The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for August 13, 2006

Texts: Psalm 130/Ephesians 4:17-5:2

Sermon Title: “Can We Afford It?”

              It is impossible to satisfy champagne tastes on a beer budget, and the prudent won’t even try. If you are prudent you ask yourself the obvious question, “can I afford it?” If you are a person who has never asked that question the rest of us would like to know you better.

              “Can I afford it?”  Though the question may never have arisen for a select few, the rest of us enjoy no such exemption.  There have been many more times then we can count when we have asked ourselves, “Can I afford it?”  

              The question of affordability is one that we at Lakeview are being challenged to entertain as we make plans to rebuild our facility.  We have asked our architects to provide cost estimates to build back exactly as we were, or as close to it as possible, and another set of estimates detailing the cost of making certain modifications we have proposed. Any decision we entertain will be governed by funds in hand or available to us.

              “Can we afford it? It is important to ask the question because any decisions we make as a congregation will have far reaching consequences. Several factors play into those decisions. There are things we know.  We now know the total of our insurance settlement for flood and wind damage.  We know the money we have on hand in savings and investment accounts. We know the money we have received from outside sources.  We have some “ballpark” numbers on what air conditioning and electrical work will cost.

                The list of the unknowns that will challenge our decision making capacity runs somewhat longer. We do not know what the various build back options will cost us, though we expect to have that information in hand by early this week. We do not know how much additional money will come to us through donations.  We do not know how much of the two hundred thousand Bush-Clinton grant we have applied for will be awarded.  We do not know how much longer the staff will receive salary support from the denomination.  We do not know the level of congregation giving we can anticipate for the remainder of year, and one, two, five years out.  We have no way of knowing what the Lakeview neighborhood will look like in a year, or five years.

                Even as we ponder the unknowns, however, we know that new opportunities for ministry are presenting themselves. The session has enthusiastically endorsed a plan to acquire more land, a move that would position us to undertaken new ministries in our community such as senior day care or even senior housing. The “can we afford it?” question crops up again, not only as a financial consideration, but as a mission priority.  Can we as the congregation we now are, or anticipate we will be, afford bold plans that might require substantial investments of time and energy from many of us?     

                As with the decisions we face pertaining to our rebuild, the question of affordability recurs time and time again elsewhere in life. As I have already suggested, the question doesn’t always present itself in dollars and senses terms. Can we afford, or put in slightly different language, can we accommodate, or tolerate, this or that new reality in our lives.  Are we willing to pay the price that that accommodation levies?  The question presents itself in many different guises on a daily basis as we face very practical questions. 

                 Can I afford to give more time to my church, the cub scouts, or the hospital where I volunteer?  Can I afford, can I accommodate, the personal inconvenience that comes with active participation in the affairs of my community? 

                  The revelations last Thursday of a terrorist plot to blow up aircraft raises the question of affordability.  A significant financial burden will be borne by the airlines in the wake of the plot.  The traveling public will certainly be burdened by the inconvenience that new safety regulations impose.  Whether we happen to be contemplating travel by air or not, the costs both financially, but also emotionally, that events like this generate is immense. Ultimately the question must be asked, can we as free societies afford to live under the stress and strains that this event and others represent? Is such stress tolerable?  If it is not, what are we prepared to do about it?  How might we defend ourselves? What risk avoidance strategies are available to us?  What costs are we willing to tolerate---what are we willing to pay---to insure our safety? 

                     This latest terrorist plot, but also the deadly violence that saw over one hundred innocent civilians killed by suicide bombers in Iraq this week, and the lengthening war between Israel and Hezbollah levy heavy costs, again, not only financially, but even more importantly, emotionally.  How much violence and bloodshed can free societies accommodate and still remain free and open societies?  Or, will the costs become too great, forcing societies to restrict their citizens’ freedom and adopt even more elaborate countermeasures to avoid catastrophe?

                    What about our dependency on the Middle East as our primary source for oil?  Can we afford it? What about the shrinking polar icecap?  Can we afford it?  Draw your own conclusions. As we approach the five year anniversary of 9/11 the costs assessed upon all of us for living in this world continue to mount. 

