{"id":1290,"date":"2012-02-14T18:32:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T18:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=758"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:28","slug":"a-meditation-on-security-by-marilyn-zehr-feb-12-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"A meditation on Security by Marilyn Zehr – Feb 12, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to this Sermon<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Hosea 11:1-11, Leviticus 25, Luke 12:13-21<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s RRSP season.\u00a0 This is the time of year that your local bank will be trying to lure you in to try their most popular investment options.\u00a0 I know about one bank that until tomorrow is offering 2 percent on a one year GIC for any new money.<\/p>\n

Now depending on your own experience you may have several different reactions to what I\u2019ve just said.<\/p>\n

Our congregation, if it is representative of society around us, and to a certain extent it is, will have among us a few people who were able to contribute their maximum allowable Registered Retirement Savings in 2011 and did so in monthly contributions throughout the year and therefore won\u2019t care about this new offer. (This is probably a fairly small percentage of the whole)<\/p>\n

There are others for whom paying a little bit less tax would be a great option if they could only find or even borrow a bit more money to save before the February 29th deadline.<\/p>\n

There will be many among us who wish that saving for retirement was a realistic option but living paycheck to pay check is barely covering expenses.<\/p>\n

There will be others for whom a choice must be made between paying down debt and investing in retirement savings.<\/p>\n

There will be some for whom debt payments are difficult to make.<\/p>\n

And admittedly for most of us if we are typical Canadians it\u2019s a question of how large the debt is, not whether it exists or not.<\/p>\n

And for some who rely on fixed incomes the questions will always be, \u201cis there enough for what I need today, this month this year and will there be enough for what I need tomorrow, next month and next year?\u201d<\/p>\n

And so I expect that many of you could react to my initial statement about \u201ca one year GIC offering 2 percent\u201d with mixed emotions ranging from\u00a0<\/p>\n

anger because money for savings is not realistic;<\/p>\n

guilt because somehow money for savings is supposed to be realistic;<\/p>\n

frustration because even the best returns on savings aren\u2019t much higher than 2 percent right now;<\/p>\n

and for all of us when we think about our sufficient or lack of sufficient funds for retirement we ask questions like.\u00a0 Will we have enough?\u00a0 How much is enough?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately we are talking about security.\u00a0 We are conditioned naturally and otherwise to wonder, \u201care we or will we be financially or economically secure now and in our future?\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I realize that talking about money this openly in church has me on pretty slippery footing, but if we are going to take our Bible seriously (which is generally our approach and this series on God of the Testaments and Biblical interpretation is encouraging us to do so) then we need to realize that the Bible talks about\u00a0<\/p>\n

money,\u00a0<\/p>\n

economic relationships between and among people,\u00a0<\/p>\n

and between people and the land\u00a0<\/p>\n

openly and often.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do we hear what it says?<\/p>\n

For this morning I have chosen to look at three distinct ways that the Bible communicates to us about economics and security.<\/p>\n

First from the law as given on Mount Sinai to Moses and recorded in Leviticus chapter 25<\/p>\n

Second, a prophetic passage from one of the Minor Prophets, Hosea<\/p>\n

and third a parable or story as told by Jesus.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting with Leviticus 25:\u00a0<\/p>\n

This chapter in Leviticus is part of the much larger gift of the law that God gave to the people of Israel through Moses.\u00a0 Next week Doug will share his passion about the entire book of Leviticus with us in hopes that we may all learn to love this book.\u00a0 In the meantime, let\u2019s see if we might fall in love with just one chapter.<\/p>\n

Yahweh spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai: Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:\u00a0 When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a Sabbath of Yahweh\u201d and goes on to stipulate exactly what this means.\u00a0 For six years the people will cultivate the land and coax it to produce a harvest, but in the seventh year they must let it rest.\u00a0 The people shall not cultivate or formally harvest the land during that seventh year, but they may eat what it produces on its own.\u00a0 And then after seven weeks of years or forty-nine years the people shall sound a horn, a Jobel, from which we derive the word Jubilee and they shall hallow the fiftieth year.\u00a0 In the fiftieth year, God says to Moses, \u201cYou shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants.\u00a0 It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family.\u00a0 Then God explicitly spells out what this means and how it will be done.\u00a0 For example, \u201cIn buying from your neighbour, you shall deduct only for the number of years since the jubilee,; and in selling to you, that person shall charge you only for the remaining crop years;\u00a0 the more such years, the higher the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for what is being sold to you is a number of harvests.\u201d\u00a0 Lest we think that these rules are arbitrary, God tells Moses why such rules exist.<\/p>\n

