11/17/24 Matthew 6:19-21
I grew up in a small suburb of Youngstown, Ohio called
Girard. It was a working class town that bordered the edge of Youngstown where
the old steel mills sat and where the Italian immigrants settled and where you
can still find great Italian food. My Orthodox mother and my
Congregationalist dad needed to find a church to get their baby baptized when
they moved into town and so they agreed on the United Methodist Church
downtown. I was that baby. I grew up learning Bible stories from felt boards
and leaflets taught by loving volunteers who told stories of how I screamed in
the nursery as a baby. I was part of the pack of kids that ran around in
sagging tights and stiff dresses while the adults all talked at coffee hour in
the parish hall. I went to church picnics and Wednesday night Youth Club and
nervously did the motions to the children’s musical. I passed notes on the
backs of bulletins with my sister and got scolded when the giggles got too
loud. My parents led the youth group for a while when my sister was a teenager
and I was still in the single digits and while they led the meetings, the
custodian showed my sister and I where to find the big wheels and let us ride
them around the downstairs. I went to lock-ins and helped pick up all the
rubber darts from the dart guns before the worship service started.
And
when I was 13 it was time for confirmation classes. Every Wednesday after
school I sat in a room with other 13 year-olds and learned about the Christian
faith. This was a step up from leaflets and felt boards, this was the deep
stuff. We talked through various scenarios and how to make decisions based on
our faith and it was taught by the actual pastor. The one who stood up front in
the fancy robes was sitting around the table with us, a bunch of 13 year-olds
and he let us … even encouraged us to ask questions. A pivotal moment in my
life was the day he brought out the easel and markers and said “ok, ask any
questions you have about church, God, religion … anything.” After he started
writing down people’s questions, even the silly ones, I could see he was
sincere, so I let loose. I asked all of the questions that were being stored up
in my mind for all those years of listening to sermons and hearing Bible
stories. I even asked the big ones like “why do bad things happen to good
people.” Here’s the interesting thing about that. I can picture clearly that
moment. I can picture the creepy clown picture on the wall, I can picture the
pastor, the marker on the easel, the feel of the chair I was sitting in, but I
can’t remember at all what the answers were or if he even gave answers.
Something profound happened in that moment of being invited to share my
questions and thoughts about faith and being taken seriously and that is the
moment at which my call to ordained ministry began. It was when I realized that
all that church stuff and all the hymns and all the Bible stories and all the
faith lessons …. They were for me too, not just the adults, not just my
parents. It was as if in the invitation to ask those faith questions, God was
inviting me into a relationship- a dynamic, deep, living, vibrant relationship.
And it changed my life.
Soon
after the confirmation service, I got mail. When you are thirteen you are not
yet jaded by bills and advertisements and so mail with your name on it is
exciting. It was addressed to me and it was a box and in that box were
envelopes with different colors around the edges and a number in the corner and
my name on each one. That’s right, I got offering envelopes and I was floored.
I was a full-fledged part of the church with my own name on my own envelopes
and I got to give my own money to God. And I did. I figured out ten percent of
my allowance, birthday money and eventually pay checks from the dairy queen and
gave my tithe and every time I put it in the offering plate it reinforced for
me that this faith stuff, church, God, all of it was something I get to be a
part of. I am seen, I am needed, I am important to the body of Christ.
Years
later after I was ordained and I was serving as an associate pastor of a large
United Methodist Church, the Senior Pastor asked me to attend a “Stewardship
Academy” that the conference was hosting. I thought it would be presentations
on the various stewardship programs churches can use and looking at what works
well and which aspects of various programs folks have found meaningful. There
was some of that, but mostly it was about the theology of giving. We looked at
Bible passages related to tithing and giving from the Old Testament to the New
Testament and looked at thoughts about giving over the history of the Church.
Through all of it, the main point that came up again and again was that giving
is an opportunity, it is an invitation to participate in worship through our
gifts. Or as Chris Cassidy said last Sunday in his testimony, it is “where we
can worship God from what we have.”
I
have been to a lot of fund-raisers as I am sure you have as well. I have
listened to speeches on why I should give to various causes, received endless
asks for money through the mail and participated in many drives and benefits.
Typically, those will focus on what your money pays for. Like if you give to
this organization, your gift will provide this many meals to someone in need.