                   Can we afford it?  Though those of you who lived through the stress and strain that World War II imposed were forced to deal with major dislocation, has there ever been another time in any of our lifetimes when life in America challenged us as thoroughly as we have been challenged today? Please note that I haven’t even talked about crime, drugs, or the challenges of illegal immigration.

                  The Bible, you knew I would get around to the Bible, addresses the question of affordability.  Way back there in Moses day God concluded that Israel could no longer afford the high costs of servitude that Egypt’s pharaoh levied.  For all intents and purposes life for the children of Israel had gotten about as bad as it could get. The book of Exodus reports that “God heard their groaning, and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”  God “heard” and “remembered.”  What a wonderful thing that God was in that mess. 

                 God remembers.  The covenant is like an insurance policy bearing no expiration date.  Originally established all the way back there in the time of Abraham, the covenant is still in force, generation to generation.  Costs may become sky high unaffordable, God remembers.    

                  These are challenging times, and you notice I haven’t even mentioned the residue of the storm.  Pain and suffering, and the threat of pain and suffering pervade the world, and there is nowhere we can go to escape it.  Can we afford, accommodate, tolerate, the cost that all that pain and suffering levies? 

                  The terrorist can tolerate those things for he draws from an inexhaustible bank account of hate.  Deaf to reason, deaf to the cries of the innocent, deaf to any moral argument that is not established and maintained on his terms, the terrorist can justify any action, no matter how heinous, that will further his ends.    

                 Ignoring the teachings of his own scriptures, while claiming to act in the name of the God to whom his scriptures point, the terrorist cruelly ignores the cries of the innocent.  A fanatic who believes death in service to his twisted purposes guarantees him a place in paradise, he is no more than a self-deceived coward who slithers out to strike from the shadow of a rock.

                  Thank God that God is still on the job. Yes, we believe that, don’t we?  God hears the groans of his people.  God remembers his covenant promises, but we also remember them. We remember our responsibilities under the covenant, responsibilities prominently displayed in the Ten Commandments.

                   The fact that we have broken those commandments has caused us no end of grief, subjected us to no end of tragedy.  God loves us still.  God heals us. Our estrangement from God exacts a great price from us, a price we can’t afford it, not, that is, if we are to live the lives we were intended to live. 

                  After his awakening on the Damascus Road the Apostle Paul recognized what his estrangement from God had cost him dearly. By the miracle of grace Paul was able to do something he would later charge the good folks in Ephesus to do, namely “to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  A tall order, that. 

                A self made new, that is what Paul that is what Scripture, consistently promotes. Paul, you see, recognized with the saints who preceded him that we cannot afford to allow that old unreconstructed self to have its way.  A self accountable to no one but itself, a self governed by its narrow aspirations and lusts, automatically places itself in opposition to God.  To live such a life is, [Paul’s words] “to be darkened in understanding…alienated from the life of God because of ignorance and hardness of heart.”

Who would choose to live such a life, who can afford to live such a life----only those for whom life holds no meaning, the people who perpetuate the cycle of violence that destroys life.

                Paul informed his friends in Ephesus that they couldn’t afford to live a life alienated from God.  He offered them his counsel in a section my Bible introduces as “Rules for the New Life.” Let’s briefly review those “rules”:  Put away falsehood, be angry but do not sin, don’t steal but work honestly with your own hands, avoid evil talk,  put aside bitterness and wrath, wrangling and slander.

                 The list that Paul identified, falsehood, bitterness, wrath, and the rest, have provoked a wave of violence that is making this world less and less habitable. Not only were we not created to live in such a world, we can’t afford to live in such a world.

                But, but, can we afford what it might cost to change?  That is the very real, very practical issue we face as individuals and communities.  Bottom line, are we willing to risk vulnerability by following Paul’s program for renewal? 

                  This world is a dangerous place and becoming more so all the time.  Despair is widespread.  For some our current situation reveals that the end times are near at hand. The facts are the facts.  We have a whole ledger sheet of facts to support strategies of self-defense and armament.  We can tighten our borders, enforce new security measures and arm ourselves to the teeth, but are those measures really the answer?  This we DO know, they are not Paul’s answer. No, not Paul’s answer.  “Be imitators of God…live in Love” is his answer.    

