Producers and Consumers

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
02.24.08; Rev. David Williams

Americans used to make things. I know it seems like a crazy concept, but we did. The Star Wars action figures I played with as a boy were made in Ohio. My Atari computer was hooked up to a Zenith TV...and they were both made right here. The phone that I spent so much time talking my highschool girlfriend on. Made right here. Imagine that...a television. A computer. A telephone. Those days are long, long gone, part of this mythic past that old codgers like myself go on and on about. “In my day, sonny, I used to walk twelve miles uphill in the snow to KMart to buy a real American TV, and I carried it uphill the whole way home.”

Think about the things you use each day, that every single red-blooded American just can’t seem to do without. Shoot, let me tell you about the products that made up my day. What’s the first thing I did when I woke up this morning? I got dressed. What am I wearing? Well...I’m wearing underpants that were hecho en El Salvador. And no, you can’t see the label. You’ll just have to trust me on that one. Under this robe, I’m wearing pants that were made in in India. I’m wearing motorcycle boots that were made in Italy. I’ll admit that I don’t know where my socks were made...but though I’m not a betting man, I’d be willing to lay down money it wasn’t in this hemisphere. This pastor’s collar shirt...where was it made? It was made in Canada....close, but no cigar.

The laptop I used to print out this very sermon might have been designed in Cupertino, California, but it was actually made in China. The motorcycle I rode here on was made in Japan. Americans are used to this, because it’s been that way for half a generation. We don’t make anything. Why would we need to make anything? That’s not our job. What is our job, then? Our job is to be the consumers who consume the products that the producers produce. It’s become our national ethic, the way we define ourselves, a central part of our identity.

Because being a consumer names us and claims us, it also has come to define how we do this thing called church. We have come to think of ourselves, by and large, as consumers of faith products. We “shop for churches.” We want to try before we buy, and we research churches with the same intensity that we use to research upcoming consumer electronics purchases, trying each of them on like new pairs of shoes until we find a church that fits just exactly right. Why shouldn’t we? We’re just doing what we’re supposed to do. You wouldn’t want a church that doesn’t match your specific worship and faith needs, would you? It might make you...grumpy.

Possibly as grumpy as the folks who murmured and complained as they stumbled their way along behind Moses in the wilderness. The passages we heard today from the Book of Exodus describes just how challenging things were for Moses. Yeah, he was deep in the desert, trying to find his way to the promised land. But his biggest headache wasn’t the lack of food, or not enough water, or the peoples who threatened to make war against him. What gave him migraines wasn’t any of those things, but the crowd of grumbling Israelites who followed along behind him. They were used to Egypt, and used to just doing what they were told. They got up when they were told. They worked when they were told. They ate and drank when they were told. But now, they were moving towards the land of the promise. They were in a time of struggle, when what was called for was effort and striving and endurance and a passion for what God was calling them to be. They needed to trust God and to press forward towards that vision. What did they do instead? They complained. They let their doubts consume them. So the frustrated Moses turned to God, who allowed Moses to strike his staff against a rock, which pours forth water.

God produced water! A miracle! And the people, acting like good consumers, happily drank. But the point of this story isn’t God’s miracle. It’s the people’s lack of faith. That’s why Moses names the place massah and meribah. Those words don’t mean miracle and water. They mean, respectively, “testing” and “quarreling.”

We heard more about water in the exchange between the Samaritan woman and Jesus from the Gospel of John this morning. In the passage, Jesus tells the woman about “living water,” which can mean water that is the opposite of dank and stagnant. It’s water that flows, that moves, that burbles and bustles. Jesus isn’t just talking about H20, of course. He’s talking about something that refreshes and renews, that gives life and that fulfills a need that all creatures have. He’s talking about the New Life that he lived and breathed.

If we read all of John, and understand the point that Jesus is trying to make about bringing new life, we should understand that living water isn’t just something we’re asked to consume. If we have even the tiniest flicker of the Spirit Jesus promised within us, we are also expected to produce, to pour forth, to give out. Our lives need to turn away from the inward and self-serving focus of consumption, and instead to turn outward.

But how? How do we shift from being driven by our desire to be served, and turn instead to living as a servant? How do we stop seeking to slake our own thirst, and instead turn to ending the thirst of others?

First and foremost, we have to be aware of how deeply those around us thirst for meaning and hope and purpose. That awareness isn’t something we learn about by reading, or even by listening to me blabber on and on up here. It comes when you get to know other people, get them to open to you, and to share their struggles and their lives with you. It happens one on one, and it happens in little groups here and there, as people who have grown to know one another are able to speak out about what burdens they bear.

Every church has those gatherings, those places where we come together to get the work of the church done, or to prepare ourselves for music or worship, or to study, or to pray. We’ve got a couple of them happening every week, and, in fact, almost every day of the week. A small gathering of friends is the easiest thing in the world to invite someone to, and, simultaneously, the most effective way to get to know someone.

What we have to ask ourselves as we get together and scurry about doing the business of the church is simply this...do those groups, those gatherings, give us a place where we can do more than just do the work of the church or be spiritually sustained ourselves? Do they give us the chance to not just nurture the growth of the Kingdom in us, but to build up others? Look at our Bible studies, at our meetings, at our prayer gatherings. How do they give us what we need to strengthen one another...not just as passive consumers, but as active producers who generate and strengthen the faith of everyone around us?

There are ways to gather that can do this, ways that can take much of what we already do and transform them. Over the next few weeks, you’re going to hear more about how this can happen, both here and on our web site.


It's time for us to be making things again.