To Whom Much is Given

I have a confession to make. I am the son of a starving artist. I knew when there was food in the refrigerator my mom had sold a painting. Or, she had a new boyfriend. Friends would sometimes bring us groceries. In exchange for paintings, Mom would pander to friends and family for money to pay the rent. Somewhere south of ten years old, I was ashamed of our poverty.

Hope Dawns

On rare exciting occasions, Dad would take my sister and me to a Cinerama movie at the Orpheum Theatre on Market Street in San Francisco. Swiss Family Robinson, How the West was Won, In Search of the Castaways and others, I still remember them. More vividly, I still remember the “bums” we had to step around laying on the cold Market Street sidewalk. They smelled funny and scared the hell out of me. And in my child spirit, I made an explicit vow the same fate would NEVER be mine!

Vows and fear are funny things; funny strange, not funny ha ha. How could a small boy make a vow he has never forgotten and a grown man one he eventually cast aside? A vow can be broken, fear is harder to get around. At this juncture, I would say fear has driven me most of my life. Fear of not getting enough to eat, fear of being away from Mom, fear of not being liked, fear of going to Hell, fear of being poor, fear of being wrong, blah, blah, blah; I’ve come up with yet another endless list! 😉 I didn’t know how to cope with these fears, didn’t talk about them much, but I was smart so I concentrated on school. Explicitly or intuitively, I thought education was my ticket out of poverty and fear.

I have a friend, Rudy. He was huge, confident and in our Freshman year of high school, he led a rebellion to take over the Senior bench. He was (and still is) my hero; I love him as a brother, so the saying goes. To me, Rudy had no fear. I wanted to be just like him and through Rudy’s example, I accepted Jesus during my Sophomore year. Rudy was Captain of the football team and I wanted to play football, but my mommy wouldn’t let me because she was afraid I’d get hurt. I was afraid too, but I thought if I played football, I’d learn not to be afraid. Seniors couldn’t be cut from the varsity squad, so for my last year, in defiance of my mother, I joined the team. Rudy was my coach, a great one by the way, but I was still afraid; every practice; every game; every locker room shower 😇 However, at the end of the season I wore my varsity letter with great pride.

I didn’t have to work hard in high school, but I was proud to have qualified for the University of California, just barely though. In Santa Barbara, I found many other smart kids who knew how to work hard and study, working hard I knew about, study I’d never needed to. I spent four years learning how to study with again mediocre, barely adequate, results. To this day, I cannot remember taking biochemistry; for decades I had literal nightmares about a knock on the door and a man standing there, “Mister Eckels, you did not complete your matriculation so we have had to void all your degrees. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t qualify for medical school; LOSER! So, I applied to graduate school for a master’s degree in microbiology. I figured maybe I could bring up my grades and re-apply to med school. However, it became clear I had a knack for science and I realized God wanted me in that field instead. I knew, however, a doctoral degree was impossibly out of reach because I’d have to pass an oral exam given by half a dozen of my professors. Somehow, I got accepted into the PhD program in immunology, a new program at UC Davis and I’ll never forget the words of the program advisor, “Well, Eckels, your undergraduate record is less than stellar, but thanks to your Major Professor I guess we’ll take a chance and see how you do.” Basically, I was on probation. And it went well. I published a dozen research papers although the last hurdle was to go before the oral review committee, which would examine my qualifications to be advanced to candidacy. Even though I’d studied for three months in a tiny cubicle, I was pretty sure I would fail because my greatest fear was public speaking; I could badly mangle a telephone conversation with strangers! So I prayed on the way to my oral exam, “Lord, when I fail this, I will become a minister!” I guess God had other plans.

It took three years to graduate from UCD with two graduate degrees, but I’d finally made it! I thought I must be pretty hot stuff. Jobs and grants came my way. I was not bored, my work challenged me. But the FEAR never left. I couldn’t publish enough, fast enough. Grants end, what if I can’t renew? Every time I succeeded in publishing a new paper, I would add it to my curriculum vitae, with great pride I adoringly counted the papers to date when fear would tell me, “It’s not good enough. Where is the next one coming from?” Government grants are really hard to get. How long could I go on? Well into my final academic post, I would have panic dreams about not moving fast enough, paralyzed, dragging my legs through quicksand, failing in my job, those bums chasing me! And when I retired as a full Professor a few years ago, I could finally lay down my weapons and rest. But God had other plans.

Back to my confession. I didn’t realize it yet, but I had way too much pride: in my professional accomplishments, in the money I’d saved for retirement, in the things I could afford and do, in what I’d thought was my solitary effort to succeed. And way too much fear although I’d learned how to hide it. That scared little kid had beaten those bums, and pride masked the fear of not succeeding; I thought I was one capable, self sufficient SOB! Even as I write this, I am proud of these things, but ashamed of the things where I failed, where I abandoned my wife and kids, where I acted in moral failure, where I enjoyed my secret fantasies. So many failures, yet as long as I kept them hidden, I could keep up the facade of confidence and success. Oh there’s more, but you get the idea. I stood proudly alone, knees shaking, proud of attaining my destiny as if I’d done it all myself.

