Sermons

In Touch, 2

John Wilkinson                               Third Presbyterian Church
November 13, 2005                              Matthew 25:14-30

Let us dispense quickly with the logistical issues. At the close of the sermon, we will be invited to sing the old hymn “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” That hymn speaks quite eloquently to our stewardship theme, “In Touch,” with its images of fellowship and sympathy and bearing each others’ burdens, spoken to so eloquently by the Apostle Paul in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians.

Take note of the words to that hymn, especially, as you sing them, but not so much that you would forget to come forward and place your pledge cards in the basket. If you do not have your pledge card, there are some in the red friendship pads.

We engage in this practice, by the way, not to see who pledges, or who doesn’t, but rather because pledging is a corporate, communal act as well as an act of worship.

A word of thanks to all of you who have read the extensive material distributed by the Stewardship Committee, prayed about it, considered it, talked about it and have responded in kind. A further word of thanks to the Stewardship Committee, and particularly its chair John Malach, for working with such energy and commitment.

Our needs are real, and I hope that we have communicated those needs both with a sense of purpose and seriousness and with a sense of possibility and hope. The challenges are significant, but I continue to believe that we have the capacity and the resources to meet these needs.

We have utilized the theme “In Touch,” as I have suggested, to remind us of many connecting points, with our own sense of call and commitment, with needs here, with one another. We have suggested that the more we become in touch, connected with one another and the mission and ministry of this congregation, the more clearly we will sense the call to support our work financially, and then to respond as we are able.

We are also beginning to think of all this as a year-round conversation and not simply a big push sometime in the fall, and to think more comprehensively as well of the notion of stewardship as encompassing all of life – our time and our talent, our giftedness, as well as our financial resources.

Our vision (shared again a month ago) for all of this remains fairly straightforward:

· caring for our building adequately and as proactively as we can

· compensating our staff at a level that is more than adequate and that supports their vocational commitments to this ministry and our high expectations

· a budget to support the program that we would desire that is frugal, yes, but also visionary and creative

· and a commitment to outreach that allows us to do what we are called to do, that is less defined by how much we give away than with what we are able to do, maximizing our human resources, but that at the same time is generous with its financial resources to support programs – some based from this place and some pursued by others – that meet the physical needs of those with needs and address systemic inequity.

All of that has costs, real costs. But again, we have the capacity, the abundance, to meet that need. That capacity, by the way, is less a function of a particular budgetary goal, as important as planning is. Rather, it is a function of what we have been given and our call to respond, our invitation to be in touch and connected with the gifts and graces that are ours because we have been invited into this household of faith.

Having said all that, the hope for today is to punctuate whatever decisions you already have made, not to put a period at the end of this stewardship conversation, but rather a comma, a pause, or an ellipsis, that little set of three periods that indicates there is more to come. Because there is…

Yesterday morning I was in Houston to make a presentation at a meeting of the Presbytery of New Covenant. When I arrived at the church where the meeting was to be held, I met my hosts, including several presbytery staff members. We talked about the weather – it was 85 and humid – and I downplayed my former Chicago residence as I offered my sympathy for the Astros’ World Series loss.

We spoke a bit about denominational dynamics and politics, and they then proceeded to tell me a bit about that presbytery. It’s become a continual conversation in all of this itinerating. The presbytery is, in fact, one of the largest in the denomination, with three of the largest membership congregations in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with over 4000 members each. At the same time, the church has 30-40 congregations with 100 members or less. They are working diligently to figure out what to do. As you can imagine, there are leadership issues, financial issues, energy issues, vision issues, issues of survival.

It is a story that is repeated time and time again. The contrast in Houston is particularly vivid. On the way to the church, my host drove me past what looked like a huge basketball arena. It was, but it is now a church. Perhaps you have heard of Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church. Lakewood Church’s worship attendance on a weekend numbers in the tens of thousands and Mr. Osteen has become somewhat of a celebrity minister. The church grew so dramatically that it recently purchased the former home of the N.B.A.’s Houston Rockets and has turned it into their home. Who can compete with that, I thought rather meekly yesterday morning.

