Click here to download.Dear Ones in Christ,
Ecclesiastes, the preacher, reminds us that there is a time for everything and now is the time, not tomorrow or the day after, not later in this evening or even an hour from now, but now is the time to seek the Lord and be found by God, so that we can be better stewards of the gifts God has given us and share the Good News that God has for us in Jesus Christ.
In the first two and a half verses of today’s reading from Isaiah, the author employs twelve imperatives—“come to the waters…come, buy and eat…come, buy wine and milk without money and without price…listen…eat what is good…delight yourselves in rich food…incline your ear and come to me; listen.” And then in the next three and a half verses, the author tells us to “see…seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” There is no dilly-dallying around in these verses, or as I am sometimes prone to say, “Oh, you know, that’s okay, don’t worry about it. It’ll be all right.” It is not okay and all right to wait for even a second, because the time has come. There is a sense of urgency in this message to share God’s Good News that cannot be overlooked.
The same is true in the Gospel for today. A crowd had gathered around Jesus that numbered in the thousands and were trampling each other. At first, Jesus addressed his disciples, but then the whole crowd. Some in the crowd then asked him about a state-sanctioned terror, in which Pilate had a group of Galileans massacred while they were making their sacrifice, evidently in Jerusalem. In answering them, Jesus asked them if they thought that those Galileans suffered as they did because they were worse sinners than all other Galileans.
Then Jesus brought up the tragic accident in which eighteen persons were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them and again he asked the crowd if they thought that they were worse offenders than all the others in Jerusalem. Both times, he also said, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Instead of dwelling on the injustice and the tragedy, Jesus spoke about the urgency to repent, because we can never take anything for granted, no matter how well things might be going for us, since life is too uncertain, short and unpredictable. We can be here today and gone tomorrow and so, now is the time to seek the Lord and be found by God, so that we can be better stewards of the gifts God has given us and share the Good News that God has for us in Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to be a better steward of God’s gifts? Everything we have is a gift from God—the air we breathe, the ground on which we walk, the sun and the moon and the stars, our very flesh and blood, existence and life is a gift from God. Some of us have been blessed with material riches and some with spiritual, mental and emotional riches. We do not all have the same talents. Some can build a house whereas some can write a sonnet. Some can play an instrument whereas some can sing a song. Regardless of our talents and regardless of our riches, we all are called to be good stewards of what God has given us, because these are gifts that God has entrusted to us to glorify the Lord and build up, preserve and improve God’s creation.
One of the things that I appreciated from the Seeds of Faith campaign that we embarked on a couple of years ago was the thought of how privileged and honored we should feel to be called upon by God to be good stewards, because this is a position of trust and honor. It is one that is not just given to anyone, but rather to those that are made in God’s image for the wellbeing of all of God’s creation.
In today’s first reading, the people of God have returned from their exile in Babylon and been given a new day in which to live in the Lord and reflect God’s goodness. Like the ancient world kings often released the people from their debts and threw a great banquet when they were enthroned and made king, God had released God’s people from their bondage and thrown a banquet for them, inviting them to come to the waters and to eat and drink without money and price, for the Lord’s thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways. They are much higher than ours and, thus, the God of love and mercy satisfies the thirst of everyone who is in want of water, in want of life and a new beginning in God.
The Lord has satisfied our thirst, too. We (who are no better than anyone who is suffering like those in Chile and Haiti and in any other part of the world in which natural calamities and war and violence have disrupted the day and robbed them of life’s abundance) have sinned against God and offended the Lord just like everyone else has in that we have not reflected God’s love and mercy in everything that we say and do and yet, we are not without hope—we are not without the water of life, Jesus Christ, that quenches our thirst and gives us a new and abundant life.
In the parable of the fig tree, Jesus tells us that even though we may not have born any fruit, still the gardener, Jesus, intercedes for us, prays for us so that we will not be cut down, and offers to till our soil and fertilize us with God’s Word and Sacrament, so that we can bear fruit and be the good stewards God has called us to be. The question, then, is if we will take advantage of God’s love and mercy—God’s higher way—and bear fruit in the time that is still before us.
You see it is never too late to seek the Lord and be found by God—to realize how dry our mouths can be and how refreshing God’s water is. We do not like to talk about our sinfulness today. We talk more in terms of mistakes and misjudgments, oversights and blunders, rather than sinfulness and turning against God and that might not be all bad, because sometimes when we talk about sinfulness and turning against God, we are pointing the finger more at the other guy than at ourselves and, thus, setting ourselves above others by excusing ourselves and speaking about our sinfulness as simple slip-ups. But that does not erase the fact that we all have sinned against God, in that we have not forgiven the debts of others and thrown a banquet when we have benefited from the abundance of our life in God.
I do not believe that any of us have been enthroned in the ways that monarchs of nations have been crowned and made rulers of their land, but all of us have been blessed in one way or another and, thus, all of us have reason to forgive the debts of others and throw a banquet for others, so that they too might live and enjoy the fullness of life—so that too might seek the Lord and be found by God.
It is kind of odd how all this works—this seeking the Lord and being found by God. It is kind of like looking for something that is right in front of your nose. We cannot see it no matter how hard we look and then all of a sudden, there it is and we cannot help but wonder how in the world did it get there.
That happens with me and my glasses more often than I would like to admit. I know I should not put them on the quilt that covers our bed, because they blend in so well and I cannot find them. Still, for whatever reason I will put them there and then have to search endlessly for them. The same thing sometimes happens when I put things on my desk. Then it may not be so much a case as blending in as it is a case of being buried under a lot of other things that are on my desk. Sometimes it is just a case of misplacing something. I’ve laid it down, but cannot remember where and so I have to look for it. Still wherever it is, it is there, waiting to find me when I look for it.
In our thirst for fullness of life and righteousness, for forgiveness and new beginnings, for deliverance from the hardships and burdens, guilt and pressures we may feel in life, God can seem to blend in with other things that might look alluring and good. The Lord can be buried under things that might clutter our hearts and minds. We might have just misplaced God in our life by getting too involved in other things. And yet, the Lord is there with open arms to greet and welcome us, to embrace and hold on to us, to assure us of God’s goodness and lead us if we just seek and allow God to find us.
The hymn “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound” says it well—“I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.” So it is with us, once we were lost like the Israelites in Babylon, but now are found, thanks to God’s coming to us in Christ and freeing us to live as God has created and redeemed us to live.
What a breath of fresh air that brings to life. It releases us to use the gifts God has given us to glorify God and give life and light to others by sharing with them the Good News of Christ Jesus in word and deed. It is truly remarkable what we can do with the gifts God has given us. You know it really does not take that much to live on less, so that others can live with more. A warm smile, a welcoming hello, a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand, an understanding heart, a forgiving spirit, a loving embrace, a free meal, a coat off one’s back, a roof over one’s head, a prayer of remembrance, a moment of sharing in God’s grace through Word and Sacrament, an additional step in our pledging and serving—they all can make all the difference in the world for those who are thirsting, for all sinners and offenders of God’s grace, for you and me and all of God’s creation.
And so, now is the time. The time’s here—not tomorrow, not the next day, not later in the day or even a minute from now—to seek the Lord and be found by God, so that we can be better stewards of the gifts God has given us and share the Good News that God has for us in Jesus Christ. For in being better stewards and in sharing the Good News, we will discover how good it is to drink from the water of life and live in the higher ways of God.
God’s blessings now and always,
Pastor Fred Hasecke
