{"id":706,"date":"2017-11-11T22:26:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T03:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=706"},"modified":"2017-11-29T10:22:23","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T15:22:23","slug":"all-saints-sunday-ultimate-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2017\/11\/11\/all-saints-sunday-ultimate-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"All Saints Sunday – Ultimate Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ultimate Treasure<\/h1>\n

A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/a><\/h2>\n

by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor \u2022 Copyright 2017<\/h2>\n

All Saints Sunday \u2022 November 5, 2017<\/h2>\n

1 John 3:1-3<\/a><\/h2>\n

Click below to hear the sermon preached<\/h3>\nhttps:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ultimate_treasure.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Hasn\u2019t it been an amazing week? Like the view riding a carousel, things flashed by, sometimes so fast it was hard to see them. There was Halloween and its parade of children in costumes. There was the process of pursuing criminals from last year\u2019s Presidential election. And of course in the middle of the week, the terrible terrorists attack close to home in New York City. Now we\u2019re here, in this quiet place, and it\u2019s time for the carousel to stop and let us catch our breath, consider the way forward. For a few weeks I\u2019ve been lifting up the theme of stewardship, by which I mean the conscious decision to treat everything we have as a gift from God. Today\u2019s scripture reading from the first letter of John is a wonderful summary of this theme.  <\/p>\n

“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are,\u201d it begins. Stop and listen carefully to this sentence. Breathe it in; let it resonate within you. John begins with the reminder we all need every single day: the love of God is the bedrock reality of creation. \u201cSee what love the Father has given us\u2026\u201d Last week I talked about the time when the church set a price on a ticket to heaven. That kind of pay for play religion has always gone on; we hear it echoed in an oracle by the prophet Micah <\/p>\n

\u2018With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high?\u2028Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? \u2028Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, \u2028\twith tens of thousands of rivers of oil?\u2028Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, \u2028\tthe fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?\u2019 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the heartfelt cry of a person who wants to know what it will cost to come to God. Ticket to heaven religion still goes on; it\u2019s the base of the prosperity preaching, it\u2019s the temptation of every church. To this heresy, to this great falsehood, John says: \u201cSee with love the Father has given us\u2026\u201d No payment, no ticket, just gift: God is all gift.<\/p>\n

He goes on to say, \u201cBeloved, we are God\u2019s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.\u201d What does it look like? Perhaps we\u2019ll understand if we turn to one of my favorite children\u2019s stories: the story of Eeyore\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

Eeyore is one of the characters in the Winnie the Pooh stories, a dolorous, grey donkey, given to deep sighs and pessimistic views. Pooh encounters him on his birthday and he is feeling sorry for himself, so Pooh decides to make a birthday party. He goes home and finds Piglet; together they ponder presents. Then Pooh has an idea: he has a jar of honey. Now to a bear like Pooh, there is no gift as wonderful as a jar of honey. So he climbs up on the counter and gets the jar and sets off for Eeyore\u2019s house. Meanwhile, Piglet has a hard time deciding; finally he remembers a big red balloon he received on his birthday, and happily he gets that. Because he\u2019s taken so long deciding, he\u2019s late and he runs and runs and as often happens when we run, he trips and falls and there is a tremendous POW! Piglet wonders what happened and then realizes the balloon is no longer there; instead there are just bits of red stuff. He picks those up, not nearly as happy now and sets out again.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Pooh is also on his way to Eeyore\u2019s when he gets tired and hungry. So he sits down and has a little of the honey. And then he has a little more and\u2026well you can tell where this is going. Soon the jar is empty. Pooh contemplates the jar and then has this idea: it is now a Useful Jar for Putting Things In. So he washes it out, and sets off again.<\/p>\n

Piglet and Pooh arrive at Eeyore\u2019s and give him the Useful Jar for Putting Things In and the bits of red balloon. And then, while they argue a bit about the presents they suddenly realize that Eeyore is overjoyed: over and over again, he\u2019s putting the red bits in the jar, taking them out, putting them in. The kindness of the friends somehow has taken these doubtful presents and turned them into treasure. <\/p>\n

\u201cSee what love the Father has given us\u2026\u201d We all receive the gift of those who went before us in this church. This wonderful space, like a greenhouse, has grown many into spiritual flowering and it continues to nurture not only we who are its members but so many groups, from the Soul Rebel Theatre to the Recovery group. We benefit from their contributions in a direct way as well; our invested funds are a key part of what makes it possible to pay for our life as a church. The other key part is the gifts we give, both financial and in service. <\/p>\n

\fJust like Pooh and Eeyore and Piglet, we are meant to go to a party. What gift will you bring? Every party needs gifts. Think of the communion party we are about to share. Someone had to get the juice, the bread, prepare them, set them out. Someone will bring you the elements; you will pass them to someone else. What makes the party is the shared spirit, the shared gifts. For when we give gifts of love, it is the image of God shining in us. <\/p>\n

Maybe you brought a balloon that\u2019s broken; maybe you brought an empty jar. Maybe you brought something none of us has ever seen. Whatever gift you share, we share, when we share, we share our lives as children of God. And isn\u2019t that the ultimate treasure?\u2014to know indeed that in our giving, every moment, is a gift from the God who loves us. \u201cSee what love the Father has given us..\u201d See indeed and reflect that love, reflect the gift giving, as we share the ultimate treasure of the love of God, binding us together.<\/p>\n

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

Ultimate Treasure A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor \u2022 Copyright 2017 All Saints Sunday \u2022 November 5, 2017 1 John 3:1-3 Click below to hear the sermon preached Hasn\u2019t it been an amazing week? Like the view riding a carousel, things flashed by, sometimes so fast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,39,109,108,3,13,2,69],"tags":[127,119,128],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-pentecost","category-exegesis","category-matthew","category-scripture","category-sermon","category-theology","category-worship","category-year-a","tag-eeyore","tag-stewardship","tag-winnie-the-pooh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}