16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
22 July 2012
For the past several weeks in worship, our texts have been guiding us as we’ve been focusing on Biblical Giving and Biblical Living ... in other words, discipleship, hearing Jesus’ call to come and follow him, through the smooth times as well as those times of chaos.
We’ve also been seeing how our year-long focus on Baptism ... and this season’s Word, “flowing streams of living water,” ... can lead and guide us along the way.
For it’s our baptism ... not what we do, but what God does for us, that makes us members of the Church, disciples of Jesus, pilgrims who are seeking and finding along the way of Biblical Giving and Biblical Living ... let’s once again turn to our Catechetical Word, this morning on page 11, and recite it as written:
A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.
This week’s Gospel, takes the pieces of Mark’s Word immediately preceding and following the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 (next week, we enter into John’s gospel’s series on the “Bread of Life” texts, so we’ll get that feeding story from John’s gospel next Sunday, in a Word brought by our bishop).
Without the “bread” in the middle, this may seem like just another week’s focus on Jesus’ healing, Jesus working, Jesus and the disciples being pressed by the crowds.
Ah, but then we’d be missing the whole point of this text, and the Word it brings to us about our discipleship walk with Jesus.
Namely ... the Word Jesus has for his disciples in the first few verses:
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.
(Jesus) said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’
We take up here where we left off two weeks ago ... before last week’s chaos-laden interlude-word on the demise of John the Baptist ... here, now, the disciples have returned after Jesus’ sending them out two weeks ago, that sending out, as you may recall, which was a lesson for them (and us)in how Jesus teaches discipleship:
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Right here at the beginning, this week, Jesus listens as the disciples tell him all about what it had been like, preaching, teaching, healing ... acting, Biblically living, in Jesus’ name.
And then it sounds like, he asks them to go away on vacation with him. Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.
Certainly we can understand taking a rest after a hard time of working. That’s what that word vacation literally means ... after days and weeks of busy-ness, we vacate, we empty, we want time for nothing, nothing at all.
Those Corona Beer ads on television illustrate this point perfectly ... when the commercial starts, someone or someones are busy busy busy ... but then magically, they’re transported away, to a scene full of ... nothing. Two chairs, on a tropical beach, people’s suntanned backs, knocking together a couple of Coronas. The ultimate vacation ... beer, and nothing.
But is that really what Jesus is inviting the disciples to do here? Come away with him, after they’ve been hard at work, no, to come away with him to just sit around and do nothing?
Let’s take a look at that word rest. Literally, its meaning is less like the Corona ad, but more like another ... Sabbath.
Ah, Sabbath. An much-misunderstood word in our Christian vocabulary.
Most of the time we hear “Sabbath,” we think of old times, Sabbath meaning Sunday, a day when the stores weren’t open and all you did was go to church and have a nice chicken and dumplings dinner. Quaint old days which are long gone now, because we need to shop and run errands and play sports and do all those other things on Sunday that we can’t do the rest of the week because we’re so, so busy busy busy with everything.
But that’s not what Sabbath means for Biblical Givers, Biblical Livers.
Neither does it mean the overly-legalistic view which Jesus spoke and acted against in the Gospels ... that rigid view held by the religious leaders of his day, Sabbath day being a day when absolutely nothing would be done or else it was against the Law ... God’s Law ... no healings, no miracles, nothing at all could Jesus “legally” do.
So what does Sabbath mean?
We get that word Sabbath from the Third Commandment, Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Martin Luther’s explanation fills out the explanation of holy a little more for us:
• We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God’s word, but instead keep that word holy and gladly hear and learn it.
Sabbath, then, isn’t vacation. It’s time, given by God, for re-freshment, re-energizing, re-connecting with God and others.
A professor of mine at Luther Seminary succinctly sums up this third commandment in light of the first two:
God made us for work and worship. And God also gives us a day off! Imagine that!
But as part of that day off, God wants to have a Word with us ... listen and learn.
Sabbath isn’t the end of anything ... the end of work, the end of a project, like the old song goes, “everybody’s working for the weekend.”
No, Sabbath ... the rest of God ... the rest into which Jesus invites his disciples in this text ... and, us as well, his disciples today, walking wet in his flowing streams of living water, living into his Biblical Giving and Biblical Living ... that Sabbath, that rest ... it is the starting place for our work.
Disciples, followers of Jesus, Biblical Givers and Biblical Livers ... they, we, rather than resting from our work, we work from our rest. Rest ... Sabbath ... comes first ... is the priority ... the place into which Jesus invites us first on our discipleship journey.
And yes, of course, there will be plenty of work to do along the way. There always, always is. Note how in the remaining verses of our Gospel reading, Jesus and the disciples barely get ashore, when they are met with all those people, with all their needs.
This kind of rest is the antidote for “burnout.” When we start with rest, real Sabbath rest, time spent with God in meditation, thought, worship ... time spent with others in community and conversation ... we’ll get to hear God’s voice, through others, helping us discover our gifts for serving. We will be encouraged, strengthened, given space and time to explore in the flowing streams of living water, living out our baptismal calling to service, doing what we’re gifted in rather than just because “someone needs to do it.”
And another word about that ... whole faith communities together can and do change because working from rest teaches us that there are seasons to this life of serving, Biblical Giving and Biblical Living. Here’s an example. Several years ago some of the leaders of Nativity wanted to get our congregation to participate in the ARISE program of feeding and serving homeless men in the Renton area. But we needed a champion or champions for the project ... and at that time there wasn’t anyone who stepped forward. So we decided that this must mean that it wasn’t Nativity’s time to serve in the ARISE program yet. And we waited. We waited and prayed until someone ... someones ... did come forward to help lead us into this way of serving here through food and fellowship with the homeless men of Renton.
Working from our rest allows us to do this ... to see our inability to participate ‘right now’ ... not as a “failure,” but instead, as an opportunity for us all to grow, in prayer, in conversation with each other, exploring our gifts and desires and different ways of how we feel called to serve.
And so that’s what this text calls us to, this week, as we conclude this month-long exploration of what it means to be Biblical Givers, Biblical Livers ... it all begins in our baptism, what Jesus does for us, that calls and gathers and feeds and strengthens and sends us forth, to give, to live, to serve in his name in the world.
And then ... we work from our rest. Sabbath comes first, time for God, time with God, prayer, worship, communion and community, from which we’re sent, refreshed, renewed for service, enlivened for Biblical Giving and Biblical Living, the discipleship walk into which we are called.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
15 July 2012
“Embracing the chaos”
Mark 6:14-29
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
15 July 2012
We all know them ... others around us, family, friends ... or, perhaps, “them” is us.
People for whom, chaos is part of their entourage.
Wherever they go, whatever they do ... like Charlie Brown’s “Pigpen” trailing a cloud of dust, so they ... or maybe, we ... enter in, carry on, and leave ... with nothing but problems, uproar, disquiet, panic, and DRAMA.
And ... like Pigpen, the dust of their, or perhaps our own, life-chaos swirls around and sticks to everyone and everything who, which has the unfortunate circumstance of being there with them, with us.
The chaos-bringer’s problems become everyone’s problems. Their uproar, everyone’s uproar ... disquiet ... panic ... and DRAMA. OH, the DRAMA!!!
So what do you do ... assuming you’re not the chaos-bringer, but only an innocent bystander ... what do you do when you’re faced with the chaos-storm bearing down on you?
Well, there’s two approaches into which we usually fall.
Sometimes, the chaos is successful in its quest to stir up more and more chaos, more and more drama, and we feel like we’re helplessly sucked into it. High panicked voices, potty-mouth cursing, uncontrollable dramatic sobbing and so on breed more of the same in an epidemic ... either of our merging right into the maelstrom of melodrama ... or, our actively trying to fight it off. Surrender ... or emotional confrontation. They can sound the same, from a distance. All the voices are raised, all the eyes drip tears.
