“ The Pledge Card ”

 

Dear “Stewards” (of God’s Kingdom’s harvest),

Growing up as a PK (“Preacher’s Kid”) I never received a pledge card from the congregation I joined as a confirmand.   Even when I joined a congregation as an “affiliate member” (a special status in which you don’t transfer your membership, you just “borrow” a congregation where you’re living for a time) when I was attending college, the pastor made it clear that I wasn’t expected to fill out the pledge card.  But when I joined a small Presbyterian congregation as an “affiliate member” as a seminary student …the stewardship committee chairperson asked me to fill out a pledge card in the pastor’s office! 

As a seminary student, my “income” was mostly out-go!  Sometimes, the difference between food to eat on the weekends and not was more than the amount of my pledge.  And being a long way from home, that felt more scary than faithful …and Jesus better have my back!  So, I wrote down a number I thought I could afford.  (Not much!)

But one of the highlights of participating with this congregation was a young couple joined as members.  The husband had never been a member of any church, and surprisingly for me, took the whole pledge card thing almost too seriously.  He, too, began with a number he thought he could “afford.”  But then, for almost a year, sometimes each Sunday, he would ask the pastor to give him back his pledge card so he could “revise” his pledge, marking through his previous pledged amount and putting in a new number.  Each revision, his “number” only got bigger!  When the pastor tried to explain that the amount wasn’t as important as the gift, the new member explained it to the Session  this way: “I keep finding more money!” 

His giving wasn’t coincidental.  His life had been changed—upended even—by Jesus.  His life became a testimony to his new-found relationship with faith, hope, love, and more “Jesus” than he imagined.  He shared every new insight with the whole congregation; not only the discipline of pledged giving, but other ways he’d found to share—using coupons to buy food for the food pantry, offering rides to people who didn’t have reliable transportation, inviting people to share meals with he and his wife.  Both Jesus and he were marvels to behold! 

It was his testimony.  But he told a story as old as Jesus, perhaps even as old as God and creation—that by walking humbly with God, our lives and realities are changed.  Suddenly we see the need for justice, kindness, mercy, faithfulness, and obedience …everywhere!  And for him, it began with pledging a gift of $1.25/week.  In a year, it had increased thousands of times over—NOT because he got a big raise or won the lottery, but because he was seeing Jesus everywhere! 

Stewardship is NOT about God’s need to receive; but it is about our ability to GIVE.  It IS NOT a miserable form of “pay what you owe;” but IT IS definitely a part of being and living into the Kingdom of God.  Every gift matters!  When we see that God has already given us everything …it changes all our realities.  When we participate in God’s vision (God gives and we give), we find that we only have more and more and more …to give …because God’s giving knows no ending! 

The “pledge card” isn’t simply about giving our money; it’s a mark of our transformation—because what we believe …changes the world.  God gives and we give; God’s commitment never gives up.  We can change the world.  We have to put our mind, our heart, our strength, our everything toward it.  Another word for “pledge” is “covenant.”  Matthew’s gospel reminds us over and over that stewardship is covenantal—because our commitment to neighbor, to one another, changes us …and our world. 

Preaching on October 25th--The Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ A Catalyst for Action; not a Substitute ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

Preaching on October 18th--The Twenty-First Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ Seeing Whose Image Belongs to God ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

Preaching on October 4th--World Communion Sunday; The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ Stewardship's Belligerent Counter-cultural Theme Song ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

Preaching on September 27th--The Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ Faith ...as Something Done ...not Said ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

* SPECIAL BONUS THIS WEEK ...I forgot to turn off the recorder, so you get to hear the whole rest of the service!  

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

“ The Great Reversal ”

 

Dear “The End is Near Christians,”

It seems backwards.  The calendar says we’re entering the last quarter of the year …but for decades, churches have practiced it as the first quarter of the new year!  That’s because September brings the “traditional” END of summer (Labor Day), the “traditional” BEGINNING of the school year, and the Church’s “traditional” Christian Education programming year—even though for decades and decades school has started in August, and “Fall” is not the first Season of the year!  Still, here we are in the church and elsewhere around us, acting as if we’re “getting back into the swing of things” or “starting something new”! 

I get it.  But only “sort of.” 

We’re coming toward the “end of things” seasonally.  The growing season that concludes with harvest; and THEN winter finally comes, when the earth “takes a break.”  The work doesn’t have a break, but the seasons are winding down for a rest.  And, in the lectionary, September, October, and November bring us to the END of the Jesus story—when Jesus entered Jerusalem, offered his last teachings, parables, stories, and advice …just before Jesus is arrested, tried, and crucified.  It would make far more liturgical sense, to celebrate Lent and Easter at the end of the calendar year, and Advent and Christmas in February and March!  …But this kind of “reversal” would uproot a lot of things in our lives; and make us seasonally out of step with the rest of the world. 

