God, whose giving knows no ending, from your rich and endless store—
Nature’s wonder, Jesus’ wisdom, costly cross, grave’s shattered door –
Gifted by you, we turn to you, offering up ourselves in praise;
Thankful song shall rise forever, gracious Donor of our days.
Treasure, too, you have entrusted, gain through powers your grace conferred,
Ours to use for home and kindred, and to spread the gospel word.
Open wide our hands in sharing, as we heed Christ’s ageless call,
Healing, teaching, and reclaiming, serving you by loving all.
Dear Fellow Followers of the Way:
The sermon text last Sunday was the story of the feeding of the five thousand and while listening to Bill’s sermon, I was struck by God’s abundance in the story. I began to think of other biblical examples of God’s abundance and then I decided to email some of my friends and have them brainstorm other examples with me. Here is a start to references to God’s abundance.
Genesis 1 Job 42 Matt 6:31-33 John 10:10
Genesis 15 Psalm 23 Luke 5:1-11 All Healing and Miracle Stories
Exodus 16 Psalm 103: 1-5 Luke 14
Numbers 11 Psalm 104: 25 Luke 15:22 Romans 15:13
Ruth Eccl 5 :18-20 John 2 2 Cor 9:8 - 11
1 Kings 17 Amos 13 John 3:16 Revelation 21:15-21
I would guess there are hundreds more examples to be found. And although we see great abundance in these stories, the concept of scarcity lurks within the texts as well. In an article by Walter Brueggemann, “The Liturgy of Abundance, The Myth of Scarcity,” he points out the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. In Genesis, Pharaoh orders the harvest to be stored. It was not about offering it to the people, it was about greed and making sure he had enough. Several generations later, the Pharaoh is scared of the abundance of the Hebrew people and orders the midwives to kill the baby boys. According to Brueggemann, “The fear of not having enough brings about the mentality of scarcity.” The author of Ecclesiastes comments on this as well in 5:10 “The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity.”
How could the author of Ecclesiastes have been so spot on for our world today? Consumerism is rampant. People buy without money to pay for things. It has created an environment of stress, distrust, and greed. Many people are never satisfied with what they have, they claim they will be happy if they just ____________. How have we let the fear of not having enough choke out the memory of the promises of God? How did we get so trapped in this mentality of scarcity? How do we get out of it?
I think we have to start with how we define abundance. As one of my friends reminded me context makes all the difference. Abundance looks different for someone with enough to eat and enough money to pay the bills relatively stress free than it does to someone who worries about which bills to pay in a given month or to someone wondering where the next meal will come from. Our culture tends to define abundance in material things as seen in the bumper sticker “He who dies with the most toys wins.” This kind of abundance is a source of lots of stress.
In a quest for more things, our society as created a sense of fear that there will never be enough. It is easy to want to hoard what we have and push others away, but is this what God intends for our lives? No. God intends for us to reach out to others and to live life with an open hand: an open hand that receives the grace and the blessing from the God who Provides (Jehovah Jireh Genesis 22:13-14) and an open hand that extends those blessings to those in need. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:11 “ You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.” Our society, the world teaches us a mentality of scarcity, but in God we find extravagance and abundance.
In this time of Thanksgiving, may we remember that our God is a God of plenty. Let us offer ourselves in praise to God and use the talents and gifts we have been given to reach out to people in our community and in our world. Let us celebrate God’s abundance and reach out with an open hand to the world and give the world hope. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
Grace, Mercy and Peace,
Karen
