A Concord Pastor Comments: Monday Morning Offering

Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

Every Sunday my parish prays:
For a spirit of generosity in the hearts of us
who have more than we need...

I have so much more than I need, Lord!

I have too much stuff...

I have too many things...

I have things I've forgotten I have...

I can't find all the things I have
because they're lost among all the other things I have...

I have too many old things and too many new things...

I collect things I don't need...

I have too many clothes
(too many that fit and too many that don't)...

I have too much money...

Well, the money thing helps me define this, Lord:
it's not so much that I have a lot of money - I don't -
but when I look around the world,
I know I have more money than I need...

When I look around the world, Lord,
I have more than I need of just about everything I have...

That's the hard question, Lord:
how much of anything do I really need...?

When I'm honest about that
I know I have more than I need...

I'm not going to offer you all my stuff, Lord,
all my things:
you don't need them or want them!

But this Lent I ask you to help me give up:
my desire to have more and more...
my desire to have more than I need...
my desire for collecting things
- for the sake collecting them...
my desire to have more for the sake of having more...
my desire to have more than others have...
my desire to buy, to have and to own
the biggest, the smallest, the fastest, the newest,
the sleekest, the priciest - whatever!

I offer for your mercy and healing my desire to have:
full shelves, full closets, full bank accounts,
a full tank, a full stomach
and boxes full of whatever I want
or might want
or think I want
or have been told I should want...

I offer for your mercy and healing
my tendency to stuff and clutter my mind and heart
and load my imagination with junk, with filler, with crap,
with so much less than my heart deserves,
so much less than my mind deserves,
and with so much less than you deserve, Lord,
to find in my heart where you make my home...

I offer for your mercy and healing my complicity
in filling my heart with anything other
than the grace and peace, the lasting treasures,
for which my heart was made...

Help me to simplify my life this Lent, Lord...
Help me to give up, give away,
clean out, cast off, go without,
do without, strip away,
and just generally lighten the load:
to empty my heart of anything
that doesn't fill it as it deserves to be filled,
as it longs to be filled,
as you would fill it...

And make me generous, Lord,
in sharing and giving to others whatever I have
and for which they have a much greater need...

Such is my heart's offering this morning, Lord
and through these holy days and nights of Lent...

Amen.

(And here's a related post!)