God says, \u201cYou shall observe My laws and faithfully keep my rules, that you may live upon the land in security; the land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall live upon it in security.\u201d\u00a0 All of these injunctions provide security \u2013 not only for the fortunate few, but also for everyone.<\/p>\n

The text even anticipates questions of practicality.\u00a0 \u201cAnd should you ask, \u201cWhat are we to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?\u201d \u00a0 God responds, \u201cI will ordain My blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years.\u00a0 When you sow in the eighth year, you will still be eating old grain of that crop; you will be eating the old until the ninth year, until its crops come in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I read this text I wondered how many agricultural colleges teach something like this method of land and food sustainability. \u00a0 There is deep wisdom in this text.\u00a0 I was born and raised in rural Ontario and I know that my father rotated his crops. On 100 acres Corn, grain, potatoes, alfalfa and pasture-land for dairy cows were rotated regularly because corn takes out of the soil what a ploughed field of alfalfa can put back in.\u00a0 Agrarians ignore the needs and rhythms of our earth and soil at our communal peril.<\/p>\n

But the text in Leviticus says more than just the deep wisdom of proper land care. There is no text in the Old Testament that more clearly reveals that the land is God\u2019s, that the people who live on the land are stewards of the land only and that when things become unbalanced as they are prone to do when some people are more or less fortunate than others, God has made provision in the gift of the law for that balance to be corrected every 50 years.\u00a0 God\u2019s blessing in the sixth year will make it possible for the people to allow the land to rest.\u00a0 Application of these laws requires people to trust in God\u2019s Blessing, faithfulness and wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enter the prophetic tradition \u2013 We know that even if the people of Israel tried to live out the Jubilee and there is some evidence that they may have, ultimately they became stubborn and insisted on living their own way in
\n the land.\u00a0 Sound familiar? The prophetic books, including Hosea, communicate their message not through law but through poetry, metaphor and allegory.\u00a0 In many cases the lives of the prophets themselves became metaphors for the people.\u00a0 For example, God asks Hosea to marry a sex trade worker in order to symbolically convey the relationship of the people to God.\u00a0 God accuses the people of believing that their bread, water, oil, wool and flax come from their lovers rather than God.\u00a0 \u201cShe did not know that I gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil,\u201d God moans. In the book of Hosea, as in other prophetic books, Israel\u2019s unfaithfulness expressed through swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery and bloodshed is deeply connected with the land. (Hosea 4:3) \u201cTherefore the land mourns, the land and all who live in it languish, the wild animals, the birds of the air and even the fish of the sea are perishing,\u201d These are prophetic words for today as well. Security for the people is also security for the land and both rely on understanding and living in right relationship with God, creator of the land and metaphorically faithful husband of the people.\u00a0 Hosea 11 extends the intimacy of this metaphor by describing God as a compassionate parent who calls Israel like a child out of Egypt, teaches him to walk, heals him, lifts him to Her cheek and feeds him.\u00a0 A few verses later this compassionate God is also like a lion, one both fearful and compelling like CS Lewis\u2019 Aslan \u2013 the one before whom they tremble, but also the one who in the end is able to take them home. Here again God reveals the true source of Israel\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the New Testament we move from law and metaphor to story \u2013 or parable. I don\u2019t need to retell the story that Geisa showed the children.\u00a0 It was the parable of the rich fool who built bigger barns to store his surplus food.\u00a0 What becomes of the man\u2019s wealth when his life is required of him?\u00a0 I heard it said this week in rather crass terms \u2013 no U-hauls follow hearses. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so here comes the really difficult part when considering Biblical interpretation especially with regard to economics.<\/p>\n

First, how prescriptive are the laws in the Leviticus text? In what ways might these laws be realistically applicable and more life giving than the laws that currently govern our economic reality? Might there be some deep wisdom here in this re-orientation to God?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Second, in what ways do Hosea\u2019s metaphors for God and the people and the land apply to us today?\u00a0 It\u2019s clearer to us now than ever before that the actions of people deeply affect the land, its animals, the birds, the fish and the sea.\u00a0 There are and will be destructive consequences for our unfaithfulness to God\u2019s desires for creation and our role within it.\u00a0 How is God hovering over us? Like a loving and faithful husband, a compassionate parent, or a fearful lion?\u00a0<\/p>\n

