An old farmer once quipped to me – “You know in farming there have only ever been two good years.”“1923 and next year…”
The old guy spoke a truth of sorts. We are very good at looking back and seeing things through the soft rose colour hue of nostalgia and seeing everything as the “good old days” … or we look forward with hopeful anticipation and expectation seeing what will be as better than what has ever been. We are not very good at living focused and present to this moment and what it offers us.
As I thought about this and considered the readings we’ve had before us this morning my mind drifted to the movie “Pay it Forward” that was released a few years ago.
The plot line of the movie involves a young man who is along with his class is challenged to pay it forward. They are to pass on acts of kindness in life – “paying it forward” … The movie has the usual Hollywood twists and turns, along with some tension, some romance, and a couple of cliff hanging scenes … but the core of the story is that the young man Trevor takes on the assignment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures up the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward--repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people. Trevor's efforts to make good on his idea bring a revolution not only in the lives of himself, his mother and his physically and emotionally scarred teacher, but in those of an ever-widening circle of people completely unknown to him.
Trevor’s concept is simple – rather than paying something BACK, he pays it forward. If someone does something nice to you, rather than “owing” someone one, you take that act of kindness and offer it in kind to three OTHER people, who in turn owe you nothing, and in turn pay it forward to three others … in short order a community begins to be transformed.
It’s a simple concept, but one that in spite of its common sense approach is lone that challenges the way things are in our society … The underlying greed that has created the crisis in the US economy is not about paying anything forward, but is about gathering and accumulating ALL that we can for OURSELVES.
Even scholarship speaks of Social Capital in communities which is the accumulation of an intangible thing like “owing you one’ which in time is utilized for community development. In its simplest form Social Capital is the good deeds of someone shared in a community like a savings account of good deeds that will come back to you – pay back – down the road. Pay back rather than pay forward.
Pay back under girds the whole concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” … Being the parent of a teenager who is struggling to find his way in the world I was disheartened to hear him say recently – “I treat people around me the way they treat me …”
On one level that’s a fair statement. If someone used and abuses you – you protect yourself and keep them from using and abusing you further. Or if they pull you down, why would you want to hang out with them at all?
But on another level, the teenaged world is a pretty selfish place. They can only see what works for them … and they block out quite a lot …
Considering my son’s comment I had to wonder – “what would the world be like if ALL of us lived our lives from the perspective of – “I’ll treat the people around me the way they treat me?”
How many people having a bad day would it take in a community to create community wide chaos in the twinkling of an eye?? It could one person, like a grocery store clerk, or a manager at the local bank, that would begin the ripple that moves through the entire community filling it with negativity ...
You roll into the local café and order a coffee and the clerk is having a bad day and she snaps at you … you snap at the librarian on your way home and she rages at the bank manager when she goes into discuss her loan … and he then goes to the Coop and tears a strip off the produce manager, who then rages at his wife over the phone who then yells at the kids who go out to the park and end up in a brawl with half the neighbourhood and your son comes home battered and bloodied and miserable …
Gandhi had a point when he said – “an eye for an eye will only serve to make the whole world blind …” Pay back has bad karma energy and can in the twinkle of an eye unleash a torrent of negativity and conflict that could be incredibly unpleasant …
But what if – in that moment when you step into the local café, rather than meeting the clerk’s negativity with your own negativity, you pay it forward … you remember the kindness shown to you at the gas bar 10 minutes earlier, and you say – “Sounds like you’re having a rough day …” and with a smile you leave a tip and a cheer “THANK YOU” … I can hear it now … “A TIP? The smile maybe, but a tip … outrageous” But if that young mom has bills to pay and part of her negativity has to do with bills piling up – at 50 cents along with 50 cents from 50 other customers that day could help pay for the new shoes that her daughter needs, or buy a bag of groceries that are needed to feed her kids tonight …
Paying it forward is about GENEROUSLY sharing kindness with others unconditionally …
I can’t help but wonder if that was the WHOLE point of the story of Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness? Rather than paying back others the way they treat us, God was setting out to show us how to live life treating others in a generous abundant way …
What would it look like if God really treated us the way we tend to treat God … Take a moment to really consider that possibility on a cosmic scale …
What if God paid heed to us for an hour or so a week?? Or didn’t pay heed to us AT ALL??