Then there’s the other approach ... detach and disengage. Ignore the drama and the dramatist, the chaos-maker, the chaos-waker ... perhaps offer some benign words of consolation ... there there, it’s going to be OK... and run away as fast as possible. Who needs their life-garbage anyway? I’m busy and have enough going on in my own life ... I don’t want to be bothered.
And yet ... neither of those are a faithful approach for the ones who are called to follow Jesus. As we continue our Ordinary Time -green-season instruction-rich walk through these early chapters of Mark’s gospel, this week we once again find ourselves faced with words, a story, on what it means to be Biblical Givers and Biblical Live-rs ... however, this time, it’s not through a story about Jesus and his disciples, but rather, the One Who Came Before ... John the Baptist.
How appropriate for us, Nativity, to be hearing a story about the Baptist this morning ... the one who was there at Jesus’ baptism, the beginning point of Jesus’ public ministry.
As we continue in our year-long focus on baptism, we recall that it is God’s Baptismal Word ... forgiveness and new life ... that makes the difference for us.
It is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Givers.
And it is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Live-rs.
Biblical Giving and Biblical Living are at the core of what Discipleship means ... Discipleship ... WALKING WET IN GOD’S BAPTISMAL WORD.
Let’s rehearse that word once again this morning ... from the back pages of the bulletin:
A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.
And today’s Gospel text, as I said, offers us fine instruction on how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... of Jesus.
First, though, we have to encounter another chaos-bringer. It’s Herod ... not the King Herod who is mentioned in the Christmas story ... but instead, his son, Herod Antipas, who after his father’s death ruled under Caesar a quarter of Herod the Great’s kingdom.
The text starts today with Herod having heard of “it” ... and it was everything we’ve also heard about in the past few weeks ... the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of sending out others in his name, that four-fold path of discipleship learning and building we discussed last week:
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Jesus had sent out his disciples to do his work in his name, and doubtless having twelve Jesus-followers out and about increased the chatter in Herod’s kingdom about Jesus. And so Herod, just like everyone else, was trying to figure out just who this Jesus was.
But the clouds from his chaos-trail obscured the truth for him. Herod thought that it was John the Baptist at work again.
Herod’s chaos-trail is laid out clearly in this text we have before us today. He – Herod Antipas – had divorced his first wife – that was a politically expedient marriage, for he’d married the daughter of a neighboring king ... Herod Antipas has divorced his first wife and remarried the divorced wife of his own brother Herod Philip ... kind of a first century version of wife swap. Drama drama drama! From other historical sources we know that the neighboring king whose daughter Herod Antipas had married ... for political expediency ... and then divorced ... that king was in an uproar... understandably so. We don’t know for sure, but most likely Herod Philip was in an uproar too ... his wife, and daughter, gone from him and now part of his brother’s household.
That wife, Herodias ... she most certainly aided and abetted the chaos and drama in this story ... as it says, she
...had a grudge against (John) and wanted to kill him.
But Herod didn’t. Herod actually listened to John, and protected him.
NOT out of respect and honor ... that old fashioned sense of the word “fear,” like being in awe of someone ... no, the word Mark uses here is the one meaning plain-old shaking in the boots being scared. Herod was scared of who John was, the Word he carried, the God (and that God’s consequences) of whom, of which John spoke.
And yet ... and yet ... despite all of that ... the chaos-train flowing behind Herod ... not flowing streams of living water, but rushing muddy torrents of drama, fear and chaos ... that ended up swallowing Herod whole. Herod had too much to drink at a banquet ... he watched his stepdaughter dance before him (we can only guess what kind of a dance it was ... how her mother put her up to it ... how she – Herodias - knew what Herod would say, and do, as a result) ... Herod got trapped in his own honor-and-shame trap ... to keep his word meant honor, to break it meant shame ... and John lost his head.
But there’s more to say here about John. John, for his part, when he encountered Herod’s chaos ... John took the third way. When faced with the chaos-train Herod and his family and his entourage were dragging in after them, John did not disengage and turn a blind eye, nor did he get sucked into the anxiety, either by actively combating it or fighting to resist.
John just, simply, told Herod, “King, this isn’t right.”
This isn’t right. Perhaps that’s what we’ve also been saying to ourselves, in this strange way to spend this Sunday morning, hearing a story like this. Blood and guts before brunch. There’s a panel, a piece of medieval art in the Art Institute in Chicago, which graphically depicts this whole story. Even the bright colors and the way painters painted the human figure 800 years ago is not entertaining enough to remove the horror of this story from us.
So why is this story part of Mark’s story to, for us – as Mark titles his Gospel, “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?”
One commentator says that this story is a living illustration of a parable Jesus tells which comes a little earlier in Mark’s gospel ... one that sometimes comes around at this time of the year when gardens have sprouted and are bearing good produce ... fruits and vegetables ... the bounty of the summer. The parable is that of the sower and the seed ... some seed falls on the path, some on the rocks, some among the thorns, and some on good soil. It’s an illustration of how the Word of the Gospel ... the Good News of Jesus ... “takes” or doesn’t in people’s lives.
Herodias and the others in Herod’s chaos-train ... they’re certainly examples of the seed of the Word falling among the rocks. The Good News didn’t stand a chance with them.
But Herod ... the text said that Herod listened to John. The Word had a chance. It had even started to take root in Herod’s life.
But then ... but then it got choked out, by the weeds which surround Herod. Herodias ... his stepdaughter’s dance ... the other officials ... that honor-and-shame gerbil wheel Herod couldn’t get off or out of ... what will they say of me? What will they think of me?? ... and that was the end for John.
And there is another, larger answer to that question, “why is this story part of Mark’s story to, for us?”
It is, quite simply, a preview of the Cross. This whole episode, this whole story, absent as it is of the written word about Jesus ... and yet, and yet it is a harbinger, a prediction, of what will happen to Jesus soon enough ... and, in some way, to all who heed Jesus’ call to discipleship, to Walking Wet in the Flowing Streams of Living Water that is, that are God’s Baptismal Word to and for us.
John’s manner and demeanor points to Jesus ... taking that third way; when faced with chaos, John, like Jesus later on in his Passion story ... here, John neither surrenders to nor emotionally confronts it ... nor does he disconnect, disengage and detach.
John’s is the non-anxious presence ... he quietly, calmly lays out the larger Truth ... and offers a choice: you may remain in the chaos, and let your life be tempest tossed in the face of it ... or, you may embrace the chaos ... instead of flailing and fighting against it, instead of disconnecting and disengaging, see how you are one with it ... and then, carefully, prayerfully, take steps to change your life.
In other words ... the non anxious presence tells the Truth, lives the Truth, and offers the Word that will guide others into that Truth.
The Truth of love, and life, and service, all in Jesus’ name.
And then ... and then ... it goes on to the end ... for there are always risks involved in embracing the chaos ... John, the calm at the center of all of Herod’s chaos, ended up dying because of, for it.
When his disciples heard about it, they came and took (John’s) body, and laid it in a tomb.
In the same way Jesus’ disciples would do with him.
Embracing the chaos comes with risks, that’s for sure.
For John, for Jesus, for Jesus’ disciples ... and for us.
Now, the bulletin cover probably isn’t the best ‘recruiting tool’ for Christianity ... “Come and lose your head for the sake of God’s truth” ... and most, nearly all of us won’t endure life-threat for bearing the Good News of Jesus ...
... but yet, but yet, that is the word of truth for us, for all who hear Jesus’ discipleship call to follow him, Jesus’ call to Biblical Giving and Biblical Living, walking wet in the Flowing Streams of Living Water that are about repentance to God, forgiveness by God and service in God’s name, to and through others, for the sake of the world God loves.
