102112-My Cup Runneth Over-Overflowing Blessing - St. Luke's ...

“My Cup Runneth Over: Overflowing Blessing”By Dr. Tom PaceLuke 6:32-38October 21, 2012Join me in prayer: O God, open us up. Open our eyes that wemight see, and open our ears that we might hear, Open ourhearts, God, that we might feel. And then, O Lord, open ourhands that we might serve. Amen.Church dinners. I love church dinners. I love potluckdinners. I love bar-b-que dinners. I just like churchdinners.I like the fellowship and the hangin’ out. I like thatthey let the pastor go to the front of the line. I justlike church dinners. You know you can pile up your plateand you can think, “Well, it would be rude not to pile upmy plate. I might offend someone who made that potatosalad. I have to have to have some of it – that would berude otherwise.” So I can just fill it up.So here’s the way it always works. The serving line ishere and over there against the side wall they have thedrink table, right? The drink table. You guys know that.The drink table has those big orange or yellow things onit. The round coolers. You take your cup and you go overand lemonade and tea is the general fare that goes with it.So I’m at a church dinner and I go over and I put mycup under the little yellow thing and I fill it up. Youpush the little button, you know what I’m talking about.

You fill it up and it gets to about an inch before the top.You let go of the button and ..uh, oh! It doesn’t stop. Itjust keeps going. So you look at it for a minute and you’rejust frozen. You think there ought to be something you cando so you shake it and let it go again. And now it’s comingover your hand like this. And you’re not sure what to do.So you look around and you snatch another cup off the tableand you get underneath it. Right? So you put it there andthen you start banging on the side. This is what I’m doing– I’m banging on the side and I’m getting another cup andgetting it ready. Now everyone around me is seeing mydilemma. They’re running over trying to help and they’reshaking the thing. You know, you put your thumb on thebottom of the spigot hoping that will stop it but it justmakes it go “Spppppp!” like that all over the place. And sopretty soon every one is helping the poor pastor. You know,it’s going to run a long time because I’m at the front ofthe line. So it’s full of lemonade. So pretty soon we’rejust passing lemonade to everyone. “Here, here’s lemonade!”We’re passing it because we can’t stop the thing, It justkeeps on flowing.I think it’s a parable for the Christian life. Ournatural approach is “Fill up my cup and then I’ll stop.”But no, what the Scripture tells us, “No, don’t get abigger cup. Don’t just keep getting a bigger and biggercup.” There’s a parable about building bigger barns, right?You don’t just get a bigger cup. What you do is you beginto share the lemonade that’s poured into your cup. Youstart passing the lemonade around.I want to talk to you today about the circle ofgenerosity. The circle of generosity.

Now, listen, I realize that before the early servicemorning as I was making last minute preparations that it’snot really a circle at all. It’s because a circle has nobeginning and no end. This is a spiral because it has aclear beginning. It begins with God.God is an abundant God and blesses us for no goodapparent reason other than his love. We are a blessedpeople. A blessed creation. God is an abundant God.I find it so interesting that we read the Twenty-ThirdPsalm at so many memorial services. It’s a Psalm that’s notso much about grieving. It’s a Psalm about God’s abundance.Just listen to the line: “The Lord is my shepherd, Ishall not want.” What would it be like if in your head ifin your heart, if in your life you could with confidencesay, “I don’t need anything. I don’t want for anything.I’ve got everything I could ever want or need.” That’s whatthe Psalm’s about.“He leadeth me in green pastures; he leads me besidethe still waters.” He provides everything.And listen, it’s not just about material things, isit? The fact is that it may be less about that thananything else. “He restoreth my soul.”Then there is the part where we don’t resonate withsometimes, because we don’t really hear it right. “Thoupreparest a table…” It’s about half way through the Psalmand you might note that it shifts from third person,talking about God, to second person, talking to God. “Thoupreparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”You say to yourself, “I don’t have any enemies; noarmies encamped against me.” But what if you said it thisway, “In the presence of the greatest challenges, most

