SERMON - "THE SECRET OF LIFE"

In the nineteenth chapter of His Gospel, Luke tells us of Jesus' encounter with the Chief Tax Collector in Jericho, a man named Zacchaeus, a wealthy man but "small of stature". When Jesus came to Jericho, Zacchaeus wanted "to see what He was like". Why were all those people following Him? What was the secret of His success? Too short to see over the crowd, Zacchaeus climbed a tree. Jesus spotted him and said, "Zacchaeus, hurry down, I mean to stay at your house tonight". (Luke 19:5)

Later, Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house and engaged His host in earnest conversation. Before they had finished talking, Zacchaeus said, "Behold Lord I give one half of all my possessions to the poor". (Luke 19:9) Jesus answered, "Today salvation has come to this house". Zacchaeus had discovered the secret of Jesus' formula for genuine success.

Someone has said, "A secret is either something that is not worth telling, or something that is too good to keep." One of the dominant themes, in Holy Scripture, is the secret that the Bible writers obviously felt was too good to keep; the very secret of life itself.

For each one of us, the secret of religion, and the secret of life, is to be aware of our absolute dependence upon God. This awareness positions us to receive the abundant life God Himself is offering us. When one who follows Jesus, thinks on Jesus, the secret of Jesus' life was that He was always aware of His dependence upon God the Father. For example, in the Gospel reading we heard this day, one of the disciples asks Him, "Lord teach us to pray". Jesus replies, "When you pray, say, Father hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread". (Luke 11:3)

"Give us each day our daily bread". With this petition, we acknowledge our total dependence upon God for all life's necessities. We don't create them; we are not their source. God is the source of all our physical and spiritual necessities. "Blessed are the poor in spirit", because they know they are poor, they know that they have needs, and they know they are dependent. Although this is at the heart of religion, and is the secret of a right relationship with God, nevertheless, it goes against the grain of the modern attitude and approach to life. A modern mood is independence.

The feeling that we human beings are in control permeates our whole society. We praise the so- called "self-made" person. We are conquering outer space. We are conquering disease after disease. It is all just a matter of time. Medical science has been seriously discussing the possibility of deep-freezing persons who have incurable diseases until the cure is found. We, through cybernation, will soon do away with the need for labour. We will create life in a test tube. Who needs God?

In a world in which humankind has declared independence from God, it becomes for us increasingly difficult, even humiliating, to pray, "Give us each day our daily bread". This is a serious matter for us, because the Bible makes it very clear, that to declare independence from God is to commit suicide; to declare independence from God is a prescription for inevitable disaster; to declare independence from God is to cut off ourselves from the source of life itself.

Many of us have experiences of crisis in which we come close to the secret of abundant living. But then the crisis passes, we slip back into the popular mood of independence, self-reliance, and we cut ourselves off from the source of abundant life. Jesus is telling us that our life's fulfillment depends absolutely on our willingness to kneel down in total humility, and to acknowledge our dependence on God. "Give us each day our daily bread." We are dependent upon God each day of our lives. We awaken each morning to a new day. And in that new day, we are totally dependent upon God for the bread and for the life of that day; moment by moment: dependence; day by day: dependence. In the phrase, "Give us each day our daily bread", in the Lord's Prayer, the pronouns are plural. It is so easy, in the quiet of our own room, or in the confines of our own Church or places of worship, to pray this prayer in a self-centered way, but Jesus will not let us do that. The pronouns are plural. Every time, we offer the prayer, we are acknowledging that we belong not only to our community of faith, be it Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, or another community but to the community of humankind. We are asking for our daily bread. We are acknowledging, that in God's plan of human life, some of us human beings are dependent on other human beings for the basic stuff of life. This is implied so obviously in the Lord's Prayer that it is sheer hypocrisy for the "have’s" to offer it if they are not doing something to fill the needs of the "have-nots". We bring all of the hungry of the world into this prayer and ask God to give us daily bread, not just for our needs. And if we have more than our share, we simply acknowledge this as God's way of channeling the bread to others. In today's atmosphere of social independence, we need to understand the relationship between our responsibility and the dependence upon God within which the responsibility is exercised. We are to plough the ground, and we are to plant the seed, and we are to cultivate, and we are to harvest, and we are to bake, and we are to distribute. There is much that we must do. But all the while we are doing what we do, we must remember the broader context in which we work and live. In the last analysis, we have to pray, "Give us". Give us the sun, and the wind, and the rain. Give us the skills, and the energy, and the wisdom, and the compassion, and the love.

It is indeed true, that for each one of us, the secret of religion and the secret of life is to be aware of our absolute dependence upon God.