Spiritual Growth :: Sermons

Sunday, November 14, 2010.
Proper 28, 25th Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Kate Ekrem

Proper 28 25th Sunday after Pentecost Stewardship Sermon Luke 21:5-19

Whenever we get to this part of the church year, the very tail end of the year, when we have so many readings about the second coming of Christ as we get ready for Advent, it’s easy to blip over these apocalyptic predictions of the future and think that they don’t’ have anything to do with us, either because Jesus was talking about the immediate future of 1st century Jerusalem and the fall of the temple, or that we’re Episcopalians and we just don’t do that evangelical “Left Behind” stuff. But I think then we miss something, because Jesus’ words are for us, too. This kind of writing, apocalyptic writing is always about time. It’s about what will happen in the future, what we can know and not know about how history will unfold. It’s always been how Christians have expressed their hope that God does have control over the future and will make things work out OK even when things look bad. If Jesus can predict the future of the temple, if we can trust his predictions about world’s future, we can trust his promises about our future. We can trust that God has a plan for the world, for our lives, and that that plan is working itself out.

Last week I was talking with youth group about evil, and they were asking, if that’s true, then why are there even more floods and earthquakes in Haiti now? Why does God let thinks like that, happen? Is God in control of time, of history, or are we? We wait for God’s kingdom to come, to break into this broken world of ours, and we know that we are already a redeemed people, but why doesn’t the world look a little more redeemed? Are we supposed to fix it, or are we sitting on our hands waiting for God’s coming again, as Jesus promises in today’s Gospel?

Finally the youth group decided that God leaves a lot of things in our hands, God give us free will, but they were a little worried this might be heretical. Isn’t God, after all, all-powerful? Why would God give us any control over things? Well, one thing that modern theologians have suggested is that God wants to be in partnership with us, for us to work with God, to make God’s dream for the world come true. This is a little hard to wrap our heads around, but a story by a Marc Gellman makes it clearer.

The story is that on each day of creation, the angels asked God, is the world finished yet? And each day God say, nope. Until finally he created humankind. And God said to them, “I’m kind of tired now. Would you please finish up the world for me? And the man and the woman said, we can’t do that alone! You have the plans and we are too little. And God said, you are big enough. But I agree to this, if you keep trying to finish the world, I will be your partner. And the man and the woman asked, what’s a partner? And God said, A partner is someone you work with on a big thing neither of you can do alone. If you have a partner, it means you can never give up, because your partner is depending on you. On the days you think I am not doing enough and on the days I think you are not doing enough, even on those days we are still partners and we must not stop trying to finish the world. That’s the deal.”

I love that story, and I always think of it when it seems like the world is not finished yet. We still have to keep working on it, with our partner God. And God also is our partner. God promises to be with us, to give us the right words to say, as Jesus promises, to be with us always. If we do our part, too. And that’s where stewardship comes in. And mission and ministry and all the things we do but stewardship really encompasses all of that. Stewardship is how we use the resources god has given us to do the work God has invited us to be part of as his partners.

In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul is reminding the people that they have to participate in the coming of God’s kingdom. In those days, people thought that Jesus’ second coming would literally be any day now. So they didn’t get married, they didn’t work, they didn’t do anything. They just waited for Jesus, twiddling their thumbs, as Paul says “living in idleness, mere busybodies” So Paul says, while you’re waiting, why don’t you do something productive. Yes, we are waiting and we know God is coming, but in the meantime we do have some things we should probably do. Paul implies that being in Christian community together requires mutual responsibility for caring for that community.

Stewardship is being in partnership with God. God has given us this earth, this nation, this community, our families and friends, our own bodies and talents, to care for, and we are answerable to God in how well we do care for them.

For me, I think proportional giving is a great way to feel like I’m in partnership with God. I know your stewardship committee has been talking about proportional giving this year, and that not everyone is sure what that means. Maybe a better word is percentage giving, because it means giving away (to whatever causes you decided to support) a percentage of your income, a percentage of what God has given you. It doesn’t matter what the percentage is. But I have found, and many others have found, that if you think of your giving in that way, make it part of your household budget up front, rather than just giving a flat amount or seeing what’s leftover, then we are being partners with God, sharing wholeheartedly with God just as God does with us. Your vestry has committed to being partners with God and partners will you and each and every one of the members of our vestry and stewardship committee is making their pledge to Redeemer a proportional gift this year. And it’s your gifts that make Redeemer go, that make things happen here. We’re blessed to have a certain amount of money come from the rental of our steeple, but as Jim will explain downstairs today, the vast majority of the funds to keep our parish going come from you. We don’t have an endowment, we don’t receive money from anywhere, we are a member-funded organization. We can do whatever it is we dream of, whatever it is we want to do to be working with God, as God’s partners, in raising our children in faith and showing God’s love to the world. But it all comes from you.

In our Gospel today, the disciples ask Jesus what will be the signs of God‘s coming? What will be the signs that God‘s kingdom is breaking in to our world? What if we are the signs, what if we, acting as God’s partners in the world, are the signs that God is near, that Jesus is near? What if our care of children and elders, our partnering with mission organizations, our growing food for the hungry and bringing blue jeans boys in need in Honduras are the signs of God’s coming kingdom.

Perhaps what Jesus means for us, as Paul hints to the Thessalonians, is that we are, in this time of waiting for God’s future, to live as if God’s kingdom were already here, to live into its in-breaking into our daily life? As if present moment we are already part of God’s future. We know God has a plan and therefore we….baptize our children, give to those in need, work for justice, visit the sick, give away more than we can afford because we know God is our partner and will be with us. We know God has a plan even though we’ve lost our jobs or they are threatened due to bad economy, we are sick, we have lots of interims on the church staff.

We do know God has a plan for this church, and by church I mean you. God has a plan for you. Uncovering it and living into it is really what strategic planning is. And we‘re doing that, we are uncovering it by revisiting our history and all the wonderful things that have happened here, by exploring the passions and interests and gifts and talents and resources that God has give all of you and that you bring to this community. We’re finding out what God’s plan for this community is.

At the end of that creation story, the angels ask God, “is the world finished yet?” and God answered, I don’t know, go ask my partners.”