Priming the Pump: A Story about Inheritance and Legacy

Holy One, you have so richly blessed us this day, and we give you thanks-- for gifts received and gifts given; for life that refuses to be squelched. May the words about to be spoken and the words about to be heard and seen be rooted in your blessing and our thanksgiving. Amen.

You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O God... I will trust, and will not be afraid, for my God is my strength and my might... Give thanks to God, call on God's name.

Give thanks to God.

As I read these lines, I realized that there are no more central themes in our life together as a community than blessing and thanksgiving. Our community was founded on the understandings of original blessing theology. Our service every week is imbued with the practice of giving thanks through the Great Thanksgiving and the Hymn of Thanksgiving, to name just two pieces. And whenever I sit down with any of you, it is rare that some bit of blessing or thanksgiving doesn't enter into our conversation.

It seems as if blessing and thanksgiving are woven into our life together.

Because of this, one might expect for us to have them pretty well figured out. One might expect that we had plumbed the depths of both blessing and thanksgiving and have a deep understanding and awareness of each of them. But as I have talked with some of you and have thought and prayed about our service today and our service on Thanksgiving Eve, I am aware that we very often err on the overly simplistic side when it comes to blessing and thanksgiving.

Let me explain.

In our prayers on Sunday morning, in our conversations, in so many books, on the radio, in the newspaper, thanksgiving is about what things have been given to us. So the equation goes something like, we get stuff (some kind of blessing) and we give thanks. Thanksgiving, then, is about what comes to us.

Thank you, God, for my new toy. Thank you, God, for my beautiful home. Thank you, God, for my family and friends. Thank you, God, for all the ways you've provided for me.

Now, on one level, this is a really good posture in life. Having and living in a sense of gifts received is wonderful. There is a kind of joy about it. How many of us are not energized by someone who knows they have been given many gifts and constantly is thankful for them?

But today, I would like for us to consider together the notion that blessing is more than simply gifts received. And I would like for us to ponder the reality that true thanksgiving needs more than what comes to us in order to take root in our hearts.

[pause]

This past summer, Barbara Satin, Nancie Hamlett and I attended the National Gathering of the United Church of Christ Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Concerns. During our time together, we heard a wonderful presentation by a young gay man talking about the wisdom he'd learned from an older lesbian woman.

"You know what your problem is?" he quoted her as saying. "You have ancestors." You come from somewhere. A path has been laid out for you. In short, you have a rich inheritance. That's your problem.

But then this young man went on to add to the wisdom he'd learned from his elder. And he said, our real problem is not only that you and I have ancestors, but we have those who will come after us, too. We have both an inheritance and a legacy.

As we pray and think together this morning I would like for us to consider that this young man spoke wisdom to us. Blessing is about both inheritance AND legacy and that true thanksgiving is rooted in their intersection.

It's not just what comes to us, but also what comes forth from us that gives us reason to give thanks to God.

Give thanks to our God. Sing praises to our God, for God has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth.

This is the song of a people who had not only received blessing but had been given the privilege of passing on a legacy.

But the layers of blessing and thanksgiving go even deeper. For the people of Isaiah's community didn't sing only because they had been given ordinary gifts and because they'd been given the honor of passing these ordinary gifts on. Instead, they sing the song of thanksgiving and praise because they have been given an extraordinary inheritance and they have been given the opportunity to pass it on as a legacy.

Let me set some background.

The community described in Isaiah went through the excruciating experience of terrible violence, of exile, of years and years of arduous and boring and painful forced servitude. And then they were restored to their own land. They were liberated and brought home.

And out of their liberation, they felt called to proclaim and act in justice.

The Isaiah community lived through the process I would call crucifixion and resurrection. They experienced incredible hardship and did not lose faith. And then they knew in the bodies and their lives the reality of new life.

But the process did not end there. Their cause for thanksgiving was that they were blessed with the opportunity to pass on the gifts they had received. And one of the one's who received their legacy was Jesus. According to Luke, it was to the words from their community that he turned as he began his ministry.

The Spirit of our God is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of God's favor.

Blessing is not just about what comes to us, but what goes forth from us. And true thanksgiving is rooted in the reality that no matter what happens, God's response is resurrection.

This morning we celebrate two different occasions of blessing and thanksgiving-- Adoption and the reception of our pledges. Neither is a simple, uncomplicated thing. Neither is only a matter of what comes to us or only a matter of what feels good. Neither is easy or always fun.

Instead both are complex. Both sometimes require of us sacrifice. But both invite us into a powerful partnership with God that is all about resurrection.

[pause]

There once was a woman who embarked on a long journey. She went walking and walking, and walking for her destination was a far and distant land. Through valleys, up mountains, around lakes and ponds she travelled. Until one day, still quite far from her destination, she entered a barren and dry land. She was hungry and tired, but she needed to go on.

So she continued walking, trying to shield her eyes from the glaring sun. In this manner, she came across what looked like a well. With excitement she approached it. When she drew near, she realized it wasn't a well but rather a pump fixture cemented to the ground.

Next to the pump sat a sign. It read, "Are you thirsty? Just dig below this sign about 12 inches. There you will find a jar of water. Pour the water from the jar into the pump to prime it. Then pump like crazy for about 2 minutes. You will have all the water you desire. When you have had all the water you desire, re-fill the jar and bury it for the next person."

The woman frantically started digging, and there, 12 inches below the sign lay the jar of water. It was warm, but the water looked soooo good, so clear, so right for her parched mouth, her dry throat, her split lips. She uncapped the jar and put it to her lips-- and then she stopped.

How much could she drink and still have enough left over to prime the pump-- did the priming require all or just some-- she didn't know.... what a dilemma-- perhaps just a sip.

And then she though about how ironic the situation was... giving up something she wanted so badly only to be rewarded with an abundance of more... but she was so thirsty and didn't think she had enough energy to prime and pump for more water-- perhaps just a sip.

Why should she believe what the sign says, she argued-- it could be a trick. But then she thought-- how many more people came before me-- tried it-- and followed the instructions?

Someone she didn't even know had to give, in order for her to receive a blessing. If she drank the water that would quench her immediate thirst-- it would mean nothing for the next person, and also no more for her either.

So.... she tried it. She poured the water in the hole of the pump and she pumped like crazy for almost 2 unbearable minutes and right at the moment she almost gave up-- the water started gushing out with an endless supply.

She drank it.

She bathed herself in it.

She put some in a jug for later.

She realized that God had blessed her-- with both an inheritance and an opportunity for a legacy.

So she filled the jar, capped it, and buried it under the sign for the next person. And then she said a brief prayer of thanksgiving.

Amen.