Or if you give to this university, your gift will help a scholarship for this
many students. These are all important causes and helping people understand
where their money will go is important, especially in these days of constant
scams and hacks, but stewardship is different than say … public radio’s annual
pledge drive. It is participating in worship, an opportunity and a calling. We
give in response to God’s abundant love, not because we expect to get something
from it but because we are part of a relationship with God through the church.
And
of course we believe in responsible money management, transparency, and proper
budgeting, but stewardship is also about trust. The Gospel reading in Matthew
is a beautiful passage about where to invest our hearts. Jesus says “where your
treasure is, your heart is.” But this passage does not stand alone, it is part
of a series of teachings of Jesus and soon after this, Jesus says “Therefore I
tell you, do not worry about your life …” and then the familiar passage about
considering the lilies and how God clothes even the grass of the field. It
makes sense that a passage about storing one’s treasures in heaven rather than
on earth, would be followed soon after with instructions to not worry. Giving
is about trust. It is about trusting in the work of building the Kingdom of
God. It is about drowning out the voices of panic and urgency over worldly
things and investing in something more lasting, more trustworthy, more
connected to our souls. We trust that God is the source of creation and that
placing our hearts and our faith and our gifts with God is how we do the work
of building the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven.
It’s
also about God’s trust in us. Stewardship is about right use of resources. God
entrusts creation to us, a bold move that at times may seem hard to believe,
but nevertheless, here we are, entrusted with the care of what God has created.
So our call to stewardship is a call to mutual trust, a call to a relationship,
a call to be part of the body of Christ, part of the work of God, to claim our
faith as our own and accept the invitation into a relationship with God.
Over
the past 10 months since my husband was elected Bishop of the Diocese of
Albany, I have had the privilege of getting to experience and worship with
folks from all across the diocese. On most Sundays, the kids and I go with him
as he visits churches around the Diocese. And each week it is a fresh
experience of the work of the Holy Spirit through the Church. Each week we
experience the familiar words of the Book of Common Prayer but in very
different ways. And each week we get to meet people and hear stories of how
they have experienced Christ in their lives. And the kids get to experience a
lot of cake. In Schenevus I met Matt who is a young adult and plays the organ
for the small group of dedicated parishioners in a small church on the top of a
hill. His grandmother taught him to play the organ at a young age so the church
would have music and he has not only stuck with it, but given his heart to the
work of Christ through that church. He is also a high school teacher and he and
Nancy, the priest, are working with a group of students at the high school to
get a grant to establish a pantry with clothes and resources for students. The
members of the church will wash, fold and sort clothes so that every family is
provided for. In Coxsackie, I met Frank, the priest of the church who works
full time, serves as a fireman and pastors two churches. He and his wife Misty
are active in the motorcycle community and have created a genuine family feel
at the church. People come in with their leather vests and bandannas and leave
their motorcycles in the parking lot while they stand and say the Nicene Creed
and kneel for the Eucharist. In Potsdam we walked into a church full of young
families and crawling babies for a confirmation service. The mayor of the town
and her children told us about what the church means to them. At Paul Smith’s
Chapel we were ushered onto a boat after service that took us to coffee hour on
an island where the hosts told us about how generations of their family devoted
themselves to that church and the community. And here in this church my family
has experienced your hospitality as teenagers served us delicious pancakes on
Shrove Tuesday, I got to participate in the ecumenical Good Friday service here
and was moved to tears at the heartfelt messages the clergy gave and just last
week joined in recognizing and celebrating the work that Healing a Women’s Soul
does for victims of domestic violence. Again and again I have been reminded
that the Holy Spirit is at work here in this church, in this diocese and in
this world, in unexpected ways and through all kinds of places and people and
it has renewed my trust and my joy in offering my gifts.
As
I reflect back on my journey of giving, I feel a bit of longing for those days
of innocent trust when I got those first offering envelopes. As we age it seems
that the cares and worries of life become heavier. The world gets scarier and
more uncertain and the call to trust and faith feels harder to follow. There’s
always so much noise, so many voices wanting our attention, so many things to
attend to, so much to worry about, so many people trying to convince us to
spend more, do more, want more and care less about others. It can be hard to
hear the voice of God, hard to discern the way forward, hard to hold on to
faith, and so we gather together and we try to wrap our minds around the
abundance and magnitude of God’s love for us and then we keep answering that
invitation to a relationship, offering what we have and investing in hope …
together.
