Enough is Enough

Sermon Enough is enough

Revealed Glory Original Sermon by Walter Kimbrough, Sermons.com

Exodus 16:1-36

Welcome to the first in a 5-part series titled The Impossible promise of Enough. I understand it has been many years since these congregations have had a true stewardship campaign – but here we are. You might ask why now? There are several reasons that I have chosen to do a preaching series on stewardship. First – how I address stewardship issues in the congregation is one of the areas I get “rated” on for my final review toward finishing my education and being ordained. But even more than that – I believe that we need to talk openly and honestly about everything that is happening within our church. That is why I have returned to printing the weekly attendance and giving in the bulletin. It is also why I have been running the series on ELCA Social Statements. We have covered some tough topics in this series such as the Church’s stand on abortion and sexuality. But even more than this, most of you are aware that the councils have begun to consider how we might partner with other congregations near to us. There are many reasons for this move – not the least of which is the ongoing shortfall of funds to support the ministry we currently hold so dear. More than just that, I believe that by getting back to the basics – back to what it means to be a steward of God’s creation, we can refocus our vision toward the future and what God is calling us to. Only then will we experience the Glory of God.

But what is Glory? What am I truly talking about? Well, Glory is best defined as the outward shining of God’s inner-being. Glory is, then, the revelation of God to the world. We all know that person that seems to glow or emit the light of their faith. That person that we look at and say, “I want what they have.” That – is the Glory of the Lord – The Light of God shining through them!

The New Testament writers see the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. It was the Apostle Paul who told us, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ… (2 Corinthians 4:6 NIV).” Then again, the gospel writer John offers a powerful recitation in declaring, “The Word became, flesh and lived among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth… (John 1:14 NIV).” So, then, in New Testament thought, there is consistency in the understanding that revealed glory was in the presence and person of Jesus Christ, and later in the sharing and receiving of the Holy Spirit to each one of us.

However, our attention today is directed to a people who lived hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. During times when even prophecy of the Messiah was unheard of, the Israelites, who represented God’s chosen people, only had God to depend up on. Not Jesus, nor the Holy Spirit, just a relationship with Moses and Aaron. They were the leaders of the people of God on their pilgrimage from bondage to liberation.

No longer is God’s glory a hidden commodity or expression, no longer is the glory foreign or impossible to experience. God’s glory is a present reality. Moses declared that it’s as close to you as the morning.

As close to you as the morning…that is really close! And it is extremely dependable. Have you ever thought about God being that close to you. And that dependable? Think for a moment what this really says to us – Can you think of a time when you woke up and we had simply skipped morning that day? Now, I’m not talking about times when you overslept due to exhaustion or illness and slept through morning – I mean that the world and all of creation simply skipped morning. Of course not! We know that morning follows night. It always has and it always will. Moses tells us that God is just that close – and just that dependable. Afterall, God created the morning and the evening. We can take great comfort in this – but we must do more than just know it in our heads – we need to know it in our hearts.

Today’s passage was one, long passage from the book of Exodus. The Israelites said, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death… (Exodus 16:3).”

In other words, they argued that death by the hand of God is more honorable than death by starvation. The Israelites became guilty of looking back. To look back means that one takes his or her eyes off the road immediately ahead. To consistently look back means that one loses sight of the future and begins to live in the past. But, friends, the past is not only stagnant, it is dead. It is left eternally in the pages of history and the annals of the human mind. So, certainly to look back is dangerous because we no longer see the road leading to our destiny. More importantly, looking back is deadly.

Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as found in the 19th chapter of Genesis. Lot, a servant of the Lord, was warned to take his wife and two daughters and flee the city because of its pending destruction. They were instructed not to look back and not to stop anywhere in the plain. “Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away… (Genesis 19:17).” Verse 26 tells us that, “Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.” The thought of what happened causes, even today, an eerie internal feeling. Something grips me on the inside and won’t let me go. Lot’s wife was guilty of looking back and was also guilty of being disobedient. The end result was death.

Today, the church dies when she consistently looks back and is disobedient. Are we not sometimes guilty of living in the past? The comfortable desire to only do things the way we have always done them, with the same wonderful people doing the same old things. No new ideas nor the willingness to break from tradition so that we can be forced from the slavery of the past. The shackles of our past must be cut loose so that newness and freshness of life can flow in the Church of Jesus Christ. Looking back, my brothers and sisters, is deadly. Choose life, not death, for our sake, look ahead! And yet – many of us fear like the Israelite people following Moses that maybe – just maybe – our best days are behind us. The future that lies ahead of us as the church is unknown, and it feels bleak. We ask ourselves – what if there is not enough - what if our numbers become too small – what if we can no longer afford a pastor - What if. . .

Israel had obviously forgotten the covenant that God had made with them. God had promised to be their God and they would be the people of God. Bonded to each other by a word of commitment, but the promise loses its credibility when the people forget.

