| Launch of Stewardship Month - Oct 2006 |
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Hey everybody, it’s Stewardship Month!
Okay, so I’m guessing that this doesn’t necessarily inspire waves of ecstatic excitement for some of us here… alright then. Well let’s talk about it a bit. I mean I am excited about what we have planned for this month. But I haven’t always felt that way about stewardship. It’s been a journey for me. And I suspect, for many of us.
And as we begin this month together, I’d like for us to talk really honestly about that journey…and maybe look at a different way of thinking about stewardship altogether… a way that might be freeing, liberating, and yes, even fun!
Will you pray with me?
(Prayer… )
Stewardship… what in the world are we talking about?
What do you think of when you hear the word stewardship? (sharing of ideas)
Dictionary definition:
The Oxford dictionary tells us that “stewardship” derives from the noun steward… “a person who looks after the passengers on a ship or aircraft. 2 a person responsible for supplies of food to a college, club, etc. 3 an official who supervises arrangements at a large public event. 4 a person employed to manage a large house or estate. 5 chiefly historical an officer of the British royal household, especially an administrator of Crown estates.”
Okay… so maybe the dictionary definition is less than helpful for our purposes tonight. Although there is clearly a thread here about care for and responsibility for something.
I think for me in the past, and perhaps for many of us, the whole idea of stewardship has been a problematic one. Very often, as we heard in our own definitions tonight, it centers around money. It becomes a hot-button issue.
I mean let’s do a quick poll here. How many of us have had negative experiences talking about money in church?
And just for the fun of it, how many of us have had positive, healthy experiences talking about money in church?
So this is where we’re starting from. Many of us have a bit of a bad taste in our mouths when it comes to the whole money and church thing.
For some of us, it’s because we’ve been told how we should handle our finances in church. And there is often a whole lot of guilt attached to that.
For some of us, we’re disillusioned by the way that many religious organisations talk about and handle money.
Some of us are disillusioned by the way religious organisations gather and use financial resources… some of us are disillusioned by what some people call the whole “prosperity gospel”… you know, the idea that if we pray hard enough, or are good enough Christians, God will reward us in our financial life.
Now hear me, I’m not putting down the power of prayer here, nor am I putting down the idea of bringing God into all areas of our lives… but I think this one can be dangerous. I know I’ve seen it used in some less-than-healthy ways.
I’m reminded of something Don Eastman said in a workshop at conference. “God doesn’t want everybody to be wealthy; God wants nobody to be poor”. That’s a pretty different take than the one many of us have heard over the years…
At any rate, when we hear that someone’s going to be talking in their sermon about stewardship… I think for many of us, that’s when we suddenly remember that we had a really important something to do that night rather than getting to church!
Now I want to be clear from the get-go, that this month is not about telling you what you should do. Neither is it about instilling guilt.
It is about celebrating the gifts of God’s creation and exploring how we might use those gifts even more fully. And to do that, I want to offer a bit of what I think of as a good “meat and potatoes” sermon, if you will. Or perhaps, for some of us, a good “quorn mince and potatoes” sermon.
I want us to really look at a different approach to stewardship… one that – I hope- can speak to our hearts in a different way.
Okay, time for another poll. And if you’ve heard this question before, don’t give away the answer. What two things did Jesus talk about most in the Bible? (sharing of ideas)
Did you know that Jesus talked about money more than anything else except the kingdom of God? Like everything else he taught though, I think Jesus had a very different picture of the place of money in our lives.
Our reading tonight reminds us of this.
Luke 12 v 22 – 31
22 He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. 23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! 25And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?* 26If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? 27Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;* yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 28But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will God clothe you—you of little faith! 29And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. 30For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Parent knows that you need them. 31Instead, strive for God’s community, and these things will be given to you as well.
This is one of my favorite verses in all the Bible. It reminds me of a number of things. That God is taking care of me. That God is taking care of our community. And that God calls on me to trust in God’s provision in a deep, deep way… a way that calls for radical trust.
Don Eastman, one of our Elders, and the Vice Moderator of our denomination, has spent much of his life in ministry really exploring what it means to live the call to stewardship in MCC communities. I want to share some of his thinking with you tonight because I think it’s really exciting. And I think it’s really healing and liberating… and I think it makes an awful lot of sense for the kind of community we are here.
Really, the idea is to move away from this whole notion that when we talk about stewardship, all we’re talking about is money. In fact, stewardship is much much bigger than that. It’s holistic. It’s about our whole selves and our whole lives. This is why we chose the theme “stewards of creation” for our month together… to really look at stewardship in a global sense.
So what does this mean for you, for me, here, tonight? Just what are we talking about when we talk about stewardship?
It’s about shalom. The idea of “completeness”. This beautiful idea that God’s desire is for our wholeness. Our well-being. Our growth and healing. And on a very basic level, God’s desire for us to understand love. Not only God’s love, but to understand more and more, how to love ourselves.
For many of us here, this is an ongoing journey. I don’t know about you, but I still wrestle with the ability to love myself in the way that I think God would like me to.
I have a hunch that it breaks God’s heart sometimes when God sees how hard we can be on ourselves… God has such such love for us and yet we sometimes have such a long ways to go to treat ourselves with the same tenderness.
So this is an important part of what we’re talking about when we talk about stewardship. Shalom. Wholeness. Completeness. Peace in our wholeness with and in God.
Our reading from Luke tonight calls for, among other things, deep trust in God. And I think that includes trusting in God’s love. Not just because a church, or a minister, or a worship leader or a song says so… but because God says so. Trusting in that gift.
