Sunday, 24 February 2019

For Nothing in Return (Luke 6:27-38)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on February 24, 2019, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany)



Balancing the Accounts

Growing up, I learned to love a good deal.  From the stories I’m told, this trait traces back to my grandfather, who after living through the Depression would buy bulk quantities of whatever was on sale at the grocery store and then stockpile them in his basement.  My family didn’t have a basement, so there was no room for stockpiling.  But my dad still loved a good deal.  I remember many an impromptu turnoff to Big Lots on our road trips.  And when I began my student internship here at Gayton Road Christian Church, I think any reservations he might have had concerning my departure from the Baptist church were quickly assuaged by the church’s prime location behind a Dollar Tree and across from an Ollie’s.  He is, of course, a member of Ollie’s Army.

According to today’s scripture, it’s not just my grandpa or dad who loves a good deal.  It’s all of us.  Today’s scripture is all about giving and getting.  Jesus makes it clear that we all love a good deal.  We all love to give as good as we get, and get back for whatever we give. 

Consider for a moment how the world teaches us to respond to our enemies, the persons who curse us, the persons who mistreat us.  “I don’t get angry,” some people say, “I get even.”  Others call it payback.  Whatever we call it, the principle is good economics: it’s balancing the accounts.  I’m going to give as good as I get.

And consider too how the world teaches us to relate to our loved ones, our friends, our acquaintances.  Just over a week ago, on Valentine’s Day, couples all over the world were worrying about the value of the gift that they would give their Valentine, lest they should give more or less than they receive and appear either noncommittal or overly committed.  More regularly, we see this in our coffee or meal outings with work friends, where we quietly keep a careful count of who’s paid what, making sure we stay even.  We see this, too, around Christmas time and in the perennial exchange of birthday gifts.  As with our enemies, so with our friends.  The operative principle is about good economics: it’s about balancing the accounts.  We give what we expect to get.

Abundant Life Is Not in a Balanced Account

It’s easy to see that Jesus would make a poor businessman.  With regard to the way of the world, the way of giving back to our enemies what we get and giving to our friends with the expectation that we will get something in return—where’s the life in that, he asks.  That’s just business as usual.  Even the sinners do that.  That just preserves the present order.  That just keeps the old life in circulation, rather than welcoming the new life God has for us.

We know exactly what Jesus is talking about.  Talking with my coupled friends about Valentine’s Day, I often hear a strong sense of disenchantment, as though the day has become more of a chore than a joy.  No wonder.  Nothing kills the mood like the feeling that it’s just a transaction, just a cold, calculating balancing of the accounts.  Similar feelings abound for some of us around Christmas time, as we rush about in obligation, driven to gift-giving not out of love but out of the demand to balance the accounts. 

Abundant life isn’t in good economics.  It’s not in a balanced account.  It’s in what exceeds that economy of exchange.  I have a feeling that middle school teachers know this the best.  For if they lived their lives by the calculating standard of giving as good as they get, then class rooms would look more like warzones than places of learning.  In my brief semester’s experience as a secondary school teacher, I heard and saw more than I was prepared to see and hear: pencils thrown, insults hurled, dark rumors passed underneath the desks.  Imagine if a teacher responded to his students in kind. 

But the good teachers don’t.  They do good to the students who give them nothing but trouble, they bless those from whose mouths they hear curses, they love their “problem-children” (even if they don’t like them).  They do this not because of anything they will get back from the students, nor for the simple payoff of a good feeling, nor (obviously) for their paltry paycheck.  They do it, year after year, for no good reason.  Their service to the students cannot be contracted into a why or a wherefore.  They do what they do for nothing in return.  That phrase—“for nothing in return”—is shorthand, of course, for love.  Which is what exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

Couples in committed relationships know this.  Maybe not on Valentine’s Day, when love is so often contracted into the cold calculation of a balanced account, but perhaps on a routine Tuesday in the middle of a busy month, when one makes a gesture for the other not because he has to, not because of the good feeling he will get, but for no good reason.  “For nothing in return.”  Which is to say, for love.  Which exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

Parents know this too.  Not when they raise their children with an investment mentality, with the hope that they will carry on a particular tradition or make the family great, but when they care for their children without any conditions, when they give themselves to their children “for nothing in return.”  Which is to say, for love.  Which exceeds our economy of exchange.  Which is where new life happens.

The Life of the Church

This week in your bulletin, you’ll see some information from the Operations Team about the church’s budget.  There is genuine cause for concern there. 

Our scripture today suggests, however, a deeper cause for concern.  It cautions us against living life with an investment mentality, looking for a return on investment.  It reminds us that life happens not in the balancing of accounts, the business as usual of our world.  That might be where survival happens, but not the life of faith, not the life of death and resurrection. 

Life happens where we do things “for nothing in return.” When we deliver D. D.’s Bears, as much as we might hope that folks remember our name and pay us a visit, that is not the reason we visit them.  We visit the sick and hurting to give ourselves to them for nothing in return.  To love them and to pray for them, so that even when they’ve forgotten our name they might remember they are held in our love and God is with them.  And when we welcome the AA folks next door, as much as we might appreciate the extra security that they bring to our property, that is not the reason we embrace them.  We embrace them for nothing in return.  We welcome them so that even if we don’t receive a single benefit, they might know the saving love of God who meets us in our powerlessness and delivers us from death.  When we host our yard sale, as much as we might hope that we make a great profit, I would like to think that is not the only reason we do it.  On a deeper level, I would like to think we are doing it for love of our neighbor, giving of ourselves for nothing in return; that we are giving good deals that will enrich our neighbors’ lives whether or not we ever see them again. 

All of that is to say, our life is not found in the business as usual of building a name (or “brand”), maintaining a building, or making a profit.  The life of faith, the life of death and resurrection, is found not in a good return on investment but in what we do for nothing in return.  Teachers know this, lovers know this, anyone who does what they do not for the money for but no good reason knows this.  May we know it too.

Prayer

Merciful Father and Mother of us all,
Whose indiscriminate love
Reaches out to us all
For nothing in return:
Wherever an investment mentality
Threatens to derail our faith,
Return us to the heartbeat of life,
Which is your love:
Embolden and encourage us
To seek first your kingdom,
Trusting that abundant life
Will be ours and others’ to share.
In Christ who gives himself: 
Amen.


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