Dt 26:5-11

25 February 2007

1st Sunday in Lent

“Empty Your Cup”

Once upon a time, in a far away place, the master had a visitor who came to inquire about wisdom.  But instead of listening, the visitor kept talking about his own concerns and giving his own thoughts.

After a while, the master served tea.  He poured tea into his visitor’s cup until it was full and then he kept on pouring.

Finally the visitor could not bear it any longer.  “Don’t you see that my cup is full?” he said.  “It’s not possible to get anymore in.”

“Just so,” the master said, stopping at last.  “And like this cup, you are filled with your own ideas.  How can you expect me to give you wisdom unless you first empty your cup?”

We tend to be the same way.  We tend to be filled with our own thoughts, our own opinions.  Sometimes we don’t hesitate to inflict them on others, no matter how asinine they may be.  Just like the fellow in the story who claimed to be seeking wisdom, there’s no more room in our tea cups.

Every year, the church observes a season, which, if properly approached, helps us to deal with making room in our cups.  “Lent is the process of emptying our cups,” Joan Chittister says.  “Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod.”[1]  It’s a time for getting rid of the junk in our lives.  That’s part of what spiritual formation is all about, which itself is a day-to-day, year-round process.  Still, it’s important to have this business of Lenten renewal as a special focus.

Maybe you’ll ask, “Why is it important to pay attention to Lent?”  Well, I can answer that!  Part of the reason is the subversive nature of Lent.  In a society like ours, in which quantity seems to equal quality, it’s almost treasonous to “fast from our own selfish pursuits and find the common good,” as Christine Vladimiroff suggests.[2]

One time I mentioned a song by the Christian new wave group, Mad at the World—something that was released in the 1980s.  They sang, “there’s no room left for God in your mind.”  That’s our problem.  We’re full of ourselves.  We need to empty ourselves.

Many people believe that Lent is meant to be a time of doom and gloom, of self-flagellation.  And some people do beat themselves up, symbolically if not physically.  But in reality, what does that accomplish?  Maybe there is a feeling of self-sacrifice, of extra holiness, by giving up certain things—and making sure everyone else hears all about it!

But does that deal with the problem of being full of ourselves?  Doesn’t approaching Lent with that attitude only substitute one set of problems for another?  Outwardly, it may look like we’re serving God, but Lent is about more than what we’re giving up.  It’s about what we need.

Consider Jesus, who for forty days was out in the desert.  He went without food, but he was full of the Holy Spirit.  He emptied himself; he allowed God to fill him.  And what better way to go about the process of self-emptying than by the way of humble gratitude?  That’s what lies behind the ritual in our Old Testament reading in Deuteronomy 26.

The chapter begins, “When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (v. 1).  There’s already a note of grace…of gift.  So what follows after that?  Is there a warning about giving something up to God so that you won’t look too spiritual?  Hardly!  Just as with Lent, outward actions do matter.  How we go about them is a different question.

This ritual has an outward action and an inward action.  The outward one is mentioned in verses 2 and 10:  bringing “the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”  You’ve heard the saying about self-made men and women (mostly men)?  Well, according to this, there’s no such creature.  Everything we have, even the language to express our thoughts, has been provided by someone else.

In verse 12, this outward action has an amount attached to it:  a tithe, ten percent.  This tithe is to go “to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows.”  The Levites are those who serve in the temple, and the aliens are the foreigners who reside in the land.  Orphans and widows are almost always in a really bad way, economically.

In a lot of churches, the expectation is that giving will actually be a tithe.  We Presbyterians like to do stewardship campaigns; we like to take pledges.  The result is that the average member gives less than five percent of their income; for some, the number is far less than that!  Hey, wait a minute, here’s an idea:  if everyone just gave a tithe, the church’s financial problems would be solved!

Of course, I know, not everyone can afford that.  And I don’t even like it when churches impose that kind of stuff as a rule.  But at the same time, by too quickly dismissing the idea, aren’t we denying the even greater blessings of faith?  That leads to the inward action I mentioned earlier that occurs in this ritual.  This deals with more than giving, be it of first fruits or money.

It’s found in the response that begins in verse 5, which comes after the priest has collected the offering.  We hear the phrase, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien.”  (Aram is the land later called Syria.)  That “wandering Aramean” is Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel.

