Communion Meditation by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
Pentecost Sunday and Mother’s Day
May 11, 2008
CHRIST AT THE CENTER – OUR FIRM
FOUNDATION: PRICELESS
Scripture:
Proverbs 31:10-31, Matthew 13:44-46, Luke 15:8-10
INTRODUCTION
This past week, I asked Sal
Kibler, one of our new elders who also runs an advertising agency, if she would
help me with some research for this sermon.
I told her that I was mesmerized by the television spots for MasterCard
which feature all kinds of life situations and then end with the tagline:
“Priceless.”
Sal knew exactly what to do,
and produced a packet of information about the McCann-Erickson Agency that
began to produce these award winning ads in 1997, and have created more than
160 of them which are now shown in 105 different countries and 48
languages. Sal sent me three of her
favorites and found two of mine – here’s what they say:
“CATCH”
Rubber ball (costs) $6
Soft ball $5
Football $35
Being ready for whatever
parenthood throws at you – priceless
“Dinner Out”
Going out to dinner $50
Ordering dessert $16
Staying for coffee $8
Giving your kitchen the night
off – priceless
“Vintage”
Haircut, vintage t-shirt, and
Designer jeans $238
Looking like you just rolled
out of bed – priceless
“Mini” (golf)
Greens fees at Torrey Pines $240
Lesson, lesson, lesson $55/hour
Cleveland Loft wedge $110
(then the ball goes into the water)
Having fun – priceless
“Lasagna”
Lasagna noodles, ground beef, sauce,
And cheese $47
Having a back-up plan –
priceless
Each of the TV spots ends
with these words: “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”
Now I don’t want to be
unfair, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t been aware of advertisements for
any other credit card companies. In fact
for a while, I didn’t even know that these ads were produced for MasterCard. I just liked the pictures, the people and the
words, especially “Priceless.” And if
you want to know more about all of that, then Sal Kibler suggests you go online
to www.priceless.com and click on
priceless TV and you can see all of the spots for yourself. If you do, I think you’ll agree that it’s
true – some things in life are “Priceless”!
I
It seems to me that’s exactly
what Jesus was saying in the parables we’ve just read from our gospel
lessons. Long before the invention of
advertising on television, our Lord created pictures with words that portrayed
real life situations – and almost always there was a punch line at the
conclusion to press the point home.
In Matthew, chapter thirteen,
the first parable about God’s kingdom describes a treasure hidden in a field,
which someone found and kept it buried in the ground until he could sell his
other assets and buy the entire property.
That story is not about a financial transaction – it’s about the “joy,”
said Jesus, the spiritual gift of joy that God gives to us which is … priceless.
The same point comes through
in parable number two about a merchant searching for pearls and finds one of
great value. So he sells everything he
owns in order to buy it. Now, Jesus
wasn’t talking about a business deal, but rather about the fulfillment we feel
when God blesses us with His amazing grace … which is priceless.
The third parable in Luke
fifteen depicts a woman who had lost a silver coin and looked high and low
until she was able to find it. Then the
woman called her friends and neighbors together, saying “Rejoice with me, for
what was lost has been found.” And Jesus
pressed the point home, saying Just so, I
tell you, there is more joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner who repents. Once again, the
story isn’t about a lost coin – it’s about the healing power of forgiveness and
the hope of salvation … which is priceless.
II
Those first century parables
were and still are all about things that money cannot buy – joy in our hearts,
the gift of God’s grace in our lives, forgiveness for our sin and salvation
deep down in our souls. And there’s
more.
Dr. Fred Craddock who lives
in North Georgia and has stood in this pulpit a number of times, tells the
story about a preacher who came to his church in
The preacher described a man
with a fistful of twenty dollar bills running up and down the corridor of a
hospital, stopping every doctor, every nurse, every orderly saying “My wife is
in room 21. She’s under the oxygen
tent. Here’s twenty dollars if you can
just …”
“We’re sorry sir, but what
you want you can’t buy.”
The preacher then described a
man rushing through the world trying to find the market where they sold life.
“Could I buy some rain here?”
“No, we can pipe water into
your house, but we don’t have any rain for sale.”
“Well, can I buy a friend
here?”
“No, no, you can get a
companion for the night, but friends, no, we don’t have any friends for sale.”
“Then can I buy a home here?”
“No, we don’t have a single
home. But we’ve got some nice houses for
sale.”
“Can I buy just a little
time?”
“No, we’ve got a nice watch
we’ll sell you, but no time.”
That preacher made an
impression on Fred Craddock, and the story got my attention when I heard him
tell it many years ago. I think it means
that what we desire the most in this life is not for sale, but rather comes
from a good and gracious God who is ready to give us what we really need. The gifts of the Spirit which the Apostle
Paul lists several times in the New Testament include these:
Service, generosity, mercy,
hospitality forgiveness (Romans 12); wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing (I
Corinthians 12); joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness,
self-control (Galatians 5); and unity (Ephesians 1) … all of which are
priceless!
