“Do the Good That is Yours to Do”

Third Sunday in ADvent

December 15, 2024

Isaiah 58:6b-12

Luke 3:7-16

Children’s Message:

I’ve decided I’m tired of winter. I’m going on vacation. I’m going to a warm beach. Sound like fun? And I have everything I’m going to need right here. A towel! Is that everything I need to go to the beach?

·       I don’t need a swim suit. I have a towel!

·       I don’t need a beach ball. I have a towel!

·       I don’t need sunglasses or sunscreen or an umbrella. I have a towel!

I travel light, you know. You don’t think a towel can do everything I need at the beach? Why not?

Maybe you’re right. Maybe I need the things that are designed to do their jobs. Because when I want to play on the beach under an umbrella without getting in trouble, a towel can only go so far.

Today, we’re learning about doing the good that is ours to do. We each have certain skills and talents. We’re each made for a purpose. You can’t stop climate change by yourself, but you can recycle and turn the lights off when you leave the room. You can’t stop all the violence in the world, but you can be kind to your siblings and your classmates.

When you think about all the things that our world needs, we can feel pretty powerless. But we don’t have to do it all. We just need to do our job. Be kind, fair, helpful, considerate. Can you think of other ways you can do your part?

Let’s pray. Dear God, the world is big, and the need is big. Help us do our part to serve your purpose. Amen.

Message:

This is the time of year where every non-profit you’ve ever supported and some you haven’t send you mail to ask for money. The demand is huge, and the causes are all good. How do you decide? How do you meet the need? Here’s what I tell people. If you want to give to a cause or two, pick the ones that are most important to YOU. Not necessarily the ones that need the most or ask the hardest or tell the best stories. You give to the ones that connect for you, and trust that the others will connect with other people. And together, the need will be met.

It reminds me of hearing about immigrants who walk into one of our grocery stores for the first time and are overwhelmed with the options. When we get overwhelmed, we can become paralyzed. With so many options or so many needs, we find ourselves so inundated that we don’t choose anything. We don’t do anything.

And the choices and needs just continue to grow. It can feel the same way here at Our Saviour’s. We’re behind our budget by $28,000. And yet, we have seen the generosity and graciousness of the folks here. We know how big your hearts are. We know the pressure inflation has caused. And it often feels like too much to keep asking for more. I mean, what is another $5 in the plate? Unless lots of people give an extra $5. Then, all of a sudden, what seems like doing very little becomes a windfall.

But our society has embraced a narrative that is far different. We love to tell the story of heroes. The big givers, the Lone Rangers, the superheroes. We lift up people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Greta Thurnberg as those who single-handedly take on the powers that be. Even though that’s not true. But if that’s our narrative, we’ll continue waiting for a hero to come in and fix things for us. And if that’s our process, we’re in for a very long wait.

Songwriter David Lamotte gave a TED talk entitled “Why Heroes Won’t Change the World.” He uses the example of Rosa Parks and the story we tell about her. What most of us know about her is that one day after a long day at work, she sat down near the front of the bus and refused to give up her seat to a white man. That got her arrested, and her story went down in history books.

But what we don’t often learn is how much work she had done with civil rights before that moment on the bus, the women she worked with, the challenges they made to the bus companies, and the power the people held when they worked together. Her arrest was a flashpoint, but it wasn’t the fire. The fire had been building and continued to be fueled by hard work from hundreds of people.

This is the story of Justice in Action. None of us can affect much of a change for justice by ourselves, but last May we gathered over 1200 people from 26 faith communities to challenge our elected leaders to make changes we had spent hundreds of hours researching and dreaming about. And we’ll spend hundreds more hours working for justice because power systems aren’t easily changed. It’s not like on TV. We don’t solve problems in 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or even the 2-3 hours spent in a theater. It takes lots of people, doing lots of little things, over lots of time. But it works.

When the people came to John to be baptized, he looked at them with disdain. “What do you think you’re doing here? What miracle do you think is going to happen today? Baptism means something. Faith means something. It means changing how you think and how you act. Stop waiting for someone to change your situation and start making change, yourself.”

So they ask him what they should do. And his advice is different for each group because each of them has a different situation in which they operate. The general public is to share what they have with those who have little—without asking if they deserve it. The tax collectors are to do their job without skimming off the top for themselves. The soldiers are to treat people as people without expecting bribes.

Seems simple. But it’s still hard for us to put into practice sometimes. Do the good that is yours to do. Don’t expect a hero to come in and fix it. Even once Jesus arrived, he wasn’t the hero everyone had hoped for. Yes, for God so loved the world and sent the Son not to condemn the world but to save it. But that salvation looks less like a magic wand and more like indwelling in God’s people so that we, ourselves, can be changed—and from there change the world.

Let me be clear. Each of you will and are changing the world. With everything you do and don’t do; with what you say and don’t say; with how you give and withhold of yourself, you are changing the world. What John advises, what Isaiah commends, what Jesus implores is for us to choose actions and words that change the world for good. All the little things. Doing the good that is ours to do. And the world will change.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE