Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Ephesians 1:3-14.
For as long as humans have owned material goods, we have been concerned about passing them on to our children. We see the next generation as a continuation of the work we have done in the world and hope that what we have accomplished, what we have built, and what we have gathered will continue on.
Laws about inheritance are complicated. Each culture has its own practices and rules. Under Roman law, the priority was given to family continuity as a foundation for stability. When a man died, his children would inherit both his property and his debts. Although women required a legal guardian to perform legal transactions, they could own and inherit property if there was a will designating them for inheritance. Slaves, too, could be heirs, but that was a little tricky. If the will also gave them their freedom, then the slaves could take possession. If not, then the actual possession of the inheritance would go to the slave’s master.
This was the legal environment in which Paul and his readers were living. They understood inheritance as an essential building block for a stable society. That stability also permeates the Old Testament laws, where land was designated for a particular family. That is, if someone was poor and sold their land, the purchaser was obligated to allow them to redeem it later. The rules around redemption are hard for us to understand from a modern perspective, but if you read the story of Ruth the Moabite and her mother-in-law Naomi, you will see that property redemption and inheritance was an essential part of the story that ultimately led to David’s birth.
The Bible can be read as a collection of individual perspectives, but also as a single unified story of humanity’s relationship with God. In Genesis, God promises to bless the world through Abraham. In Exodus, God enters a covenant with Israel that blesses them so that they might be a blessing to the world. As the story progresses, though, through the peak of David and Solomon to the nadir of the exile, we see that the Israelites forsake their inheritance. At the peak, they enjoyed the blessings of God, the divine favor that made David & Solomon’s Israel a wealthy and respected regional power. They inherited God’s special blessing specifically so that they can bless one another and the world, but they turn their backs on the covenant. Inheritance comes with both blessings and obligations, but Israel failed to meet those obligations. As a result, God rescinds their inheritance. Throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, the message is clear: “Observe and search out all the commandments of the LORD your God; that you may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children after you forever.” But in 2 Kings 21, which is near the end of Judah’s existence as an independent kingdom, God says, “I will cast off the remnant of my heritage, and give them into the hand of their enemies.”
Paul knew this story, knew all about the heritage that Israel had forsaken. This story of lost greatness was an essential part of Jewish identity. But as Paul encountered God through Christ, he realized that their spiritual exile was over. The inheritance was given to us all once again because we have been redeemed. But this inheritance was not about the land of ancient Canaan that was promised to Abraham. It was about the spiritual blessing that God promised to the whole world through Abraham and his children.
In the early days of the covenant, the inheritance was understood in material terms. Even today, the so-called prosperity Gospel promises that people who follow Jesus, who “accept Him into their heart,” will be blessed with health and wealth. If you are not healthy and wealthy, well, I guess you don’t believe strongly enough. This way of thinking also arose in the context of predestination. This particular passage is pretty strongly in support of Calvinist predestination: in the New International Version of the Bible, verse 5 is translated, “In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.” The Puritans and other strong Calvinists of that era looked for outward signs of their predestination. If you were among those chosen for salvation, then obviously God would bless you with material abundance in this life.
But I don’t think that’s what Paul meant at all. In antiquity, people generally believed that wealth was finite. The only way for one person to be rich was for other people to be poor. Rather than teaching that God would transfer wealth from the powerful to the weak, Paul seems to be teaching instead that God would honor the lowly. Everyone would receive spiritual abundance.
Elsewhere, Paul writes that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” These are perhaps English translations of Greek words that circle around the meaning of hesed, a Hebrew word often translated as lovingkindness. Hesed is the special love that God has for humanity and the way in which we respond to that love. When we receive God’s grace, we respond with love, joy, and peace. As God works through us, we share that lovingkindness with our family, our friends, our community, and the world. These are riches that know no bounds. Love is not finite. Anyone who has truly loved one person—a parent, a spouse, a child, or a sibling—knows the joy that love can bring, and the way that one loving relationship fuels our ability to love others. I am able to serve my church and my community in part because the love Rhonda and I share renews me, refreshes me, and empowers me to keep on going. But the root, the source of that love is God. As we tap into God’s love, we may all be continually refreshed, renewed, and empowered to love our community.
