Sermons: November 2010

Sermon for Christ the King
Stewardship
November 21, 2010
Grace Episcopal Church
The Rev. Vern Hill

Seven months ago, a few weeks past Easter, we observed in our worship a quaint old English tradition – Rogation.  As I explained back then this was a day that celebrated the turning of the earth, the beginning of planting, so an English congregation literally trudged the muddy fields offering prayers for a successful planting time and abundant harvest in the fall. 
Rogation of course is the compliment to our Thanksgiving and is why families today unite around a feast over what Ben Franklin had offered up to be our national bird – the turkey, a symbol that is becoming uncomfortably appropriate for our most recent politics – soaring eagle, floundering turkey, hmmmm.  Thanksgiving offers a hospitable interpretation of the rather judgmental – “What you shall sow; you shall reap”  which begins to make sense in a farming environment.  Planting and harvest is a reminder of the simple cycle of giving birth and coming to fulfillment.  True, in a metaphorical sense, if you sow badly or carelessly or not at all, you reap an unhappy result – another reminder that there are outcomes and consequences to the things we set out on.
After the thanksgiving harvest comes the quiet of winter.  In the winter the land rests and then is turned again in the spring – seedtime to harvest to rest.  This really is a different way of understanding our lives from how our culture normally sees itself.  Usually we think in lines – linear with a beginning and end, birth and death, rather than cyclical – recurring.  Much of our carelessness with the land, air and water as well as our carelessness with one another comes I believe from a failure to recognize the cycle – the return to the beginnings.  Life is really full of grace – do overs, recovery and redemptions.  It is the heart of our faith. 
Embracing the cycle – finding our living within birthing and fulfillment and rest, and new birthing – helps us understanding the importance of “stewardship.”  Stewardship is all about exercising care and gratitude, compassion, generosity and responsibility within the earth and human habitat.  The habitat is not to be wasted.  It is needed to sustain life.  At Grace we strive to take this seriously in how we exercise our skills, our time and our wealth.  These tools, with our heart and energy engage in a stewardship of justice, compassion and cultivation – a stewardship to sustain life.
We are being increasingly confronted by a country and its leaders that has suddenly decided to become fiscally responsible after spending billions in ten years of revenge war and bridges to nowhere.  Now faced with near Depression, it is a time to reduce spending, to live within our means, to sacrifice, to even reduce what we do as a collective community for those in greatest need, in order to preserve personal wealth.  This politics of sacrifice will be a direct challenge to our religious belief in compassionate stewardship.  You see, cuts are never evenly distributed.  They hardly cause a ripple of concern for those of us with wealth.  The “taking away” is not by what you can afford to give up, but by your influence or lack of it.  It is the “least of these,” those living on the margins of society, the weak and powerless and voiceless who are expendable, who bear the cutback burdens – the elderly poor, the struggling single parent, those without health insurance, those on the street, those without work, the mentally ill – these become the targets.  One percent of our population controls 20 to 25% of the wealth, yet “to those who have, more is given” to use a Biblical saying out of context.  Our own Kevin McCarthy found no distress in voting against extending unemployment benefits though he serves all the people in a county where areas have 25 to 35% unemployment.  Not everyone counts equally; not everyone is ever treated equally in the free market.
Jesus did not believe in the trickle down; he and the prophets before him believed in justice and mercy and compassion as the marks of civilization and true humanity.  What we do at Grace must continue to be part of this witness.
I don’t often speak in sermons about wealth and giving.   Experience has taught me that things that matter are supported.  It’s that simple.  Since Grace began, we have never had a month where we had less income than our expenses.  What we do seems to matter to you.  This year we will oversubscribe our initial 2010 budget receiving about $79,000.  That’s pretty exciting, but recall that we also tithe an additional 10% of our budget to what is called Outreach – meeting special needs in our community and around the world. 
For this year the special fund raising target was $7900.  To date we have raised over $11,600.  Next year we hope to provide increases for the first time to salary stipends and address some other possible needs in the area of personal which means that our 2011 budget should be about $82,000.  Today in the bulletin is a form where in part you can indicate what you would like to provide to Grace in terms of financial support for 2011.  This sort of indication helps confirm what our anticipated income may be for next year.  It is part of our communal responsibility for planning.
People joining our Grace community often arrive with significant baggage from past religious or life experiences and it takes time to sort through that, to heal, and to find their place within the community.  That time is important.  Still we encourage people as they sense the call of God to become engaged in ministry in a personal work.  This is the chance to put your time and your talents to good use.  Together we demonstrate in our many works a concern for the habitat, for the value of all God’s children, and for our growth in Godly living after the example of Jesus Christ. Today after worship I invite you to linger with coffee and goodies and talk with some of the Grace family who lead in our many ministries.  See if there is some way that God may be calling you to bring your imagination and effort to the many needs that surround us. 
In discerning God’s call  you may be someone who feels that your talents or time are limited or unexceptional .   If you doubt what you can contribute you need to listen carefully to what today’s Gospel storyteller is saying to you.  You need to remember in the story how Jesus made the small gifts of the loaves and fishes enough to serve the crowd.  God makes every gift of time and talent offered in compassion and generosity to be “enough” to accomplish great things.  The many – the total work of our community of faith – can be a powerful force for goodness and hope and a sure and certain sign of the Kingdom of God in our midst.  Together what we are doing, the planting and cultivation of compassion and justice, of love and generosity, and of mercy and respect, is the work of Jesus himself.  Amen.