Sunday, March 3, 2013

Sermon: If Only I Had a Cowboy Hat

Today's worship included the Lord's Supper and the ordination and installation of Elders and Deacons, making for this rather brief sermon.


Isaiah 55:1-9
If Only I Had a Cowboy Hat
James Sledge                                                                                       March 3, 2013

There’s been a lot in the news lately about changing the offensive name of the Washington  NFL team. I try not to say the nickname, but the discussion recalls my childhood, a different time when cowboys and Indians were movie and TV staples.
Cowboys were everywhere in the 1950s and 60s, and my brother and friends and I all had holsters and plastic six-shooters. I also had a pair of pointy-toed cowboy boots, and at some point decided I needed to complete the look with a cowboy hat. I had a toy cowboy hat, but I wanted the real thing, and they had them in the Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog.
For those too young to recall such things, the Sears catalog was the closest thing we had to internet shopping. It was a huge book. You could find almost anything in the Sears catalog, and they had genuine cowboy hats, right there in the section with saddles and bridles and barbed wire and other things that real cowboys might need.
My parents wouldn’t buy it for me though, and so I began saving my money. With a 25 cents a week allowance, it took a long time save the $8.00 or so, but I saved and saved, and finally had enough. My mother ordered it for me from the catalog, and then I waited. It seemed to take forever. I’m not sure I ever anticipated something so intently. O how different and grand my life was going to be when I got that real, genuine, cowboy hat.

In truth, I looked ridiculous in it. We had measured my head and ordered the correct size so it did fit, but still it was an adult hat on a 9 year old boy. There’s a picture of me somewhere in a sport coat and tie, wearing the hat. I have a stern, serious look which I must have thought made me appear more manly. I looked like an idiot, and I must have eventually realized that because I didn’t wear it for all that long. And I never experienced that transformed and grand life I was hoping for.
I suppose I learned a lesson from the experience, if only a partial one. I don’t know that I ever expected quite so much from one new thing, but such hope never completely goes away. There is always something that promises a better life. If only I can get that car, get into that college, get the house of my dreams, get that perfect job… There is always something that beckons us, that we strive toward, that will make everything better.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? It’s a recurring problem for us humans. We chase after what isn’t truly satisfying. Most of us know someone who destroyed a relationship chasing after money or career or power or excitement or experiences, too late realizing what really matters.
The biblical story of humans starts with a couple who has almost everything. There is only one thing off limits, but surely life would be so much better if only they could have that.
Jesus insists that full and meaningful life, true life, comes not from getting something more but from letting go, from serving others. He speaks of denying self, of finding life in the act of losing it. The Apostle Paul writes of a wonderful, new life that comes only when the old life dies. But like that couple in the garden, like those addressed by Jesus and Paul and Isaiah, we are inclined to trust our own hopes and wants and efforts and schemes over the promises of God.
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!.. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Why indeed?
Here at the table, Jesus waits for us. Here is spiritual banquet, served without price. Here Jesus offers to feed us. He promises to provide all we truly need as he beckons us to come and follow, trusting that he knows the way to full and true life.
But can we trust such promises? Dare we trust such promises?

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