difficult moments of my life, even when life stinks, God,you prepare a table before me.”“Thou annointest my head with oil.” What’s that mean?When people were grieving they would put ashes andsackcloth on. But when they were celebrating, it’s a signof gladness: “Thou annointest my head with oil. My cuprunneth over.”Even in the most difficult times my cup runneth over.You are an abundant God.One of the songs that is a part of my internal hymnalis a children and youth song that I learned long ago. But Istill find myself singing the chorus. I can’t remember anyof the verses. Some of you know it – you’ve learned it inVBS. It’s called “My Father’s House.” You know it? “Comeand go with me, to my Father’s house. Come and go with me,to my Father’s house. It’s a big, big house.” You have todo the hand motions. “Big, big house.” If you see medriving and doing that then you know I’m singing to myself.“Big, big house with lots and lots of rooms. Big, bigtable, with lots and lots of food. A big, big yard where wecan play football.” Touchdown! There you go! She knows it!Touchdown! “A big, big house. It’s my Father’s house.”That’s the kind of God we worship, an abundant God.That’s where it starts.Now the generosity circle works this way. Abundance.What’s the response to abundance? The response to abundanceis gratitude. We experience God’s blessings and we are sothankful. We are filled with gratitude.Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote a book not long ago calledSimple Abundance. It became a New York Times Best Sellerand it’s not a really deep book. In the beginning she talksabout what led her to the book. Here’s what she writes. She

says that she was once and these are her own words, “I wasonce an angry, envious workaholic and perfectionist whocompared myself to others and resented what seemed to bemissing in my life.”If the shoe fits with any of you….?So here’s what she did. She decided that she was sickand tired of being sick and tired, so she decided she wasfocusing on the wrong things. So she endeavored to sit downand write down every way God had blessed her. She began towrite it down. She called it a gratitude journal. She justbegan to write a gratitude journal. She got to one hundredfifty and she realized that in the very experience ofwriting those things down her heart had changed. And all ofa sudden she realized how blessed she was.Gratitude is the response to God’s abundance. Werespond by thanking God for the ways God has blessed us.Now, once our eyes are opened to those blessings, oncewe are filled with gratitude the next step is that therebeckons a response with our hands. We then respond withoverwhelming generosity, because of what God has done forus. You see the circle? The abundance leads to gratitudeand that gratitude demands some sort of action and thatleads to generosity.Some of you have read the writings of Robert Fulghum.He’s a fun writer. He hasn’t written as much lately but fora while he wrote lots of great stories. You’re probablymost familiar with his first best seller All I Really Needto Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Then he wrote – and thisis my favorite title – It Was On Fire When I Lay Down OnIt. It begins with a story about a guy who was rescued froma burning bed. They asked him “What happened?” He said, “Idon’t know. It was on fire when I lay down on it.”

I thought that was kind of a parable of my life. Mygreat decision making ability sometimes. I lie down on aburning bed.But in his book Uh-Oh, he talks about his father. Hesays, “My father was not a Christian, at least not by thestandards of the Salvation Army, the Baptist church or mymother. Yet year after year he took me along with him toring the bell for the Army of God – the Salvation Army.Sometimes I saw him quietly singing along with the hymnsplayed by the band. He didn’t sing in church, even when hewent. It surprised me to hear him sing here and I didn’trealize he knew all the words by heart. But there was adeeper reason for his participation. Years after my fatherdied, his sister told me that when the family home hadburned down, leaving the family destitute, the SalvationArmy came to the rescue. They helped my father find hisfirst job. All the help they got in that awful time wasfrom the Salvation Army. So I finally understood why herang that bell.”It was out of his gratitude that he gave of himself.It was out of his gratitude for what the Salvation Army haddone for him. He may not have even been able to see it asGod doing something for him. But out of what the SalvationArmy did for him he felt a need to be generous with his ownheart and his own life and his own time.So if that’s the case for someone who receivessomething like that what is it that we receive when werespond to the gift of God’s Son given to us?Early in his ministry Jesus takes the disciples asideand he’s called the twelve to him. And he takes them off ona training retreat. It’s right at the beginning of thegospels. He takes them on a training retreat. In Matthew

it’s called the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke it’s calledthe Sermon on the Plain. And he teaches them what a life ofa follower of Jesus will be like. He says, “This is whatwill characterize us. This is how we will live. This is theway people will know that we are followers of me [Jesus].”And he describes to them a life of unbridled over the topalmost crazy generosity. That is far beyond logical reason.For example, he says, “Forgive everyone who ever didanything wrong to you. No matter what.” Well, how manytimes should we forgive them? Seven? That seems reasonable.“Seven times seventy you will forgive them. If someone asksyou for your coat, give them your cloak as well. If someoneasks you to walk one mile, walk two miles with them. Ifsomeone asks to borrow money, lend to them. But look, don’texpect them to pay it back. No need for that.”This is the one that gets me. “If someone steals fromyou don’t seek to recover the property. Just let them haveit.” Wow, that’s a generosity that is just over the top,beyond unbridled, beyond understanding. It’s this way oflife that is not just partly open but is completely open.“I will give myself away,” is what he’s saying.Then he closes with this marvelous statement ofbenefit. He says, “Give and it shall be given to you, agood measure, pressed down shaken together, and runningover in your lap. For the measure you give will be themeasure you get back.”If you choose to live a life of generosity, he says,you will experience abundance. The circle is closed.Abundance leads to gratitude, leads to generosity, leads toabundance.Now do not misunderstand me. I do not believe that ifyou are generous in your giving to the church or any place