Stewardship is about “charisma”. Now I know that that word is a hot button word for some of us… it summons up all kinds of ideas and baggage and theology that often get attached to words like “charisma” or “charismatic”.
But what we’re talking about tonight is charisma in the sense of a gift of grace. This is something that you, and you, and you, and you… have been uniquely blessed with. It’s your special skill, interest, ability, talent, or passion … and it will be unique to each one of us here. Even when we seem to share a similar gift, it will come out differently in each one of us. How exciting!
What is your charisma? What is your particular gift? Do you know? Have you discovered it? Are you afraid of discovering it?
I wonder sometimes if we hide our gifts, even from ourselves… because to really own it would be really scary. And to own it publicly… to step forward and say, actually I think I have something to offer here… can be even scarier.
We talk in MCC churches about the “priesthood of all believers”. It’s that idea that every one of us is a minister. That every one of us has a gift to share in ministry in the church.
I think MCC Edinburgh is a special church in this way. I really do. We have so many many people here sharing their gifts, active in ministry. I suspect that we have a much higher percentage of people involved in ministry here than in many MCC’s… and from talking with some of you, even more so than many mainline denominations.
So when we’re talking about stewardship, …we’re also talking about using our personal gifts and talents responsibly. And this isn’t just about MCC Edinburgh. I suspect that we also have an unusually high number of people here who share their gifts, their talents, their energy and their time, in places outside this church.
If this is something you’re already doing, I invite you to take a look during this month at where you are in that journey. Do you feel challenged and excited by how you are using your gifts? Is it time for a new challenge? Or do you want to continue moving more deeply into God’s call in the work you are doing now?
And if this is a new idea to you, I want to invite you to take a look this month at the possibility that there is something very particular that only you can offer… that we need here at MCC Edinburgh.
And I want to invite you to consider taking the risk of discovering what that might be. Talk to me about it. Talk to Jake about it. Talk to one of the ministry team leaders- Cameron, Stephen, Stephen, Margaret, Robin, Bill… about it. Talk to someone on committee about it.
Take a risk! It could be one of the most life-giving things you could do for yourself! What would it mean to think of yourself as a minister!?
And finally, yes. When we talk about stewardship, we talk about money. But just like everything else Jesus taught, we approach this differently too.
Don frames it with the concept of “koinonia”- community. In Jesus’ time, this was about a group of people coming together voluntarily to build a community both spiritually and practically for mutual support and a shared mission…. This act of koinonia became a very real sharing of the Holy Spirit.
Remember, the word “kingdom” in this reading from Luke comes from that word “basileia”… the revolutionary and alternative community that Jesus was trying to build. This is why I chose to translate the word “kingdom” in this reading to “community”.
Alternative community… people coming together voluntarily to create something new, to share a mission… does this sound familiar?
I think we are living koinonia here in MCC Edinburgh. And yes, a part of that is looking at our finances and how we steward- how we care for our financial resources in a way that honors God.
Now again, this isn’t about telling you what you should or shouldn’t do financially. There are some who believe in tithing- in giving a particular percentage of their ongoing income to the church or to other places where they feel called to give. There are some who believe in regular giving- in pledging to give consistently to support the life and work of the church. And there are many who give when they can.
And with all of us… we know that all our gifts are of value. All our gifts become part of that koinonia… that community… to which we are called.
To me, when we talk about money and church… I don’t want to stand up here and try to talk anyone into giving in a particular way.
I do want you to be so excited about what we are doing in this community… so passionate about what we are and what we can be… that you want to give… whether it’s financially, or in your time and abilities.
And maybe most importantly, when we talk about this whole thing of money… I want to invite you to really explore it as a spiritual discipline… as an opportunity to grow more deeply in your relationship with God. That’s going to be different for each one of us.
For some of us who are struggling financially, it may be about really taking tonight’s passage to heart and trusting that God is going to take care of us.
For some of us it may be about really honoring, in our own hearts, the gifts that we already bring to this community and to other communities as well.
For some of us, it may be about taking a look at whether we want to give in a different way than we have up til now… and that may require a leap of faith on our parts.
I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all formula here…. But I do think that at the heart of all of it, has got to be our relationship with God.
Stewardship… being stewards of creation and of the lives God has given us…
it’s about shalom… about accepting and living into God’s wholeness for reach one of us.
It’s about charisma… being willing to risk discovering, sharing, and using our unique gifts in community and ministry…
and it’s about koinonia… being part of this amazing adventure of building a community that is completely different…and being a part of that on practical and spiritual levels.
It’s about a holistic vision for our lives in community and with God.
I guess I want to close by saying that I think we also need to be really kind to ourselves when we’re doing this work. I think for many of us individually this is a learning curve… it’s a process… and it takes time.
I still struggle with a lot of this stuff- I have lots to learn and places where I need to grow in my faith and in my journey around this stuff. And I suspect I’m not alone in that.
And in the same way, we’re on a journey as a community and it’s going to be an ongoing journey… an ongoing conversation. It’s not about one night or one month … it’s about beginning a conversation that we continue over the long term.
And it’s also about celebrating the amazing things we are doing as we continue that conversation! We have so much to celebrate!
We are an incredibly generous, vibrant, alive congregation full of ministry and gifts and creativity and relationship and LIFE! There is much to celebrate here… and I really hope you will feel that sense of celebration throughout all that we do this month.
This sermon was delivered by Rev. Kerri Mesner at MCC Edinburgh on Sunday 1st October 2006.
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