That Word of God’s promise is that, yes, following Christ’s call to discipleship does come with risks. That’s true. Today, not likely to be as John the Baptist encountered ... but chaos can and does take many other different shapes, twists and turns in trying to block all the joy and peace and love God has for us ...
But that Word of God’s promise is that God is with us, in all that we do, think and say in Jesus’ name ... with us in and through all the risks, guiding us to embrace and honestly take on the Chaos of this life, so that this life would be something different, something better ...
... for his sake, and in his name.
Amen.
Mark 6:14-29
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
15 July 2012
We all know them ... others around us, family, friends ... or, perhaps, “them” is us.
People for whom, chaos is part of their entourage.
Wherever they go, whatever they do ... like Charlie Brown’s “Pigpen” trailing a cloud of dust, so they ... or maybe, we ... enter in, carry on, and leave ... with nothing but problems, uproar, disquiet, panic, and DRAMA.
And ... like Pigpen, the dust of their, or perhaps our own, life-chaos swirls around and sticks to everyone and everything who, which has the unfortunate circumstance of being there with them, with us.
The chaos-bringer’s problems become everyone’s problems. Their uproar, everyone’s uproar ... disquiet ... panic ... and DRAMA. OH, the DRAMA!!!
So what do you do ... assuming you’re not the chaos-bringer, but only an innocent bystander ... what do you do when you’re faced with the chaos-storm bearing down on you?
Well, there’s two approaches into which we usually fall.
Sometimes, the chaos is successful in its quest to stir up more and more chaos, more and more drama, and we feel like we’re helplessly sucked into it. High panicked voices, potty-mouth cursing, uncontrollable dramatic sobbing and so on breed more of the same in an epidemic ... either of our merging right into the maelstrom of melodrama ... or, our actively trying to fight it off. Surrender ... or emotional confrontation. They can sound the same, from a distance. All the voices are raised, all the eyes drip tears.
Then there’s the other approach ... detach and disengage. Ignore the drama and the dramatist, the chaos-maker, the chaos-waker ... perhaps offer some benign words of consolation ... there there, it’s going to be OK... and run away as fast as possible. Who needs their life-garbage anyway? I’m busy and have enough going on in my own life ... I don’t want to be bothered.
And yet ... neither of those are a faithful approach for the ones who are called to follow Jesus. As we continue our Ordinary Time -green-season instruction-rich walk through these early chapters of Mark’s gospel, this week we once again find ourselves faced with words, a story, on what it means to be Biblical Givers and Biblical Live-rs ... however, this time, it’s not through a story about Jesus and his disciples, but rather, the One Who Came Before ... John the Baptist.
How appropriate for us, Nativity, to be hearing a story about the Baptist this morning ... the one who was there at Jesus’ baptism, the beginning point of Jesus’ public ministry.
As we continue in our year-long focus on baptism, we recall that it is God’s Baptismal Word ... forgiveness and new life ... that makes the difference for us.
It is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Givers.
And it is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Live-rs.
Biblical Giving and Biblical Living are at the core of what Discipleship means ... Discipleship ... WALKING WET IN GOD’S BAPTISMAL WORD.
Let’s rehearse that word once again this morning ... from the back pages of the bulletin:
A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.
And today’s Gospel text, as I said, offers us fine instruction on how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... of Jesus.
First, though, we have to encounter another chaos-bringer. It’s Herod ... not the King Herod who is mentioned in the Christmas story ... but instead, his son, Herod Antipas, who after his father’s death ruled under Caesar a quarter of Herod the Great’s kingdom.
The text starts today with Herod having heard of “it” ... and it was everything we’ve also heard about in the past few weeks ... the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of sending out others in his name, that four-fold path of discipleship learning and building we discussed last week:
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Jesus had sent out his disciples to do his work in his name, and doubtless having twelve Jesus-followers out and about increased the chatter in Herod’s kingdom about Jesus. And so Herod, just like everyone else, was trying to figure out just who this Jesus was.
But the clouds from his chaos-trail obscured the truth for him. Herod thought that it was John the Baptist at work again.
Herod’s chaos-trail is laid out clearly in this text we have before us today. He – Herod Antipas – had divorced his first wife – that was a politically expedient marriage, for he’d married the daughter of a neighboring king ... Herod Antipas has divorced his first wife and remarried the divorced wife of his own brother Herod Philip ... kind of a first century version of wife swap. Drama drama drama! From other historical sources we know that the neighboring king whose daughter Herod Antipas had married ... for political expediency ... and then divorced ... that king was in an uproar... understandably so. We don’t know for sure, but most likely Herod Philip was in an uproar too ... his wife, and daughter, gone from him and now part of his brother’s household.
That wife, Herodias ... she most certainly aided and abetted the chaos and drama in this story ... as it says, she
...had a grudge against (John) and wanted to kill him.
But Herod didn’t. Herod actually listened to John, and protected him.
NOT out of respect and honor ... that old fashioned sense of the word “fear,” like being in awe of someone ... no, the word Mark uses here is the one meaning plain-old shaking in the boots being scared. Herod was scared of who John was, the Word he carried, the God (and that God’s consequences) of whom, of which John spoke.
And yet ... and yet ... despite all of that ... the chaos-train flowing behind Herod ... not flowing streams of living water, but rushing muddy torrents of drama, fear and chaos ... that ended up swallowing Herod whole. Herod had too much to drink at a banquet ... he watched his stepdaughter dance before him (we can only guess what kind of a dance it was ... how her mother put her up to it ... how she – Herodias - knew what Herod would say, and do, as a result) ... Herod got trapped in his own honor-and-shame trap ... to keep his word meant honor, to break it meant shame ... and John lost his head.
But there’s more to say here about John. John, for his part, when he encountered Herod’s chaos ... John took the third way. When faced with the chaos-train Herod and his family and his entourage were dragging in after them, John did not disengage and turn a blind eye, nor did he get sucked into the anxiety, either by actively combating it or fighting to resist.
John just, simply, told Herod, “King, this isn’t right.”
This isn’t right. Perhaps that’s what we’ve also been saying to ourselves, in this strange way to spend this Sunday morning, hearing a story like this. Blood and guts before brunch. There’s a panel, a piece of medieval art in the Art Institute in Chicago, which graphically depicts this whole story. Even the bright colors and the way painters painted the human figure 800 years ago is not entertaining enough to remove the horror of this story from us.
So why is this story part of Mark’s story to, for us – as Mark titles his Gospel, “the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?”
One commentator says that this story is a living illustration of a parable Jesus tells which comes a little earlier in Mark’s gospel ... one that sometimes comes around at this time of the year when gardens have sprouted and are bearing good produce ... fruits and vegetables ... the bounty of the summer. The parable is that of the sower and the seed ... some seed falls on the path, some on the rocks, some among the thorns, and some on good soil. It’s an illustration of how the Word of the Gospel ... the Good News of Jesus ... “takes” or doesn’t in people’s lives.
Herodias and the others in Herod’s chaos-train ... they’re certainly examples of the seed of the Word falling among the rocks. The Good News didn’t stand a chance with them.
But Herod ... the text said that Herod listened to John. The Word had a chance. It had even started to take root in Herod’s life.
But then ... but then it got choked out, by the weeds which surround Herod. Herodias ... his stepdaughter’s dance ... the other officials ... that honor-and-shame gerbil wheel Herod couldn’t get off or out of ... what will they say of me? What will they think of me?? ... and that was the end for John.
And there is another, larger answer to that question, “why is this story part of Mark’s story to, for us?”
It is, quite simply, a preview of the Cross. This whole episode, this whole story, absent as it is of the written word about Jesus ... and yet, and yet it is a harbinger, a prediction, of what will happen to Jesus soon enough ... and, in some way, to all who heed Jesus’ call to discipleship, to Walking Wet in the Flowing Streams of Living Water that is, that are God’s Baptismal Word to and for us.
