Breaking free of climate-controlled faith

15 I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Revelations 3:15-17       

I have to stop and think that this text was written before advertising, because none of us ever thinks we need nothing.  We get really annoyed by our children at the checkout counter when they have to have whatever it is that the market puts there to tempt them, but the only difference between us and them is that if something catches our eye we can buy it, wheras the kids have to go through us.

But in a sense we still can get to the place where we are rich enough and prosperous enough and don't really need God, which is what the verses from Revelations is about.  And we are a prosperous nation.  It is about the lukewarm faith of a self-satisfied people.  It is about the faith of the rich man whom Jesus invited to follow Him, after advising him to sell all that he had. 

Jesus knew that the man's faith would grow as his need did.  His faith would grow as his faith in things and money diminished.  Jesus knew that possessions can create a barrier between God and humans that makes real faith impossible.

What we end up with is climate-controlled faith.  It never grows completely cold and it never gets too hot.  It is that lukewarm state that John writes about in Revelations.

That is why fasting is good for the soul. 

That is why any kind of deprivation is good for the soul.  It helps us to know our dependence on God. 

People in need find their faith really fast if there is any faith left to find.  If they have not gotten so used to depending on material things that they forget the real source of life.

I have been preaching tithing for a long time now, but I am beginning to see that perhaps real stewardship is all about giving away everything except what we really need.  Sometimes that will be a lot more than a tithe.

Give away until we feel hot and cold again and are less insulated from the needs of the world.

Lord, I want to feel alive.  I want to feel the hot and cold.  I want to know the joy and pain of life, expecially the joy of knowing you.  Amen


Copyright © 2006, The Rev. Dana Reardon. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Email her at mspastor@aol.com.



The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI.  A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care.  She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander.  She is still trying to understand the accent.  While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team.  That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.