But here’s something that Jesus asks of us …being “out of step” with the rest of the world.  Jesus’ words and teachings have pointed over and over to a “fulfillment” in which the first are last and the last are first.”  The idea that the have-nots will “have” and the “haves” will still have enough.  That sinners will repent and enjoy the fruits of righteousness and the righteousness will still enjoy their fruits.  It’s the world of “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us,” or even better, the world of “doing unto others as GOD does unto us.”  And doing what Jesus asks of us, puts us in a “backwards way” to what the world teaches us: that there are winners and losers, that we always have to “be the best,” where life can’t be good if your football team isn’t winning, a world where you have to work hard and pull yourself up by your own boot straps, where God only helps those who help themselves. 

Jesus invites us into a different way of being in the world …a way that mimics the Kingdom of God—where the lost, the least, the wanting, the penitent, and the thankful, all have standing. 

But I hear people saying it all the time—that Jesus doesn’t want believers to be “weak, to lose, or to have less,” even that Jesus desires that we “prosper.”  I get it; but I don’t understand their thinking.  Where does Jesus teach this?  In fact, I believe Jesus demands that we not prosper at the expense of others.  This “reversal” isn’t an “either-or” like winning and losing; it’s about blessing!  It doesn’t end with us NOT having what we need, it ends with enough for all.  But here’s the thing, the Kingdom seems to work “backwards” from the world, just like Jesus shows us. 

Thus, the seasons conclude with thankfulness and joy, and our being invited to give or share with our neighbors.  A time to delight in athletic competition but not think of it as only winning or losing.  A time to find the least or the lost, so we all might glimpse the Kingdom of God among us. 

We’re not dying on the vine; we’re living our best life.  Even if it seems backwards. 

Preaching on September 13th--The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ A World Where Forgiveness Begets Forgiveness ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

Preaching on September 6th--The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ Baptisms and Censure-isms ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

Preaching on August 30th--The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost Yr A

                                                            

You can hear an audio recording of  the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, 

“ Embodying Hope in the Messiah ” 

being preached, by CLICKING HERE.

Check out the First Presbyterian Church of Camden, Arkansas' Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000

“ Live Long and Prosper ”

 Dear Cross-Taker-Uppers,

We’ve come to that time in the lectionary cycle where we turn toward the end of Jesus’ ministry.  It happens one day when Jesus reveals that he:

“ …must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

…Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ” 

It sounds like Jesus is challenging “followers”—or those who wish to come after him—to follow him into death.  …This would be a new definition of “following.” 

When Jesus says, “Follow me” to the first “followers” on the shores of the Sea of Galilee at the beginning of his ministry, no one expects that to mean that “followers” were committing themselves to die like Jesus will die.  Yet here we are, a dozen or so chapters later, and Jesus is saying, “take up your cross.”  But before you go looking to get and take up a cross, perhaps we might consider what denying ourselves and what following after Jesus might mean for us aside from a centuries-old model of public execution! 

I believe Jesus is speaking somewhat metaphorically.  He reminds his followers that it’s possible to “win the world” but that it costs you your life.  So, it’s possible to have the things of the world, but only at the expense of not having the things of God.  Those that “follow Jesus” …give up self, bear the burden of discipleship, and follow where it leads.  For Jesus …that clearly leads to Jerusalem, great suffering, death, and resurrection.  For followers of Jesus …taking up our cross and following, likely doesn’t lead to Jerusalem, great suffering, being killed and raised in the same way. 

It wouldn’t be fair to try and make “cross-taking up” as just anything we want to trade it for.  Following Jesus means living out the values of the Kingdom of God—loving God and neighbors and ourselves.  Helping to feed the hungry, while it can include “suffering” generally isn’t suffering.  But being committed to justice for all, surely might mean taking risks that require courage and conviction.  None of us is likely to end up in a public trial and being executed for “following Jesus.”  In general, Jesus was a man of peace—who can argue with being peaceable.  But there are times when true “peace” requires action, resistance, maybe even civil disobedience.  But the question here is not how quickly we might die for Jesus’ teaching or beliefs, but really, how we live them out! 

I believe Jesus is not calling us to die for what he or we believe in, but to LIVE FOR IT.  Our “following” isn’t the commitment to end in death, but to transcend it.  It’s about living …so that our lives are indistinguishable from the Kingdom of God. 

So that “taking up our crosses” isn’t a hill on which we die or a belief for which we suffer—but is the work of living fully, as best we can, the values Jesus proclaims. 

So, live long …and prosper the work of Jesus’ hands!