Community Church Sermons
September 24, 2006
James 3:13 – 4:3
As we were driving back this week from New Hampshire where Sandy and I attended the funeral for our dear friend Bud Shaftoe last Sunday, I found myself thinking about Bud’s relationship with our family over the years, and asking the question, “I wonder what was in it for Bud?”
We go back more than thirty years together. I had just graduated from seminary and Sandy and I loaded all our life’s belongings into the back of a very small UHaul truck and headed off to serve my first church. It was one of those times that was as scary as it was exciting simply because we were leaving the known and familiar for the unknown and unfamiliar. You know what that’s like, don’t you! And it was all the more unsettling a time for us because that was the year Sandy and I lost three of our four parents. We felt very uprooted, very alone and very exposed, sort of like orphans, I guess you might say, as we drove down the highway.
Bud and his wife Priscilla were
waiting for us when we got there! Right away, they befriended Sandy and me.
Even though they both had jobs, and two very active teenaged kids of their own,
they generously opened their life to Sandy and me and made us part of their
family. We didn’t feel so all alone anymore. And I wonder now that I think back
on it, what was in it for them?
From the beginning, Bud staked out a friendship with me. He was the Moderator of the church, and if I ran into a problem, he would help resolve it. If something broke at the parsonage and the Trustees needed six-months worth of meetings to decide what to do, Bud would come over and fix it – and face the heat for overstepping the Trustees. I’ll always remember the time the sump pump failed and the cellar flooded out. There was Bud, putting in a new one, and standing knee-deep in water, reaching for the electrical socket to plug it in. Bud was a man of faith!
Bud was the one who, every year at budget time, would meet with me and ask what our family’s financial needs were. Then he’d go back to the church and fight to get me a $100 or $200 raise. And every Saturday morning, Bud would meet me at the old one-room schoolhouse across the street from the church. That’s where the ancient A.B. Dick mimeograph machine was, and Bud and I would slop in the ink and attach the stencil and turn the drum and splatter black ink all over ourselves as we ran the Sunday morning bulletins. I wonder why he did it. He had a very important job that he commuted to all week, and a very active family. I’m sure he had other, more important things to do. But there he was every Saturday morning with me in the schoolhouse, talking about life, and the church, and splattering ink all over the place. Thinking back, I wonder, what was in it for Bud?
I shared with the people at Bud’s
memorial service how he was responsible for getting our family up to the lake
in New Hampshire where he and Priscilla later retired. Sandy and I were so very
poor in those early days that we could not even afford a summer vacation. One
day, Bud asked me if we’d like to use his lake home. I told him I was sure we
couldn’t afford it. He said it would be free. I told him we wouldn’t feel right
about using it for free. He said we could pay the utilities. I asked him how
much. He said $5. And so we spent a week in Bud and Priscilla’s beautiful home
on Highland Lake, and loved it so much we dreamed about one day having a camp
on that lake ourselves. And one day, we did. But, thinking back, I wonder, what
was in it for Bud?
After all, when we got our own place there on the lake, things were always breaking and needed fixing. I knew nothing about such things. So Bud spent most of his vacations over at our place, showing me how to sweat copper pipes, connecting light switches, shingling the roof, fixing boat motors, cutting down trees without hitting the house, and even building a new addition. And then there was the old Sears water pump that I’ve told some of you about. Bud taught me how to rebuild the motor when it broke, and how to break down and replace all the parts. And most famously, Bud told me what to do one day when the aluminum water tank sprang a leak.
“You got any screws?” Bud asked.
“Of course I’ve got screws.”
“Well, get one that’s bigger than the hole and screw it in.”
So I got a screw that was bigger than the hole and screwed it in. And lo and behold…the leak stopped! However…
When I got back to Tennessee, I shared in a newsletter article about that amazingly simple solution of screwing a screw into the water tank to stop the leak. I thought it was a great thing, but some of you were aghast. Some of the scientific types among us (you know who you are) – the chemists and engineers and other experts in such matters - got all over me about how you can’t put a steel screw into an aluminum tank because it causes some sort of fancy-shmancy corrosive chemical reaction that will cause more leaks to develop! So the next time I saw Bud I told him, “The guys in my church say putting a steel screw into an aluminum tank will cause more leaks!”
Bud said, “Buy more screws.”
Ten years later, our thirty-year old Sears pump and water tank are still working great. The tank has about eight screws in it now, but it works like a charm!
Bud was a true friend. He poured
his life into our lives. And as I drove home from his memorial service in New
Hampshire this week, thinking back over these things, I wondered, what was
in it for Bud?
