July 24, 2022
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Give us hearts to live into your risky miracles. (Walter Brueggemann) Gathering Announcements Thursday, 7:00 PM Zoom Book Study Here is your link: Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Book Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcyTFEtQFq Sunday, 8:30 AM Worship Gathering Hymn Love the Lord Lincoln Brewster https://youtu.be/EAbeFfsqLdc Opening Prayer Compassionate God, whose riches have been poured out among us in unrecognized abundance, lead us to appreciate the plenty you have entrusted to us. Help us to ponder the meaning of this bounty for our shared life of faith. Help us to think, not according to our society’s agenda, but as people already living in your kingdom, where all are loved and valued, and what is needed is shared among people. Amen. Hearing the Word Scripture Luke 12:13-21 (NIV) Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Sermon You Can’t Take It With You It was a typical evening commute on August 1, 2007. People were in a hurry to get home, to get to the restaurant, to get to the gym or the driving range or the swimming pool. Some were talking on their cell phones, concluding business for the day, confirming social plans for the evening, or getting the list for the grocery store on the way home. Traffic was backed up more than usual, with two of the four lanes closed for road work. Probably a lot of people were getting hot under the collar, frustrated by the delay, waiting until the last possible moment to merge into the open lane, hoping to get in front of the slow-moving school bus or smelly garbage truck. It was just a typical evening commute. But then the unthinkable happened. The I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed. Those Minneapolis commuters felt the road beneath them disappear. Some cars fell into the river. Others rolled downhill toward the water. No one knew what was going on; it all happened so fast. As of the next morning, there were seven people con-firmed dead and over sixty injured. Officials expected both numbers to rise. Not one of those people got in their car expecting to die that day. Death came when nobody expected it. Death happens like that sometimes. A sudden disaster, a heart attack, a stroke, a car accident, a flood or tornado or hurricane. No one expects when they get up in the morning that they will die before the day is over. But when accidents do happen and tragedies do come our way, all of a sudden our priorities get rearranged. We make a different assessment of what is most precious, most valuable to us. All of a sudden, it doesn’t really matter what kind of car we drive, or what kind of house we live in, or how much money we have in the bank. What if we knew that this was the last day we would spend on this earth? Would it make a difference in how we lived it? Would we make different choices about how we spent our time and our money? Consider the story from Luke’s gospel. A man came up to Jesus one day and asked him to settle a family fight. He wanted Jesus to talk to his brother and tell his brother to give him his fair share of the inheritance. In the ancient world, it was the custom that the older brother would get twice the share of the younger son. But, people being what they are, there were likely occasions when arguments broke out after a death in the family over who would get what. When those kinds of disputes happened, the parties involved would often consult their rabbi for advice. So when this man approached Jesus, he may have been in that situation. But from the way he framed his question, it sounds like he was hoping Jesus might take his side against his brother, to get him a larger share of the inheritance than he might have been entitled to. Nothing is more heartbreaking than siblings fighting over an inheritance. You’ve probably all seen it, or maybe even experienced it in your own families. People are willing to sacrifice their family relationships over material possessions or money, and there are wounds that are inflicted that sometimes never heal. In this case, Jesus refused to get involved in the dispute. Instead, he raised a deeper issue than this one man’s inheritance. He told a story about greed. A few years ago, there was a great commercial where a guy started taking things out of his garage and putting them on the front lawn. There were Christmas decorations, trash cans, yard tools, cardboard boxes, bicycles, toys, and sports equipment. At first it looked like he was setting up for a yard sale. But it turned out he had bought a new car and it was too good to park in the driveway; it had to go in the garage. But first the man had to make room for it in there, because his garage was filled with all kinds of stuff. How many of you have a garage? How many of you can actually get your car into the garage? How many of you have so much stuff in your garage that you can’t park your car in there? Most Americans have more stuff than they need. It fills the closets, the guest rooms, the garage. Some people even pay rent on storage units for their overflow stuff. We are a people addicted to stuff and our houses are stuffed with our stuff. It may remind us of a man in the story who had stuffed barns. Jesus told this story about a rich man who had some land that produced a bumper crop one year. There was so much, in fact, that his barns couldn’t hold it all. “What do I do now?” he wondered. Then the answer came to him: the wisest course of action was to build big-ger barns. That way he would have room to store it all. And then he could just sit back and enjoy the fruit of his labor. He could take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy himself. Maybe this man is your role model for retirement planning. He had worked hard and made more than enough to provide for himself and his family, assuming he had one. He’d set up college funds for his kids, set aside money for travel, had a more than adequate 401K, and enjoyed a diversified stock portfolio. Everything had been account-ed for. Life was good and would only get better. His plan was working beautifully. Until suddenly it didn’t. God told him, ‘You fool! You’re going to die tonight! And then who’s going to get all this stuff you put in storage? Because it’s really true that you can’t take it with you!” That’s what happens when you have a lot of material riches, but you don’t have a deep and rich relationship