SERMON-: Envy and generosity.
Is your eye hurt because I'm good?
Is your eye green with envy because I'm generous as the blue sky?
Envy and generosity are at the center in today's gospel.
"Envy is an ugly thing," we often say when children and immature people become annoyed that others have something they do not have. For children, envy of toys can be the cause of fighting in the living room, and you might think its small things that they fight over. The greed we as children feel to want to own what others have never really loosens its grip in us. Envy and greed are ugly traits of ours, that hang on from we are small until we are gray. The idea that one must compete with others for certain things is constant in our lives and relations. We are looking for something better, bigger, better looking and more different – material things are replaced in a row, because you are looking for something else. Envy and greed keep society's wheels going and consumption at a high level.
Envy is an ugly thing, and the creature of envy is exhibited in today's gospel from Matthew, where Jesus' parable ends with the apt words: " Is your eye evil,because I am good — are you envious because I am generous?"
Envy and generosity. These two words say a lot about how we live life and how we pass it on. Whether zealousness, bitterness, and jealousy are allowed to paint our days green with envy, or whether gratitude, care and thoughtfulness are allowed to paint our days glowing with generosity Envy and generosity.
Today we celebrate Harvest. Today we sing the beautiful old Danish harvest and autumn hymns, all of which are giving thanks for all the good gifts that come to us. Today, many of us remember the harvest time in Denmark. As a child in the countryside, the harvest time was an incredibly special time to me. Denmark is a small country and you cannot travel far without getting to the sea, nor can you travel far without getting to the countryside, out to the fields, forests, and farms.
Now the harvest is as good as done in Denmark. I report from a reliable source, since my father likes to tell about the harvest even after he is no longer a working farmer himself. But once a farmer always a farmer. My parents live in the countryside with fields and forests around, and they always keep an eye on the weather, the seasons, and the harvest. And the farmers are watching each other! - As I told you last year, there is a story that's told year after year — and I've just heard it again. There is a farmer, let us call him Ole, who has always been late and who has always been laughed at and talked about. Now everyone has harvested, and again this year Ole is the last to get the harvest in! And now it's raining again, how is he going to manage to get the harvest in? Laughter, talks, and shaking of heads, every year. Every year – and this year – I have heard about Ole and his terrible poor planning of the harvest. And every year, he manages to get the harvest anyway. There is talk of his luck and his lack of concern. And every year we laugh at the story and I remind my dad of the free entertainment, they get every year.
Ole's poor planning may not be just the story of a bad farmer, who is lucky. Perhaps it is also the story that we – farmers or not – cannot control nature. The grain grows while we sleep, and God lets sunshine and rain fall on the good and bad farmer. Harvesting is not only luck, or planning, - harvesting is also to respect nature. To receive the gifts of life with respect, gratitude, faith, and generosity. This year we would have liked to have had a part in the rain that has watered Denmark's fields.
This year, September skies have not been so blue, but rather smoky, ash-filled, and worrisome. With the worst fires in CA ever, we have been reminded once again that nature and the climate are changing;- and with the worldwide pandemic with Covid19, we have been reminded that we are connected globally for good and evil, that we share breath and conditions and the planet.
Envy and generosity. Are you jealous because I'm generous? Is your eye evil because I'm good?
The words of today's gospel ask us to look up and look out. To look up and out towards a bigger perspective. To look to a heavenly generosity that colors our world and our day of golden beautiful colors for which we cannot thank enough. Gratitude and generosity are two of the deepest characteristics of the sacred, and bitterness and envy are two of the ugliest and saddest characteristics of the human nature. In the Bible we have numerous stories of the curse of envy: Cain and Abel, Joseph, and his brothers, to name a few. Envy is one of the 7 sins of deadly sins, and the last 2 commandments of the 10 commandments are all about envy: don't covet/envy your neighbor’s house or wife, people and animals or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Don't be envious!
When we try to look up and out, we must try to let the narrow and limiting gaze of envy give way to the wide and creative gaze of gratitude and gees. As William Shakespeare writes in the tragedy of Ottello: "O beware, my lord, of jealousy. It's the green-eyed monster that's going to spot the flesh it's giving on."
Yes, envy is ugly and green and quite hard to get to rid of. But look up! Look at the blue sky: how blue it is for you and me. Watch and rejoice in the generosity and grace that meets you every day. Our lives are far from always fair, but our lives are created with grace and generosity to be lived in grace and generosity.
When was the last time the green-eyed monster took grab of you, so you could only see your neighbor's green grass? When did the green-eyed monster take all your strength and your gentle generosity with his green bile?
The gospel of today prompts us to look up and look out. To remember how generosity colors my day warm and glowing good. To remember how gratitude warms and strengthens my red beating heart. To remember how good, it feels to put envy behind you, and let generosity be the way forward. To remember how good, it feels to share and to spread joy.
Remember to be generous with good words or praise. Remember to be generous with help and time. Remember to be generous to those who don't have as much as you. Remember to be generous because God is generous.
As the Danish poet Halfdan Rasmussen wrote in the poem “Aftenland”:
We are what we give to each other.
Our happiness is what we manage to create
As a vault over us and filled with power
From a force we do not fully comprehend.
We thank you for the harvest and life. We thank you for the grace and all good gifts. And we ask God to allow His generosity to be reflected in our generosity, love, care, and life. Amen.