On Generations of Generosity…

Tags

abundance, celebration, church, commitment, compassion, faithful, future, generations, generosity, giving, God, journey

Photo credit:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201510/small-acts-generosity-and-the-neuroscience-gratitude

This past week, my daughter and I were out shopping for a birthday gift for a friend.  As we were doing the self-checkout, the computer asked us if we would like to donate to charity.  I quickly tapped “no,” and my daughter was incensed.  “Don’t you want to help, Mommy?!?”  As we walked back to our car, I explained how we do help others.  She seemed incredulous, so I detailed our charitable giving, starting with what we give to the church.

Though she seemed mildly satisfied, our conversation made me realize a couple of things.  First, I could stand to have more explicit conversations with our children about our giving to church.  We already talk about budgets, treats, and how we spend money otherwise.  I realize now that our eldest may be ready to understand the commitment we make to church too.  Second, my daughter’s initial indignation is really good thing.  Her frustration with me reveals a sense of compassion and generosity that I was not sure she had fully developed.

This Sunday in church, we are celebrating lots of things.  We are celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the consecration of our historic church.  After hundreds of years of our church being used as a school and hospital, a faithful community gathered once again in 1917 for the original purpose of the building – to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.  We are also celebrating the paying off of our mortgage on our newest worship space.  After one final push this summer, and years of generosity before, we are able to be debt free!  We are also celebrating In-Gathering Sunday: a day where we offer our pledge cards for blessing.  These pledge cards indicate our commitment to the upcoming year of ministry, and reflect our journey toward generosity.

As these three celebrations combine into one day, I am ever aware of Hickory Neck’s own journey to generosity.  From the faithful who worked to reestablish our church after years of dormancy, to the faithful who saw a vision of a more modern, spacious place of worship just over ten years ago, to the faithful who see the new things budding at Hickory Neck and want to be a part of that growing community, we are a community who has always been on a journey to generosity.  I am grateful for the chance to celebrate together, especially for the ways in which our celebration is an example for the future generations who are also being shaped into faithful servants of compassion and generosity.  From the past and present, and into the future, I see God’s abundance all around us!

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Sermon – Matthew 21.33-46, P22, YA, October 8, 2017

Tags

balm, comfort, covenant, darkness, forgiveness, generosity, God, goodness, grace, Jesus, Journey to Generosity, light, love, mass shooting, mercy, parable, scripture, Sermon, tenants, vineyard, violence

One of the things I love about coming to church week in and week out is the practice setting time aside to discern how Holy Scripture is speaking to our everyday life.  Whether I have had a stressful week or a week of celebration, whether I am struggling in life or am experiencing a time of joy, or whether I am pained by the world around me or encouraged by the world around me, the Holy Scripture that we hear on Sunday always finds a way of speaking to me – of comforting, encouraging, challenging, and journeying with me.

But I confess to you I have been struggling to hear a good word from God through Holy Scripture this week.  You see, six days ago, we awoke to the news of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history.  I cannot seem to shake the awful images and sounds of that night – the rapid sound of gunfire, the screams of terror in the crowd, the panic created in a crowd who had no idea how to escape the unseen shooter, and the sheer volume of deaths, injuries, and psychological trauma.  A week later, having no real leads on motive, all I am left with is the reality of violence in our society that seems inescapable – of one more city to add to the growing list of instances of mass violence:  Columbine, Blacksburg, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Orlando.

With the weight of the sinfulness of our violence upon one another, what I really wanted from Holy Scripture was a balm or a promise from God that love would win.  Instead, our gospel lesson today feels more like a mirror of our modern violence.  Jesus tells the leaders of the faithful a parable about a landowner who plants a vineyard and entrusts the tending of the vineyard to tenants.  When the time comes for the tenants to proudly show the landowner the fruits of their labor, instead the tenants do something awful.  They beat, kill, and stone the servants sent by the landowner.  And their action is not a one-time occurrence.  The landowner sends even more of his servants to the tenants, and they beat, kill, and stone them too.  The landowner even sends his own son; but filled with greed, entitlement, and violence, they kill the landowner’s son too.  Instead of redemption at the end of the parable, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

Because this is a parable, we know that Jesus is trying to tell the people of Israel something about themselves.  Stanley Hauerwas interprets the parable in this way, “The parable of the wicked tenants can serve as an outline of Matthew’s understanding of the life of Israel.  God [calls] Israel to be his vineyard fenced by the law, grounded in the land, and protected by worship of God in the temple.  God [sends] his prophets to call the people to faithfulness, but the people beat, [stone], and [kill] them.  Finally God [sends] his very Son, but even he [is] rejected…Jesus [leaves] no ambiguity about how this parable is to be understood.  The chief priests and the Pharisees [realize] that they are the ‘rejected.’  Yet they are not in any fashion to repent.”[i]

The starkness of Jesus’ parable has left me wondering whether we have become like the tenants in this story.  Not knowing the motive of the shooter in Las Vegas, we can somewhat distance ourselves from him – perhaps blaming mental illness or labeling him as an outlier in an otherwise healthy society.  But what concerns me more is that this is not an isolated event.  This is not the first time I have had to talk about a mass shooting from the pulpit.  We have not just beaten, killed, and stoned a couple of servants.  We keep committing awful violence, and what is worse is I fear we are becoming desensitized, accepting violence as the status quo – a consequence we are willing to live with in order to have the things we want in life.