with God. The problem here, of course, wasn’t that the man was wealthy. There’s nothing wrong with reaping the rewards of your hard work. The problem was the man’s attitude towards his wealth. In spite of the fact that he had way more than he needed, it never even occurred to him to that his abundance might have been a gift from God. It never occurred to him to say thank you for his many blessings. It never occurred to him to share it with anyone else. In 1st-century Palestine, most people were poor; instead of building bigger barns the man might have considered giving away the surplus crops to those who were hungry. But it never even crossed his mind. He never thought of any-thing or anyone but himself and his pleasure. He never gave a moment’s consideration to what would happen to him when his life was over. No one can save enough money to prevent death from happening sooner or later. And no one can avoid standing before God one day to give an account or their life. So what does this story have to do with us? What might we learn from this rich fool and his stuffed barns? Well, we might remind ourselves to be grateful for all that we have and to remember that it is all a gift from God. We might ask ourselves how generous we are with the blessings that are ours. We might think of those who have less than we do, or nothing at all, and ask how we might help them. A few years ago, there was a story in the Boston Globe about the 50% League, a group of people who had committed themselves to giving away at least half of their in-comes, business profits, or net worth to charity. The ninety members of this group came from all across the country. Not all of them were wealthy; some were from the middle class, but had chosen to live on less so that they could give more. Some gave out of a sense of fairness, others for personal satisfaction. Others were motivated by their reli-gious faith or a dedication to some cause. Many chose to give anonymously. They wanted to encourage people of all income levels to consider their giving potential, to help close the gap between rich and poor, and to support economic justice and social change. It is doubtful that many of us could give away half our money or possessions and still have enough to provide for our needs. But there are ways to share what we have. We could go through our closets and drawers once a year and give away anything we haven’t worn in a year. We could consider sharing ownership of some possessions with a neighbor, such as a lawn mower or snow blower, and use the money you save to help someone else. Make a list of what you need to live and a list of what you want; then commit to buying only what you need for a year. Donate the money you save to a community ministry or church. Don’t rent a storage unit, and if you have one, consolidate your possessions until you only keep what will fit in your home. For the next month, every time you find yourself coveting something that someone else has, say a prayer to be content with what you have. John Wesley serves as a good role model for us. His policy was to earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can. He lived that out in his own life. He figured out what he needed to live on, and he gave the rest of his money away. No matter how much his income increased over the years, he still only kept what he needed to provide for his necessities and gave away the rest. Are your closets full to overflowing? Is your garage too crowded for your car to live in? Are you actually paying rent to store your extra stuff? Is your bank account looking like a stuffed barn? Maybe it’s time to give away some of what we are storing up. Maybe it’s time we shared our abundance with those in need. Maybe it’s time we let go of our desire for the good life for ourselves, and worked at making life good for someone else too. Take care that your possessions don’t possess you. After all, it’s just stuff. And you can’t take it with you. Hymn First Lauren Daigle https://youtu.be/RbWQV3OiRqA Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Prayers of Intercession Holy One, we are dust and ashes, stardust and earth embodied, here for a short time and often thrashing about, toiling away under the sun. But for now we stop. We breathe slowly. We remember that life is finite but that you are infinite, and we lift our prayers to you. For a world that pushes barn building rather than kingdom building, here our prayer. For a church that worries about its own death more than about living for you, hear our prayer. For those who work in jobs that do not pay them fairly, hear our prayer. For those who do not choose to pay a living wage but gain from the toil of others, hear our prayer. For those whose decision to leave their home is less a choice and more a necessity, hear our prayer. For those who spend their time causing division rather than multiplying blessings, hear our prayer. For those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward you, hear our prayer. For this earth, which falls prey to the vanity of its occupants, hear our prayer. For the sick who are unsure of how to pay for their medications, procedures, or treatments, hear our prayer. We release to you these concerns and all the prayers of our minds and hearts. Guide us so that our lives may become prayers. And at the time of death, may we be at rest as we come to join you in the now and forever. (David Gambrell) We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, as we pray together the prayer he taught his disciples: The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Praise God, from whom all blessings flow! Praise God, all creatures here below! Praise God above, ye heavenly host! Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Amen. Prayer of Dedication O God, sometimes we look at all we have, but we see only what we lack. Help us to see instead the abundance you have given us and to consider how we might share it. We are not called to store up treasures for ourselves, but to be rich toward you. Bless these gifts use them in your service. Amen. Song Take My Life Chris Tomlin https://youtu.be/agROj9nTQP4 Benediction Whatever riches we have – silver and gold, love and compassion, food and shelter, friends and fellowship – may they be gifts we offer freely to all we meet, in the name of our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. Amen.
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