Sonoma United Methodist Church
Sept 21 “Enough is Enough”
Today’s sermon is titled “enough is enough” and we will be spending time with today’s tow texts. The first reading is from acts and depicts a snippet of how the early church operated. The Gospel text is the familiar text of the laborers in the vineyard.
Before going forward though I want you to think of a time in your life when you felt completely content. Even it was only a brief moment, what was an instance that you felt satisfied and happy…
Now name a time that you felt you uncertain about the future. A time when you felt scarcity and were uncertain and perhaps even fearful of the future…
Let’s take a look at the text from Acts. Starting at verse 44 “44all who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[b] and ate their food with glad and generous[c] hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This is a description of the Christian church at its very beginning. Jesus had lived, died, resurrected, and ascended by this point. The day of Pentecost had happened and the early church was born. As exciting as it was that even after Jesus was gone believers carried forward the Gospel of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit – it was not a comfortable situation for the tiny and growing church. The Roman and Jewish powers that be were still on the lookout for those who claimed to be “followers of the way” – the government still feared that there would be an uprising and were prepared to squash down anything that looked like a movement. The early church had to meet in secret and at the same time spread the love that Christ taught so they could grow their movement (without getting caught). From the beginning there is a wide swath of economic and cultural diversity in the early church. Folks that usually would not relate due to fiscal or national division were now a part of the same body. There were people who lived in abundance, and those who only knew a life of scarcity and want. This new body though, was determined to survive and ensure that all of its members were taken care of … “they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as, any had need.” They found that among them they had enough to care for all, and that when they no longer had to worry about surviving they were able to turn their focus more fully to God and neighbor.
In our modern day we have seen faith groups that demand you sell all of your possessions and place the wealth in a common pot. We meet these groups with suspicion, and often label them cults. Sometimes with good reason, after all this was one of the tactics used by Jim Jones and the People’s Temple – which ended in the deaths of nearly 1000 people at Jonestown. Surely though there is some merit to idea of having common possessions for the purpose of caring for all – I think it is an ideal for us to strive for, but how easy it is for this system to be abused.
Do not worry, I am not asking you to sell all your possessions and support your sisters and brothers. Though in Luke 18 Jesus does tell the rich young ruler “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Loretta and I met this week to plan our upcoming stewardship campaign … we did not pick the theme of “sell everything you have” but maybe we should go back and revisit it.
Our Gospel text today is the parable of the Laborers in the vineyard. A landowner hired laborers to work in the vineyard at the beginning of the day, as the day went on he kept hiring folks to come and work. At the end of the work day everybody got paid the same amount – those who had been working in the sun all day and those who only worked a couple of hours. As you can imagine the ones that only worked a couple of hours were ecstatic to receive a full day’s wage, and those that worked the full day were angry that they did not make more money than the late comers. Each of these laborers were living day to day – whatever money they made before sundown would ensure that they and their family could survive one more day… quite literally living pay check to pay check. The land owner saw that some were angry, even though each person received a full day’s wage. The land owner said “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous.” This is a scenario that we see play out in today’s society as well. We see folks who, for whatever reason, are unemployed or underemployed – there are systems in place to alleviate the pain of poverty for some. But these systems have their critics saying loudly “why should we help those who do not help themselves”… I am not going to try and answer that question on behalf of the government, but I will on behalf of the church. Our concern is not to judge others for the circumstance that they are in, because often they do not have control over it. Our concern is to show extravagant hospitality and generosity – even if it doesn’t make “fiscal sense”. Our concern is preserve live and love our sisters and brothers. Life is not a competition to see who can get the most, but continually asking the question – “How can we all thrive.”
For centuries there have been predictions that as the world population grows we will run out of food. We thought this would happen when we hit 3 billion people and again at 5 billion people and again at 6 billion people. We are now sitting at around 7 billion people and guess what, we have not run out of food yet. Yes, there are people who are hungry, but this is not because we do not have enough, but because we do not share our resources, because we think if we control resources than we have some sort of power.
Sisters and brothers our power is not in the wealth we hold. Our power is in the extravagant generosity that we show. This is the final sermon concerning the topic of Community Connection. I want to challenge us to connect with others not only in matters of love relationship but also in tangible ways. How are you serving others with what you hold? How can you alleviate suffering? How can empower life? We have enough –and enough is enough. Let us share our treasure and our very lives with one another so that we may continually realize the kingdom of God here and now. Amen
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