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| "Pacific Currents" by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast,
Conference Minister, June, 2000 Divine Economy
There is a word that many of us learned as children. I've never actually looked up its definition, but the meaning became clear to me after the first few times I heard it. The word is "umpteen." As in, "I've told you umpteen times not to do that!" Or, "For the umpteenth time, will you take out the trash?" "'Umpteen'" is truly a gospel word," Rachel Reader tells us. "A word of grace. It conveys the love of a parent who does not bother to keep an EXACT count of my failings and inadequacies. It would have really bothered me to hear my mother say, "I've told you 4 times to do that." She's counting? "Umpteen" times leaves a little room for grace to operate." I have reason to believe we ALL will be received in Graceland. [Paul Simon wrote the lyrics, but I contend the words take in much more than Elvis' mansion in Memphis]. We all will be received in that graced land of our longing. The Graceland opened up and made accessible for us by Jesus. We cannot pay the price of admission into that Graceland. None of us can earn that kind of love. Just as good parents love their babies, who perform absolutely no useful work and are often smelly, self-centered, and demanding creatures with drool on their faces, so The Holy One loves us. As Frederick Buechner puts it: Love is a gift. Salvation is a gift. Life is a gift. Something totally unearned. Given by a gracious God for God knows what reason. There's nothing you can do to earn it. There's nothing YOU can do. There's nothing you can DO. Except to trust in God's generosity. Except to trust that there is enough love and grace to go around, that we're not talking a limited pool of resources here, that the good fortune of one does not diminish the fortune of another. Except to trust that The Almighty's blessings will come in good time and in appropriate forms to each of us-even if we fail, goof off, or malinger. An old friend from Louisville tells a story about old-fashioned Sunday school picnics. [These were not part of my religious tradition or cultural heritage, but the way she tells the story makes me feel like I was there]. Anyway, she says, they'd say at church: "We'll all meet at Sycamore Lodge in Shelby Park at 4:30 on Saturday. You bring your supper and we'll furnish the lemonade and the iced tea." But if you were like me, you'd be out on Saturday and come home at the last minute. When you got ready to pack your picnic, all you could find in the refrigerator was one dried-up piece of baloney and just enough mustard in the bottom of the jar so that you got it all over your knuckles trying to get to it. And just two slices of stale white bread to go with it. So you made your baloney sandwich and stuck it in a baggie and went to the picnic. When it came time to eat, you sat at the end of a table and spread out your sandwich. But the folks who sat next to you had brought a feast. They were all good cooks and they had worked hard all day to get ready for the picnic. They had fried chicken and baked beans and potato salad and homemade rolls and sliced tomatoes and pickles and olives and celery. And two big homemade chocolate pies. That's what they spread out there next to you while you sat with your baloney sandwich. But they said to you, "Why don't we just put this all together." "No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't even think of it," you murmured, embarrassed, with one eye on the fried chicken. "Oh, come on," they'd insist, "there's plenty of chicken and plenty of pie and plenty of everything. And we just love baloney sandwiches. Let's just put it all together." And so you did. And there you sat, eating like royalty when you'd come like a pauper. Graceland Again. Only someone who receives a feast after contributing a stale baloney sandwich can understand the unpredictable wildness of God's love for us. Only someone who has been given gifts all out of proportion to what is deserved can extend that kind of generosity to others. As people of faith we are called to employ an alternative system of accounting. Not hunched over, tallying wrongs, toting up blessings. Not weighing good deeds expended against riches received on some horribly contrived balance of equivalence. Instead, we behold the exuberant landscape of earth and spirit-all of it given to us. Given to us all, given with pizzazz [in the words of Annie Dillard] given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. We are forever indebted. And we know it. Some things there are which cannot be bought and sold. Some things there are that can never be quantified. Some things are simply given and can only be repaid by giving of ourselves, by giving back, by giving thanks with expansive hearts. An outpouring of love and tenderness for creation and Creator is surely the coin of the heavenly realm in which we are bidden to live. Together. In a divine economy. Where the numerical system is never base 10 or base 12, but base umpteen. ~ Mary Susan |
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