In the spiral of darkness between our news feed and Holy Scripture, I had to take a deep breath, praying for some glimmer of hope.  So I started with where we started in worship today – with our collect.  We prayed, “Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior…”  The collect today reminded me that no matter how dark things seem, there is always light to be found.

With the encouragement of the collect, I was able to go back to the parable.  I realized that perhaps the tenants, or perhaps even ourselves, are not going to be the origin of our hope.  Instead, our hope in darkness rests on God.  The landowner in the parable is marked by goodness.  The landowner plants the vineyard, puts a fence around it, digs a wine press, and builds a watchtower.  Then the landowner allows tenants to use the land, having given them the tools they need, trusting them to care for the land.  Heard another way, we hear all the good news of our creative God.  God creates this beautiful land which we are given the privilege to tend – our own breathtaking vineyard.  And because tending vineyards is hard work, God gives us the “fence” of the law – a set of guidelines to order our common life.  God gives us the tools for work, protection, and worship, knowing we will need those things too.  God even sends us prophets, knowing we will likely go astray.  Eventually, God sends us God’s Son.  This parable is the story of God’s covenantal relationship with us – a relationship marked by love, forgiveness, and grace.  And just like the whole of our Christian story, there will be moments of faithfulness, and moments of repentance.  There will be moments of honor and moments of shame.  In spite of the winding nature of our journey, God is ever present, pouring out love, abundance, mercy, and grace.  Even on our darkest days, when we crucify God’s Son, God does not answer violence with violence.  As one scholar conveys, “… rather than return violence for violence, in the cross of Jesus God absorbs our violence and responds with life, with resurrection, with Jesus triumphant over death and offering, not retribution, but peace.”[ii]

In the midst of stewardship season, I have been wondering all week how in the world I could talk about stewardship today.  But I think stewardship might be the perfect response to the seeming hopelessness of the world and this parable.  A Journey to Generosity is just that:  a journey.  Each one of us has been gifted a vineyard to tend, is surrounded by the gift of God’s word to root us in love, is given the tools needed to tend the vineyard, and is promised that even when we are pretty terrible farmers, Jesus will redeem our darkest days.  God has given us all we need, walks with us in the darkness, and makes a way for us toward light.

The invitation for us today is two-fold.  The first is to go back to the beginning – whether we go back to the collect we heard today, go back to the covenantal stories of our walk with God, or go back to our own vineyard to look around at the abundance in which we find ourselves.  Sometimes in order to appreciate where we are in our Journey to Generosity, we have to look back at the faithfulness of God that is often only evident in the rearview mirror.  After we have immersed ourselves in the abundance of love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness offered by our God, then we take the next step on our journey.  What that next step is will be different for each person in this room.  But if we can envision each person in this room as agents of God’s light and love, imagine the collective power we have to drive out darkness, and transform the world into goodness.  We do not do this work alone.  We are encouraged today by fellow companions on the Journey to Generosity.  I cannot wait to hear the stories from your adventures in generosity.  God is doing great things through you.  And that is reason enough for hope.  Amen.

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 186-187.  Verbs in quotation changed to present tense for preaching purposes.

[ii] David Lose, “Pentecost 18A: Words and Deeds,” October 6, 2017, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/10/pentecost-18-a-words-and-deeds/ on October 6, 2017.

A Journey to Generosity…

Tags

bless, evangelism, generosity, giving, God, gratitude, Holy Spirit, idea, inspire, journey, life, light, stewardship, vision

I am always amused when I discover the Holy Spirit at work because the discovery usually happens when I am in the thick of executing something I thought I had planned myself.  Ideas come to me, I test out the idea with others, I do the planning to implement the idea – basically the whole process involves a great deal of self-direction.  But when an idea really blows me away is when the idea takes off in even better ways than I planned.  When I finally realize how inspired the idea is, I realize that the idea could not have possibly come from me alone.  The only way those incredible moments of confluence occur is through the Holy Spirit.

