The Abundance of Enough - October 24, 2021
Sermon: The Abundance of Enough, Carolyn Smith
You prepare a table before me, my cup overflows. Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me, and I shall dwell in God’s house forever..
Just like Thanksgiving in Grandmother God’s dining room, and all the things that must
be on that table, and how comfortable the chair feels, and the good company because God
is there, and all whom God loves.... A Big abundant dining room!!
Our October theme has been Food: around the world, with Thanks-giving for our
abundance, on planting seeds of change, and today, the abundance of “enough.”
Abby & Nathan’s parents read us our story today, about Joseph. It was thankfully
simplified by Rev. Ralph Milton in his Storybook Living God’s Way, from the long but
wonderful version in the regular text, and its about Pharaoh - king of all the Egyptian
Empire consumed by his dreams. Fat cows gobbled up by hungry ones, golden sheaves
of grain decimated by parched stalks. And Joseph’s answer to the King of all the land?
“Plan ahead to have enough. Don’t squander resources. Consider the well-being of the
future. And find some intelligent expert to rely on in this work.” They are talking about
food for a lot of people for a long time into the future.
If I was having anxious dreams about money, and I have, your advice to me might be to
save 10%, tighten my spending, and consult my financial advisor. If we were all out
hiking together, and I was looking at a big hill ahead of me, you might tell me to pace
myself, slow and steady, don’t use all my energy up at the start. Stewarding money, time,
energy, food, all these resources is about ensuring “enough” all the time.
And such faithful stewardship is something to celebrate with Joseph and Pharaoh even as
they were pacing themselves and holding some back... in the first seven years our story
continues that the grain was so abundant it was spilling from barns! There is little sense
in the text about austerity demanded, or that anyone felt hard-done-by in setting aside
some of the abundance. How good to know that the future was in good hands and we’d
be protected. Smart move Pharaoh! Good job Joe.
There is common wisdom here, and ... do you feel it? A hopefulness! A sense of
camaraderie maybe. Time and again the stories of our faith are about hopeful
community, looking out for each other, lifting the lowly, and seeing what’s possible when
love is generous. And the stories appeal to us, because while we experience that
abundance sometimes, we also know how often it’s missing. How often hunger and fear
drives division, greed, living for now, or tightening down so much for the future, that the
present is a struggle. Too often there isn’t enough for everyone. Too often, the ones on
the bottom are blamed for their misfortune, Too often, power and privilege are the
dividing line.
When you heard Joseph’s explanation of the dreams, about coming famine, did it surprise
you? No -the hungry consuming cows and grain are pretty obvious. And in the original
story, two years pass between Pharaoh’s frightful dreams of the cows and the grain.. this
vision has been keeping him awake for years. Signs for years that drought and famine is
coming, like our Climate Crisis and its impact on food security.
Scientists now have been having nightmares about rising Co2 levels due to industry for at
least 120 years. You may know this already, and if you’re reading Katherine Hayhoe’s
book ‘Saving Us’ along with the book study group, it’s in there too. For decades, the
wise advisors have been warning about the impact on sea levels and water scarcity and
soil erosion and weather patterns. Those are food sustainability and poverty issues. But
they’ve been treated as irritations, much like Joseph in his earlier days as a dreamer, cast
off by his older siblings. No one listened to Joseph. And our present-day Pharaoh - our
various governments and powers that be- are taking a dangerously LONG time to wake
up and respond with concerted effort.
Often, talk of change, changing habits or reducing consumption for the sake of “Enough”
in the future, is tainted with threat of austerity, or inconvenience, a demand for suffering
now when the impacts seem far off. There may be ridicule - who puts out for an electric
car or geothermal when the payback seems far off? And when I say those words
“austerity, inconvenience, ridicule, suffering” it makes me withdraw, fear rises up, I pull
in my stuff, protect it being taken away.. protected from all of you!
The Canada Foodgrains Bank explores that fear in their resources this year. They are a
long-standing organization confronting food injustice head on, and they shared a the idea
of the Long Spoons story. The story is one for your imagination - how long are your
arms.. I know we tease T-rex dinosaurs for having such short arms they can’t clap. And
Your arms are the right length to carry your spoon to your mouth among other things. So
imagine a circle of people with a bowl of stew in the center of the circle. Each person has
a long spoon, long enough to reach the bowl, but too long for them to bring the spoon to
their mouths. How frustrating! How scary! It gets a bit chaotic, and fighting breaks
out... people are hungry, the food is there, but they can’t eat!! Until one person realizes
they can’t reach their own mouth BUT they can reach another. And this person extends
the spoon across the circle to the mouth of another hungry worried person. That person
is grateful and so feeds another one, and the idea catches on, joy and the relief breaks out
around the circle. There is enough for all.
Life returned... not just subsistence, but abundance and living when sharing happened,
when the people worked for one another’s care, and everyone had enough.
So What does Enough feel like to you? Dare I suggest we ask the poorest one. The
displaced one. A refugee from Afghanistan. What is enough for the orcas in warming
seas or sequoias in fire-scorched forests? What enough is for them.
Can we reframe that sense of “having enough” to mean the JOY of enough for all, to
mean the hope for and our legacy of a thriving future, and see change and preparation and
new habits now without fearful austerity and irritated inconvenience?
Enough of fear. It will sink us now. Take a moment, and I’ve encouraged this before...
take a moment and sense the Spirit around you. ... sense the friends around - in the pews
and online .... Think of beloved places on this planet... And feel your prayers rise...
Sit prayerfully with this abundant sense of enough as you plan your shopping list for the
week, and the sources of produce, or the plastic packaging involved. Sit prayerfully as
you read the newspaper debating subsides for solar, or Greenbelt development, and
maybe the letter you will write to your Pharaoh - or maybe the MPP. Savour your tasty
mouthfuls and consider if you have more than enough for body, mind, spirit. Even in the
abundance of this season - is there anything more humbly “enough” than a crisp apple, or
a simple potato mashed with a bit of butter and milk? We make abundance out of
simplicity. We need less than we know. And we give More when we know it. The
‘Abundance of Enough’ is that we remember our place in God’s household, each of us
deserving enough to flourish, connected to others in their flourishing. With such
awareness in our living, clearer answers feel hopeful, like Joseph’s wisdom. In the small
way that is you, in the larger reassuring way that is US, the world is changed.
At the thanksgiving table in God’s dining room, you and I are welcome and loved and
called, same as everyone else, including the critters of the land and sea, and the wayward
ones like Pharaoh, and the future ones just a gleam in our eyes. There is laughter and
hope and redemption, and there is enough for all.
Amen.