The church is working through a process that includes reading Neighborhood Church, by Krin van Tatenhove and Rob Mueller. One of the first concepts is transforming your perspective from one of scarcity to one of abundance. We read this passage in Ephesians and hear of spiritual abundance, but what does that really mean? How does that translate into this congregation, this collection of individuals in this community?
In Lou Ellen’s farewell sermon, she described her time here as a time of healing, a concept echoed in Brett’s remarks during the reception afterwards. Our church has been through some stuff in the time I have been a member. Ten years ago, we were not healthy. Relationships were fraying or contentious, and worship was not always a time to encounter God. John Oerter came to us and helped us on the path to healing. He helped us to see the good in each other and to recognize the gifts we have within us, individually and as a group. He left before the work was complete, in truth because the work is never complete. The nature of sanctification is that we are always approaching God, always approaching wholeness and holiness, but we can never get there until we meet God face to face. Bob Morrison also helped us to see that we can do God’s work, individually and together. By the time Lou Ellen joined us, we were ready to share God’s love with her. We had learned the power of God’s grace to connect us with each other, to support one another, to become a part of God’s family.
We are once again in a time of transition, but stronger and healthier now. We have been abundantly blessed by God through Lou Ellen’s leadership over the past six years, but perhaps have become complacent about doing God’s work.
Paul writes of the “fullness of time.” The word we translate as “time” is kairos, which is more like “timely” or “opportune time.” It is the responsibility of each person who calls on Christ to recognize this kairos, this timeliness.
We have been blessed with spiritual abundance. We are devoted to God. We are generous with our time, talent, and treasure. We are loving towards each other and take care of each other when someone is suffering, whether due to illness, grief, or spiritual pain. We are accepting of differences and welcoming of all people. We are one of the few churches in town where someone who is gay, transgender, or of any other sexual orientation or gender identity can be welcomed into full membership. We have become a place of healing and wholeness, a place where those who have been hurt, those who feel far from God, can come to encounter God’s love and enter into full communion with Christ’s body.
It is time. Time to share our spiritual riches with our community. As we do so, we will be continually renewed by the infinite depth of God’s grace. You know, growing up in Pittsburgh, I always assumed that communities everywhere got their drinking water from rivers. Years later, I learned that most communities in this part of the country get their drinking water from municipal wells. The aquifer is recharged by the rain that falls. In the same way, God rains grace down upon us to recharge our spiritual reserves, which we can then draw upon to share with the community. But while the water on Earth is finite, God’s grace is infinite. In spending our spiritual riches, we are replenished.
There’s another place of healing in Rolla that I encounter weekly: The Mission. The patrons at The Mission are all hurting in some way and are striving to improve their lives, to become full participants in the community, and to achieve independence and wholeness. Why do I keep going back? Because in serving them, I am served. I encounter God through each person I meet. In the same way, I encounter God each Sunday, not only through our worship service, but also through the people in this congregation.
We are the family of God. In the Gospels, there are frequent references to the “Kingdom of God.” There are two problems with that metaphor. First, living in a democracy means that we no longer have direct experience with a monarchy in the way that the original New Testament audience did. Second, “kingdom” is a patriarchal term that has a lot of baggage from the centuries of oppression, destruction, and exploitation throughout the world. A few decades ago, Georgene Wilson, a Catholic nun, introduced a new term that her friend Ada Maria Isasí-Díaz popularized: the “kin-dom of God.” This is a new term that brings the original concept into the modern age. Ancient society was based on family, clan, and tribe. Kingdoms were built upon this kinship structure, basically putting the king’s family above all others and, in a sense, uniting all of the tribes into the king’s family. In the same way, we have been predestined for membership in God’s family, through Christ our king, or rather, our kin—our brother. With Christ as our brother, we become part of the Christian family, the Christian tribe. Paul says God is gathering all things into Christ’s family. Let us live into our inheritance, receiving the abundant spiritual gifts God rains down upon us, and sharing God’s grace so that all people, everyone in our community, can join us in the kin-dom of God. Amen.
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