John’s manner and demeanor points to Jesus ... taking that third way; when faced with chaos, John, like Jesus later on in his Passion story ... here, John neither surrenders to nor emotionally confronts it ... nor does he disconnect, disengage and detach.
John’s is the non-anxious presence ... he quietly, calmly lays out the larger Truth ... and offers a choice: you may remain in the chaos, and let your life be tempest tossed in the face of it ... or, you may embrace the chaos ... instead of flailing and fighting against it, instead of disconnecting and disengaging, see how you are one with it ... and then, carefully, prayerfully, take steps to change your life.
In other words ... the non anxious presence tells the Truth, lives the Truth, and offers the Word that will guide others into that Truth.
The Truth of love, and life, and service, all in Jesus’ name.
And then ... and then ... it goes on to the end ... for there are always risks involved in embracing the chaos ... John, the calm at the center of all of Herod’s chaos, ended up dying because of, for it.
When his disciples heard about it, they came and took (John’s) body, and laid it in a tomb.
In the same way Jesus’ disciples would do with him.
Embracing the chaos comes with risks, that’s for sure.
For John, for Jesus, for Jesus’ disciples ... and for us.
Now, the bulletin cover probably isn’t the best ‘recruiting tool’ for Christianity ... “Come and lose your head for the sake of God’s truth” ... and most, nearly all of us won’t endure life-threat for bearing the Good News of Jesus ...
... but yet, but yet, that is the word of truth for us, for all who hear Jesus’ discipleship call to follow him, Jesus’ call to Biblical Giving and Biblical Living, walking wet in the Flowing Streams of Living Water that are about repentance to God, forgiveness by God and service in God’s name, to and through others, for the sake of the world God loves.
That Word of God’s promise is that, yes, following Christ’s call to discipleship does come with risks. That’s true. Today, not likely to be as John the Baptist encountered ... but chaos can and does take many other different shapes, twists and turns in trying to block all the joy and peace and love God has for us ...
But that Word of God’s promise is that God is with us, in all that we do, think and say in Jesus’ name ... with us in and through all the risks, guiding us to embrace and honestly take on the Chaos of this life, so that this life would be something different, something better ...
... for his sake, and in his name.
Amen.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
8 July 2012
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Mark 6:1-13
8 July 2012
Last week, our text from 2nd Corinthians and Nativity’s annual meeting just passed together brought us into a good place to talk about financial stewardship – namely, being a Biblical Giver.
This week’s Gospel carries us forward … in a fine serial fashion … this morning … with a lesson on how to be a Biblical Live-r.
It’s a text ripe with instruction on discipleship. Discipleship … growth in personal discipleship … growth in corporate discipleship … this is The Hot Topic in faith circles today.
Fifty years ago, it all used to be about Membership … Membership in a church, put on a par with having your union card, belonging to the YMCA and the DAR and the Elvis Presley Fan Club. It was the socially acceptable, meet, right, and salutary thing to do.
But then … but then people started to realize that you could be a member of an organization without ever actively participating in its activities. Fill out your application, pay your dues, and you were in. And of course the church worked that way too. Most church constitutions -- including ours -- have a clause in them stating that “an active church member means someone who has made a donation of record” (usually $1) and “who has communed once in the past year.”
So you can legally be an active, voting church member just by showing up at Christmas or Easter, and one of those two times, putting a buck in the offering plate.
Ah, but that’s a human rule, certainly.
Once again, Lutherans have an enduring, faithful word on all this … whether we paid attention to it or not … our Confessional word about Church Membership is that people become Church Members in their Baptism … it’s Baptism … God’s act … not ours … which makes one a Member of the Church with a capital C ... as in “One Holy catholic and apostolic Church” … and That is the Most Important Word about belonging.
God chooses us, in Water and Word of forgiveness, promise and hope … once and for all in our Baptism … and the flowing stream of living water, once poured over us, has a continual effect, yesterday, today, and into God’s tomorrow, with and for us.
Now I realize that individual congregations – as legally incorporated entities – need to say somewhere in their incorporating documents (like our congregation’s constitution) what makes an active, voting member; you have to draw the line somewhere. But remember that word … that Membership word … is a human word … and has no standing with God whatsoever. It’s a congregational bookkeeping term, and nothing more. Period.
What matters to God is the Baptismal Word … as we have it clearly printed in our worship folder during these green summer months … let’s turn to page 12 and read that Word together …
A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.
It is the Baptismal Word that makes the difference for us.
It is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Givers.
And it is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Live-rs.
Discipleship … THIS IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR US … WALKING WET IN GOD’S BAPTISMAL WORD.
And today’s Gospel text, as I said, offers us fine instruction on how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus offers his disciples ... then, and now ... a clear, four-step approach to discipleship:
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Here in our Gospel reading today, we see all four of these steps in action.
First, note what happens to Jesus in the initial section of today’s text. He goes to his hometown, to teach, and he’s roundly dismissed by his own townspeople. They just can’t believe that God would use one who was to them so common and ordinary, to do the extraordinary work of God!
Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?
As the text says, they took offense at him. And so Jesus moved on ... not, as you note, not without doing the relatively minor work (!) of curing a few sick people through his touch. Minor, indeed.
Note, too, that all through this story it’s noted that his disciples followed him. They watched as Jesus preached and taught ... they saw how he was roundly dismissed -- Jesus’ point in showing this to them was that not everyone would listen ... they went on with him, as he left his hometown and kept teaching in the surrounding villages.
I do, you watch.
But you, watch what happens next. Jesus called to the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
Here’s I do, you help and You do, I help in action. Kind of all rolled into one, but the point is there ... Jesus right here at this still early point in his ministry begins the transition to the disciples’ carrying on his mission and ministry, so that even after he’s gone, the Word will still be proclaimed.
And note how his instructions reflect what had happened to him in the section prior, when he – Jesus – was doing and they – the disciples – were watching.
First – he tells them how to dress and what to take with them, and how to lodge while they’re on the road.
But then – he gives them the word on what to do when people won’t listen ... just as the people of Jesus’ hometown took offense at him, so too, Jesus says to the disciples, this could, will happen to you too.
So ... do what you saw me do, is what he tells them. Move on to the next town, just as I did with you.
And see what happens. It’s you do, I watch. They – the disciples – they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
If we read Luke’s version of this story ... where Jesus sends out 70 disciples, not just twelve ... this point becomes even more clear.
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Jesus said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”
And this, this is just one story, one example from the Gospels, of how Jesus intends for his disciples to be raised up, to be trained, for deployment in Jesus’ name ... this is just one example of Jesus’ tried-and-true way of creating Biblical Live-rs – active, faithful disciples ...
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Which is precisely the way we shall be, as we follow Jesus’ call to raise up new disciples. We ourselves, and others. Since that was Jesus’ main work ... so shall it be ours, too.
I know you’ve heard me say it, and say it, and say that I’ve said it again and again over the past eight years (following another rule of Jesus’ – tell them, tell them again, and tell them that you told them ... ah, but that’s ANOTHER sermon) ... but the old days when we could count on “church membership alone” to get us – the church – through – whatever situations the world gave to us ... big situations, like disasters and economic crises and political instability ... and regular old run of the mill daily stuff, like the grinding, wearing on that gets to each and every one of us ... well, those days are OVER ... those days when we just made these kind of assumptions about people...
(well, they’ll just join and be church members just like us ... so they’ve got to know everything there is to know about faith, church, Jesus, and all that; they’ll come and serve on committees like we did, they’ll come to worship and fill the pews and chairs like we did, they’ll take an active role in serving the institution like we did) ... and so on ...
