Have We Forgotten How to Dare?

Colesville Presbyterian Church
Silver Spring, Maryland
April 23, 2023


Have We Forgotten How to Dare?
Luke 24:18-35; 1 Peter 1:17-23

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kauiv3byQk0;  (Scripture and Sermon start at 34:14)

In the 1980s (do any of you remember that far back?) there was a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled “Thanks a Million,” written by millionaire Percy Ross. He had decided to give away his money while he was still living. Each of Mr. Ross’ columns featured several requests and his responses. At one point he was receiving over 10,000 letters a week. Here’s one he received, postmarked Newark, New Jersey:

“Dear Mister Percy Ross:

You are so generous to help so many people. I am poor too but I get bye. I don't need money. I live under a bridge and it has a steam pipe under so I am warm in winter. There is a diner close bye and the dumster is always got food in that trukers don't eat. So I got every thing and don't need money. But I see you in the papers and I think if I was rich like you I will help people too. The other day I helped some buddy and he gave me $20. that is nice but there is some buddy that needs it more than I do I'm shure. $20 make me rich so I share and try to help you to do good. Please give this $20 to some buddy that realy need it.

Yours truly, Wilson Demarest” [Grammar and spelling unedited] (1)

I don’t know how that letter strikes you, but it evokes a number of emotions:

• Anger and outrage at a society that allows people to live such a marginal existence.
• Pity for a man who has come to expect so little from life that he cannot even take advantage of good fortune when it is handed to him.
• Sadness at the realization that for some people to have $20 is to be “rich,” while for others it is hardly worth noticing in their pockets.
• Disgust at the continual “queue up and beg nicely” behavior that Mr. Ross' attitude and column invited.
• Delight at him getting knocked down a peg or two from his monied perch by the gentle generosity of Wilson Demarest.
• A strange gnawing knowledge at the corner of the conscience that I am somehow strangely jealous of this man who has nothing, wants nothing, and can peacefully part with such a “fortune.”

Analysts of charitable giving will tell you that people who don’t have a lot of money tend to give a greater percentage of what they have than people who have more money than they know what to do with. A full-time minimum wage job grosses about $15,000 annually. For the moment, let us ignore the fact that it takes about twice that much to provide a secure basic living for a single person and a lot more for a family. A ten percent tithe of $15,000 would be $1,500. A person making $150,000 might make the same monetary gift, but it is only one percent.

You will remember that Jesus saluted the widow who put her two pennies in the temple offering box while people much richer were putting their large gifts in, mere pocket change to them. Wilson Demarest, like the widow, put his whole living in the offering.

When the Centers for Disease Control reported the effects of cigarette smoking, they included second-hand smoke – what everyone other than the smoker inhaled. I resonated with that because both my parents were heavy smokers. I also suffered from what I called “second-hand Depression.” I didn’t live in the 1930s when my parents were young adults. They spoke so much about the Great Depression when I was growing up in the 1950s that I thought I was living through it. We weren’t poor. It just seemed that way.

With the current talk about inflation and possible recession we need to remind ourselves that there is scarcity and insecurity in every generation. Late night television host Johnny Carson once made a joke about a lack of toilet paper and people emptied store shelves the next day. When a weather report promises a big storm, bread and milk, beer and chips disappear from stores. We are fueled by fear and worry about a lot of things: domestic terrorism or mass killings, credit card scams or cyber warfare, bridge closures or water main breaks, internet outages or bad hair days. Like turtles we pull our heads in and hunker down awaiting the worst. If we don’t have something to worry about, we feel that there is something wrong. 

The author of the 1Peter letter gives us a wake-up call. 

“[Y]ou were ransomed ... with the precious blood of Christ, ... Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your trust and hope are in God.” 

Where is true security to be found? In reverence for God and in holy love for each other. Most of us can echo the psalmist’s “our hope is in the name of the Lord” in church on Sunday morning as long as this attitude doesn’t sneak into the rest of the week. On Monday our hope is in our physical and emotional strengths and abilities. Our weekday faith is set in the knowledge we have worked hard to master, in the personal connections we have labored to make and keep, and in the niche we have carved out for our life and lifestyle. Instead of trusting in God, we trust what we can hold in our hands or fold into our wallets. When Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19 NRSV), he didn’t have to deal with what we face every day.

Our gnawing sense of insecurity is what makes Wilson Demarest’s generosity and simplicity stir us. Poverty isn’t romanticized. Demarest’s living conditions are deplorable. No human being should be reduced to such a meager existence when others have so much. Nonetheless, Demarest’s spiritual satisfaction must be taken seriously. He has a personal sense of trust and faith that overrides all the frightening uncertainties that buffet his life. Wilson Demarest’s soul knows deprivation. But it also knows contentment. That simple fact exposes the sand-based foundations of our fragile hopes and pervading fears

The 1 Peter letter writer knew that for Christians spread across Asia Minor there would be no escape from the storms of persecution. However, the writer could assert with joy that Christians could fully trust that the God who ransomed them through the blood of Christ was standing beside them, no matter how violent the storms of life are.

What would it mean if the Christian church in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, or suburban Maryland took 1 Peter’s counsel as seriously as those first century believers in western Asia Minor? The church has learned too well from the corporate world how to plan its way forward to the next quarterly report, instead of prophesying its way into the future God has prepared for it. What if the church stopped placing its trust in programs, money, membership numbers, facilities, or professional staff. What if the church put its trust in the Lord?

If God could raise Jesus from the dead (we did just celebrate that, didn’t we?), can’t God be trusted to raise the church from its nearly moribund state, to break it out of the cold tomb of complacency and capitulation to the world? The trouble with trusting God is that we have to dare through our skepticism, our disbelief, our insecurity, our fear. Because we are liberated by the precious blood of Christ, we are called to live boldly. God calls Christians to actively witness to this world, not sit in the bleachers and wait for someone else to do Christ’s work. Wringing our hands is not means of grace.

 The church of Christ is called to dare and do. If one activity fails, try something different. If it succeeds, keep at it until it fails and then go on to something else. Failures don’t mean that the church has “failed” to be a witness to Christ's presence here on earth for all people. The church only fails to do that when it puts its faith and hope and trust in the policies of people instead of the power of God.

The church that has forgotten how to dare is a church in hospice care awaiting death. The church that has forgotten how to dare has forgotten who its Lord is. The church that has forgotten how to dare has put its light under a basket and lost its saltiness.

Jesus did not gather his disciples around a table and give them marching orders at the beginning of his ministry. It was the Last, not the First, Supper. Jesus and the disciples didn’t swap stories of the good old days. It was a table of action for the future. Christ broke the bread and they ate. Christ shared the cup and they drank. Then they went out to meet head-on the events that would ultimately result in an empty tomb and a risen savior who revealed himself in the breaking of bread with travelers to Emmaus causing their hearts to burn within them. They rushed back to Jerusalem to share the news with his closest friends, preparing them for the unleashing of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Peter dared to present the Good News to the assembled crowd. Three thousand believed and returned to their far-flung Jewish diaspora homes to incubate the gospel of Christ for future believers. 

Don’t leave the Easter celebration of two Sundays ago behind. Dare to keep the heart-burningness of a risen Savior every day of the year. Dare to take the resurrection faith beyond these walls. Dare to be empowered by the unmatched joy and power of the empty tomb. Dare to live lives built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, who calls us to go out from here to be the church in the world. 

Alleluia! Amen.

General Resource: Homiletics, April 25, 1993.

(1) Quoted in USA Today, 2 September 1992, D-1.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.