Proper 27 A

November 9, 2008

Grow One Sunday 

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Psalm78:1-7

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Matthew 25:1-13

I haven’t seen any of the Tom Cruise movie versions of Mission Impossible but I vaguely remember the TV show. Clearest in my memory is at the beginning of every show there was a recorded message from the ‘secretary’. The voice offered one or more members of the team of special agents a mission, if they chose to accept it, of course. Then the recorded player or tape recorder self-destructed as soon as the message was listened to. No replay. No chance to hear it again. Maybe take a few notes. No opportunity to ask questions. No way to know how it would turn out. What kind of obstacles would pop up or the likelihood of success. Just an invitation to accept the mission as it was presented or not.

I watched a clip of the first episode of Mission Impossible online the other day. It was clear to me that the Team Leader, Dan, had a relationship with the voice on the record. I’m guessing that relationship influenced his choice to accept the mission week after week. That reminds me of the story of God’s people in the Old Testament. Beginning with Abraham, the leaders God chose for Israel were first, Abraham, then his son, Isaac, Isaac’s son Jacob and Jacob’s son Joseph. Joseph is the one who was responsible for getting the Israelites to Egypt to keep them from starving to death in the famine. They thrived and became plentiful in Egypt. Joseph died. A new pharaoh comes to power who had not known Joseph. He commands the entire nation of Israel into slavery. They cry out to God for deliverance. God sends Moses. Moses leads them out of Egypt in the middle of the night, journeys through the wilderness with them, receives the commandments from God to lead the people and establish an everlasting covenant between Israel and God. Finally Moses gets them within sight of the Promised Land, the edge of the Jordon River, but God doesn’t allow Moses to cross over with them. So Moses makes his farewell speech, reminding the people of all that God had done for them, urging them not to forget God. He then dies a peaceful death. The mantle passes to Joshua to lead God’s people across the river into the Promised Land to settle it and claim it as their own, each family with its own territory.

From Genesis 12 to Joshua 24 you could find lots of good episodes for Mission Impossible. The voice is always God’s. The record player or instruments that make God’s voice audible are the servant leaders God has chosen to communicate God’s invitation to accept the mission. Often it seems like an impossible mission, like God instructing Joshua to command his soldiers and the priests to walk around the walled city of Jericho for seven days in a row until the walls came tumbling down.

The point of these stories is while the mission is impossible for humankind it is not impossible when humankind partners with God. Now here’s the twist: the mission never gets finished. It just gets passed on. Over and over again in the scriptures God’s mission outlives those who choose to accept it. So it is with God’s servant, Joshua. He led the Israelites in their conquest to settle the Promised Land. That’s done. Each tribe of the descendants of Abraham has their own olive tree, their own piece of earth. Their children are full and satisfied. They have a nice house, everything they need and much of what they want. They are a prosperous people just as God promised. Now Joshua is about to die. He warns the People of God as Moses did before him that in their prosperity they might be tempted to turn away from God and follow other gods, the gods of the land they now call their own. The mission God offers them through Joshua if they choose to accept it, is to renew their covenant with God, and promise to serve only the God of their ancestors. It’s a conscious choice they have to make. Joshua lets them know that he and his household choose to serve the Lord. The People of God tell Joshua that they choose to serve the same God he serves. They promise publicly as one body of people to do that. Then Joshua dies leaving the people with the mission of being God’s servants in the land God gave them while they enjoy all that God has given them.

What a gift to a preacher to have these scriptures today on Grow One Sunday, our day of commitment. The day we choose to serve the Lord our God by committing a percentage of our income to the mission we inherited, first through Christ then through his apostles. The ancient people of God thought God wanted their obedience more than anything. They thought the commandments were given for that reason. What we learned through the teaching and ministry of Jesus is that all along what God wanted more than anything was the relationship. It wasn’t for the sake of obedience that the commandments were given by God. It was for the sake of the relationship that they were given. Remembering and obeying the commandments was the way to remember God. The way to keep relationship with God the most important relationship in anyone’s life.

The commandment to gather one tenth of whatever God has blessed you with and offer it back to God or give it to the church for the mission we inherited through Christ is a way to be intentional in your relationship with God. A way to choose God over a lot of other things that compete for dominance in our lives, a way to remember God.

I want to be specific for a minute. If your income is 100,000 dollars a year could you remember God with 10,000 and get by on 90,000? If your income is 1,000 a week, about what mine is, could you remember God for 100 dollars a week and get by on 900? I can give more than that and get by just fine. The lower your income the closer the tithe comes to sacrificial giving. To give sacrificially means you have to trust God to provide for you like the ancients did. That requires a healthy relationship with God. It requires you to remember all that God has done for you. If your income is 300 dollars a week, can you remember God with 30 and get by on 270? I’ve done it.

Speaking of sacrifice, if you fasted the two days we are supposed to fast in the church year, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, if you prayed three times instead of eating three meals on those days, you might save 20 dollars a day. That’s 40 dollars you could add to whatever number you are thinking of writing on your estimate of giving card. What else could you sacrifice for the forty days of Lent that would free up money you could give for Christ’s mission in this church? I gave up ice cream one year and saved 40 dollars. That plus what I’d save by fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday means I could add 80 dollars to my estimate for the year. If I could give 80 more dollars why couldn’t I stretch just a little and make that 100? Surely I could trust our Lord to help me give 20 more dollars for his mission. This is the way I come to a decision of what to write on my estimate of giving card. I’ve been tithing my income and trusting God to help me keep my promise for 20 years. Tithing has kept me mindful of God, strengthened my relationship with God, and increased my trust in God.

Today we have an invitation before us, an invitation to grow closer to our Lord by trusting him to enable us to keep our promise. An invitation to choose God over any other thing that would tempt us and draw us away from God. God knows there are so many things in our lives that could do that if we allow it.

Like the Israelites Joshua spoke to, when it comes to material things, most, if not all of us here have all that we need and much of what we want. First, let’s be honest about that. Then with thankful hearts we can receive the invitation before us today, accept it with great joy and choose to give with generosity, gratitude, and joy, the fruit of our life and labor to God.