Sermons

When my family and I lived in Medicine Hat, I planted a hedge of roses along side my driveway so that we didn’t have to look at the neighbour’s old pickup truck that was constantly parked on his driveway in front of our houses.  

One year, the conditions were just perfect for the hedge to be covered in double pink roses from top to bottom.     Not only did it look quite nice, but it filled the air with perfume.

One morning, I went outside to go jogging just after daybreak, and I noticed that the hedge was rustling, even though it was a rare, windless morning.   I was expecting an animal of some sort when I looked around the hedge to see what was there.  Instead, there was an elderly woman bending over on the other side of the hedge with one arm full of roses as she reached into the hedge to cut more.

I asked her what she was doing.  It took her a moment to regain her composure at being startled, and then she demanded to know who I was to ask.  I told her I owned the hedge.  I was expecting some kind of embarrassed excuse or apology for cutting a hole into the hedge, but I didn’t get that at all.   Instead, she got very angry at me for daring to challenge what she was doing.  She told me that I had plenty and it was my duty to share and that I was wrong to make such a fuss over a few roses when there were so many on the hedge.

I answered her that it is not sharing when someone takes something without asking permission.   It was not about the roses, but about the fact that she stole the opportunity for me to be generous in allowing her to have some.  She muttered something again about how selfish and rude I was and then stormed down the street with her arms still full of the roses.

There is a very, very fine line between stealing and sharing.  In both cases, the person who ends up on the receiving end walks away with something that he or she values but did not have before.    Where the two are very different is that a thief steals more than some physical item of value.   A thief steals the owner’s rights to control what he or she owns.   At thief even steals the owner’s privilege to share, or to give gifts or to reward or to use property in any other way to be a blessing of his or her own choosing.  

Our lessons this morning deal with sharing.   They show us what a great privilege it is to be able to share and what kind of joy we experience not just in receiving, but in being on the giving end.  May God bless your life in such a way that you yourself know the joy of sharing!

The computer age can be pretty awesome.    The Internet, for example, is absolutely incredible for how easy it now is to find information.   Once upon a time, you had to leave your home, go to the library and deal with things like card catalogues and microfiche in order to find certain kinds of information.   Other times you may have had to go to the city hall to look things up.  Even with that, it took a good amount of skill and even luck when it came to finding what you were looking for.    Now all you have to do is type in some key words into a long narrow box on an Internet page with a name like “Google” or “Yahoo” or “MSN”, and the computer will come up with sometimes hundreds of places you can access with the click of a button  to get the information you are looking for.  Who could have imagined a generation ago that this would be possible today?  It is nothing short of amazing!

   The computer age can be scary, too.   It is not just easy for you to find information about a great variety of subjects.   It is also very easy for people to find information about you.     In fact, it is now possible for someone to actually steal your identity to apply for a credit card in your name or to access your bank account or take over the title to your home, or to do great harm to your reputation.   

In fact, the downside of the Internet age is so creepy that many people are becoming extremely worried about losing control of their personal information.    They are so cautious about what they let others know about themselves that they are isolating themselves and becoming ever more private.    

This raises an interesting question: what is the right balance for a Christian when it comes to what you choose to share with others and what you want to keep private and personal?

This morning our Bible lessons give us an answer to that question.  Together, those readings give us insight into what is God pleasing when it comes to Christian community.   Jesus said His prayer for His disciples in our Gospel lesson this morning, “I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.”    God has give us a very special identity in Christ.   He has brought us into that place where we can freely share out identity as believers with others!