Sermon Audio
November 16, 2014
What fills your cup?
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts
be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
At
this time of year when celebrations with family and friends ramps up into high
gear for the holidays we all experience a common use of one of our five
senses. When you enter a home, whether your
own or another abode as a family member or guest, the first thing that everyone
notices is the smell. Today we have either
an opportunity or a burden and challenge, depending upon your vantage point of
smelling the feast that has been prepared for us downstairs by the ladies of
the congregation. So I will try and keep
the sermon short so we can celebrate by eating some turkey and all the fixings together
as the family of God and brothers and sisters in Christ downstairs.
It
is clear when anyone sets a table for a feast, there is always a plate,
silverware a napkin and finally a cup.
As a child I remember we would get the small cups, which were either
plastic, covered or indestructible, because someone would always drop their
drink and that was the last thing that any parent wants to do on Thanksgiving
or Christmas, clean another spill by their child or have an expensive trip to
the emergency room to get stitches or even the dry cleaner to clean the fine
linen that is only used during the holidays.
For
adults sitting at the table during the holidays at our house there would always
be the opportunity to have a glass of wine, so the fine stem china wine glasses
would be set at the adults seats. As I
grew older I even would have one of the more expensive wine glasses, and mine
would have either water, milk or grape juice, but not wine.
But
this begs a question for we who gather here this morning that we need to ask
and answer during our Thanksgiving celebration, “What fills your cup?” Not the physical cup we drink from, but our
spiritual cup.
In
our Epistle lesson this morning Paul states simply that we need to be “always
offering prayer”. When we begin
with an attitude of prayer in the morning, we carry throughout the day an
attitude of gratitude, generosity and concern that clearly demonstrates our
thanks for what we have been entrusted with from God. As the word thanksgiving shows we have the
greatest opportunity at this time of the year to offer our heartfelt thanks for
the gifts that God has given us.
As
farmers, there are times when you survey the fields that have been struck by an
unrelenting hail storm, a wind storm that has knocked all of your ready to
harvest corn to the ground or even a drought that seems to last for years. Immediately what comes to mind is how will I
pay the note, how will I make ends meet until the next crop is harvested, is
the field on the other end of the county going to be hit by this storm? All of this is the worry of daily life of a
farmer here on the plains of Northwestern Kansas.
When
we encounter this reality, the last thing we sometimes can do is pray or be
thankful. But God wants us to do just
that. Offer prayer to God and call on
Him at our darkest hour as well as our time of clear celebration and
thankfulness. For God’s promise is true,
“He
Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”. The good work is our baptism into Jesus
Christ life, death and resurrection. The
good work of our baptism is all about our eternal salvation, not the things
that will pass away, but the eternal.
Hence we return to the question, “What fills your cup?”
Paul
goes on to say, “this I pray, that your love may abound” and that we may be “blameless
until the day of Christ”. Paul
wants us to share with one another the love of Jesus Christ not only around the
table and feast we will share downstairs in the fellowship hall, but more
importantly the feast we share in a few moments from the altar of Jesus Christ
true Body and Blood. When we share the
love of Jesus Christ with each other and allow this to fill our cups to overflowing, we no longer focus on what
‘drives us nuts’ or ‘worries us’, but look past the faults, the things we have
no control over and we are empowered to love as Jesus Christ first loved us.
This
is the good work in our baptism that Jesus Christ wants us to share with one
another. Jesus Christ is calling us to
share this with each other every day of our lives especially when we gather
here to celebrate our Thanksgiving feast, but more so His Hoy Supper that gives
us the forgiveness of sins and life and salvation. For when we share the grace of God with one
another in this meal, we fulfill Paul’s final statement from our text. Paul says, “having been filled with the fruit
of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ” we no longer will
see the faults of others, but share in the fruit which God gives us in the Holy
Sacrament we share from around the altar, the meal of salvation of His Body and
Blood offering us eternal life.
Then when we gather downstairs or around our
family tables at Thanksgiving we can with one another remember God’s gifts
given to us and give thanks and praise as we gather together as brothers and
sisters in Christ. We gather today offering
our prayers of thanksgiving and can clearly see and share the blessings of the
grace of God offered on the Cross of Calvary for all of mankind. Especially all of us saints gathered here at
Emmanuel ready to share in the feast Jesus Christ offers us from the altar of
His Body and Blood and with one another downstairs as we celebrate the fruits
that God has entrusted to us and we share with one another of the grace of
Jesus Christ with all of mankind. AMEN.
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