(Stewardship sermon)
Genesis 17:1-8,15-22
Rev. Deborah Church Worley
November 10, 2019
White Rock Presbyterian Church
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless…[and] I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring afer you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.’” (Genesis 17:1,7)
So this is it. My first stewardship sermon. Yikes!
And not lectionary based. Which is hard!
I have to say, for these past several weeks when I have not been preaching from the lectionary texts, it has been hard! I do not like it! It feels backwards–it’s me coming up with a theme, or having a very general theme to work with, and then finding a scripture passage to go with it. That just doesn’t feel quite right to me. At least for the other three sermons, though, I had a starting point: the book of Acts. Pretty broad, but at least a place to start. For today’s sermon, though, I basically had the whole Bible to choose from! As long as what I chose would go with the theme of stewardship.
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. 🙂 You can give me your impressions after the service…..
But now, on to stewardship.
Which is not, as we all know, the same as fund-raising…although it is often thought to be.
I’m hoping to get away from that feeling by the end of my sermon. You can give me your impressions of that after the service, too….. 🙂
Because stewardship sermons have a tendency to cause both the preacher and the people in the pews to feel a little squirmy and awkward and uncomfortable, I’m going to try to ease some of that by starting with a funny story that I came across as I was doing my research for this sermon….
It’s actually the story line of a short film produced by a company called InLighten Films, which was founded by the man in the picture, Scott Galloway, who is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Presbyterian pastors. This is what it says about him on the company’s website:
“Scott has worked in the entertainment industry for 30 years, writing and directing feature and short films [and] television shows for 16 networks. [Particularly as a ‘PK’] Scott has directly observed the challenges pastors face in preparing to preach and connecting with parishioners from the pulpit. InLighten Films is Scott’s way of [helping with that].”
This film, that I’m about to describe, is his effort, he says, to “help spark conversations about what we give and how we make decisions about our giving.”
So, in the spooky spoof, a woman descends into her dark basement, peers into her freezer…and screams. She removes what she’s discovered from her freezer and takes it to her local butcher, asking for his advice on what to do with it.
“Where did you find this?” he asks her, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“Basement freezer,” she whispers.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says. “2003? A 16-year-old frozen turkey?”
“Is it safe?” the woman asks.
“It’s not going to taste very good,” the butcher tells her. “It’s going to be pretty rubbery. You should probably toss it.”
“No,” she says. “Let me have it.”
“You sure?” he asks, handing it over to her.
“Yes. I’ll give it to the church,” she says, clutching the turkey almost lovingly and exiting the shop wearing a satisfied smile as the film concludes.
Stewardship.
What is it?
We all know that stewardship is not the same thing as fund-raising. Right? Stewardship is not just asking for money. Stewardship is a way of life, a way of living, a way of being in the world. It’s a Christian discipline, right?
It’s the practice of becoming increasingly aware of all that God has given to us, all that God has done for us, that, indeed, everything we have has come from God, that everything we have, ultimately, belongs to God, and has been given to us in trust, to care for and use faithfully; and as a consequence of that increasing awareness, the practice moves into living with greater gratitude and trust; and as a consequence of that, living with ever-expanding generosity and freedom, which leads to ever more open hearts and hands, and, yes, wallets.
What’s not to like about stewardship?? Except maybe that “ever-more-open-wallets” piece….
Why do we get so squirmy about it?? Maybe it’s that “ever-more-open-wallets” piece…
The author of one of the articles I read, a pastor whose job it is to go around talking with other pastors and churches about stewardship, had this to say about his approach: He said that people tend to get nervous about what will be taken from them when the church starts talking about stewardship.
He tells them that the practice of faithful stewardship is for their benefit. “It’s not that I want something FROM you,” he tells them. “It’s that I want something FOR you.”
We, as faithful stewards, as faithful caretakers, of all that has been entrusted to us by God–our bodies, our gifts and talents, our strengths and our weaknesses, our time and energy, our financial resources, our stories–when we are faithful stewards of all of that, yes, others around us will benefit…but we will, too. Right?
We’ll grow in our faith, our trust in God will deepen, the tightness of our grip on all of that stuff will loosen, and we will live with more freedom and integrity and joy!
What is not to like about that??
“It’s not that I want something FROM you; it’s that I want something FOR you.”
But how do we get there?
How do we get from the place where American culture tends to lead us and leave us, which is clenching our fists, holding tightly to our stuff, guarding our resources, taking care of ourselves and those we love first and foremost–not necessarily exclusively, but certainly first and foremost–and in all of these ways celebrating the glorious freedom of individualism….