                   To imitate God and live in love is a costly vocation. It can get you killed by the enemies of God and those who reject God’s message.  Paul could testify to that fact first hand, for it got him killed, an entirely predictable result because it got Jesus killed before him.

                  There is an illogic alive in the world that passes for logic.  By that illogic masquerading as logic, war and the killing it breeds are more logical than the love your neighbor, forgive your neighbor, logic Jesus came proclaiming in God’s name. But, I ask you, what is logical about the madness of war, and the extraordinary costs it exacts?  That madness may well pass for logic in a sinful world, but must it continue to define us?

                  The world as it is, friends, is unaffordable.  It requires too much death and destruction to maintain.  There is another way, God’s way.  “Be imitators of God…live in love” so, is that merely naïve drivel?  Or, is there something in that message that can turn this world around?  Paul thought so.  Jesus thought so.  What do you think? 

                  Life is too costly as it, too much anguish and suffering.  Jesus showed us a better way, and his way is also costly, most certainly costly, but his way is the only road that leads to where we need to be.  Our Lord wants to know what you and I are willing to do to make that truth know.  AMEN.    

                  PRAYER

                 Great God, ancient of days, before the seas, the skies, the planets, you were.  Before the first created thing walked, or flew, or swam, you were.  Before man stood erect, uttered his first word, or planted his first seed, you were.  Before sin made its play, before brother rose up against brother, and before the first army was assembled, you were.  You were, O God, and you remain what you were from the beginning of time, the one who created us, the source of unconditional love, and the eternal father of the son you sent to save us.              

                 Sovereignly you reign, O God.  Jealous of that sovereignty, you declared, “thou shalt have no other gods before me.”  History discloses that humankind has repeatedly ignored your command, bowing before gods of stone and precious metal cast in our own image.  Humans are disposed to worship, but we also wish to control what we worship, and you resist such efforts. Even as you freely offer yourself to us, we feel compelled to search for meaning in the wrong places. We devote ourselves to career, to amassing wealth, to finding that one missing ingredient in life that will fulfill us. Restless and distracted, we wear ourselves out never satisfied that we have gotten closer to that undefined thing we are seeking. Forgive our errant ways.  From the vain pursuit of meaning we would be liberated, that we can find out true liberty in thee.

                  Yet again the terrorist alert has been raised.  Yet again another plot has been exposed. Even as the terrorist’s plans have been foiled this time, we know there are men scheming this very hour to make good in their next effort. Lord, even as we give thanks for the women and men in the counter-terrorism forces whose efforts won this most recent battle, we pray for their continued success in collecting and processing information. Grant wisdom and courage to all those who serve on the front lines in this ongoing war.

                    Lord, even as we pray for peace we are not hopeful.  Hate is pervasive, the combatants in the wars around the world vow to kill each other.  To whom can we look for answers if not to you?  When will the bloodletting stop?  If this descent into madness is not what you want for us, help us to help ourselves.  Equip us to mediate the conflicts that divide us, to find strategies that will lead to peace.

                   O God, we can’t afford to live as we have, wasting lives and resources in war, despoiling the earth and atmosphere, and ignoring the cries of the destitute and those deprived of justice. In your mercy, help us find new ways to live. Raise up leaders who are committed to reform, women and men with new ideas who have the courage to tell the truth, even when it is unpopular.

                  O God, continue to be with our city as we rebuild.  Vest our public and civic leaders with wisdom sufficient to meet the challenges they confront. We thank you for people of initiative who have taken personal responsibility for the future of our city, neighborhood leaders, civic minded activists, and academics who are hard at work to build a new New Orleans. 

                  Bless the weak, the ill, and the infirm today, O God.  May those members of our congregation whom the storm has disbursed, and those living in Greater New Orleans but unable to worship with us, know that our prayers attend them.

                  Challenged on so many fronts, O God, be with the leadership of this church as we attempt to do ministry in your name.  Walk with us, O Christ, that our confidence in ourselves and the future of our church may be renewed.

                  For the blessings of worship, fellowship, and all good gifts flowing to us today, O Lord, we give you thanks, praying the prayer….