You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled,
“ Willing The Good of the Other ”
being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled,
“ Baptisms and Censure-isms ”
being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
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.