I had one of those moments this week.  On Sunday we kicked off our stewardship campaign entitled “Journey to Generosity.”   All sorts of activities are a part of that campaign:  inspirational materials from our Stewardship Committee explaining the campaign, reflections from fellow parishioners, Parish Parties, sermons from the clergy, and meditations from national church leaders.  All of those experiences would be enough to situate us in a place of profound gratitude.  But then other things started happening.

The first has been attending our adult formation series.  The series is about evangelism, so I had expected our energies to be focused on the work of spreading the good news.  But the first sentence from the book we are using says, “Evangelism is your natural expression of gratitude for God’s goodness.”[i]  While I thought our conversations about gratitude and generosity would be limited to stewardship, here gratitude was permeating other areas of church life.  The second thing that happened was welcoming the first of three babies due this month at church.  As I held the first one yesterday, especially after a rough twenty-four hours of mourning another massive shooting in Las Vegas, I looked at that tiny child and felt a profound sense of gratitude for the gift of life.

Our “inspired” idea to talk and pray about our Journey to Generosity has already morphed into something much bigger.  I find myself being grateful not just for the generosity of parishioners who are passionate about our church and support its work through financial giving.  I am also grateful for a community of people who are so enthusiastic about their gratitude that they want to go out and share the good news with others.  I am grateful for a church community so generous in spirit that they can take tragedy and find rays of light and hope all around.  I am grateful for a community whose gratitude is so powerful that they have a vision of making our community a better place:  through our Fall Festival, through our visioning work with our Vestry, and through daily service to others.  What seemed like a catchy campaign slogan has actually been naming a way of life at Hickory Neck:  a life rooted in gratitude and generosity.  Thank you for letting me be a part of this journey with you all.  You inspire me every day and you transform my relationship with God every week.  God bless you on your journey to generosity!

[i] David Gortner, Transforming Evangelism (New York:  Church Publishing, 2008), 1.

Sermon – Exodus 16.2-15, Matthew 20.1-16, P20, YA, September 24, 2017

Tags

abundance, complain, deserve, fairness, faithful, generosity, God, gratitude, Jesus, laborers, loyal, parable, scripture, Sermon, whine

This week in Discovery Class, we did a review of Holy Scripture.  We talked about how many years writing the Bible took, the content in each section, the types of literature we find in scripture, and what scripture reveals about us as God’s people.  Our homework was to study today’s gospel lesson, being sure to read the text immediately before and after the text we hear today as a way of helping us interpret the passage.  That tip was especially telling in today’s Old and New Testament lessons

In our lesson from Exodus last Sunday, we heard the story of the parting of the Sea of Reeds.  We heard of that dramatic moment where God allows the Israelites to pass through on dry land, but destroys the Egyptians as the waters return.  The last line in last week’s lesson from Exodus is, “Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians.  So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.”  Today, the first sentence from our Exodus reading is, “The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’”  Israel’s groaning and complaining today are much more grievous when we read the great heights of their praise and faithfulness last week.

Likewise, in our gospel lesson today, we hear the familiar story of the generous landowner, who gives the same wage to those who work an hour and those who work all day in the broiling sun.  We can read this passage, and criticize the envious, hardworking laborers for their lack of gratitude.  But the power of the story is heightened when we realize immediately before Jesus’ parable, Peter interrupts Jesus’ teaching and basically says, “But what about us?  We left everything behind and we have been following you.  What’s in it for us?”  And right after Jesus’ parable, the mother of James and John approaches Jesus and basically says, “Listen, if it’s not too much trouble, can my boys sit at your right and left hand in the kingdom?”  So, when Jesus says to Peter, “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first,” and when the landowner says to the workers, “the last will be first, and the first will be last,” what do you think Jesus is trying to address?[i]

I do not know about you, but both of these texts have left me pretty uncomfortable this week.  Watching the Israelites go from faithful, obedient, loyal followers, to whiny, unappreciative, complaining messes hits a little too close to home.  Admittedly, part of me cringes at this text because we have been hammering home the importance of gratitude with our own children.  No sooner is the ice cream cone finished before the complaint comes that we never do anything nice for them.  But as much as we fuss at them, we know the same is true for us.  We are great at praise and thanksgiving to God – when things are going well.  When seas are parting, and enemies are defeated, our God is awesome.  But when we cannot seem to make ends meet, when our loved one is sick again, or when our relationships are falling apart, gratitude is the last thing on our lips.  We find ourselves in what one scholar calls the “spiritual wilderness of ingratitude.”[ii]  We cringe at these readings because we are no more masters at gratitude than our children are.

