Learning from Philip

Learning from Philip

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

October 26, 2014; 20 Pentecost, Proper 24, Year A, Track 2

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

Matthew 22:34-46 – When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: `You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: "What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

                 `The Lord said to my Lord,

"Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet"'?

 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?" No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

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"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself."

It was a cold morning. I was driving toward my church in Fort Smith to open up for the early service. There was no traffic at that hour. Back then I drove a 1937 Chevy street rod. Kathy called that car my mid-life crisis. It was a pretty toy that ended up becoming a pretty expensive toy. But that morning, driving down an empty street, the light turned red on me. I stopped, and a small, cold looking fellow in Army fatigues wobbled a bit unsteadily across the street, his breath visible in the chill. Instead of staying in the crosswalk in front of my car, he headed right toward me. My first reaction was an anxious one, but then he grinned a big wide smile, exaggerated by his missing two-front-teeth. He signaled for me to roll down my window. I rolled down my window. "Hey Father, how much would you take for that car? I wanna buy your car?"

"I think my wife would give it to you, but I'm pretty attached to it," I said.

"I like that car, Father," he chuckled, his blood-shot eyes glistening. I caught a whiff of what he must have been drinking that night to keep himself warm. "I'm gonna buy that car from you," he laughed as he walked on, crossing in front of me.

It was weeks, maybe months later, when I got a call from one of our local recovery programs. They said a fellow named Philip had checked in to their 30-day detox and rehab center. When they asked him about his income, he told them he was on disability. When they asked who his payee was, he said, "The Father down at the Episcopal Church." "Are you the Father down at the Episcopal Church?" "Yes," I said. "But what's a payee?"

So they explained the system to me. When someone is placed on disability for addiction, the government requires a payee to serve as the party responsible for administering the funds for the disabled person. The rehab center needed a payee to cover the costs of Philip's stay with them.

"Well," I said, "the name Philip doesn't ring a bell with me, but if he says I'm his payee, I'll be glad to come down and see what the situation is." It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

It seems Philip's payee had been fleecing money from him, and Philip liked my car. So when they asked him who his payee was, he just made it up and said I was. We talked a while. I learned about the responsibilities of a payee. And we made a deal. I'd be his payee and take care of his living costs as long as he was sober. If he started drinking though, I'd put his money in the bank for him. I wasn't going to pay for his drinking. Until he was sober again, he was on his own. Philip grinned that big, toothless grin and we shook on it.

We got him set up in a pretty spare furnished apartment. I didn't know what I was doing and made some mistakes at first. I wrote up a budget and schedule for him for rent and food and essentials. A couple of days later he came back. "Father, don't be mad at me. I gave away the money to a poor family with two children." "Okay," I said, admiring his generosity but anxious about his own slim margins. "How much did you give them?" "Oh, all of it, Father," "What? Nearly $400? That was everything you had to live on for the whole month." (It was the first week of the month.) "Oh, Father. They need it more than I do. They have children to take care of. I got one of them a little Teddy Bear," he grinned. "Philip…!" I moaned. "No wait, Father. Don't be upset with me. They really need it, for those children. I can get by just fine. Why I could go down on Garrison Avenue right now and panhandle, and I could get ten dollars, twenty in half an hour. Maybe even more. One time a guy gave me a fifty dollar bill. Can you imagine that? Fifty bucks! Wow. I felt rich. He must have been rich."

I  learned something fascinating. Philip felt absolutely secure. Philip knew he could take care of himself. He didn't have to have income in order to get by. He didn't have to have a home to be just fine. More than once he said to me, "The good Lord will take care of me. He's never failed me. I believe that. You believe that too, don't you, Father?" And he looked at me in a way that made me wonder about my own level of trust.

Philip's sense of security and unattachment to money made him free in a way that I am not free. Free enough to give all of his money to a family poorer then he was simply because they had children. Often Philip acted with spontaneous, radical generosity that just amazed me. Philip needed to plan in order to keep enough money for his rent and utilities. I had to adjust my plan for him as his payee to account for his radical generosity.

Now, I'm not built like Philip. I'm not spontaneous and radically generous as he. I'm also not that secure or that free. I need to plan in order to be generous, in order to give money to good things before I rationalize my wants into exaggerated needs.

You see I find it is easy for me to exaggerate my needs and to get very attached to my wants. I can rationalize buying a 1937 Chevy street rod. I needed that car. Actually, it is my appetites need some discipline.

Unlike Philip, I need to plan in order to be generous. I like making a plan to give away a known percentage of my income as an act of gratitude to God for all that I enjoy, and as an act of generosity toward some things I believe in and want to support. I think tithing is a satisfying and fulfilling act that generates in us some of the joy that Philip experienced whenever he gave to children.

I encourage you to make a plan in order to be generous. Give away a known percentage of your income. Give it to St. Paul's, and to KUAF and 7hills or to whatever you believe in. Give spontaneously whenever we have our Community Kids Closet drive to get winter coats for kids or when we help John Agana ship a container to his home in Ghana.

Give because you need to. Give because you are so happy to be able to give. Give because you've got a home and electricity and water. Give because it feels good. Give because you can do better things with your money than buy whatever your version of a 1937 Chevy street rod might be.

And be glad. Giving is a way of loving. Give to God because you love God. Give as a way of loving your neighbor as yourself.

Give to St. Paul's because you love God, and because everything we do is about Jesus' liberating commandment of love – Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself. That's what we're trying to do – as spontaneously and generously as we can.

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

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