28B, Stewardship

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Our worship service can be described as having two halves. The liturgy of the word and the Great Thanksgiving. The first half of our liturgy “the liturgy of the Word” encompasses the portion of the service which begins with the opening acclamation and extends until the passing of the peace.

This is when we hear the words of scripture, framed by our prayers and reflection.

The latter half surrounds our celebration of the Eucharist. It is when we gather, metaphorically, around the table we call “God’s table” the place where we celebrate, with the entirety of the communion of saints, God’s great gift to us in the form of God’s son. Transcending time and space, extending the past into the present and beyond, we are invited to give thanks with the very substance of our being.

This is what we do here. These are the prayers that shape our life of faith. And, one of my responsibilities as your priest is to help connect our life here in community to our lives out in the world--to serve as a translator for ancient rituals and words so that we might better understand how our lives are interwoven into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  

The sermon is one of the tools I have in order to help bridge the ancient text with our modern lives. The sermon or, if it’s short, the homily immediately follows the Gospel, and is considered an extension of the word of God. An extension, not because the preacher is infallible (I’m not) but because the sermon emerges as a response to the Gospel—connecting the words we have heard in scripture to our context in the here and the now.

Which is why, it seemed fitting to place Graham’s stewardship testimonial within this context—as a response to the Gospel, the good news of God in Christ. Sit with that for a moment and consider--our giving--of time and talent and treasure--is a response to the good news. Our participation, in whatever form it might take, is a response to God’s word to us. I want to be very clear, we can’t all give at the same level, because our abilities and resources vary—but, it is our shared offering given within the context of a community that supports each other, that allows us to be the Church. So, whether it is money, time, skills, or a mixture of the three, it is the collective offering that allows our community to not just survive but thrive.

So today, I have the amazing task of connecting our annual giving campaign, apocalyptic scripture, the church year, and our global context.

[pause]

A connection that I make through hope. Hope. Christian hope that leads us to believe that no matter what happens in these times, new and better life WILL come.

Annual giving is a sign of hope. Apocalyptic scripture is a genre of hope. The church year is defined by the hope of new life. Our global context demands action grounded in hope.   

Hope is what knits us, and all of this, together.

And, so this is the place where I turn, more explicitly, to the scripture we have heard today--specifically, to the passage we heard from the letter to the Hebrews. Emerging sometime between 60 and 80 CE, the letter is written by an unknown author, who is wrestling with the problem of congregational decline. To sum up the historical context of the letter, the initial enthusiasm of newcomers to the Church has faded in the face of a culture that doesn’t support Christians in religious devotion or adherence.

This is a problem the author of the letter to the Hebrews seeks to address through theological formation—reminding the community of the nature of Christ in order to remind them of the “why” of their being.

Let us revisit the text,

“Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Be confident in God’s love! Hold fast to hope! Encourage one another! Gather in community!

All the author of Hebrews needs is a set of pom-poms for this routine—rallying the community around a central cause, a central identity, and renewed enthusiasm. And, doing so within a context of fear and uncertainty—a context that feels familiar to our own times. A time in which our global and national awareness bring fire, famine, and flood, wars and rumors of war, into our homes and our churches.

Good news?

Jesus’s encouragement, “do not be alarmed” is encouragement to calm in the midst of the storm. It is an encouragement to hope, in the midst of hard times. It is an encouragement to hold fast to what is true, and just, and good, in the face of lies, and injustice, and evil.

Because, it is hope that brings us through. It is our shared effort grounded in hope, that will prove essential in this world where all are, indeed, needed. The world needs hope, and it is our responsibility to recognize our power and potential as Christians and as stewards of this earth to bring hope to these times.

I want to share the encouragement I found in the words of Dominican Sister Miriam Therese MacGillis an ecological activist and founder of Genesis Farm--words in which she reminds us of the centrality of hope in our perpetuation of God’s salvation story:

“It is no accident that we've been born in these times, that we find our lives unfolding now, with our particular histories and gifts, our brokenness, our experience, and our wisdom. It is not an accident. In talking about the fate of the earth, we know that its fate is really up for grabs. There are no guarantees as to its future. It is a question of our own critical choices. Perhaps what we need most is a transforming vision, a vision that's deep enough, one that can take us from where we are to a new place; one that opens the future up to hope. More than anything, we must become people of hope.”

At its core, the genre of apocalypse is a genre of hope.

So, let us encourage one another so that we might, indeed, become people of hope.

Amen.