• Home
• Worshiping
• Giving
• Connecting
• Welcoming
• Youth
• Contact
• Site Map

Newsletter

Sign up for our e-newsletter!

Calendar

Friday, May 16

7:00 a.m.
Holy Eucharist - St. Mary's Chapel

7:30 a.m.
Morning Prayer - St. Mary's Chapel

5:30 p.m.
Evening Prayer - St. Mary's Chapel

Saturday, May 17

8:30 a.m.
Morning Prayer - St. Mary's Chapel

4:30 p.m.
Evening Prayer - St. Mary's Chapel

Sunday, May 18

8:00 a.m. - Holy Eucharist I
The Rev. Michael Blewett

9:15 a.m. - Choral Eucharist II
The Rt. Rev. George Wayne Smith

5:30 p.m. - Holy Eucharist II
The Rev. Mike Wheeler

 

Upcoming Events

Confirmation - Sunday, May 18

The Church of St. Michael & St. George
9:15 a.m. Holy Eucharist
(there will be no 11:15 liturgy)

Stewardship Sermon

The Rev. Michael E. Blewett
Sermon for Proper 23, Year C
St. Michael & St. George – October 10, 2004
Luke 17:11-19

A fighter pilot was practicing maneuvers over the desert.  Flying at incredible speeds, he put the jet through its paces.  Wanting to “slip the surly bonds of earth,” he pulled back on the controls for a sheer, vertical ascent, but instead hit the desert sand in a fireball.  He didn’t realize he had been flying upside down. (1)

For decades, perhaps even longer, the church has been flying upside down through a stewardship desert.  I’ve been asked to preach on stewardship, but must confess my growing disenchantment with that term.  So this morning, I want to attempt a high-speed maneuver and offer a way to turn right-side up before we crash and burn.

Steven Covey’s first habit of highly-effective people is to “begin with the end in mind.” (2)  I’d like to offer my own first habit of highly faithful Episcopalians:  “begin with the beginning and end in mind.”  In other words, “Alpha & Omega” everything.

I love the theme we’re using this year, Celebrate Abundance, because it gets the Alpha part right:  celebrating the abundance of what we continually receive.  I’ve lived, just as many of you have, through countless campaigns that start out with a talk on the “Theology of Giving.”  We show proportional giving charts and talk about the 10% biblical tithe (which is a fallacy anyways because there are multiple tithes in the Bible, and I think God is worth more than a ten percent tip.  You give bad waiters more than that!).  Then, when the campaign doesn’t make its goal for the umpteenth year in a row, we all wonder why.  It’s said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. 

In the tenth chapter of Matthew, as Jesus sends his disciples out on their first mission trip, he tells them, “Freely you have received; now freely give.” (3)  This one, little half-verse holds the key to one of our greatest spiritual problems.  We don’t have a giving problem; we have a receiving problem. (4)

Open your inner book of memories and page back to Christmas morning.  What was it like to be a child on that day?  I remember standing at the top of the steps with my siblings, literally shaking in anticipation of receiving the gifts waiting under the tree.  But then I got older, I got married, and now have children of my own.  I’ve taken upon myself the role of giver ___ but not just on Christmas morning; it’s a daily thing now.  I’ve deluded myself into believing that I am a better giver than receiver, which makes it very difficult to shop for me.  Deep down I suspect that I just like to be in control, but it’s more than that.  As a child of God, my basic, my most fundamental relationship to God is that of receiver.  God is the giver, I am the receiver.  The fact that I have more joy in giving than receiving simply means that I’ve been listening more to the serpent than the Spirit.  The serpent tempted Adam to be like God, and does the same with you and me.  Though I am a parent, I am still God’s beloved child.  I tell you the truth; anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

A child hasn’t had the time to accumulate a lot of stuff and they are always on the move.  They’re very unlike most established churches.  English explorer Samuel Hearne, in his journey to the mouth of the Coppermine River, wrote that a few days after they had started on their expedition, a party of natives stole most of their supplies. His comment on the apparent misfortune was: 'The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day's journey was more swift and pleasant.'  How we respond to "losing" some of our resources depends upon whether we are on the move or waiting for our last stand.

One of the things I hope we can lose on this part of our adventure is the word stewardship.  Part of experiencing anything new or any new thing is learning a new vocabulary.  The word stewardship doesn’t serve us well anymore because it is so bound up with a theology of giving without first receiving.  To give a gift implies that we actually owned it to begin with before we gave it.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, everything we have is a trust from God.  We are trustees.  Trustees are legal agents of an estate; they “own” nothing. (5)  The beginning, the Alpha out of which we live, is receiving as a trustee.

The Omega is celebration.  Someone once asked me if I thought the debate of human sexuality would kill mainline churches.  I said no, but if they did die, the most damning thing said during the visitation at the funeral home would be, “They threw lovely parties, but didn’t know how to celebrate.”  Traditional stewardship asks, “How are you going to use what you have?”  Trusteeship asks, “How will you celebrate the abundance with which you have been entrusted?”

So important is celebration, that God instructed the children of Israel to institute a “party tithe.”  You can read about it in Deuteronomy 14 where God says, “…you shall spend the tithe for whatever your heart desires; you shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.”  So important is celebration, that the fulfillment of all creation is represented in Revelation as a great marriage celebration for Christ and his Church.  You didn’t get out of bed to “come to church”, but to celebrate the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving.

You may be waiting for me to address the question, “So how much?”  In my time as a priest, I’ve had several answers to that question and have usually landed in one of two places.  I’ve said, “It’s just between you and God,” thereby giving no guidance, or I’d end up setting a standard that induced guilt.  Recently, I’ve said things like, “Instead of asking how much of your money you should give to God, ask yourself how much of God’s money you’re going to keep.”  But that’s not very life-giving either.  I don’t have a set amount or even a set percentage to recommend, but I do have a question for you.

If our Alpha is going to be a posture of receiving as trustees and our Omega is celebration, then the question I want you to play with for the next few weeks is:  How much will it cost this year to grow your soul?  Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”  It can expensive to grow a soul big enough to fill up an abundant life, and every soul is different.  My soul expands walking through the woods; other folks need symphony tickets.

I don’t recommend set amounts because not only is every soul different, but each soul has different needs in different seasons.  As a trustee, there are seasons of your life (for instance the season of having two kids in college and two in braces) when you might need more than 90% of what has been entrusted to you.  That’s fine; there are also going to be other seasons in you life when you may only need ten or twenty percent.  Just make it a point to entrust it all away before you go.

I’ve begun to dream about what the Church could look like if we emptied our arms enough receive, with indescribable joy, the abundant life of God.  I envision a church that not just welcomes children, but is comprised of disciples who know they are God’s children.  What would it be like if the world looked at us and saw not just the church, but recognized the Body of Christ ___ a Body that not only walks on water, but soars through the heavens ___ a Body that slips the surly bonds of the kingdom of this world and lives the life of God?