Sermons

October 16/05

Shlock and Awe

Reverend Dr Cheri DiNovo

Let me share with you a few of the exciting events of your Minister’s week.

I spoke at an alternative high school this week called SEE (Secondary Experimental Education). It is a really fun high school with really bright kids, most of them older, from about the ages of 16 to 21, kids who have left for various reasons and then come back, to secondary education.
We had a good hour and a half to talk. I wore my collar and spoke for about forty five minutes starting off with my own story, how (since many of them had been street kids) that I had been a street kid too. I shared how I had first experienced the United Church because I was fed for free at Fred Victor Mission, and that I used to make my living selling drugs. The rest of my talk consisted of what inclusive Christianity was, about this Church and about what inclusive theology should look like and also what really is in the Bible as contrasted with what they might have heard was in the Bible. I think I did a really good job and I spoke for quite awhile and I said, "Okay, your turn, questions?" There was this silence and then one kid put his hand up and asked, "What drugs did you sell?" And I answered, "LSD that I imported in hollowed out Bibles (the first introduction I had to the Bible) and back then it was the good stuff, not the kind of crap you kids do." That happened this week.

I had Thanksgiving dinner with my friends and relatives and it was a wonderful dinner and at that dinner one of my very good friends, probably my only friend who has a lot of money, had just bought a beautiful new Mercedes that cost a great deal of money. At the end of the dinner he said to my capitalist child, "Would you like to go and have a spin in the car?" My capitalist child said, "Absolutely!" took the keys and went for about half an hour. Then the offer went to my socialist child. My socialist child who learned their lessons way too well in Sunday school said, "It’s just a car." I was thinking, "No, it’s not just a car…it’s a Mercedes!"

Today we have a passage where Jesus talks about money. Of course what he’s doing is trying to circumnavigate a difficult situation. He knows that what the Pharisees want to do is trap him. If he says, "Don’t pay your taxes." They can have him arrested for sedition. If he says, "Do pay your taxes, his own people, the poor folk he represents, will object since they are under occupation and hate Rome. Taxes, particularly in those days, were a form of stealing from the poor. He couldn’t it seemed say one thing or the other, so what he said was, "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and give unto God what is God’s."

No where in the New Testament did Jesus say anything about tithing. This is a Hebrew scriptural concept. He did however talk about money. Did you know that 16 out of 38 of his parables are about money? Did you know that one in ten of the New Testament passages are about money or possessions? Did you know that in the entire corpus of scripture that there are about 500 passages about faith, about 500 about prayer

and about 2000 about money? So obviously the Bible takes money extremely seriously and what we do with our money extremely seriously. I think here of another quote that says ‘ where you treasure is there your heart will be also.’ By that measure our heart is going into our gas tanks, into our walls with mortgage payments or rent, or into our food or into our kid’s classes, or into our Mastercards and Visas. Jesus we remember also said to the rich young ruler, "Sell everything and give it to the poor" and elsewhere, ‘the rich will get into heaven about as easily as a camel gets through the eye of a needle’.

Jesus, however, for his first miracle in John, turned water into wine and toward the end of his life a woman came and anointed Jesus with costly perfume much to the chagrin of his disciples who felt that the money should have gone to the poor. Here is this nameless woman who recognizes and proclaims with her action, that Jesus is the anointed one, the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus responds to the disciples that ‘the poor you will always have, but not me, I’m only here for a short time’.

So we’re left with a somewhat mixed message. Here’s my take on it. There’s something very puritanical that enters into Church talks about money. You know there are a lot of fundamentalist and literalist Churches that demand a tithe (10% of one’s take home) from their members. I read about one recently, whose minister has his own personal helicopter that takes him from service to service, partly because the money’s there. Is that what the meaning of tithing is?
Tithing is not just about money but about time and talent as well. We are told for example in the Ten Commandments that we should set aside one seventh of our weeks to God and one might assume, one seventh of our talents as well but what about the rest of our talent, time and money? What about the 90% or six-seventh as the case may be? What about the rest of our lives?
One more story. Today I got an email from a very well meaning minister who is organizing a trip to Cuba. It costs approximately 2000.00 per person and you get to sleep in Church owned dormitories, 3 or 4 to a room on behalf of the Presbyterian Church there. You’ll eat like the locals, rice and beans and go out and work for the Church. For about half that you can stay in an all inclusive resort on the coast in a comfortable hotel room and lie on the beach all day. Is there no end to liberal guilt? What does God demand of us?

If we remember Ecclesiastes, we remember that God says ‘There’s nothing better for them than that they work hard and enjoy themselves as long as they live’. Tithe yes, but then enjoy ones self mightily. We are called to absolute and complete joy. Oscar Wilde said it best, "If you give me the luxuries I can gladly do without the necessities."

Jesus lived that out. Jesus turned water into wine and luxuriated in the administrations of a generous and prophetic woman. His ministry was about feasting and partying. You know the one who objects the most to the use of that expensive perfume? Judas did. Just before he sold Jesus out, one of his last acts in scripture is to object to the use of expensive perfume.
What are we asked to do? In 90%, 90% of our lives, we are asked to have a rip roaring good time. There is nothing that God delights in more than when we live our lives to the fullest and enjoy ourselves. How did we manage to screw up that message in the Christian Church? 90% of our lives are meant to be delighted in, no matter the state of the world which inevitably is always gloomy. If you give the 10% you don’t have to worry about it any more.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Bill Gates gave 10% of everything he owned? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our wealthy gave 10% of what they owned to God’s work in the world? If they did, we wouldn’t have poor people. Poverty would be eradicated tomorrow. It’s simple really, God’s hope for us. My friend with the Mercedes, which by the way I would gladly have driven around the block a few times, gives and tithes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone we knew did?

My week ended yesterday, Saturday, Sunday being the first day of the Christian week. I spent yesterday performing one of the more beautiful marriages I have performed lately. It was of two young women who were first met in this congregation by Christine who found them housing for which they are eternally grateful (this is what we do here with your givings). They are recovering crack addicts but they came to pre-marriage class and met with me and did all the things I ask of couples to do. There were a lot of nay sayers around this marriage who said, "They’re crack addicts, there’s no way this should happen."

When I went to their apartment, the size of a small room, here’s what I found. One of the couple is black, one white. They are both Canadians for several generations. Many family members had attended. There were lots of babies. They were all poor. They were extremely poor. They were also extremely loving. There was much laughter and joy.

I thought of all the stereotypes that the moment broke. The stereotype that people of color are more homophobic than white people. The stereotype that people of color are recent immigrants and that people who are white have been here a lot longer. I thought of all the stereotypes about addiction that the moment broke as well, that there’s no recovery from addiction or that if you know that somebody’s an addict then you know everything there is to know about them. I thought of all the stereotypes about poverty that the moment broke, that if we’re poor we can’t be as loving or as hardworking or as joyful or that you shouldn’t be allowed to spend the 90% of the welfare check you get on celebration.

We married them. All of us here, through me as your minister, married them. We all performed this act. Just as I was leaving, coming up the walkway were two members of one of the woman’s Churches, The Salvation Army. They too came to witness this celebration. There were another two people who had come to witness, from a Baptist Church. They were coming to join the celebration. For one beautiful moment I got what real Christendom looks like when we put aside all of our silly doctrinal differences and come together over a simple act of love. And what beautiful stewardship of all of our resources it was!