Ever since the Holy Spirit
came upon the first disciples at Pentecost long ago, those gifts in the name of
Jesus have been available to us if we are willing to accept them. And just think of the difference it would
make in the church and in this world today if we would take the gifts of the
Spirit which we have received, and then gratefully and graciously share them
with everyone else.
III
That leads us finally to what
the Apostle Paul called “The greatest gift of all” – the gift of love. He wrote about it in I Corinthians 13,
reminding us that Love is patient and
kind … and does not rejoice at wrong but rather rejoices in the right. And love bears all things, love believes all
things, love hopes all things, love endures all things.
I think those words hearken
back to the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 31, where the author describes a woman
who is a trusted wife, a loving mother, a strong leader, a faithful believer in
the Lord and a hard worker whose children
rise up and call her blessed (verse 28).
Now that is the ideal image
of a mother which the Book of Proverbs puts before us on this Mother’s Day, and
I think it’s good to have a model in mind of how it could and should be. But most mothers I know, including my own
named Emily Jane who died in 1979 at the age of 51, far too young – most
mothers I know, if you ask them, are uncomfortable with an image of perfection.
Even so, the love they have
given to us has blessed our lives in more ways than we could ever measure. Erma Bombeck, rest her soul, knew that was
true, and the love God gave to that remarkable woman came through to every
member of her family.
In closing, listen to this
description of a conversation she had with one of her grown up children – a
daughter who was not married but was considering her options:
“Mother, let’s get down to the core of
this conversation. Who just had another
grandchild?”
“Mayva.”
“I knew it” said my daughter to me.
The last thing I want is to hand down
guilt to my children. I have never
wanted to infringe on their personal lives or become a burden, but what am I
asking? A small wedding, a few months to
adjust, a full-term pregnancy, and then twenty years or so out of their lives
to raise my grandchild. Is that
expecting too much?
How am I supposed to feel when all of
my contemporaries are whipping out billfolds containing sixty-five candid
pictures of grandchildren and I’m still carrying around June Allyson and Dick
Powell?
Why are they putting off having a
family? Could it be that we have
frightened them with our perfection?
I don’t like to … excuse the
expression … labor the issue, but in a few years I will be too old to be a
grandmother. After all, there are
certain duties that come with a grandchild.
Timing is everything.
In a few years I will not have the
strength to crawl around on the floor and play, baby-sit longer than two hours,
or remember all the wisdom that made me such a wonderful mother.
“There’s no reason in this world why
my children shouldn’t be miserable and tied down like the rest of us,” I
blurted out.
My daughter shook her head and smiled,
“That’s it, isn’t it?”
“I was only kidding.”
“Remember when we were kids and
visited a home where there were velvet drapes, glass coffee tables, and while
bathroom towels, and you always said, ‘Why not?
They don’t have kids.’”
“I didn’t mean …”
“Remember when we turned the dining
room into a fort to play and the place was a mess, you always came in and said,
‘This house will never look like anything as long as I have kids.’ And I remember that day when we were on a bus
riding into town and a really neat car with a woman in a yellow chiffon scarf
pulled up next to us. I looked at you,
Mom, and I didn’t have to be told how much you envied her. I could see it. I know you never thought we listened to
anything you said, but I heard you that day … loud and clear.”
She listened … but what did she hear?
Did she hear my tears the day she was
born?
Never, before or since, had I known
such joy. For awhile, I couldn’t even
speak to anyone about it. I just played
with her fingers and tried to memorize every feature of her face to savor the
moment.
Did she hear what was in my heart when
she graduated and I sat there with tears in my eyes?
Did she hear my smugness the day on
the bus when we looked at the woman in the new car? I was saying to myself, “Lady, I wouldn’t
trade you ever for what I’ve got.”
She listened. But some emotions don’t make a lot of
noise. It’s hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint – like a heartbeat. And pure love – why, some days it’s so quiet,
you don’t even know it’s there. But it
is.
(From “Family, the Ties That Bind…and
Gag!” by Erma Bombeck, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987, pages 168-170)
CONCLUSION
Pure love – self-giving,
sacrificial, unconditional love – “Agape” in the Greek language describing
Christ’s love for anyone and everyone, including you and me. The kind of love that led Jesus to the cross
to die for our sins and set us free. The
kind of love that welcomes us to this communion table now – just as we are, in
order that God can help us become all that we’re meant to be. Paul said so to the Corinthians, and so he
says to all of us today. Now, faith, hope and love abide, but the
greatest of these is love – PRICELESS!
– and it has been given to you. Don’t
miss it.
In the name of the Father,
and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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