No! In these days of re-awakened faith, re-formed faith, what a number of Christian writers and thinkers are calling the Second Reformation ... we’re going back to Scripture, back to the stories of Jesus, and finding that what makes a disciple of Jesus is what Jesus has done for them ... US ... we’re realizing that relying on the human bookkeeping term of “church membership” won’t save us ... we see that the wall which separates “inside the church” from “outside the church” needs to come down, because we’re realizing that Jesus is active and alive in people’s lives OUTSIDE THE CHURCH ... and there is plenty of INSIDES THE CHURCH that need to be blasted open, to let the revitalizing fresh air of the Gospel in, to cleanse, to purify, to heal and make whole and new once again.
And the way it shall be done, the way we shall learn from each other, the way we shall grow in discipleship together ... is by following Jesus’ example ... first, teaching each other how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... teaching each other how to read Scripture, how to discuss this life of faith, how to share stories of how Jesus is active in our lives, how to pray individually and together with and for each other ...
... being church, not just Belonging To A Church.
Jesus does not promise an easy road. But then, in that four-fold way of making disciples, he told us that from the beginning ... as it was the same for him ... and they took offense at him.
Nor do we know what precisely we shall be about as we hear his call to follow ... what kind of healing, what kind of bad spirits we may cast out ... but we do know that there is plenty ... plenty, in our homes and schools, our jobs and lives with friends, our life together as congregations of Jesus’ disciples ... plenty of illnesses to heal, plenty of bad spirits to cast out, like poverty and hopelessness and despair.
But through it all, Jesus promises us that he will be there, with and for us, as we embark together on this discipleship journey.
And it is a journey ... to be sure ... not a destination ...
... well, when I get this much faith, I’ll be there; when we get a building with a real kitchen and bigger bathrooms, then we’ll be there ...
No, this life, this faith, it is a journey; as it was for those first disciples, so it shall be for us; Jesus, walking with us, leading, guiding, teaching, discipling us; we, walking with others, sometimes teaching, sometimes learning, always growing in faith, in love, in service to and for each other.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Mark 6:1-13
8 July 2012
Last week, our text from 2nd Corinthians and Nativity’s annual meeting just passed together brought us into a good place to talk about financial stewardship – namely, being a Biblical Giver.
This week’s Gospel carries us forward … in a fine serial fashion … this morning … with a lesson on how to be a Biblical Live-r.
It’s a text ripe with instruction on discipleship. Discipleship … growth in personal discipleship … growth in corporate discipleship … this is The Hot Topic in faith circles today.
Fifty years ago, it all used to be about Membership … Membership in a church, put on a par with having your union card, belonging to the YMCA and the DAR and the Elvis Presley Fan Club. It was the socially acceptable, meet, right, and salutary thing to do.
But then … but then people started to realize that you could be a member of an organization without ever actively participating in its activities. Fill out your application, pay your dues, and you were in. And of course the church worked that way too. Most church constitutions -- including ours -- have a clause in them stating that “an active church member means someone who has made a donation of record” (usually $1) and “who has communed once in the past year.”
So you can legally be an active, voting church member just by showing up at Christmas or Easter, and one of those two times, putting a buck in the offering plate.
Ah, but that’s a human rule, certainly.
Once again, Lutherans have an enduring, faithful word on all this … whether we paid attention to it or not … our Confessional word about Church Membership is that people become Church Members in their Baptism … it’s Baptism … God’s act … not ours … which makes one a Member of the Church with a capital C ... as in “One Holy catholic and apostolic Church” … and That is the Most Important Word about belonging.
God chooses us, in Water and Word of forgiveness, promise and hope … once and for all in our Baptism … and the flowing stream of living water, once poured over us, has a continual effect, yesterday, today, and into God’s tomorrow, with and for us.
Now I realize that individual congregations – as legally incorporated entities – need to say somewhere in their incorporating documents (like our congregation’s constitution) what makes an active, voting member; you have to draw the line somewhere. But remember that word … that Membership word … is a human word … and has no standing with God whatsoever. It’s a congregational bookkeeping term, and nothing more. Period.
What matters to God is the Baptismal Word … as we have it clearly printed in our worship folder during these green summer months … let’s turn to page 12 and read that Word together …
A Word from Luther’s Small Catechism on Holy Baptism:
What then is the significance of a baptism with water?
Baptism means that we hear the call daily to repent to God and our neighbor –
to confess the bad things we think and say and do. And daily through that repentance, God promises to forgive us, so that we may live new lives, for the sake of the world and each other.
It is the Baptismal Word that makes the difference for us.
It is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Givers.
And it is the Baptismal Word … flowing streams of living water … with, for, in us … which make us into Biblical Live-rs.
Discipleship … THIS IS WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT FOR US … WALKING WET IN GOD’S BAPTISMAL WORD.
And today’s Gospel text, as I said, offers us fine instruction on how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... of Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus offers his disciples ... then, and now ... a clear, four-step approach to discipleship:
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Here in our Gospel reading today, we see all four of these steps in action.
First, note what happens to Jesus in the initial section of today’s text. He goes to his hometown, to teach, and he’s roundly dismissed by his own townspeople. They just can’t believe that God would use one who was to them so common and ordinary, to do the extraordinary work of God!
Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?
As the text says, they took offense at him. And so Jesus moved on ... not, as you note, not without doing the relatively minor work (!) of curing a few sick people through his touch. Minor, indeed.
Note, too, that all through this story it’s noted that his disciples followed him. They watched as Jesus preached and taught ... they saw how he was roundly dismissed -- Jesus’ point in showing this to them was that not everyone would listen ... they went on with him, as he left his hometown and kept teaching in the surrounding villages.
I do, you watch.
But you, watch what happens next. Jesus called to the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
Here’s I do, you help and You do, I help in action. Kind of all rolled into one, but the point is there ... Jesus right here at this still early point in his ministry begins the transition to the disciples’ carrying on his mission and ministry, so that even after he’s gone, the Word will still be proclaimed.
And note how his instructions reflect what had happened to him in the section prior, when he – Jesus – was doing and they – the disciples – were watching.
First – he tells them how to dress and what to take with them, and how to lodge while they’re on the road.
But then – he gives them the word on what to do when people won’t listen ... just as the people of Jesus’ hometown took offense at him, so too, Jesus says to the disciples, this could, will happen to you too.
So ... do what you saw me do, is what he tells them. Move on to the next town, just as I did with you.
And see what happens. It’s you do, I watch. They – the disciples – they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
If we read Luke’s version of this story ... where Jesus sends out 70 disciples, not just twelve ... this point becomes even more clear.
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” Jesus said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.”
And this, this is just one story, one example from the Gospels, of how Jesus intends for his disciples to be raised up, to be trained, for deployment in Jesus’ name ... this is just one example of Jesus’ tried-and-true way of creating Biblical Live-rs – active, faithful disciples ...
• I do, you watch;
• I do, you help;
• You do, I help;
• You do, I watch.
Which is precisely the way we shall be, as we follow Jesus’ call to raise up new disciples. We ourselves, and others. Since that was Jesus’ main work ... so shall it be ours, too.
I know you’ve heard me say it, and say it, and say that I’ve said it again and again over the past eight years (following another rule of Jesus’ – tell them, tell them again, and tell them that you told them ... ah, but that’s ANOTHER sermon) ... but the old days when we could count on “church membership alone” to get us – the church – through – whatever situations the world gave to us ... big situations, like disasters and economic crises and political instability ... and regular old run of the mill daily stuff, like the grinding, wearing on that gets to each and every one of us ... well, those days are OVER ... those days when we just made these kind of assumptions about people...
(well, they’ll just join and be church members just like us ... so they’ve got to know everything there is to know about faith, church, Jesus, and all that; they’ll come and serve on committees like we did, they’ll come to worship and fill the pews and chairs like we did, they’ll take an active role in serving the institution like we did) ... and so on ...