God had other plans.

I mentioned my previous Iceland epiphany. The worm had indeed turned. What did I have that had not been given to me? How far did that question go? How much did I actually contribute? How much of my pride was actually warranted? Any of it? I measured achievement by comparing myself to others. I was no lazy bum! I was no stupid asshole! Maybe just an asshole. After all, I was a self-made man! I was ambitious; that’s a good thing, right? I didn’t need anyone. I had all the things I wanted, plenty of money, toys. Yet, I knew accumulating more was empty and would just feed my arrogance, my pride; I didn’t consider myself proud, just satisfied with my abilities that led to my achievements; pride fed by fear. God had other plans.

In Iceland, it began to dawn on me that pride in myself was based on lies. For reasons I still cannot fathom, this from the Gospel of Luke, verse 12:48 literally popped into my head: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” I like The Message Bible translation: “Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!” Oh shit, these are the words of Jesus! God had other plans indeed. In one moment, He had flipped my pride completely upside down, emptied it out, and slammed me up against the wall with the realization there was nothing I had or did or thought or cared about that was not given to me; everything I considered mine was in fact, His gift! I was as impoverished and as needy as those bums! Rather than fear or despise them, my responsibility was to identify with them! Even to love them. I cannot seem to get away from the whispering of that still small voice, God the Holy Spirit. He had other plans.

I have been reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermons on the Beatitudes; highly recommended. Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, verse 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” If everything I have is God’s gift and I have nothing, then indeed I am poor and on what basis is my pride? The song says truly, “Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe.” And another, “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” Pride in myself is misplaced and wrong; it is sin. If I am proud of anything, if I rejoice in anything, let me rejoice in the God of Creation who made all things, who gave his very Son, himself in fact, and sends the guarantee of His Spirit to lead us into our destiny, to help set aright the destruction imputed to Adam and Eve.

The Apostle Paul had this to say about pride in Philippians 3:4-9. We “boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh—even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.” Any pride I have is based on rubbish! Rubbish sounds so refined, but the word could also be translated sh!t; pride in sh!t or “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord? Hmm, quite a choice!

What then is my responsibility if all that I am and all that I have is the gift of God? Even the desire to achieve, to excel, the ability and wherewithal to do so, the very things I usurp as the basis for my own pride, are given to me. They are all gifts! It is a curious mixture of genetics and environmental conditioning, but most importantly by far, the grace of God. We all walk on, really within, the very fabric of space-time, within the fabric, the woven tapestry of God’s grace. When God made the universe, space-time, down to the littlest quantum string, He knew how it would go! He knew about Adam and Eve. He knew about me. He knows about you. If nothing is ours, we’re all just renting a friend once said and we are on a one-way trip. What then is the purpose of this ridiculous situation in which we find ourselves?

I am on thin ice trying to answer the question. But here goes: I think our responsibility is to choose. I believe God has given us freedom, the ability to choose. Choice may be one of the most important gifts we have received. Otherwise it is difficult for me to conceive that a just and righteous God, a loving God, would hold us accountable for our actions. May my theological betters correct me if I am wrong! For to whom much is given, much will be required from him. That which we are given is quantified. Some are given much; some are given less. Expand Luke 12:48 to know this is true: “But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” There are responsibilities, consequences, in proportion to what we are given. I think I am on the right track because this seems to lead in the right direction. When I own nothing, I am bereft of pride. When everything I do have is a gift, I can be generous. I can love those bums. I only have to choose. Simple. But only is it possible in the power of Christ, in the power of His Spirit, and only for the glory of God the Father. This is humility not pride, it is freedom!

What I need to choose, what I often forget, is to talk things over with Jesus. Pray for light to see, humility, wisdom. Do I believe I have received everything as a gift from God? Have I been given much, yet do I own nothing? Has God taken my pride or even something, someone that was never mine to keep? Then I am indeed impoverished! Weep before the Lord! Weep with the realization that I am that man who is poor in spirit whom Jesus identifies. I say this to myself and to you, humble yourself, repent, return to God, and weep. Pour contempt on all your pride, all your sh!t. Weep in your helplessness, in your poverty, and cry out to the Lord for His presence and mercy. And then, rejoice! Rejoice... for the kingdom of heaven is nigh.

Where does this lead? If all that we enjoy is a gift, then it is meant to lead to stewardship: of abilities, of resources, of our world, our families, our neighbors, of one another. It leads to service. Jesus discusses with his disciples in Mark 9, verses 33-35: Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." This leads to love. To love God, serve Him. To love your neighbor, serve them. To love, serve, serve, serve; in this way you will make the most of that which you are given.

Lord God, may a spirit of gratitude and service permeate our lives. May we make ourselves available to hear the still small voice of your spirit within. And may those around us be transformed by your message of peace and love for one another. Let it start with me, Lord. Amen.