Surviving Hard Times when the Economy Sours

These are hard times for most of us.

Some saw the nest egg they had set aside for the retirement years severely decimated – if not wiped out altogether.

Some have lost their jobs – and/or access to health care.
Some have lost their homes.
Credit card bills pile up while doctors and hospitals threaten.
Banks failed and readjusted,
wall street firms and automobile manufacturers collapsed,
and people all over the world experienced the economic difficulties.

These are hard times for most of us.

It is in the midst of hard times that Jesus came and preached his gospel of God’s Kingdom rather than Rome’s Kingdom or Persia’s Kingdom, or any other Kingdom of man.

The Christian gospel – and the Jewish faith – was birthed in hard times.
The gospel of Jesus survives – and even thrives – during hard times.
Our faith survives and even thrives during hard times.
Our faith needs to be proclaimed during hard times.
Our faith speaks to us during hard times.
And so, I am preaching this series on Surviving Hard Times.

Our theme for this series of sermons comes from I John 5:4: It is our faith that enables us to get through hard times.

Pity those who have no faith.

Two weeks ago we looked at Surviving Hard Times When Bad Things Happen,
Today we are looking Surviving Hard Times when the Economy Sours.

Perhaps we were spoiled. For decades the overall message of the world around us that nothing like what happened in 1929 could ever happen again.
And, we have experienced a time of unequaled prosperity in our land –
but recent events have been troubling, haven’t they?
Massive lay-offs.
Plunging stocks.
Loss of consumer confidence.
Thousands of our fellow citizens are in the midst of their own private economic downturn – the poor, of course, and those who have found themselves downsized out of a well-paying job in the middle years of their lives.

In the midst of our personal prosperity it is easy to ignore the fact that people have lost jobs and are unable to find new ones –
that personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high –
that state governments are scrounging around trying to find funds to keep schools open.
If you are among those in the throes of your own private economic slowdown, there is not much comfort in knowing that other people are doing pretty well.

Our Old Testament lesson today is about a lady who knew about hard times of economic hardship.
A stranger approached this woman out gathering sticks one day by the town gate and asked her for a drink of water.
Wanting to be hospitable , she went to fetch the water.
As she was leaving, the stranger called out, "And while you’re at it, bring me a piece of bread."

And the story is that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, this was more than she could handle.

"As surely as the Lord your God lives, she said,
"I don't have any bread!!!!
I have only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.
I am out here gathering a few sticks to take home that I may make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it – and die."

She was in a desperate situation.

It is difficult to believe, but hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in our world today are just as desperate.
They do not know for certain where their next meal is coming from.

This widow's situation appeared hopeless in her eyes, but not in the eyes of the stranger.
For the stranger was the prophet Elijah.
He knew that God is a bountiful, giving God.

Elijah said to this despondent woman, "Now, now, Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small piece of bread . . . and bring it to me . . .
Then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: "The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.'"

The widow did as Elijah said.
And "there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.
For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, as the Lord had said" (NIV).
Clearly, this woman was caught in the midst of her own hard times of economic hardship.

On this Sunday in September, 2009, more than twenty-six million Americans are trying to live below the poverty level.
One sociologist recently estimated that one of every three young families in America today is only one paycheck away from bankruptcy.

It's tough!
As one wag said, "I used to live in the lap of luxury – then luxury stood up."

So, what do you do when the economy sours and hard times come to your house?

What do you do when your needs are great and your resources are meager?

Those needs may not be only financial, of course.
Some of the same principles that apply to our financial woes also apply to such things as marital heartaches and concerns about our family,
our health,
or our job.
What are these timeless principles?

For one thing, don't give up.
That's what the widow was ready to do, right?
Before Elijah got hold of her she was going to go home and make preparations for both herself and her son to die.
That is about as desperate as a person can become.
Some of you may have been nearly that desperate at some point in your life.
Life can look so bleak at times.
What do you do when you're that low?
One thing you don't do is give up.


The second thing we do is trust God.
As much as we talk about faith, trusting God is hard for us to do, isn’t it?

The great philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once described a familiar boyhood experience.
He was being taught to swim by his father. Splashing wildly with both arms and kicking with one leg, he called to his father, "Look at me, look at me. I'm swimming!"
But, says Kierkegaard, all the time he was standing on the bottom of the swimming pool on his big toe.

Many of us are like that in our faith, aren't we?
"I have faith!" we declare, but it is an untested faith.
It is a tentative faith, wouldn’t you say?
One toe remains on the bottom!
It is an enormous step for some of us to abandon our fears and trust God.
Such faith may get harder for us the older we get.

Somewhere along the way we lose that child-like ability to trust – to rest our concerns on God.
The widow had quit trusting God.
Elijah came to her and gave her hope.
He told her to trust God.

I John is right. It is about faith.
Survival in hard times depends upon faith.
How irenic that we put on our money, In God We Trust.
And yet, we don’t really.
So often, in so many ways, we put our trust in the coin of the realm, don’t we?
And, when the economy sours, we are devastated.

Most of Jesus’ teaching challenges conventional wisdom, the sort of common sense everyone accepts, whose lessons we have learned so well –
which means that to be his follower requires a great deal of un-teaching and un-learning and re-programming.

Life as a companion and understudy of Jesus is most often upside-down, inside-out, and bottom-side-up from the way the world operates under current management.

Our first impulse is to domesticate the teaching and take away the edge.

Think how crazy it sounds to be invited to make deposits in an invisible bank:
“Do not make a habit of laying up for yourself treasures on earth, where moths eat holes in the fabrics and where mold rots the grain, and where thieves break in and steal your jewelry;
[no] lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where none of that happens because everything stays new and forever uncorrupted.
Make a more secure investment!
Adopt a kingdom of God investment policy!”

In the company of Jesus we learn the joy of kingdom generosity and the truth of his teaching.
Not that we don’t work or own or manage wisely, only that we don’t trust in stuff for security,
and everything we own is available should it be requisitioned.
We hold possessions loosely and refuse to let their presence or absence define who we are.
God is our source, and what God does not supply, we do not need.

After all, there are limits to what money can actually do.
You know this:
Money can buy you a house, but not a home.
It can buy you a bed, but not sleep.
It can buy you a clock, but not time.
It can buy you a book, but not knowledge.
It can buy you a position, but not respect.

It can buy you sex, but not love.
It can buy you medicine, but not health.
It can buy you blood, but not life.”

The secret to surviving hard times when the economy sours is faith.

In Vienna, Austria, people swim down the Danube River.
Now there are infamous whirlpools in the Danube River that can pull the strongest swimmer under. Wise swimmers learn that when caught in a whirlpool the secret is to just be still.
If they remain completely still the mighty force of the whirlpool will push you back to the surface and to safety.

Swimming the Danube offers a lesson for those of us who have been caught in our own private whirlpools – whatever that whirlpool may mean for you.

That’s what we’re about here at Christ Church.
We come here to exercise and to strengthen our faith.
May you find hope in what goes on here.
And, maybe tell somebody what is going on here –
and invite them to come next week for the next installment in messages for surviving hard times.

Amen.