No! In these days of re-awakened faith, re-formed faith, what a number of Christian writers and thinkers are calling the Second Reformation ... we’re going back to Scripture, back to the stories of Jesus, and finding that what makes a disciple of Jesus is what Jesus has done for them ... US ... we’re realizing that relying on the human bookkeeping term of “church membership” won’t save us ... we see that the wall which separates “inside the church” from “outside the church” needs to come down, because we’re realizing that Jesus is active and alive in people’s lives OUTSIDE THE CHURCH ... and there is plenty of INSIDES THE CHURCH that need to be blasted open, to let the revitalizing fresh air of the Gospel in, to cleanse, to purify, to heal and make whole and new once again.
And the way it shall be done, the way we shall learn from each other, the way we shall grow in discipleship together ... is by following Jesus’ example ... first, teaching each other how to be Biblical Live-rs ... disciples ... teaching each other how to read Scripture, how to discuss this life of faith, how to share stories of how Jesus is active in our lives, how to pray individually and together with and for each other ...
... being church, not just Belonging To A Church.
Jesus does not promise an easy road. But then, in that four-fold way of making disciples, he told us that from the beginning ... as it was the same for him ... and they took offense at him.
Nor do we know what precisely we shall be about as we hear his call to follow ... what kind of healing, what kind of bad spirits we may cast out ... but we do know that there is plenty ... plenty, in our homes and schools, our jobs and lives with friends, our life together as congregations of Jesus’ disciples ... plenty of illnesses to heal, plenty of bad spirits to cast out, like poverty and hopelessness and despair.
But through it all, Jesus promises us that he will be there, with and for us, as we embark together on this discipleship journey.
And it is a journey ... to be sure ... not a destination ...
... well, when I get this much faith, I’ll be there; when we get a building with a real kitchen and bigger bathrooms, then we’ll be there ...
No, this life, this faith, it is a journey; as it was for those first disciples, so it shall be for us; Jesus, walking with us, leading, guiding, teaching, discipling us; we, walking with others, sometimes teaching, sometimes learning, always growing in faith, in love, in service to and for each other.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Sunday, July 01, 2012
1 July 2012
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
1 July 2012
It is NOW officially summer – at least by Nativity standards – the choir is off from leading worship, we’re in our Summer Sunday mode – and we are past the annual meeting which was last Sunday, a very busy last Sunday in June.
I was pleased to see so many people at our annual meeting –because the work we, the church, do at our annual meetings sets the pace and tone for a whole year of ministry together.
Namely – we propose, discuss, pass our congregations’ budgets for the coming year.
Many congregations have a problem – a big problem – getting people to turn out for their annual meetings – because budgets are seen as uninteresting, even dull, figures on pages. And the larger topic of stewardship (which is always behind our church budgets) gets even fewer people enthused and infused with the Spirit.
It’s talk about money, after all, and according to some, people don’t come to worship to hear and talk about money. In the first parish I served, I was specifically instructed to never talk about money in a sermon.
But avoiding the topic of financial stewardship in worship is, well, just plain wrong. Worship is not just a one hour a week “special time” to be set aside for holy apartness … it’s the starter for our entire week of walking in faith and service with Jesus. We engage with the Scriptures together in worship, and the Scriptures are chock-full of texts on sharing and giving, God’s generosity to us which is to be reflected in our generosity toward our neighbor.
This morning, we have a great gift to us, in our reading from 2nd Corinthians, an excellent stewardship text. Paul’s word to the fledgling church in Corinth about how they should give to others out of the abundance God had given to them, is one of the central texts on Biblical Stewardship.
And so my word based on Paul’s word this morning will be an instructive one as well; perhaps review for some who have grown up instructed about giving from our parents and families; on the other hand, probably a new word to others who are new to the church and are just starting to learn about stewardship.
For my guide, I’ll be using a chapter from this book … “Ask, Thank, Tell” by Charles Lane, a former bishop’s assistant out my old way, in the NW Minnesota Synod of the ELCA, and now a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. His outline, combined with Paul’s good words, will give us this morning a “Portrait of a Biblical giver.”
1) A Biblical giver is intentional.
Paul’s word to the Corinthians is all about encouraging intentionality in giving … he wants
them to excel in this “generous undertaking” which to Paul is fully reflective of Christ’s first-love for us.
Intentional giving means making up your mind, developing a plan for giving, and then ‘walking the walk’ as you turn that plan into action.
We have a tool to aid us in our intentionality in giving, which is right before us. Last week, Nativity congregation passed a budget for the coming fiscal year, which runs July 1 (starting today) through June 30. We committed to a budget of $174,618.00 – there are copies there on the round table for your reference.
We committed to this budget. Meaning that, we committed to giving to our synod and Luther’s Table, the Compass Veterans’ Center and other benevolences. We committed to paying our staff. We committed to keeping the utility bills paid. We committed to funding our youth and Christian Education programs. We made a commitment.
I simply don’t understand why people get so turned off by budgets and giving. In a world that is crying loudly for moral anchoring … what is our church budget but our moral statement … grounded in God’s model of covenant promise; honoring, reflecting, passing on Christ’s generosity … our church budget is a moral document.
We have made a commitment. We must hold to that commitment with our sacred honor for this coming year.
We can’t get much more intentional than that, can we?
Another way to be intentional is to give FIRST. Scripture talks about ‘first-fruits’ giving because in Bible times most all people were farmers, and what ‘first fruits’ giving meant was exactly that … you gave of the first fruits of your farm, or garden, or field. That showed the priority and intentionality of giving … what was given first was the most important.
For us, ‘first fruits’ giving can come many ways. My giving comes right out of what you pay me each half month … it’s just given, right away. That helps me be intentional. Others make sure that their gift is the first check they write each month … or week … or they’ve enrolled in Simply Giving and use the automatic deduction to make their intention a priority.
Whatever way you look at it … God has given … richly … to us, FIRST. We are called to reflect that gift … FIRST … INTENTIONALLY … as well.
2) A Biblical giver is regular in their giving.
Now, ‘regular giver’ for us has a very different meaning than it did for the Corinthian readers and
hearers of Paul’s letter. In those days, workers were paid at the end of the day for their labor … “a day’s work for a day’s wage.”
Today, pay periods are different. Some of us get paid twice a month. Others, once a month. Some, once a week. Still others have quarterly or even semi-annual pay periods.
And so ‘regular giving’ has to reflect the state of the giver. But giving regularly – at whatever interval that regularity is – is certainly the best way to develop the habit, the skill, of being a Biblical giver. It takes people time to develop good habits … some of us longer than others. Being intentional and regular in our giving will help us grow in our Biblical Stewardship.
Did you know that Nativity has many ways to help us be regular in our giving?
There are, of course, offering envelopes available every week for cash or check. There is “Simply Giving” which is an automatic withdrawal from your bank account which YOU can control via your own computer if you wish. There is on-line giving. There’s even the QR code which you’ve seen in your bulletin which allows you to give immediately from the comfort of your Iphone or Android-based smartphone.
Experts say about 21 times makes a repeated task into a habit. That’s about half a year. We have just begin a new budget year. If you are new to giving, consider starting your Biblical giving today … by Christmas, if you are a regular worshiper (ahem) you’ll have made giving a habit.
3) A Biblical giver is generous.
Our text from 2nd Corinthians this morning is absolutely loaded with the language of generosity. But note from where – or rather, from whom, it flows.
We want you to excel in this generous undertaking.
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Paul is clear – the Real Generous One is Jesus Christ … he who was and is fully God, but who became fully human and emptied himself totally for our sakes – even through dying on the Cross so that we might have life.
This is the generosity into which we are called, we who follow Jesus. It is a theology, a Word of the Cross … an opposite word, to be sure, of the world we live in, where God is said to be with those who spend their wealth on themselves … rather than, as Scripture so clearly states, with the poor and powerless, those on the outside of human society and human acceptance.
