A GIFT OF THE HEART
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
Novemer 22, 2009
Mark 12: 38-44
Ephesians 3: 14-21
I’ve mentioned in other sermons that my father died when I was seven years old. My mother re-married when I was 9. She married a man whose nickname was “Packy.” His real name was Alpha. As in Alpha and Omega, which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and used in the Bible most notably in Revelation 1:8 where it is said of Jesus that he is the “Alpha and Omega.” Packy’s mother was very religious. And Packy was very religious.
Packy came into my mother’s and my life in 1956 and found two tepid Methodists. Packy was a Baptist and was not tepid. He was shy, very shy. But he was not tepid. He soon made Baptists out of both of us. I say “made,” but I don’t mean to imply he forced anything. Rather, he led us by example.
Until a few years before Packy and mother married, Packy worked on a farm in northwest Missouri. As I look back, it’s hard to figure why my mother married him. My biological father had been a hard-living, hard-nosed business man, at least four times (and twice to one of his wives) who operated parking lots and a restaurant in Kansas City and Los Angeles. I am sure I get my type A personality from him. I can only think my mother wished for the exact opposite of my father. In Packy I do believe she got exactly what she wished for.
They loved each other very much until my mother’s death in 1985. Packy died on Christmas day, 1990, really from a broken heart. He missed my mother very much.
When Packy and mother married I was deliriously happy. I didn’t know anyone else whose father had died, and that made me a bit of a curiosity in my small elementary school. I was just happy to have a father like everyone else. But Packy wasn’t like everyone else’s father. For one thing, he began and ended every single day of his life reading the Bible. He said he had read it from front to back 6 times. He said his mother, my new grand-mother, had read it from front to back more than a dozen times.
Guess what I decided to do. Of course I didn’t make it. However, I did learn to love the Bible. And to love God. And to commit my life to Christ in our little Baptist church about 6 months after they were married.
Naturally, I wanted a Bible like Packy’s. And for my birthday when I was 10 I got one, just like Packy’s. I can’t think of a more precious gift I received as a child than this Bible. In every church I’ve served, when I read the Christmas story at the Christmas Eve service I use the Bible Packy gave me.
This Bible has extraordinary value to me. I would never be tempted to take it to the Antiques Roadshow. I bet it wouldn’t attract a nickel at auction. Rather, its value lies in its power to evoke memories that are foundational in my growth as a person and as a Christian. But not only evoke memories. Its values lies in its power – just to hold it -- to help me tap into the life-changing experience I’ve found in my relationship with God all over again. It’s a powerful gift. A gift of the heart, you might say.
Perhaps you too have something in your possession that is a gift of the heart. Something not valuable so much in a dollar and cents way. Something far more valuable than that. A gift to you so personal, so life-giving of which it can only be said that it is a heart gift – a gift of the heart.
If you think about it, Jesus Christ is the gift of the heart of God the Father to us. A gift really unlike any other. Of this gift Paul writes to the early church in Ephesus “I pray that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you maybe filled with all the fullness of God.”
Presbyterian pastor Jim Kitchens says that breadth and length and height would have been enough to describe God’s love. But adding depth adds an image that is priceless. He writes, “In this sense, then, Christ is the artesian well (you know, a well that produces water without the need for pumping) who taps into the never-ending aquifer of God’s love, pouring it out into the lives of believers . . . and, through us, into the life of the world.”
As I’ve thought about it, this is what was taking place with my step-father and me. His heart clearly had tapped into the depth of the love of God as made known in Jesus Christ. And then, in sharing the love of Christ with me (as symbolized by this Bible) my heart and life were not only saved, but this gift of the heart of my step-father has helped me love others including in and through many churches ever since. For, you see, whenever I love I am continuing to tap into the never-ending aquifer of God’s love.