And finally, what\u2019s with this story about bigger barns?\u00a0 We have banks, investments and diversification for that kind of thing today.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it simply called saving for our retirement?\u00a0 At least that would be one way to hear the story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t<\/span>So, as we read our Bible, which texts are more helpful to us; law, story or metaphor?\u00a0 Is one or the other of these voices in our Scripture more important?<\/p>\n

I would argue that we need all three in equal measure. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Stories work on our hearts, metaphors as well as stories expand our imaginations, and laws provide helpful fences \u2013 you can go here and no further without disastrous consequences.\u00a0 If we let them, the stories and metaphors and laws in scripture work on us the way water shapes and wears away stones.\u00a0 Water can wear away stones with a steady drip, or by the endless flow of a stream or with crashing waves. In all these different ways, the stories, metaphors and laws of scripture act on our stone-like hearts and lives. \u00a0 And when I call our hearts and lives stone-like I only partly mean our human stubbornness, I also intend to acknowledge that when it comes to our socio-economic lives, it\u2019s difficult to imagine viable alternatives to the way we are currently living.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the laws in Leviticus help us to ask and imagine what it would mean to redistribute wealth regularly.\u00a0 The laws in Leviticus reorient us to the reality that the land is God\u2019s and not ours. Wouldn\u2019t this hold true for the wealth generated from the land as well?\u00a0 This reorientation helps us to appreciate the wisdom of our aboriginal sisters and brothers who lived much closer to this reality than we immigrants ever have. They knew and practiced that the \u201cland\u201d belongs only to the creator, not to individuals.\u00a0 When respected and managed properly the land and its creatures could sustainably take care of whole communities.\u00a0 Is this not security?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story in the gospel about the foolish rich man is a harsh reminder of the brevity of life and the foolishness of individually accumulated wealth.\u00a0 Where does wealth come from and who and what is it all for anyway? \u00a0 This time as I heard the story, I was struck by the isolation of the person in this story.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And finally we have the powerful metaphors in Hosea where God\u2019s love for the people despite their unfaithfulness is poignantly portrayed as faithful husband, compassionate parent and fearsome lion. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Scriptures portray time and again this fierce, loving, just and merciful God.<\/p>\n

God\u2019s fierce love, justice and mercy embrace all of history within a broad narrative of love beyond reason. \u00a0 This narrative of love beyond reason gave us laws, metaphors and stories so that if we dare to enter this narrative we also might have abundant life and security. If God created us redeems us and sustains us, how is it possible to think that God cares any less for our security than we do? \u00a0<\/p>\n

Is it possible to trust this? \u00a0<\/p>\n

At this point you would be right to ask the next question: – if we are given the grace to trust that God cares as much or more about our (as in everyone\u2019s and all of creation\u2019s) security than we do, what practical impact will that have on our lives, say, during RRSP season.\u00a0 I wish I had an easy answer for that.<\/p>\n

Like water wearing away the rocks, I suspect mostly our scriptures transform us in incremental ways \u2013 so let me name some of the incremental ways we might be transformed in the areas of economic security.<\/p>\n

First and foremost we need to come to an understanding that our security has to be communal security \u2013 I\u2019m not secure, if I\u2019m the only one with big barns full of provisions.\u00a0 God\u2019s laws, metaphors and stories of salvation and security are about all of us as a community.\u00a0 There\u2019s a song, ringing through my head as I think about this \u201cnone of us are free if one of us is chained, none of us are free.\u201d So when we make decisions about money we want to make sure that the money we have been graced with individually can work for the good of others.\u00a0 Investing in micro-financing companies may be an answer to that and I\u2019m sure there are other answers to that question as well.\u00a0 We will need to search for those answers communally. What about lending without interest?\u00a0 What about pooling more of our resources so we can take care of each other in retirement? What about calling on our banks and governments to create a system that assumes debts will be forgiven with some regularity so that people can be returned to wholeness out of poverty without penalty?\u00a0 Crazy notions, I know. \u00a0 My prayer to conclude is that the God who loves us fiercely and unreasonably, the God that longs for our security as much or more than we do will grace us with trust in God\u2019s faithfulness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon Hosea 11:1-11, Leviticus 25, Luke 12:13-21 It\u2019s RRSP season.\u00a0 This is the time of year that your local bank will be trying to lure you in to try their most popular investment options.\u00a0 I know about one bank that until tomorrow is offering 2 percent on a one year GIC for any new money. Now depending on your own experience you may have several different reactions to what I\u2019ve just said. Our congregation,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3948,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions\/3948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}