The harvest around us is proof of God’s limitless generosity. The circle of family and friend we have is evidence of God’s boundless love. If we dare to live with an attitude of gratitude we will have our eyes and our beings opened to the absolute abundant and breath taking profusion of blessings that are poured out around us – EVERYDAY.
A poet once quipped that God’s blessings are without number and began counting some by saying – the sun, the moon, children, each other … Such is the overwhelming nature of God’s blessing and bounty for US.
God clearly doesn’t live life by paying back – but rather by paying forward … The people are wandering through the desert, pining for what WAS – looking back at the “flesh pots of Egypt” and wishing they could be there rather than dying in the harsh desert, hungry, thirsty and filled with fear.
They grumble and complain about what they lack and look back on Egypt with nostalgia and fondness – remembering what WAS.
Yet God could have said – “forget it” and let them simply wither and die in the desert. But instead God sent them the abundance of manna and quail, and in this week’s reading the gift of sweet fresh water in a harsh barren wilderness.
God could have said – “Forget it – just die” and leave them to perish. But God kept pouring out blessings and bounty upon the people – and instead of saying – “thanks” and being appreciative and grateful, they came to want and expect MORE. As poet Anne Weems says eloquently – “it was never quite enough. The people wanted more.”
The people demanded more …
Rather than paying it forward – they greedily grabbed at what was offered and deemed it “PROOF” that they were specially chosen and blessed by God, and began to build barriers and walls to protect this bounty from OTHERS.
It is the creation of the bureaucracy and hierarchy to protect and covet the bounty and blessings of God that gives rise to the question put to Jesus – “by whose authority do you do these things?”
They weren’t concerned with revealing and reveling in the GLORY of God. They were concerned that the wrong kind of people might get exposed to God and to God’s bounty, and take some for themselves. There are rules you know? We have customs and procedures to follow you know?
Now, I’m a firm believer in rules and regulations, customs and procedures. I have always prided myself on knowing the rules and regulation and so on … my motivation though has never been protection of what it is, but rather learning the rules to help facilitate the necessary transformation that takes what “is” and moves it to what “needs to be”.
You can bring change most effectively if you know and can work from within the structure you’re seeking to change …
But instead of gratitude and appreciation, too often we encounter outright FEAR. “By whose authority?” Is a question grounded in fear.
The people in the wilderness grumbling is an expression of fear.
Pay back is a form of fear.
Paying it forward is about seeing life in its abundance and living accordingly. Rather than dwelling on what we lack or what we may lose, we instead celebrate what we HAVE and what we may gain.
But listening to modern media, we would never imagine that we live in a world of abundance.
Tax cuts, corporate bail outs, rising prices, security concerns, … all of these things are forms of grumbling that resonate and echo with the grumbling of the Israelites who are wandering in the desert complaining and whining …
Our whining and complaining is harder to see from within.
As a faith people – we are to open our eyes to the abundance that exists around us. God has given us so much and yet we will ALWAYS focus on what we think we lack.
The bounty of creation. The gift of friends and family. Life itself. We have so much to celebrate and revel in. Yet rather than courageously and boldly LIVING it and paying it forward. We instead chose to pay it back … and try to protect and hoard what is around us in such overwhelming abundance …
They asked Jesus – by whose authority?
Instead of answering directly, I have no doubt he shook his head in disappointment, then shared a story that they simply didn’t get … so caught up in the world of “paying it back” they couldn’t conceive of a boundless, limitless place where God’s abundance and grace pours out for all …
Paying forward was an inconceivable concept that stretched their comfort zone … and yet in that moment when Moses’ staff struck the rock and water gushed forth – the lesson was offered …
Our God is the God who causes water to pour forth in the middle of a vast barren wilderness … how can we possibly keep that kind of good news to ourselves??? And why would we even try?
Pay it forward … live with hope and anticipation and most of all GRATITUDE … and in the process – Let’s transform the world …
May it be so, thanks be to God … Let us pray …
No comments:
Post a Comment