How do we get from there, to the place Jesus calls us to, which is to be part of the beloved community, where everyone’s needs are met, and everyone’s gifts acknowledged, where all contributions are equally celebrated, and all needs, equally cared for, where binary categories like us/them, insider/outsider, foreigner/citizen, gay/straight, powerful/powerless, haves/have-nots, etc., are no longer relevant because everyone has a place of value in the body of Christ?
How do we get there??
And what does this have to do with stewardship?
And Abraham and Sarah?? 🙂
I think we get there, in part, by dreaming.
By imagining.
By having a vision–a vision for who God is calling us to be, a vision for what our future might look like, a vision for where God is leading us.
I think we get there, in part, by having a vision, and by living into it…
So what’s our vision?
What are our dreams?
How do we see ourselves living into God’s vision for us?
That’s what the paper in your bulletin is for–to write down your dreams for WRPC.
Don’t think about whether it’s feasible. Don’t discount it because it seems silly. Don’t not share it because you don’t want to be in charge of making it happen! 🙂 You don’t even have to put your name on it. Just dream for a moment….
And while you do, while you think, while you let those stirrings in your heart bubble up and maybe come out, I’m going to share with you a few of my dreams….
Of course, one of my dreams is to see more people sitting here with us–but not so that our membership number is higher, not so that we have more people to give more money, not so that we have more people to do more work; I dream of having more people sitting here with us because I believe deep in my soul in the good news of the Gospel. I believe that we have something good and valuable and important to share, and I believe that those people for whom we are waiting have things that are good and valuable and important to share with us.
Of course, those people could be any people. But my dream is to see more people who don’t necessarily look like us–
I’d like to see people who haven’t felt welcome in other churches, feel welcome here;
I’d like to see people who have been hurt by other churches, find healing here;
I’d like to see people who have a bone to pick with the church, find a place here to pick that bone…and still feel welcome and accepted;
I’d like to see people who have never felt the church had anything to offer them, find something here….
Another dream I have is to see us spending a week with our Navajo brothers and sisters, living among them, working alongside them, learning from them, recognizing that our healing and wholeness is intimately connected to their healing and wholeness, and rejoicing in our shared membership in the body of Christ….
I’d like to see WRPC be the place people in the community think to call when there’s a need–whether we can meet that need directly or do what we can to help meet that need….
I dream of us being known as a community of faith that is grounded in the Reality of God’s Love, even though it is really hard to stay there; I dream of us being known as a community of faith that is committed to walking in the Way of Jesus, even when it is inconvenient and uncomfortable; I dream of us being known as a community of faith that is led and emboldened by the Holy Spirit, even if that means some people roll their eyes and think we’re a little kooky….
I dream of us being known as a community of faith that is engaged in the neighborhood, relevant to day-to-day living, and made up of ordinary folks who look like they’re doing ordinary things…but in reality, are living and working as agents of God’s extraordinary love and healing and reconciliation and peace….
Those are some of my dreams, some of the visions I believe God has planted in me, for us, some of the things I get excited thinking about, that create stirrings deep in my soul…
What about you?
What’s stirring in your soul?
What’s bubbling up in you, for us?
You’re doing good things here.
You’ve been doing good things here for over fifty years.
We’re on the right track.
But as Will Rogers said…and this is another quote I stumbled upon that I thought was too good to not share:
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” 🙂
God is at work here.
Jesus is alive here.
The Holy Spirit is moving here!
Let’s move with Her!
Oh–stewardship… 🙂
And Abraham and Sarah… 🙂
God promised Abraham that God would be in an everlasting covenant relationship with Abraham and Sarah and all of their offspring after them, throughout the generations….
We are among those offspring, and God’s covenant is with us, too, just as much as it was with Abraham and Sarah, and Moses, and David, and Ruth, and Jeremiah, and Mary, and Jesus, and Paul, and Timothy.
God’s promises of steadfast faithfulness, of everlasting love, of tender care, of unshakeable peace and deep healing–all of God’s promises were not just for the people in the Bible; they’re for us, too.
And the more we claim those promises, the more we live into God’s reality; and the more we live into God’s reality, the more we realize that everything we have comes from and belongs to God, and the more we live from a place of gratitude and trust, and the more we live into an attitude of freedom and joy…and the more we live with open hearts and hands…and, yes, wallets.
But for today…just dream with me.
Dream with me and with God,
And let’s see what happens.
Amen.
Rev. Deborah Beloved Church (aka "Pastor Deb") 