2232AFC080522 – Too Much is Enough
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Luke 12:48b – If God has been generous with you, he will expect you to serve him well. But if he has been more than generous, he will expect you to serve him even better. ~~ Contemporary English Version (CEV) ~~ Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are from the Contemporary English Version Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Have you even heard the expression, “Too much of a good thing?” It’s generally taken to mean that moderation is preferred over excess. A quarter-pounder with cheese is A-OK, but a ¼ pound of hamburger topped with 4 slices of bacon, 5 fried onion rings, 2 Kosher-Dill pickle spears, and a tablespoon of Mystery Sauce is kinda over-the-top. A martini for pau hana (after work) is OK but a six-pack of Bud with whiskey chasers is going overboard. A thanksgiving turkey is nice, but that turducken is just extravagance. You know, there can be too much of a bad thing, too, right? Some of us “of a certain age” will remember a Bob Dylan song covered by Pete, Paul, and Mary called “Too much of nothing.” And Act 2 of the dramatic folk opera Porgy and Bess, Porgy sings “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’.” In that circumstance, Porgy is singing about his new-found happiness whereas in Dylan’s lyrics, “too much of nothing” it can makes us mean, or judgmental, or out of control. We all understand that anything in excess is not conducive to good health physically, mentally, and/or spiritually. Living constantly in excessive consumption of food and drink, romance, wagering, religiosity – anything overdone is debilitative. But we all get into out-of-bounds territory once in a while. Well, almost anything and everything. There’s is one thing that is never harmful when received in overflowing abundance. Have you guessed what that is?
You are correct, O wise one! It is the benevolence of God. He always wants to bless you, and then bless you some more. Now, it’s true that there are some rules that apply to those blessings. One of them is summarized in the phrase “Trust and Obey.” I like that one because it only has two parts! Trust is an important part because it is what makes us open to accepting and receiving his blessings. That pesky element of our makeup called “Free Will” allows us to actually refuse his blessings. Folks, that just doesn’t make any sense at all – but again, we all do it at some time or another. That usually results in one of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead moments. If we trust God to give us only Good Gifts (See James 1:17 again, please.), then we will be open to receive those gifts. Of course, once you have received from the Generous Bounty of Almighty God (our El Shaddai) (↔ Music Link) any of his great and wondrous gifts, it only makes sens to use that gift – but again, we all fail to do that at some time or another, too. Still, trusting God really is easier than trusting in government (or even ourselves sometimes). We just need to have faith in him, and to do that, we have to know him. Before we get to the second part of “Trust and Obey,” I want to hark back to 2008 and The Wheelbarrow (← Check it out!).
It turns out that being able to know God is another of his super-cool Gifts. Unlike certain other gods who wish to remain unknowable, our El Shaddai actually gets involved in our lives in positive ways. He has even made himself personally available as a Friend (↔ Music Link). If we know God, we know we can trust him. If we trust God, he makes it way easier to know him, to love him, and to serve him. And do you know what? Loving him and serving him are also two of his wondrous gifts! What is the point of serving a deity you do not and cannot know? We’re developing quite a pile of wondrous Gifts already, yes? We trust God, we know him and we love him and we want to serve him. That’s where we slip up again. Instead of serving him we serve some other god like the TV, or sports, or wealth, or … us. Now we come to the second part of that easy rule – Obey.
Our Almighty-Everliving God – our El Shaddai-Olam – made it perfectly clear when he laid out The Law for Israel. Right at the outset God said in Exodus 20:2-3 – 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before[a] me.
If someone or something is easier for us to trust, to love, and to serve, then we have displaced God, rejected his gifts, and put ourselves in a really perilous situation. None of us would ever to that, right? Hopefully that’s the case – but again, we all manage to do that at some time or another, too. Here we find that God has blessed us with a couple of other things that work together – conscience and consciousness. Even as toddlers we have an innate and intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. Our consciousness begins even earlier, generally between 12-15 months but some evidence suggests it might be as early as 5-6 months. When we are conscious of our own motivations and emotions we lay our the foundation of conscience. I’m sure we have all experience the sheer surprise of weeing a three-year-old deliberately disobey a parent, strike a sibling, and then blame all that on someone else. Given that foundation, it’s not much of a leap to the acts of deliberate disobedience to … anyone, including God. Every good parent hopes her/his kid will be kind, generous, thoughtful, a good citizen. All those things are secondary, though, to what a parent should be teaching a kid about God.
God makes a better foundation for growth than toys or Mozart or independent discovery as a 1- to 3-year-old toddler. When we teach our children to know and love God (more by actions than by words, I’d say), chances are pretty good that they will trust him and obey him – until they forget, as we adults often do. Much of the B.I.B.L.E. describes the processes and outcomes of people who forgot to accept God’s wondrous Gifts. This Sunday we will hear about one absolutely astonishing Gift given to a People who were chosen by God to be his Delight. We will hear about the first Passover.
One would think that participating in such an event-filled blessing would be UNFORGETTABLE. But the Israelites were barely out of town when they forgot and then built that Golden Calf. We might cut them a little slack because they really didn’t know better – no 10 Commandments yet and all that – but if seeing is believing, then they could have had at least a rudimentary faith in God’s Power. The Apostle Paul addressed that in his letter to the Hebrews. Sunday’s second reading is from the Letter to the Hebrews. The Apostle Paul tell them in Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Israel had around 1,000 years between Abraham and Moses to develop some sense of national identity. They knew the meaning of their name – Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל See Genesis 35:9-13 ) – and yet lacked a way to know God as their own. No matter haw many Judges, or Prophets, or Priests, or even enemies were sent to Israel, they forgot as we all do at some time or another. It just seemed like their hearts were not in this process of trusting and obeying God. Jesus had a good saying on this that encourages us to treasure our relationship with God and with each other as well.
We find it in Luke 12:32-34 – 32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If we know God, trust God, have faith in God, and love God, we are right at the door of the source of that treasure: Heaven. Now, you’ve heard me say this many times: “Why would you want anything less?” But sometimes we forget, and you already know how that works out. God’s Absolutely Perfect Plan (the APP, remember?) has a fix for that. When we ask for forgiveness, he forgives and then forgets that we forgot. That is because we are blessed by his Grace, the undeserved merit of his justice tempered with mercy which is ours because of his Perfect Integrity, Endless Mercy, Everlasting Love, and Eternal Salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Belovéd, too much of anything is enough. When we get to that point in our day-to-day lives, we must depend on the Grace of God to apply his APP. We must take caution, though, that we don’t make a bigger mess by trying to find Grace in greater abundance than God has I mind. Here’s what The Apostle Paul had to say about that in Romans 6:1-2 – 1 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? GOOD QUESTION! We can and must trust and obey out of love, and whenever we forget, we must remember that Grace is a Gift given in Love. As The Apostle Peter put it in 1 Peter 4:8-10 – 8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Too much is enough; enough to cost us Heaven if we for get to remember we forgot. When that happens, we REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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