Lakewood Church is an evangelical congregation, and conservative as well, though they work hard to downplay any denominational affiliation and stay clear of the political issues that other conservative ministers have become involved in over recent years. Joel Osteen’s popularity has had something to do with the notion of personal success and achievement.

It’s a bit of a different take than the other currently very popular celebrity minister, Rick Warren, he of Saddleback Community Church fame in southern California and books such as The Purpose Driven Church and The Purpose Driven Life.

When we ministers talk about these things, and we do(!), we spend a few secret moments in envy and then move quickly to criticism. There’s got to be something wrong with a church that big, that successful, we satisfy ourselves by saying. Some of it may be fair, some not.

I must admit unfamiliarity with Lakewood Church – although the thought of a session meeting in an N.B.A. locker room has some appeal to me. What I know about Rick Warren is not much more – I do know that he has begun to think about global outreach in poverty-stricken Africa. I also know that the biggest criticism of these so-called mega churches, the "how on earth can I fit in?” criticism, has been met full on with a comprehensive small group ministry that involves and integrates people so that they are connected into that very large community.

All of this is a discussion for another time, except to note its juxtaposition with a presbytery in Houston, where a 4000-member church would seem small and a 100-member church barely worth a mention.

Who knows? There are 100 member churches that may need to end their ministry, thank God, have a worship service and a nice potluck dinner, turn out the lights and move on. But there may be others whose vision of the kingdom of God, whose care for one another and for the broader community, is as bold and creative and meaningful as any congregation 100 times its size.

We are neither “mini” nor “mega” here, but the question remains the same for all of us, and it is framed by the parable we hear this morning.

I promise you that I did not select this parable for stewardship Sunday, nor did we move stewardship Sunday to fit this parable as it popped up in the lectionary cycle. In a sense, it is almost a cliché, but if it is, it is a timely one.

We know the story well, and we have probably heard it on stewardship Sundays more than we would care to remember. Jesus tells his listeners and followers that the kingdom of God will be like a landowner going away and trusting his property – including his sizable financial assets – to his servants. The ones who received five and two talents – a talent was a figure approximating 15 years of wages – invested theirs and made more, while the one receiving one buried it in order not to risk losing the investment. The master came back, received the investment report, praised the two who had made money and severely condemned, even damned, the risk-averse servant.

I must admit that every time I encounter this I feel conflict, and do not always know what to think. The cliché of this morning would insist that it is all about money. It is not. The deeper question is about responsibility and accountability. Eugene Boring writes “what one does with the entrusted talent…represents responsible deeds of Christian discipleship.” (New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume VIII, page 457-459)

One could easily, and particularly on a morning like this one, turn this into a cautionary tale of financial generosity and the judgment of God...something like “pledge or die.” No such words from me, though it would make the stewardship task much simpler! Rather, the gospel point is a call to action, to ethical response, to meet human need. And…to do it quickly because no one knows when the master will be coming back. The scholars call this an eschatological parable.

The risk-averse servant’s response is a problem not because he made a bad investment, but because he made no investment at all. We have been given so much, Jesus seems to be saying, and we are called to put it into use here and now, with a kind of reckless abandon, because the stakes are high.

One real question this morning is posed whether we attend Lakewood Church in Houston or Westminster Presbyterian Church in Nacogdoches, Texas or Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York – how are we extravagantly and boldly investing in what God has given us?

Money may be a part, an important part, of that – our use of money as a reflection of our ethical and faith commitments. But when the master comes back, the question will be “what did you do with all that I gave you?” Your energy. Your gifts. Your time. Your commitments. Your work. Your relationships. Yes, your money. What did you do?

It is never a matter of working this out on our own, or starting from scratch. Every day we are given gifts and graces to invest, to make a difference, transformed in order that we may be servants of transformation in all the world.

As we connect to this story, we connect to the possibilities, the abundant, extravagant possibilities, and listen for that voice that invites us to enter into the joy. The joy.

Let us pray. Gracious God, bless the ties that bind us to one another, to your story, to you, that in giving we receive the gift of your joy, and in receiving, we become a blessing to all the world. For Christ’s sake, and in his name, we pray. Amen.