The reason I found myself asking that question is because I was concerned that maybe Bud had missed the boat as a Christian. You see, the very week Bud died, Time magazine’s cover story asked a provocative question about the Christian Faith. Did you read it? The headline screamed, “Does God Want You To Be Rich?”[1] Then there was a subtitle: “Yes, say some megachurches. Others call it heresy. The debate over the new gospel of wealth.”
Or, if I may rephrase it, “The
gospel of what’s in it for me?”
If you have not read the article,
you ought to. It reflects a growing belief among substantial numbers of
Christians – mostly here in America – that if you follow Jesus faithfully, God
will support you financially and otherwise. There will be something in it for
you! It is a gospel that teaches that faithfulness results in material
prosperity. According to a Time poll, 17% of Christians surveyed said they
considered themselves part of such a movement. A full 61% said they believe God
wants people to be prosperous. And 31% agreed that if you give your money to
God, God will bless you with more money. I wonder how you would answer
such a survey? Do you think there’s something in it for you?
According to the article, the gospel of wealth is perhaps best expressed in Joel Osteen’s book, “Your Best Life Now”[2]. “To live your best life now,” it opens, to see “your business taking off…your marriage restored…your family prospering…your dreams come to pass…” you must “start looking through the eyes of faith.”
In other words, the result of living as a Christian is that there’s something in it for me!
When I read the article, I felt bad for poor Bud. I’m not sure there was anything in it for him. At the end, all he got out of life for his all generosity of Christian friendship and love was a shrinking retirement nest egg, and along with it, a series of small strokes that left him in declining health. Bud lost much of his hearing, and his ability to walk without assistance. When we visited with him every day in the summer, he would just sit there, unable most of the time to take part in the conversation, or even to stay awake. He no longer was the water-skier he had been right up into his 70’s, or the fine golfer. He was a far cry from the war hero who had gone ashore at Normandy beach on D-Day plus 1, sneaking behind German lines to set up forward observation posts for the artillery. Bud could hardly make it to the bathroom at night toward the end, and he frequently fell. Poor Priscilla didn’t know what to do. Bud needed to be in a nursing facility, but she was determined to take care of him at home.
The last couple of years, when we left camp at the end of our vacation, we wondered if we would see Bud again the next year. This past summer, when we drove away from the lake, we knew we would not see our friend again. We even prayed that the Lord would quickly take him home.
So I guess Bud must’ve missed this gospel Time magazine was writing about. I guess there must have been something wrong with his faith. After all, there should have been something in it for him – some prosperity of blessing, some answered prayer for healing, some special pat on the back from God for a job well done. But there wasn’t. Bud just lived and died like most other people on this planet live and die, without having had the privilege of watching the guy with the smile on TV who tells you that the goal of faith is personal prosperity. Bud and Priscilla only got about two channels on the TV up there on the lake. Too bad he couldn’t have gotten cable and learned from the magapastors that there should be something in it for him!
Some of us, I suppose, haven’t quite tuned into the new gospel of prosperity because we’re still hung up on the old Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember him? He’s the one who was more faithful than anyone who ever lived, but never got a big house, or a nice car, or even a long life. All his faithfulness got him was death on a Cross.
And for some of us hold-outs, there’s something life-giving in the fact that there was nothing in it for Jesus. His love for the world sought only to give and not to receive. He is a real life example of the fact that a life poured out in love toward God and others does not always return personal dividends…
…but it makes the world a
better place and advances the kingdom of God!
So the writer of the epistle of James - who I guess was hung up on the old Gospel too– offers us a warning today. He tells us we need to examine the motives that underlie our faith. He tells us that when our faith is aimed at satisfying ourselves, we have missed the boat. He cautions us that a faith built on selfish ambition causes all sorts of evil practices. Too bad the scandalized TV evangelists didn’t read the epistle of James.
James teaches that a faith centered on wanting what others have, and focused on getting your best life now is not of God. In fact, James says it is of the devil. And James says in verse 13:
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in humility…”
And then James says that a true motive of love and service is pure – you do what you do purely for the sake of serving God, not yourself. And it is peace-loving, considerate of others, submissive, full of mercy toward people, impartial and sincere.
James was writing about my friend Bud, I think. He selflessly poured out his life for me and my family, and never asked for anything in return.
.
So as we drove home this week, I wondered, what was in it for Bud?
Well, I think Christ was in it. That’s all. Only Christ.
And in leaving this world, Christ was all Bud needed for life abundant and everlasting.
What are you after as a Christian?
What’s in it for you?