Have we forgotten? Do we know what this same God promised us through baptism - that not only is God real – but the same God that provided for the people of Israel promised to be our God. And we are God’s people. Not for a day. No, not just on Sundays. But forever. Into eternity. Have we forgotten?

This – is why a stewardship campaign felt appropriate for us now. To call us to remember the truth of God. May we never forget that we are the children of God. We are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. May we never forget the promise of, “I will rain down bread from heaven for them.” True, today, we do not see manna on the ground, but we are invited to the table the Lord has prepared for us – where we can eat and be filled out of the love of God. We receive more than just “our daily bread.” We receive eternal grace and love from the Father.

So, let us keep in mind that the intent of the text is to deal with the complaints of the Israelites who looked back to Egypt where they had lots of meat and ate all of the food they wanted.

Finally, we ought to remember from our study of revealed glory that the Glory of God revealed glory itself. The text tells us, “They looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud… (Exodus 16:10).” Think about that - the desert, a place of intense heat and little or no coolness. The desert, the place where death becomes imminent and life so difficult to maintain. And yet, the glory of the Lord was revealed as the people looked toward the desert. The very place we seek to avoid was indeed the place where the glory of the Lord was revealed. Let me say that again – The very place we seek to avoid is indeed the place where the glory of the Lord will be revealed

God appeared in the cloud. Too high for humankind to reach or touch and yet within the realm of visibility the people saw the glory. The people saw the glory, the willingness of God to engage in human situations, just to keep his promise. The integrity of God is beyond question.

Think of the experience of Isaiah as he describes his call in the sixth chapter of that prophetic work. Isaiah saw God as a Holy being and even the cherubs flying around the throne began to sing as an angelic chorus, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory… (Isaiah 6:3).” In other words, there is something special, something different, something peculiar about God. God is Holy, therefore, the whole earth is full of his glory.

James Ward, in his book Thus Said The Lord, contends that “The whole earth is the setting and the measure of the glory of Yahweh… (p. 45).” God cannot be confined to time nor space, for he is in charge of eternity. God is the author of everlasting, the creator of every good and perfect gift, too wise to make a mistake. God forgives the sinner because of love. It is this God who uses the whole world as the canvas of the artist and the blueprint of the architect. The psalmist declared, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it… (Psalm 24:1).” And then David declares, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth… (Psalm 108:5).”

We, today, need to stop looking back. We need to put our eyes on the future – that place that today seems like a desolate and frightening possibility. We need to keep our eyes on the Glory of God and allow that glory to be made known through us – through our ministries – through our church. For that Glory is revealed to us today. God makes the divine presence known and felt in human experience. One who confesses a relationship with Christ can and will experience the revealed glory of the Lord – but not if we insist on standing still, on looking back to the good old days. We must turn our eyes outward.

Moses said, “In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord.” We can all thank God for being willing to share God’s own Glory with the world so that the glory of the Lord can truly be revealed.

So all this is fine and good. But what does God’s glory have to do with stewardship? Simply this – many people have the idea that their financial life exists separate from their faith life. It is like there are two boxes – one is labeled finance and the other is labeled faith – and the content of the two boxes never interact with one another. We will talk more about this in coming weeks – but for today, know that this kind of distinction cannot be found anywhere in scripture. In fact, there is no part of life that is in a box separate from faith. If we look carefully at what Jesus has to say in the gospels, this is especially true of one’s handling of finances. Because, you see, it all belongs to God. We like to think that all that we have, God has given to us. But we need to be careful of the wording here. God is still the owner. We have been given the responsibility to STEWARD all that God has given us. The word Steward means “A person who cares for something that belongs to someone else.” The steward can never be the owner. And the owner can never be the Steward. This is why the words Steward and Stewardship mean so much to us in the church. It calls us back to our original calling – to be stewards of all that God has given us to steward over. And because of that, it is never enough for a child of God to look at those things that are under their stewardship – family, home, education, neighbors, land to farm and cultivate, animals that need our care, our community that provides for our safety and security, and our church. We must stop seeing these and all the things entrusted to us as OURS. It will never be enough for a child of God to ask, “What do I want to do with this?” The right question to ask is, “To the Best of my ability, what do I think God wants me to do with this.”

It all belongs to God. I am a steward. You are a steward. WE are all stewards of God’s gifts. God has given us enough. And when God is giving – enough IS enough. For today, tomorrow, and forever.

I know that many faithful Christians hear the word “stewardship”, and almost instinctively grab for their wallets to protect them from outside attack. Too often we have done stewardship so poorly, we have damaged its truth.

It all belongs to God. I am a steward. How I live with money is a faith issue. So let us prayerfully consider our faith today. Are we good stewards? Are there areas we can improve? Let us offer our whole lives to God for the Glory of God – in us and in the world. Amen and Amen.