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'Living a Lack Nothing Life'

Psalm 40:1-5; I Corinthians 1:1-9

If it is true, as modern architect Mies Van der Rohr first stated, that "God is in the details," it is also true that only the Devil keeps an itemized list. Hard life-lessons teach that the longer the list of "options added" or "luxuries included" the more carefully we had better check out just what it is we are getting and getting into.

Remember the last time you wandered around a new car lot? Remember those long lists with their roll calls of goodies stuck on the side window? Remember bending down to read more carefully that extensive, impressive list? Those specially added "options" usually include windshield wipers, carpeting, horn, radio. Even integral parts of the engine itself are sometimes separated out and added as featured details to make the get-list look more substantial.

Once burned, we become suspicious around flowery language and gushing promises. Renting a vacation house for a family get-away? The longer the list, the more careful you are. Is this "beach house" actually on a beach? Or is this "beach house" on a busy street leading to the beach but a mile away from the water? Does "rustic mountain lodge" really translate into "no modern appliances and one nightmare of a bathroom"? We have been trained by the Devil's long lists not to trust the details. We learn early in life that if small things are highlighted, then something really big must be missing.

In today's lesson, Paul refuses to get caught up in the game of listing detail after detail in order to reveal the presence and power of grace gifts within the Corinthian community. As he gives thanks for spiritual giftedness, Paul only mentions two by name: "speech and knowledge." Even then he generalizes them as being "of every kind" (v. 5). The next time Paul emphasizes spiritual gifts he uses even less specific language. In fact, instead of itemizing a positive list of the Corinthian gifts, he offers a sweeping negative as proof of God's unbounded grace. You are, Paul asserts, "not lacking in any spiritual gift ..." (v. 7).

Would your suspicious nature allow you to buy a car whose side-window sticker read only "not lacking anything"? Would you pack up your family for a vacation jaunt to a place advertised simply as "not lacking anything"? Would you approve of your child picking a college that claimed it was "not lacking anything"? Would you relocate to a new community and start a new life based on the Chamber of Commerce's insistence that the area was "not lacking anything"?

Our need for details, particulars and proof makes us demand always more information yet leaves us always feeling like we are still lacking something. Paul insists this morning that as confessed believers gathered together "in Christ" we are already "lacking in nothing." Paul promises that we have at our disposal all that we could ever possibly need to live a life filled with hope and strength and grace.

If we really lack nothing, sisters and brothers, then why do we think we lack? Why do we feel so acutely that so much is missing from our life, our family, our career, our community, our church? If we really are "lacking in nothing," why do we feel like ... well, like this: If I just had more time ... If I just had more money ... If I just had more power ... If I just had more confidence ... If I just had more influence ... Then I could really be something for God.

Our problem is not that we are lacking. Our problem is not that we need certain things that we just don't have. Our problem is that we have things that we don't know we have. The grace of God, the gift of salvation, has been handed to us on a silver platter called the cross. The problem is clearly not in God's giving. The problem - and this problem ends up being perceived as a void, a lack, in our lives - is that we are no good at receiving. We are so busy worrying about checking an itemized list to see what we have (Is there a water view? Does he have a great career ahead of him? Is an egg roll included?) that we are incapable of comprehending that God intends for us to lack nothing.

Eternal life, grace and peace, the transforming, saving love of Christ - life's ultimate riches are all ours for the taking. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom," Luke 12:32 reads. Our problem is a receiving problem: We have not learned how to receive the immeasurable riches of God's grace.

At some time every little kid on a shopping trip with Mom is taught the same mantra: "Keep your hands to yourself; don't touch anything." Some parents teach their children to put their hands in their pockets or clasp them behind their backs when they enter a store with expensive and breakable items sitting around. Unfortunately, most of us take this lesson too much to heart. As people of faith we have to unlearn this hands-off, don't-touch attitude. God has graced us with a superabundance of gifts. But we must be open to receiving them. We must be able to reach out our hands and accept what God would deposit in them, what God would put at our disposal.

Too often we have a cramp in our grasp that keeps us from opening our hands to receive what is already there, what is already ours. Here are some suggestions to help us receive what God offers so that we are "lacking in nothing."

Let go of what your hands are squeezing. When God offers you gold, you have to let go of the brass baubles you may have already managed to scrape together. Letting go of something inferior to claim a gift of superior quality doesn't sound like it should be difficult. But for most of us, emptying our hands of our petty prizes, emptying our pockets of tawdry treasures is a tough exercise.

If we are holding tightly to a way of life just because it is familiar; if we are clutching a conviction that money is the ultimate safety net; if our hands are filled with lists of things "to do" so that we don't have to think about what we have become: Let's open our hands and let all this dross drift through our fingers. Nevertheless, sometimes we desperately feel a lack, a void, even though our hands are already being tightly held. We cannot receive what God offers us until we can let go of relationships, attitudes, dependencies, that are destructive, that suck out our strength and our love without ever helping rebuild our reserves.

Open your fists clenched from fear. When Paul asserts to the Corinthians that they are "lacking in nothing," the lack of detail in that statement is enough to make many of us clam up with fear. As long as our hands are clenched together, we believe we are safe from any unknown surprises dropping into them.

In his inaugural address, Nelson Mandela spoke about how fearful we are about living a life that is "lacking in nothing." Mandela asserted that:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone, and, as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Get your hands out of your pockets. This is the familiar posture of those who would keep the world away by keeping away from the world. If God would have us "lacking in nothing," we must be open to the risks entailed by becoming part of a community and caring for others.

With our hands stuffed in our pockets our mothers knew we were safe from accidentally knocking anything off a shelf. But we also would never have felt the soft, cuddly fur of a coveted stuffed animal, or felt the scratchy stiffness of a starfish in a hands-on aquarium tank. If we are to "lack nothing," we must interact with our world.

"Lacking in nothing" means God intends our lives to be full, not flat; fluid, not stagnant; surprising, not staid. The promise that we will be "lacking in nothing" does not mean that we will be in total control at all times. Our first identity is as one who is "in Christ." Thus it is Christ to whom we give ultimate control over our lives. If you hold out your hands to Christ, prepare to be swung into action and prepare to be 'lacking in nothing.' Amen.

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