Sermons

Forward in Faith

John Wilkinson                            Third Presbyterian Church
November 12, 2006                     Mark 12:28-34

As if you didn’t know, today is Stewardship Sunday. Following the sermon and during the singing of the hymn, “Take My Life,” you are invited to come forward and to place your pledge cards in the basket on the table. You can always, also, place your pledge cards in the offering plate. And if, for some unfathomable reason you have no pledge card this morning, they are available in the red friendship pads at the ends of the pews.

First of all, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you for reading the material, for considering it carefully, for praying over it, and then for responding in faith. Thank you for your response. We have two sets of hopes these days. One is for a modest increase in the amount that we pledge together so that we might address modest increases in our proposed budget for 2007. But another hope is to welcome more of us into the stewardship process.

Quotations form officers: “Stewardship is the commitment of each of us to give of our time, talent, and resources to God’s work. As faithful stewards, we recognize that we, the members of the church, are indeed the beneficiaries of an extraordinary legacy of stewardship by our founders. It is incumbent upon each of us to transfer this mantle of stewardship to succeeding generations, so that together we can say we were not put on this earth to see through one another, but rather to see one another through.”

“Stewardship is the tending of and the caring for all that has been lent to us for our earthly lives: the tents that are our bodies, the Earth, which is our home and sustenance, the friends and family who surround us, the church that feeds our spirits, and the time we are given to be a part of God’s glad, faithful, and giving people. Stewardship is important for the simple reason that it is a faithful responsibility and a joyful response to God’s sustaining love and grace.”

If that is true, and I believe it is, then stewardship is not a burden, but a gift. But a gift to what end? The end certainly cannot be supporting our budget, as important as a well-striped parking lot is, or even simply maintaining this institution.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been hanging out at the temple. He’s watching and observing, trying to understand the dynamics of religious life. And even as he is watching what’s going on, others are watching him. He’s brought a crowd with him and the crowd is growing. And so the religious authorities are keeping their eye on him.

Each gospel reports this story a little bit differently. Today’s is, in fact, a friendlier version. Nonetheless, a scribe approaches him, to test him, to examine him. “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest?” And Jesus responds, first from the resources of the Hebrew scriptures, “You are to love your God with heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. And then you are to love your neighbor as yourself.” Apparently, he passed the test. There were no more questions that day.

That’s the end of stewardship, to support and nurture this vision of love, to do all that we can do to enact Jesus’ invitation and his challenge. It’s kind of a strategic plan, in a way. In my more odd moments, I think what it would be like to organize a church around this vision. We’d have a heart committee, a soul committee, perhaps a mind and a strength committee, and then a neighbor committee, all managed by some divinely inspired Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to keep it all organized. Then I think to myself, “John, that’s a little bit pathological and Presbyterian to think about things that way.”

And yet, that’s what we do, is it not? Heart, mind, soul, strength, neighbor, filtering through everything that we do together as a community. Worship that sings God’s praise, that challenges us, that touches us, that draws us in in order to send us out into the world. Faith seeking understanding. Education that expands our thinking, our mind.

It was no coincidence this week that in the mailbox arrived Time and Newsweek with stories about just the things we think about every Sunday: religion and politics, God and science. It struck me that there is no other place to ask the big questions and to explore the big answers, no other place to connect the dots of our living and our being and our search for meaning, to nurture in community, and all of those life cycle events to be sure --- births and deaths, baptisms and weddings --- but also those day-to-day moments when our children gather here on the steps, or our youth come back on a Sunday night. We are reading a lot these days about youth culture, but here’s a place where our young people are welcomed and nourished and nurtured, and not questioned about who they are, or what they believe, or what they are wearing, or how much they are worth.

And fellowship and connection. How do we in this big, spread out place connect with one another in small groups or one to one? Whether it’s to read a book together, or read the Bible together, or go out to dinner together, or do a service project together --- clearly, one of our growing edges in this congregation.

And then outreach, the love-your-neighbor-as-yourself committee. Because we can, we count up the list every once in a while. There are hundreds of volunteers making a difference. I think Carol Coons said this is probably the first time in the history of worship at Third Church that the word undies has been uttered. [congregation chuckles] But nonetheless, it is directly to the point of what we do and who we are called to be, who our neighbors are.

And on top of all of this hands-on, direct service, with food, and shelter, and clothing, and housing, I believe that when the spirit says advocate, we are called to advocate. And when the spirit calls us to be more active in the community, to change the world as well as to serve it, that’s what we are called to do. On local issues of education, or gun violence, or how different people get along together in a fractured world, or on the global stage, whether in the Middle East, or Kenya, or wherever God is calling us.

Jesus offers the invitation, the challenge, the hope, the vision perhaps, perhaps even an organizational structure. And that is the end of stewardship, that’s why we do all this. Send the letters. Make the pitches. Organize the budgets. So that we might love God and love neighbor. It’s as simple as that, as clear as that, and profound as that.

In a little book called A Backdoor to Heaven, theologian Lionel Blue writes, “Love makes the world go ‘round. And the world hereafter too. Falling in love with God can be very similar to falling in love with a human being. You bump into each other one day, or you trip over each other. You meet at a boring formal occasion like the wedding service of a distant relation, and suddenly you know you want to meet again, for you realize with wonder that the old familiar God you met years ago in Sunday school is alive and attractive, not very different from the boy or girl next door, and all those old movies. For you start off by having values and find one day that they are alive. You can speak to them, they can answer back, and you can be in love with them, as well as love them. If you’re hooked, you start haunting the place where you first met. You want to go to that particular church, and then it takes time to realize that God is everywhere.”

That’s why we do this, to support a vision. The church will not make it happen, the church cannot make it happen, the church --- a very human institution --- filled with very human people, does not make it happen. But the church on its good days is the best place I can ever imagine for the vision to take root and to take wing so that God can love the world God loves so much through us. We do this to love, because we have been loved, and we know that only love will make a difference in our hearts, in our lives, and in the life of the world. Only love. The church as a community that gathers in love, and departs in love, to love the world.

It is no doubt a risky love. Look where it led Jesus. But even more so, it is a love that nurtures and transforms and saves us. And even every once in a while, gets us up close to the kingdom of God.

“Take My Life,” we will sing, “Take my life. Take my hands, take my voice, take my silver and gold, and even my copper pennies. Take my will. Take my love. Take my love. Thanks be to God. AMEN.