As the response continues through the next verses, we’re reminded of the fate of the Israelites.  As they became an increasingly larger minority population within Egypt, they were met with greater hostility.  The treatment by the Egyptians got so bad that the Israelites were forced to leave.  Bad move on the Egyptians’ part.  They lost a lot of good, low-income workers!

The point is that this ritual is a continual reminder to the Israelites that they themselves are the descendants of immigrants, foreigners who were harshly dealt with.  The inward action this should inspire is the humble gratitude I mentioned earlier.  It’s really hard to be full of yourself when you’re aware of all this stuff.

One writer has said, “The overwhelming message is one of deep thankfulness for what God has done for them…In this ritual the people are to remember where they came from and who brought them to this place.”[3]

This speaks of the importance of memory.  Perhaps you’ve noticed (I hope you’ve noticed), whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, in the prayer called the Great Thanksgiving, there’s a reciting of God’s saving actions in history.  Just as the Israelites are reminded of their deliverance from oppression by the Egyptians, we are reminded of our deliverance from sin by Jesus Christ.

Okay, let’s review!  What we’ve established (at least, what I’ve established—you may disagree) is that our tea cups are full, so to speak.  We’re so filled with our own thoughts and opinions that it’s hard to allow God a word in edgewise.  We need to empty ourselves; that’s a big part of what Lent is all about.  Being humbly grateful is an excellent way of emptying our cups.  It’s a great way of admitting that we don’t know everything.

The ritual described in Deuteronomy 26 has that in mind.  The people are reminded that they’ve been given the land they inhabit.  They need to make a confession of faith; they need to state out loud, “I know that my ancestors were refugees.  In time, their treatment became so severe that God had to deliver them.  That’s why I bring this offering of the first fruit.”

And so, that’s the end of that!  (Not exactly.)  Hear verse 11:  “Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.”

You shall celebrate your God-given bounty…with the Levites.  Sure, why not?  You shall celebrate your God-given bounty…with the aliens who reside among you.  You know, I’m not so sure about that one!  Celebrate our bounty, our abundance, with foreigners?

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the quite complicated set of issues that surrounds the immigration debate.  (Banu and I tend to have some disagreements here.)  After all, the lines that humans draw on maps keep shifting—not always for the best of reasons.  We shouldn’t allow them to keep us from the love we’re called to show all God’s children.

What would it mean to “celebrate with all the bounty” the Lord has given us with resident aliens, especially with undocumented workers?  Would we have to increase their pay from near slave-labor levels?  But if we did that, we would have to pay more for the crops they harvest and the products they make!  We can’t have that!

It’s also been noted, “While Deuteronomy may have some things to teach us about a response to God’s gifts, we cannot miss the fact that in Deuteronomy, the gift of the land to the Israelites came at the expense of the dispossession of others.”[4]  When we dehumanize people, there’s not much moral high ground to claim.

Still, the political factors are only a symptom of deeper spiritual issues.  (Again, feel free to disagree!)  As Joan Chittister says, “Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.”[5]  Lent challenges the easy answers.

But what does that mean?  How does Lent challenge the easy answers?  Here’s an example.  In America, we’re taught to pad our resumé; do whatever it takes to make ourselves look good.  We’re told that more is better.  If our cup is overflowing, then let it overflow, baby!

Our Lenten journey leads us to the glory of Easter.  Now there’s some big-time bounty, major overabundance!  However, to arrive at that destination, we have to take the way of the cross.  The cross turns all of our usual expectations about life upside down.

            The model for our observance of Lent, with all of its sorrow and joy, is Jesus Christ.  During his forty days in the wilderness, Jesus rejects the devil’s apparently quite reasonable suggestions.  If you have the power, why not do what it takes to prove it?  Why not rule the world?  Think of all the good you could do!

            What does Lent mean for us, right here, right now?  The Sacred Space website poses this:  “What habits make [us] hard to live with?  Lent is about regaining control of our own lives, especially in those areas that damage other people…Nearly all of us have habits, or even addictions, that keep us from God, and harm both ourselves and others.”[6]

            How do we celebrate our bounty with aliens residing among us?  How do we share our treasure in Christ with those who are strangers to us?  (That could be our next-door neighbor.)  How do we empty our cups; how do we empty ourselves?  Let’s find out together during the course of our Lenten journey.

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