else, that your stocks will do better, or that Ed McMahonwill show up at your door with a $10 million check. He’sdead by the way so he will definitely not show up at yourdoor. But none of those great things will happen, In fact,here’s what I will tell you. I suspect - I can’t promise -but I suspect that if you live a life of unbridledgenerosity and lend without expecting it back then yourbank account will be smaller. Your house may be smaller.But you know what? You will think to yourself, “I don’tneed anything. I shall not want.” You’ll begin toexperience a life of abundance. You’ll begin to see theworld in an altogether different way. As abundant and fulland wanting nothing.A number of years ago I went away on a mission tripwith a group of teenagers. The teenagers were middleschool, and high school and we went to Grundy County,Tennessee. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there. It’sright in the heart of Appalachia, one of the poorestcounties in the country. We were doing home repair work.We contracted with an organization to provide all thelogistics, the food, the work sites, the tools, thematerials for our work there. We were going to do thespiritual stuff – we prepared all that. But we didn’t knowthe players there so they were going to handle all of that.It was a fairly new organization. And when we arrived werealized they really had no clue what they were doing. Sothey arrived the first morning and I had forty kids with meand some adults. They arrive with breakfast and theybrought generic cornflakes with no sugar, not Kellogg’sCorn Flakes, just generic corn flakes. I think the milk hadsat in the trunk of the car overnight. It was kind oflukewarm. That was breakfast. So we ate the breakfast.

Then lunch came and it was baloney sandwiches. And bybaloney sandwiches I mean a piece of bread, a piece ofbaloney, and a piece of bread. We’re not talking lettuce,tomato or mayonnaise or good stuff. Just stale bread andbaloney. So we went to the worksite and when we walked intothe house there’s literally a hole in the floor. A big holein the floor. I looked at it and the other adults werelooking at it, and we’re wondering if we’re supposed toreplace the floor. We had a few hammers and a saw. So thekids started banging on it to try and get it out and agroup of wasps come out. They sting some of the kids andsome of the adults. Now, you want to send your kids on amission trip, I know.So all of that happened and I’m thinking, “This is anightmare. I have no idea what we’re going to do now.” Sowe get in the bus at the end of the day headed back to thechurch and I’m thinking, “We’re going to have to have apowwow with the head honcho of this organization rightnow.” As we walked into the church where we were spendingthe night on the floor, I heard one of the young people infront of me – a fourteen year old boy having a conversationwith one of the adult leaders. We walked in and we’re allsweaty and hot and discouraged. The kid looked at the adultand says, “That was the best day ever!”You could hear the adult say, “Tell me more aboutthat.” It didn’t seem like such a good day for me!The boy said, “Did you see the look on that man’s facewhen we showed up at his house to help him?” He went onabout how much fun it had been to run from the wasps andall that stuff.Look, he viewed the world completely differently thanI did. He viewed the world as abundant, as blessed.

Look, abundance has nothing to do with how much stuffyou’ve got. Abundance is a way of understanding yourself inrelationship to God and to the world around you. That’sabundance.Contrast that boy with the woman who sits in theexpensive restaurant and sends her food back because it’snot done right, her coffee’s cold and it’s just not goodenough. It’s just not good enough.Which of the two has abundance?The great theologian Jimmy Dean – some of you know thegreat theologian Jimmy Dean – wrote a song and listen tothe closing line. “So Lord, help me not to gripe about thetough rows that I’ve hoed. I’m drinking from my saucer‘cause my cup has overflowed.” Drinking from your saucer‘cause your cup overflowed.The circle of generosity. Abundance leads to gratitudeleads to generosity leads to experiencing the world withmore abundance leads to more gratitude leads to moregenerosity leads to greater sense of abundance in yourlife. Come join the circle.Let’s pray together. O God, open us up to know andexperience all of the ways you’ve blessed us. The peoplearound us, the gifts that they offer to us, the words ofencouragement, the simple smile of someone on the street.God, we thank you. Open us to share then with generouslives and hearts that we might experience that abundanceall the more. In Christ’s name, Amen.

102112-My Cup Runneth Over-Overflowing Blessing - St. Luke's ...

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