of God telling him to buy the unknown child a fire truck? Was there just a pulling at his heart? Why did he feel called to give the gift? I guess, that is not for me to know. What I do know, what I truly believe with all my heart is that Santa Claus visited that small poor apartment that morning. And you know what, he continues to visit.

 God has continued to give my mom and dad the opportunity to be Santa Claus and they have given a fire truck to a poor child every year for over 50 years. Each Christmas, besides their pledges and special donations, they have a tradition of giving a red truck to Toys for Tots. The Christmas before last, on the 23rd of December, as many of you know, my mom had a serious seizure as a result of encephalitis, she was in the hospital on Christmas Eve and we did not know if she would awake. Accompanying my shaken dad, my wife Kila helped him to buy a little red truck at a nearby Toy’s R’ Us and dad found a family in the hospital and gave it to a little boy there. God gave my dad the opportunity to continue giving and because of God’s wonderful healing, my mom and dad were blessed again this Christmas with the opportunity to give yet another red truck.

The red fire truck, is a nice story of Christmas giving, but to truly help the homeless and hungry in our country, and in our world, we need a lot more Christmas giving opportunities that last throughout the entire year.

 I am not a pastor, I am just a substitute helper while our minister Bo is out of state. And so, perhaps I can get a little political and not worry about being fired. In our country, we have many concerns. From threats to our national security, road construction, to education and food safety, there is much that our political leaders must deal with on a daily basis. However, I think we make moral statements about who we are, when we decide to cut taxes for the most wealthy while we have millions who live in poverty, millions without homes, millions who do not have basic health care access. I am distressed. I have heard some politicians note that they feel that since Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 26 that “you will always have the poor,” maybe the poor should not be our primary focus. Maybe God is more interested in us living a moral life and following the Ten Commandments than in our providing handouts for the hungry. I will tell you for me, I believe that nothing could be a more incorrect understanding of that scripture in Mathew 26. To me, the fact that we will always have the poor, means that each generation will continually be given the opportunity to decide if they truly understand what it means to love their neighbor as they love themselves. Each generation will continually be called upon and be given many ‘Giving opportunities’ if you will. We must be willing to listen for that call and to act on those opportunities that God provides.  We must hear God’s call and His giving opportunities


Lectionary:  1 Samuel 3:1-10 and John 1:43-51.
Good comentary by Professor Beth Tanner:  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=224