Scripture: 1 John 2:15-17 Series: 2020
A short Evensong message for All Saints Day (Nov 1, 2020) on 1 John 2:15-17. Using candy and an all-you-can-eat buffet as foils, the preacher contrasts worldly things—which are good but can be abused and yield diminishing returns—with God’s love, which lasts forever and of which you can never have too much. Loving the world means abusing good things; doing God’s will (loving neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked) lasts forever and is possible only because God is with us. Grounded in baptism, communion, and All Saints Day, the message proclaims that the forgiven and loved are free, welcomed, and given eternal grace without price.
Illustrations: too-much-candy, buffet-diminishing-marginal-utility
November 1
Candy is fun. (Favorite Candies)
Being sick from candy is not fun. There is only so much candy you can physically eat. You can never have too much love. What lasts forever is God’s love. And we see it in baptism. 1 John 2:15-17 CEB
I have not been to an all-you-eat Buffet in a long time. Game the system. Avocado, sushi, I saw it as a challenge. Buffets work with the economic theory of the law of diminishing marginal utility Candy What does it mean to love the world or the things of the world? Many things in the world are good but they can be abused. Everything can be abused. Humans have an amazing ability to distort everything they touch. Doing the will of God: loving neighbor, feed the hungry, clothing the naked, not letting the right hand know what the left is doing, this lasts forever. And we can only do it, we can only do the things of God because God is with us. Because you are forgiven. You are loved. You don’t need to seek the things that make you seek. You are free. Baptism, communion, all saints day. We welcome and are welcomed, we receive and give, and we remember. All free. All eternal. All offered to us without price.