And yet this world-opposite word is the True Word of God. When we are generous givers, we aren’t emptied … in so many ways, we’re filled and completed.
But because this is such an opposite word, people have a hard time … the hardest time … believing it. Even in our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, people have a hard time believing it.
In our denomination the average giving per household to the church is barely 2% of household income.
That would mean that, if your household brings in $60,000 in income during the year, at 2% your church giving would be about a hundred dollars a month. Which sounds like a lot, to be sure … until you realize that if you go out to a nice dinner once a month with a friend, spouse or partner, you’ve probably spent more than that in a couple hours’ time.
Scripture’s Word is clear … 10% is the baseline starting mark for Biblical giving. Yes, this is the tithe. And I must admit I’m not there yet. Getting close, but not there yet … and yet, that’s the starting line. How far behind the starting line are we in our Biblical giving?
Someone at our Executive Team meeting on Thursday night said it best: “Our giving is spiritually based, and how you give is a direct reflection of how you are, spiritually, with God, and with others.”
Our God is a Generous God. We are called to reflect that same generosity, into the world God loves, and saves.
4) A Biblical giver gives proportionally, based on what they have.
Again, our text from 2nd Corinthians is our best guide.
Do something … according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have.
Nowhere does Scripture state “your weekly gift should be fifty dollars.” It’s all about proportion. Here is 2nd Corinthians, Paul is simply being a Biblical giver in line with the story in Luke chapter 21, a story Jesus lived, when Jesus saw the rich people putting money in the giving box at the Temple, and then … he saw a poor widow put in a penny … all that she had. Jesus pointed out to his disciples that the rich were giving out of their abundance … a first century way of saying they were “tipping God” … hey God, nice job there for blessing me so much … here’s twenty bucks for your trouble … kthxbye.
But the widow … she gave out of her poverty … all that she had … and Jesus cited her as a Biblical giver.
The point is well made … to those who have been given much, much is expected … to those who have less, less is expected. A tenth of $10,000 a year is less than a tenth of $100,000, and rightly so.
As Paul points out here, it’s all about fairness. Those who have more, are called by God to give more.
My favorite story on this point is also from the first parish I served. Dick Shay was a Biblical giver. And here’s how he lived it.
Dick divided for himself the total of the church budget by the number of members of the parish. Then he made his giving according to this plan … “Pastor,” he said in his wonderful Western PA accent, “Pastor, I pay my and Betty’s (Betty was Dick’s wife) … I pay my and Betty’s fair share. And then I see that Florence and Chrissy can’t pay that, so I pick up their shares too. Because I can.”
That’s 2nd Corinthians in action, through a generous, generous man who taught me a lot about Biblical giving.
5) Finally, a Biblical giver is cheerful.
I hope that this message today has been a pleasant one for you, and hasn’t made you crabby. (I haven’t seen anyone get up and walk out, so that’s a good sign.)
Giving isn’t supposed to make us crabby. And I think that’s a good and right thing to say in church.
Because we have, most all of us, seen or maybe even personally experienced churches where money – its discussion, budget meetings, stewardship emphases, pledge drives, and so on … where the discussion of money has literally driven the life out of the parish. Temple Talks from dour-faced church treasurers bemoaning that “we’re short of the budget again” and then, haranguing the congregation to “turn off the lights if you’re not using them” and “stop making so many photocopies on the church copier.” Pastors and Congregation Councils frantically looking for “the next big thing” that will “turn our giving around.” I think attitudes like that turn stewardship into a self-fulfilling prophecy … going into a stewardship drive or giving focus with a passive-aggressive attitude, trying to induce giving by guilt or coercion … why, it’s no wonder so many congregations are in trouble financially.
I think you’ve heard me use my former synod, SW Minnesota … I think you’ve heard me use the conclusion of their mission and vision statement before … I think it’s a great example of where cheerful Biblical giving starts:
By God's grace, together we have what we need.
God has richly blessed us, each and every one of us, in ways surprising and unique to each one of us.
We’re called into community together, with each other … here, we, Nativity, together, we live together and worship together and serve together and learn from each other what our gifts are as we use them to God’s glory.
And in this community … called and gathered together by God, and then sent forth into God’s world … we do indeed find that we have what we need.
So, cheerfully, we can be Intentional, First, Regular, Generous, and proportional in our giving.
By God’s grace, together we have what we need.
Not just to ‘meet our budget commitment for fiscal year 2012-13,’ thought that’s noble and right and certainly appropriate.
But more.
By God’s grace, together we have what we need to meet the challenges of this life together … hurting when another hurts, rejoicing when another rejoices, praying, grieving, helping, encouraging, loving as Christ as loved us first …
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
We are rich in Jesus, each and every one of us.
Thanks be to God.
We are called to joyfully share that richness, in his name, as we are able, through our time, our talents, AND our treasure.
Thanks be to God for that as well.
Amen.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
1 July 2012
It is NOW officially summer – at least by Nativity standards – the choir is off from leading worship, we’re in our Summer Sunday mode – and we are past the annual meeting which was last Sunday, a very busy last Sunday in June.
I was pleased to see so many people at our annual meeting –because the work we, the church, do at our annual meetings sets the pace and tone for a whole year of ministry together.
Namely – we propose, discuss, pass our congregations’ budgets for the coming year.
Many congregations have a problem – a big problem – getting people to turn out for their annual meetings – because budgets are seen as uninteresting, even dull, figures on pages. And the larger topic of stewardship (which is always behind our church budgets) gets even fewer people enthused and infused with the Spirit.
It’s talk about money, after all, and according to some, people don’t come to worship to hear and talk about money. In the first parish I served, I was specifically instructed to never talk about money in a sermon.
But avoiding the topic of financial stewardship in worship is, well, just plain wrong. Worship is not just a one hour a week “special time” to be set aside for holy apartness … it’s the starter for our entire week of walking in faith and service with Jesus. We engage with the Scriptures together in worship, and the Scriptures are chock-full of texts on sharing and giving, God’s generosity to us which is to be reflected in our generosity toward our neighbor.
This morning, we have a great gift to us, in our reading from 2nd Corinthians, an excellent stewardship text. Paul’s word to the fledgling church in Corinth about how they should give to others out of the abundance God had given to them, is one of the central texts on Biblical Stewardship.
And so my word based on Paul’s word this morning will be an instructive one as well; perhaps review for some who have grown up instructed about giving from our parents and families; on the other hand, probably a new word to others who are new to the church and are just starting to learn about stewardship.
For my guide, I’ll be using a chapter from this book … “Ask, Thank, Tell” by Charles Lane, a former bishop’s assistant out my old way, in the NW Minnesota Synod of the ELCA, and now a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. His outline, combined with Paul’s good words, will give us this morning a “Portrait of a Biblical giver.”
1) A Biblical giver is intentional.
Paul’s word to the Corinthians is all about encouraging intentionality in giving … he wants
them to excel in this “generous undertaking” which to Paul is fully reflective of Christ’s first-love for us.
Intentional giving means making up your mind, developing a plan for giving, and then ‘walking the walk’ as you turn that plan into action.
We have a tool to aid us in our intentionality in giving, which is right before us. Last week, Nativity congregation passed a budget for the coming fiscal year, which runs July 1 (starting today) through June 30. We committed to a budget of $174,618.00 – there are copies there on the round table for your reference.
We committed to this budget. Meaning that, we committed to giving to our synod and Luther’s Table, the Compass Veterans’ Center and other benevolences. We committed to paying our staff. We committed to keeping the utility bills paid. We committed to funding our youth and Christian Education programs. We made a commitment.
