This week I am at The Church of the Reconciliation in Webster. The sermon is on the epistle reading, a rarity for me, from I Corinthians. It can be found here.
Well, Church of the Reconciliation – a lot has happened
since we were last together! As a reminder, I had agreed to be here with you for most or all of Lent 2020 as you began
looking for a new rector. And I’d been here for what? Two or three weeks, I think,
before the whole world shut down. It feels like a lifetime ago.
Since then you have forged a new partnership with Zion
Lutheran in Oxford and have called Pastor Michael to serve with you, for the
sake of the Gospel. Thanks be to God. I’ve been Canon to the Ordinary for eight
years now. One of the big parts of my job is working through transitions with
congregations. Between January 2020 and today we’ve had twenty clergy
transitions out of 51 congregations, including yours. Often when I’m out and
about in this itinerant diocesan ministry, I’m talking transition. Last week,
for example, I was at St. Luke’s in Worcester, one week after they said goodbye to their
rector.
There is always something to find in the Scriptures
for the day about transition. Think about it:
- Abraham and Sarah leaving home to go to a
new land.
- The journey through the wilderness to the
Promised Land.
- The experience of exile and then coming
home to rebuild the temple.
- Jesus and the disciples on the way.
- Paul traveling around the Mediterranean.
And so it goes. There is lots to draw on. In the
Bible, the journey is home. Always, God’s people are “on the way.” So I can
always find something in the texts to say about that. And that’s bigger, of
course, than just clergy transitions.
It’s also about transitioning in and now out of a global pandemic. What have we
learned? How have we been changed? It’s also about the ongoing transition from
being a mid-twentieth century church to becoming twenty-first century congregations.
So I’ve done that here, in various ways – even though there has been a very long
break since my last time with you.
So today, on this last Sunday in June, I’m not going
to talk about transition. I’m going to talk about money and generosity and
stewardship, and gratitude. And I’m going to take my lead from St Paul and the
words we heard in today’s epistle reading.
Now I know what you are thinking. It’s not November!
Episcopalians tend to be even more reluctant to speak about money than about
change – but we know once a year we get a sermon about how we should fill out a
pledge card. But in June? What gives? The thing is that Jesus talked about
money more than anything else except the Kingdom of God. He talked about lost
coins and he talked about talents, which were a form currency. He talked about
what should be rendered unto Caesar and what belongs to God. He talked about
the widow’s mite. He talked about the wages of the laborers in the vineyard. He
said that where your investments are, there will your heart be also.
Today, we hear St. Paul giving his stewardship sermon
to the followers of Jesus in Corinth. As you will remember, Paul was sent out
by the Jerusalem Church to be an evangelist to gentiles; that is to non-Jews.
The Jerusalem Church was the one founded by the disciples on Pentecost. It’s
Peter and the gang. But Paul travels around the Mediterranean to places like
Thessalonica and Galatia and Corinth – and he’s reaching out to non-Jews. The
Jerusalem Church is like “Mother Church” before Rome eventually takes that role
on, at least in western Christianity. Those other ones in Thessalonica and
Galatia and Corinth and initially Rome, too, are like church plants. You with
me, reconcilers?
Paul is writing to the congregation in Corinth which
seems to be in good shape financially about the needs in Jerusalem, which is
struggling. The scholars call this the Jerusalem Collection. It’s not really an
assessment to the diocese but it is a way of sharing the ministry, of
remembering they are connected so it’s not unlike that. It comes up in Acts and
in other letters of Paul too. But for today it’s enough to just stick with his
“sermon” to the Corinthians that we heard today.
Paul says to those good folks: listen, you excel in
everything: in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our
love for you. So (wait for it) - now I want to ask you to excel in one more
thing. I want you to excel in this “this generous
undertaking.”
He goes on to say that he’s not ordering anyone to do
this, but he’s testing the genuineness of their love. He’s asking them to put
their money where their mouths are. He’s asking them to walk the talk. I don’t
have pledge cards today – it’s just June – although you know that one can
always go back and increase a pledge halfway through the year. But I’m not here
for that. I’m here to remind you – to remind myself – that our checkbooks
really do show what we believe. This is not a fundraising sermon. Instead, it
is a very short sermon about the spiritual gift of gratitude which leads to the
spiritual fruit of generosity. I say a short sermon, because I’m finished.
Amen. But I want to conclude with a fairly long prayer by Walter Brueggemann,
“On Generosity.” So, let us pray:
On
our own, we conclude:
that there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short
of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life
we should seize the day
seize the goods
seize our neighbor’s goods
because there is not enough to go around.
And
in the midst of our perceived deficit:
You come
You come giving bread in the
wilderness
You come giving children at the
11th hour
You come giving homes to exiles
You come giving futures to the
shut-down
You come – fleshed in Jesus.
And
we watch while
the blind receive their sight
the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed
the deaf hear
the dead are raised
the poor dance and sing.
We
watch
and we take food we did not grow
and
life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and
gift and
families and neighbors who
sustain us
when we do not deserve
it.
It
dawns on us – late rather than soon -
that “you give food in due
season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire
of every living thing.”
By
your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field
to see
the abundance…mercy
upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.
Sink
your generosity deep into our lives
that your muchness may expose
our false lack
that endlessly receiving, we may
endlessly give,
so that the world may
be made Easter new,
without greedy lack,
but only wonder
without coercive need,
but only love
without destructive
greed, but only praise
without aggression and
invasiveness…
all things
Easter new…
all
around us, toward us, and by us
all things Easter
new.
Finish your creation…in wonder, love, and praise. Amen.
From Inscribing the Text:
Sermons and Prayers of Walter Brueggemann
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