25th Sunday after
Pentecost, Yr. B, November 18, 2012
Daniel 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews
10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8
Sermon preached at St.
Stephen’s Episcopal Church
In a
short time, we’ll be coming up to the chancel step and offering our financial
pledge for 2013, a pledge that will support the life and ministry of St.
Stephen’s Church. That pledge is an
offering of life and love. Money is the
symbol of our life’s labor, and all the blood, sweat and tears that we put into
our vocation. Our pledge is a gift of
life.
I
had a friend in Lake Placid who was quite wealthy, and also quite generous with
that wealth. His faith was important to
him, and he took to heart the idea that he was a steward of all that he had
been given. He was also a businessman,
conscientious and practical. He wanted
his gifts to also be good investments.
He
was drawn to monastic communities and saw the value of their prayer for the
world, and had found spiritual nourishment in their ministry of hospitality for
others. One such community had
approached him for a gift, and after some prayer and thought, he gave them a
large sum of money to help support their order.
Within several years, the monastery had to close its doors for lack of
funds. My friend was distraught. “I don’t want to do that again.” He told me.
“All that money was wasted. Now
before I give anyone anything, I dig a little deeper to make sure the place is
going to last.”
We
talked for a while about the nature of gifts.
Gifts are things we give away.
True gifts are given away freely.
Whether money or time or a donated treasure, once you’ve given it away …
it’s no longer yours. It belongs to
someone else. We can try to retain
possession of it by setting up conditions, caveats and guidelines, but then … we
limit the power of the gift. It is no
longer free.
In the letter to the
Hebrews, we hear how Jesus offered himself as a gift to the world, once for
all. He gave up his life so that sins
might be forgiven, so that sacrifices at the temple would no longer be
necessary. The temple system was killing
the poor. They could ill afford the
animal cost. Jesus’ sacrifice was meant
to be the end of all that. Jesus would
be the new temple, the new place of reconciliation with God. Through Jesus, all sin would be forgiven, and
we could all begin to focus our energy on life … not death. We could enlist our energies in the “living
way” … of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation … a way of building
loving relationships with one another and with God. Think about life, don’t linger in sin.
Jesus gave his life to
free us from that system of obligatory sacrifice for our missteps, and he
offered us something new. He proposed a
new system, a system that would rejoice in gifts, gifts given out of love and
in hope. Jesus gave his life without
knowing whether the cause he espoused would ever take hold. Jesus gave his life without the guarantee
that his investment would yield a profit.
He gave up his life for a confused, scared, mixed up bunch of dream
chasers. He gave up his life because he
knew that giving for the living made
a lot more sense than sacrificing lambs and pigeons at the temple. Giving to the
living could build community and make friends out of strangers. It proclaimed abundance in an economy of
scarcity. It put a blanket on fear and created safe space for creativity
flourish. It nurtured hope. Hope is at the core of life. Let us hold fast to the confession of our
hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
I felt bad for my
friend. Clearly, he had meant to be
generous, and he had wanted the ministry of that monastery to flourish. When it didn’t, he was disappointed. He thought he had made a mistake with his
money. He wondered if perhaps the monks
had not been transparent about their financial situation when they made their
request. Perhaps that was true, but
perhaps not. They were Christians.
Aren’t we Christians
people of faith? Aren’t we a people who
put our trust in God? Aren’t we the ones
who step out in places where others might not, precisely because we see those
who are living in distress, or suffering, or crying for help, and sense a call
to act? Aren’t we the ones who carry the
light of hope into the corners of our world where people are living in the
darkness of despair and fear? Aren’t we
the people who tell the world that what we see is not all there is? Aren’t we the ones who act without
guarantees, the ones who don’t place all their trust on the world and its
ways? Isn’t that who we are?
We’re the kind of people
who start Sunday suppers with virtually no money because no one else is doing
it. We start Community Gardens before we
have the funds because we have a vision.
We rent space to other churches and community groups at a loss because
they’re our neighbors. We plan to start
a Prison Information Center before we know exactly how we will pay for it
because there’s a need. Who else would
run a capital campaign in the midst of a recession? We dare to dream. We don’t seem to operate the way many do in
the world. How do we survive?
We survive because we are
a people who believe that famines and anguish and wars, are a part of life, but
not the end it. We survive because we
believe that giving for the good of others is giving worth doing. We survive because we’re willing to risk
death in order to live.
Some of you may have
noticed that I started getting information out about the Thanksgiving baskets a
little late this year. Our friends at
New Hope said that they could give ten baskets with turkeys, so Michael and I
felt that between our two churches we should be able to come up with twenty
more. I usually give people a little
more time to gear up, and bring in donations over a longer period of time. Elaine knew that, and she was a little
worried last week. “Have you counted the
donations yet”, she asked? “Nope, not
yet.” I told her. Elaine was trying to get a count for the
Herald. So she went and counted
everything herself and neatly organized it on the shelf. “We’re pretty short on things”, she said. “Don’t you want to send something out to let
people know we need more stuff?” “Sure”,
I said. “But first I want to thank them
for the turkeys! We’ve got all those
covered! Don’t worry. The rest will come in, or we’ll buy it. The money will work out. I don’t know how yet … but it will.”
By mid-week, several
people had told me they were bringing complete baskets to donate. Someone else had gotten a whole lot of
stuffing mix at BJ’s. Another person
e-mailed me about giving us mashed potatoes from her stockpile. Debbie Burrows e-mailed and told me that
Sunday supper had cans of yams that they didn’t need. Someone called me Saturday to say they had
bought a bunch of cans of vegetables and wanted to know where to take
them. I’m guessing more came in today. We are good at giving for the living.
In just a little bit we will
come forward to offer our pledge. It
will be much the same kind of thing. I
trust that each of us, including myself, will give all that we are able. There’s nothing more that God or I could ask. I trust that we give, not because we’re
afraid of dying, but because we know that even death is an entryway to
life. Will our pledges be enough to
cover our budget for 2013? Maybe, but
maybe not. If it’s not, something we
don’t expect may put us up over the top.
If we come up short, we will have to make some hard decisions, but we
will make them together. It will not be
the end of us. It may open the way for a
new beginning that we haven’t yet imagined.
Tearing down and building up.
It’s a part of living.
That’s what I tried to get
across to my Lake Placid friend. We
don’t give because of that kind of certainty.
We don’t give because we have the certainty of a particular
outcome. We give because of the
certainty we have in relationship with one another and with God. We give out of thanksgiving. We give out of love. We give because of hope. God isn’t finished with us yet. We are not alone. So let
us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting
to meet together, (as is the habit of some), but encouraging one another, and
all the more as you see the Day [of the Lord] approaching. Hold onto hope. Hold onto one another. Hold fast to God.
Amen.
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