I simply don’t understand why people get so turned off by budgets and giving. In a world that is crying loudly for moral anchoring … what is our church budget but our moral statement … grounded in God’s model of covenant promise; honoring, reflecting, passing on Christ’s generosity … our church budget is a moral document.
We have made a commitment. We must hold to that commitment with our sacred honor for this coming year.
We can’t get much more intentional than that, can we?
Another way to be intentional is to give FIRST. Scripture talks about ‘first-fruits’ giving because in Bible times most all people were farmers, and what ‘first fruits’ giving meant was exactly that … you gave of the first fruits of your farm, or garden, or field. That showed the priority and intentionality of giving … what was given first was the most important.
For us, ‘first fruits’ giving can come many ways. My giving comes right out of what you pay me each half month … it’s just given, right away. That helps me be intentional. Others make sure that their gift is the first check they write each month … or week … or they’ve enrolled in Simply Giving and use the automatic deduction to make their intention a priority.
Whatever way you look at it … God has given … richly … to us, FIRST. We are called to reflect that gift … FIRST … INTENTIONALLY … as well.
2) A Biblical giver is regular in their giving.
Now, ‘regular giver’ for us has a very different meaning than it did for the Corinthian readers and
hearers of Paul’s letter. In those days, workers were paid at the end of the day for their labor … “a day’s work for a day’s wage.”
Today, pay periods are different. Some of us get paid twice a month. Others, once a month. Some, once a week. Still others have quarterly or even semi-annual pay periods.
And so ‘regular giving’ has to reflect the state of the giver. But giving regularly – at whatever interval that regularity is – is certainly the best way to develop the habit, the skill, of being a Biblical giver. It takes people time to develop good habits … some of us longer than others. Being intentional and regular in our giving will help us grow in our Biblical Stewardship.
Did you know that Nativity has many ways to help us be regular in our giving?
There are, of course, offering envelopes available every week for cash or check. There is “Simply Giving” which is an automatic withdrawal from your bank account which YOU can control via your own computer if you wish. There is on-line giving. There’s even the QR code which you’ve seen in your bulletin which allows you to give immediately from the comfort of your Iphone or Android-based smartphone.
Experts say about 21 times makes a repeated task into a habit. That’s about half a year. We have just begin a new budget year. If you are new to giving, consider starting your Biblical giving today … by Christmas, if you are a regular worshiper (ahem) you’ll have made giving a habit.
3) A Biblical giver is generous.
Our text from 2nd Corinthians this morning is absolutely loaded with the language of generosity. But note from where – or rather, from whom, it flows.
We want you to excel in this generous undertaking.
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Paul is clear – the Real Generous One is Jesus Christ … he who was and is fully God, but who became fully human and emptied himself totally for our sakes – even through dying on the Cross so that we might have life.
This is the generosity into which we are called, we who follow Jesus. It is a theology, a Word of the Cross … an opposite word, to be sure, of the world we live in, where God is said to be with those who spend their wealth on themselves … rather than, as Scripture so clearly states, with the poor and powerless, those on the outside of human society and human acceptance.
And yet this world-opposite word is the True Word of God. When we are generous givers, we aren’t emptied … in so many ways, we’re filled and completed.
But because this is such an opposite word, people have a hard time … the hardest time … believing it. Even in our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, people have a hard time believing it.
In our denomination the average giving per household to the church is barely 2% of household income.
That would mean that, if your household brings in $60,000 in income during the year, at 2% your church giving would be about a hundred dollars a month. Which sounds like a lot, to be sure … until you realize that if you go out to a nice dinner once a month with a friend, spouse or partner, you’ve probably spent more than that in a couple hours’ time.
Scripture’s Word is clear … 10% is the baseline starting mark for Biblical giving. Yes, this is the tithe. And I must admit I’m not there yet. Getting close, but not there yet … and yet, that’s the starting line. How far behind the starting line are we in our Biblical giving?
Someone at our Executive Team meeting on Thursday night said it best: “Our giving is spiritually based, and how you give is a direct reflection of how you are, spiritually, with God, and with others.”
Our God is a Generous God. We are called to reflect that same generosity, into the world God loves, and saves.
4) A Biblical giver gives proportionally, based on what they have.
Again, our text from 2nd Corinthians is our best guide.
Do something … according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have.
Nowhere does Scripture state “your weekly gift should be fifty dollars.” It’s all about proportion. Here is 2nd Corinthians, Paul is simply being a Biblical giver in line with the story in Luke chapter 21, a story Jesus lived, when Jesus saw the rich people putting money in the giving box at the Temple, and then … he saw a poor widow put in a penny … all that she had. Jesus pointed out to his disciples that the rich were giving out of their abundance … a first century way of saying they were “tipping God” … hey God, nice job there for blessing me so much … here’s twenty bucks for your trouble … kthxbye.
But the widow … she gave out of her poverty … all that she had … and Jesus cited her as a Biblical giver.
The point is well made … to those who have been given much, much is expected … to those who have less, less is expected. A tenth of $10,000 a year is less than a tenth of $100,000, and rightly so.
As Paul points out here, it’s all about fairness. Those who have more, are called by God to give more.
My favorite story on this point is also from the first parish I served. Dick Shay was a Biblical giver. And here’s how he lived it.
Dick divided for himself the total of the church budget by the number of members of the parish. Then he made his giving according to this plan … “Pastor,” he said in his wonderful Western PA accent, “Pastor, I pay my and Betty’s (Betty was Dick’s wife) … I pay my and Betty’s fair share. And then I see that Florence and Chrissy can’t pay that, so I pick up their shares too. Because I can.”
That’s 2nd Corinthians in action, through a generous, generous man who taught me a lot about Biblical giving.
5) Finally, a Biblical giver is cheerful.
I hope that this message today has been a pleasant one for you, and hasn’t made you crabby. (I haven’t seen anyone get up and walk out, so that’s a good sign.)
Giving isn’t supposed to make us crabby. And I think that’s a good and right thing to say in church.
Because we have, most all of us, seen or maybe even personally experienced churches where money – its discussion, budget meetings, stewardship emphases, pledge drives, and so on … where the discussion of money has literally driven the life out of the parish. Temple Talks from dour-faced church treasurers bemoaning that “we’re short of the budget again” and then, haranguing the congregation to “turn off the lights if you’re not using them” and “stop making so many photocopies on the church copier.” Pastors and Congregation Councils frantically looking for “the next big thing” that will “turn our giving around.” I think attitudes like that turn stewardship into a self-fulfilling prophecy … going into a stewardship drive or giving focus with a passive-aggressive attitude, trying to induce giving by guilt or coercion … why, it’s no wonder so many congregations are in trouble financially.
I think you’ve heard me use my former synod, SW Minnesota … I think you’ve heard me use the conclusion of their mission and vision statement before … I think it’s a great example of where cheerful Biblical giving starts:
By God's grace, together we have what we need.
God has richly blessed us, each and every one of us, in ways surprising and unique to each one of us.
We’re called into community together, with each other … here, we, Nativity, together, we live together and worship together and serve together and learn from each other what our gifts are as we use them to God’s glory.
And in this community … called and gathered together by God, and then sent forth into God’s world … we do indeed find that we have what we need.
So, cheerfully, we can be Intentional, First, Regular, Generous, and proportional in our giving.
By God’s grace, together we have what we need.
Not just to ‘meet our budget commitment for fiscal year 2012-13,’ thought that’s noble and right and certainly appropriate.
But more.
By God’s grace, together we have what we need to meet the challenges of this life together … hurting when another hurts, rejoicing when another rejoices, praying, grieving, helping, encouraging, loving as Christ as loved us first …
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
We are rich in Jesus, each and every one of us.
Thanks be to God.
We are called to joyfully share that richness, in his name, as we are able, through our time, our talents, AND our treasure.
Thanks be to God for that as well.
Amen.
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