In Touch I
John Wilkinson Third
Presbyterian Church October 16, 2005
I
Thessalonians 1:1-10
Please note the list of events scheduled for next weekend, when
our guest Hudnut preacher will be Scott Anderson. Scott is an
ordained Presbyterian minister who set aside his ordination
status when he was “outed" as a gay man. He has since
served as Director of the California Council of Churches and
is now the Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. He
is a former moderator of More Light Presbyterians, and currently
serves as a member of the General Assembly Task Force on the
Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. I am grateful to be able
to call Scott a friend and a brother in faith. The topic of
Scott’s several presentations next week, including next
Sunday’s sermon, is an important, timely and controversial
one – same-gender marriage. I do hope you will be present
as you are able.
As we discussed last Sunday, today we will receive an offering
of letters as a part of our commitment to be a Bread for the
World Covenant church. Letters and envelopes are included in
the bulletin. In a moment I would invite us all to read the
letter. If it is your wish, sign the letter and also add a personal
note. Address the envelope per the instructions in the bulletin
and place it in the offering plate when the second round of
offering plates comes to you. Thank you for your consideration
– let’s take a moment or two now to consider the
letter.
***
New Testament scholar Paul Minear’s classic work, Images
of the Church in the New Testament, offers nearly 100 images
for the church. There are many minor images, Minear discovered
– the church as an olive tree, for example, or the church
as a building built on a rock. And Minear discerned four major
images: the church as the people of God, the new creation, the
fellowship in faith, the Body of Christ.
My latest image, a profound and poignant one, is of the church
as a colorful bunch of balloons soaring through the sky.
Let me explain by first telling tell you about a group called
CURE, whose task it is to work with families who have children
afflicted with cancer. They provide a range of services while
a child is in the hospital receiving treatment, financial, counseling,
medical services that are important, as you can imagine, for
a family facing such a difficult situation.
Every year CURE holds a service for families and friends who
have lost children to cancer. Some of the families may have
religious backgrounds; some may not. They meet under a tent,
greet one another with tearful affection, light candles, share
poems, remember. They seek comfort in their memories and in
one another, and sustenance as well as they live each day attempting
to cope with their unimaginable grief.
I am grateful for having learned of CURE’s work, and
am grateful for the community of support that these people have
found in one another.
Now, telling you about CURE may be an odd way of beginning
a stewardship sermon, or, more rightly, what will be the first
of two stewardship sermons…so you may relax a bit.
Why two, you may reasonably ask? Stewardship Sunday is in four
weeks, November 13, when we will offer our pledge cards in worship.
Today’s intention is to plant some seeds. The timing of
a stewardship sermon on Stewardship Sunday has always seemed
a bit unusual, when, presumably, the pledge decision has already
been made.
Today’s conversation is not designed, primarily, to increase
pledging – though that’s never a bad thing and may
be a result of a seed planted today. Nor is it designed, by
its persuasiveness or lack thereof, to produce a decrease in
pledging. That would prove it to be quite a bad concept. It
is designed to make needs clear, to provide information and
perhaps a little motivation and encouragement, so that as you
consider your own financial resources and the way they support
the mission of this congregation over the next several weeks,
you will have more support to do so.
As we have noted, the New Testament contains many images for
the church. Paul had founded the church in Thessalonica probably
15-20 years after that first Easter, and now he writes to it
from some geographical distance. He wants that church to know
of his affection for it, and to encourage it in its steadfastness,
as well as to defend himself.
You could read all of I Thessalonians in a few minutes –
what we are most interested in this morning is the beginning,
what is now chapter one but what was once simply the salutation,
the beginning of the letter. It is extended – no brief
“Dear John” or generic “to whom it may concern.”
Certainly no Internet emoticons! J Paul and his colleagues wish
the church grace and peace, and then share words of gratitude.
The Thessalonian church has become an imitator of the apostle,
and better yet, of Jesus, in the face of persecution and hardship.
Paul is grateful for that. The church has become an example
of welcome and faithfulness throughout the region, a congregation
known for its hospitality and commitment.
It has become an interesting exercise to draw comparisons between
the first century church and the twenty-first century one. They,
and we, live in a strange culture, which seems less and less
interested in matters of faith. Like our forbears, we no longer
occupy privileged places in government and commerce. Like our
forbears, we are beset with internal conflict that hampers our
ability to follow our mission and make a difference in the world.
And like our forbears, we have been given a gift, this story
of redemption and grace. We have been welcomed into a community.
And we have been given one another.
The stewardship theme, “In Touch,” seeks to make
many such connections, primarily how we are connected to this
old, old story, connected to one another, connected to the mission
of this congregation. And further, and more directly tied to
our stewardship efforts, why those connections matter and what
we are called to do to sustain and strengthen them.
We are connected to this story in deeply profound ways. It
would be presumptuous for us to think that Paul might write
us a letter some 21 centuries later. If he did, I would pray
that he would comment on our steadfastness, our hospitality,
our common witness – things like tutoring or Bread for
the World or hurricane relief.
