In the midst of the debt talk and how we don’t have enough, Jesus tells us often that there is more than enough.

This poem is from Walter Brueggemann, theologian and altogether an amazing guy (and wicked funny to boot).  I used it in my sermon this morning.

 

On Generosity, by Walter Brueggemann

On our own, we conclude:
there is not enough to go around

we are going to run short
of money

of love
of grades

of publications
of sex

of beer
of members

of years
of life

we should seize the day
seize our goods
seize our neighbors’ goods
because there is not enough to go around

and in the midst of our perceived deficit
you come
you come giving bread in the wilderness

you come giving children at the 11th hour
you come giving homes to exiles

you come giving futures to the shut down
you come giving easter joy to the dead

you come – fleshed in Jesus.

and we watch while
the blind receive their sight

the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed

the deaf hear
the dead are raised

the poor dance and sing

we watch
and we take food we did not grow and

life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and

families and neighbors who sustain us
when we did not deserve it.

It dawns on us – late rather than soon-
that you “give food in due season  you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits

quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see

the abundance………  mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.

Sink your generosity deep into our lives

that your muchness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give

so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder,

without coercive need but only love,
without destructive greed but only praise

without aggression and invasiveness….
all things Easter new…..  all around us, toward us and by us

all things Easter new.

Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.