God, of course, has many ways to show God’s love. We have only three: our time, our talents, our financial resources. How we spend the time of our lives. How we use the talents, the gifts, the privileges we have. How we spend the money that we have. Time, talent, money. That’s really the sum of our lives. And God, of course, desires and demands all of it. All of us. As the great Lenten hymn has us sing: “love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”
You know that we’re trying to conclude our financial stewardship drive in the next few weeks to gain pledges for the support of our ministry for the coming year. The question thus arises, if God wants all of us: our heart, mind, soul and strength; if God wants our time, our talents and our money: what is God calling me, calling you to do now in this particular time of your life and in this particular time of our church?
I have three things to say. The first two of them have to do with this church as an institution.
First, good job! Most all of you are aware of the predicament we found ourselves in a year ago. In short, we had run out of money. We no longer had an endowment fund we could tap to pay year-end bills. As a result, we did something that when it was first proposed at a charge conference caused me to spit out my teeth – and I don’t even wear dentures. It was proposed and then passed that we lay off our half time secretary and our half time custodian and do all their work including grounds keeping at the church and parsonage with volunteers.
After I put my teeth back in, as an interim pastor I quickly wrestled with how much of my wisdom do I try to impose on these people. This will never work! It’s unheard of in a church this size! But then I saw the look on the faces of some of those who were in favor of this. There was “can do” written all over them. So I bit my tongue.
May I ask: Would all the folks who have volunteered in office or in cleaning the building raise your hand? As I said, good job!
Second word. Although there are many positives that have developed since a year ago, financially we’re only a little bit better off. What I’m saying is that for all the countless thousands of hours of volunteers, Prospect is still, today, unable to afford a full-time pastor. And, a church of this many members with this much activity absolutely requires a full-time pastor or it will sink as fast as a rock in a lake.
Bottom line. The spiral of the water going down the drain began several years ago and still continues. In the last year we’ve slowed the spiral, but not completely stopped it. Clearly, if Prospect is to stop the spiral there is no other means than by you giving more money. There: is that straight enough?
Here’s another straight point: Most of our members are probably giving what is comfortable, not what is possible. If Prospect wants to reverse the spiral and go into the future WITH this building, you will have to give what is possible not what is comfortable. This is the only way. Our members must either give from the depths of the love of Christ flowing through them or accept what comes to pass.
What does this mean for you? You will have to decide.
Clearly, those who can give in larger amounts need to because many here are on very limited fixed incomes. And, truth is, those on fixed incomes tend to give a larger percentage of their income than the rest of us.
Chris Wilson, our Stewardship chairperson, says that our average gift needs to increase by $10 per week. That’s $500 a year. Because some can’t possibly give an extra $500, those who can will have to give even more. This seems to be the only way to turn the good ship Prospect around.
The third and final thing I want to say has to do with your spiritual health quite apart from Prospect Church and its present and future. I remind you of the artesian well idea of love and sharing God’s love.
Fact is, human beings have a need to love even as we have biological needs for oxygen, food, water, and sexual reproduction. We love God and others through these basic three means at our disposal: our time, our talents, our money. Doing so, and doing so cheerfully and generously, is how we keep the artesian water, the spirit of God’s love primed and flowing through us. For nothing dams up Christ’s artesian well of love more than a reluctance to give, to be generous with our time, our talent our money.
For when one is generous with God’s gifts the challenge becomes not how little can I comfortably give, but how much can I possibly give. Not how little can I give and not feel guilty. But how much can I give and still provide for my needs.
We need to love, to give to keep the water of God’s grace and love flowing in and through us. To give gifts from the depths of our heart of gratitude. Gifts that came to us from the heart of God via many other hearts that have known the depth of the love of God’s heart.
This love must go forth. And it will: with us or without us. However, God has reserved something incredibly special for us. And that is the blessing and the joy that comes in letting this great, great love of God gush freely through us -- of being part of the aquifer of God’s love to a hurting and needy world. Of being part of a gift of the heart of God.