We are deeply connected to this story, to the earliest church,
to a particularly Presbyterian identity that has extensive ecumenical
and interfaith trajectories, to a nearly 200-year presence in
Rochester. We are deeply connected to the past, and the trajectories
move boldly into the future.
We are connected, in touch, each one of us, to God’s
covenantal relationship with people, made known to us in the
life and ministry of Jesus. And while each one of us –
100 years old to a few days old – is connected, the connection
remains weak if it is merely private and individual. Faith is
always communal.
The church is not the only venue for the communal aspect of
our faith to play itself out, but it is the primary one. It
is the place where we exhibit the implications of our baptism.
It is the place where we ask questions, seek answers, share
gifts, find comfort, find challenge. It is the place where we
worship, serve, learn, where our children are formed, where
we celebrate with those who celebrate and weep with those who
weep.
We do all those things here. And more that that. Through all
these things we are connected to the world to which God calls
us, a world marked by hurricanes and war and violence in our
city’s streets that claims the lives of our children and
youth.
These connections matter because they call us beyond ourselves
to something larger and deeper. We are called to deeper authenticity.
We are called to reconciliation with ourselves and others. We
are called to transform the world.
This happens in many ways, in many places. But it happens here
as well, through the ministry and mission of Third Presbyterian
Church. As you know, we are in a period of programmatic growth
and expansion. Our outreach program is doing wonderful things
in the community, and thinking more and more beyond the Monroe
Country region. We are educating and nurturing children, youth
and adults in growing ways, in imaginative ways. We continue
to seek to worship creatively and faithfully, on Sunday mornings
and at other times, worship that is biblical and dynamic and
challenging and offers our best to God.
We adopted “Seeking the Light” as a kind of overarching
phrase for who we are and who we are called to be – it
is as relevant as ever these days.
And, parallel to that first century church in Thessalonica
and other places, there are real-world concerns that we face,
including a day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year price tag
to operate our building and keep it warm and dry and safe, to
pay for things like coffee and bulletins and choir music and
Sunday school curriculum, to compensate our staff in a way that
we hope is commensurate with their gifts and commitments.
Building costs are rising. That should not be a surprise to
any of you. Parts of this facility are more than 100 years old,
and we find ourselves year to year unable to do all that we
need to do, not only to maintain but to move ahead.
And personnel costs, by far our largest budgetary commitment,
are rising as well. That should not be a surprise either. We
face several challenges here, and allow me to be as direct as
I can without overstating it. We seek to maintain and enhance
our current commitments to the people who work here, to provide
compensation that is adequate, and more than adequate, actually,
to the gifts they bring, the commitments they share, and our
expectations for excellence in leadership that has distinguished
this congregation in the past and will do so into the future.
You will hear more about this in the next several weeks, our
building needs, our program needs, our personnel needs, through
minutes for mission and in a congregational mailing. I hope
you will take all of this very seriously and very prayerfully.
If you have pledged in the past, thank you. If you can pledge
as you are invited to do so, please do it, and stretch yourselves
as you can. If you haven’t pledged ever, or recently,
I would urge you to do that as well. Make this the year! Whatever
the level!
We spend considerable time thinking about these things. My
simple invitation this morning is this: as you are connected,
as you are in touch with the ministry of this place, respond.
And not out of guilt, but out of commitment and out of hope,
and gratitude for being connected to this story of salvation
and hope, and being in touch with this community as a venue
for acting this story out.
Becky D'Angelo-Veitch shared this episode from a recent Sunday
school class, taught by Amanda Gianniny. It is a skit prepared
and performed by fifth and sixth grade children:
>Zach (placing a hat into the paper bag which that had drawn
the church on): "donating warm clothes for the homeless,
$5"
>Drew: (putting in a pencil, pen and small piece of paper):
"School supplies for the Katrina Victims, $2"
>Morgan (putting in dice from a board game): "Supplies
for board games for family night, $15"
>Drew (putting in an old friendship bracelet) "Making
friends at church, priceless"
>Matthew: "There are some things money CAN buy, for
everything else, there's church"
For everything else, there’s church.
And to one more image… At the conclusion of the CURE
remembrance service, family members are given balloons. Some
write simple messages of remembrance to the children they so
dearly miss. And then they release the balloons into the air.
This particular day was bright warm and sunny. The sky was blue.
And the balloons, launched by individuals coming together for
sustenance and support, traveled as a unit, as a body –
pink and green and blue and purple. When the wind shifted a
bit, one way or another, the balloons did as well. They stuck
together. Eventually they became as little dots in the big sky.
I ended up watching them for 10 minutes or more, hypnotized
in a way by their beauty, struck by how small and insignificant
they seemed and yet how powerful and strong their witness as
they moved together, how hopeful in their rising in the face
of their very sad circumstances.
I don’t know under which of Paul Minear’s images
of the church this wayward flock of balloons would fit: the
church as the people of God, the new creation, the fellowship
in faith, the Body of Christ. But it would have to fit somewhere.
“We always give thanks to God for all of you,”
Paul wrote, and might he add, each man, each woman, each child,
each balloon floating through the sky with all those other balloons,
“and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering
your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope…”
Our vision and constant ever-soaring invitation.
Amen.