What both of these lessons do, ever so brutally, is lure us in with stories about abundant, underserved generosity, and put under a microscope our deeply buried discomfort with abundant, underserved generosity.  Part of the reason we are uncomfortable is because God’s generosity often bumps up against our notions of fairness.[iii]  I do not know if we understand the concept of fairness innately or if we are taught fairness by our community, but somewhere along the line, we learn the concept of fairness and apply the concept with exacting scrutiny.  I remember when I was a child and wanted a treat, my dad would make my brother and me share the treat.  One child was allowed to split the treat in half, but the other child got to pick which half he or she wanted.  You can imagine how precise my cuts became when looking at that cookie.

But our notions of fairness evolve over time.  One could take that same cookie and give a slightly larger half to the older child since they are bigger.  Or one could take that same cookie and give the slightly larger half to the child who was better-behaved.  Or one could give the larger half to the one who was physically weaker and needed more nourishment.  There are all sorts of ways to determine fairness.  But God’s measure, in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures seems to be that everyone receives God’s generosity despite worth or effort – or even the showing of gratitude.

Take our lesson from Exodus.  The people have clearly approached mutiny.  Their love for God is buried in their physical hunger and their self-centered greed.  But instead of punishing the Israelites, God lavishes them with all they need.  God gives them bread every day and meat every night.  In fact, God even gives them a double portion on the eve of the Sabbath so that they can observe the Sabbath without having to work for their food.  The feast is not a rich feast of wines and marrow, but their feast is gloriously generous and enough.

The same is true in Jesus’ parable.  Yes, the landowner has a weird way of putting the day-long workers in the awkward position of watching his generosity, but ultimately, the landowner gives everyone enough.  He gives the wage he promised to the day-long workers – a wage that will fill them and their families for days.[iv]  But he also gives the same wage to the hour-long workers.  Sure, they did not deserve the wage, but the same wage that feeds the other workers feeds them too.  The landowner is gloriously generous and gives enough.[v]

I have been wondering all week where these texts leave us:  maybe a bit guilty, perhaps a bit convicted, and definitely “last” in the pecking order Jesus describes.  But what I realized this week is both in Exodus and in Jesus’ parable, perhaps being last is not all that bad.  You see, Jesus does not say, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be ejected.”  No, Jesus says, “the last will be first, and the first will be last.”  So even on our worst Israelite days, when we are moaning and complaining about the very God who miraculously saved us, or even on our worst vineyard days, when we are complaining about an unfair, albeit generous, owner, we are still not ejected.  We are not taken out of God’s generosity; we are not stripped of our blessing.  We may be last, but we still have enough.  Our abundantly generous God takes care of us when we deserve God’s care and when we do not.  Our abundantly generous God gives us enough when we think God’s generosity is fair and when we do not.  Our abundantly generous God loves us whether we embrace God’s generosity or we do not.

I cannot promise we will ever get in line with God’s generosity.  I am not sure we will ever be cured of our sense of fairness or even our ill-conceived notions that we could earn God’s generosity.  But what I can tell you is that we are not alone.  Our people thousands of years ago did not master God’s generosity.  The disciples two thousand years ago did not master Christ’s generosity.  And I suspect we will not either.  But every week, we try.  Every week we continue on our journey toward generosity – seeing God’s generosity in ourselves and others – being inspired to try again.  I am not sure we will ever be first in line.  But the good news is we get to stay in line – which means there is always room to try again.  Our generous God will make sure we have enough until then.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 100-102.

[ii] Deborah A. Block, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Supplemental Essays, Year A  (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 2.

[iii] Taylor, 103.

[iv] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (New York:  Harper Collins, 2014), 224.

[v] Block, 4.

Participating in Gratitude…

Tags

blessed, cycle, generosity, gift, God, grateful, gratitude, note, sacred, thanks, Thanksgiving

Photo credit:  https://fastcompany.com/3057431/hit-the-ground-running/heres-what-to-write-in-your-thank-you-after-a-job-interview

In honor of Thanksgiving Day at the end of the month, a trend has developed that uses the entire month of November as a month of gratitude.  The practice has several forms:  journaling about at least five things for which you are grateful every day; posting daily on Facebook a note of gratitude; or using Instagram or other outlets to post a daily photo of something for which you are grateful.  The practice is quite spiritually based.  I have had countless spiritual directors who have encouraged me to use gratitude as a discipline for my prayer life – using the end of the day to give thanks for things in life as opposed to our natural tendency to look back at the day and make mental note of all the things that went unaccomplished or were hurtful to ourselves or others.

This past Sunday we gathered our pledges for the upcoming calendar year.  Each year in the Episcopal Church, parishioners are asked to fill out a pledge card, letting the Vestry, or governing board, know how much income can be expected so they can formulate a budget.  The pledge cards certainly serve a practical purpose.  But their use can also serve a deep spiritual purpose.  As I blessed three different baskets of pledge cards on Sunday, I had the thought that each of those baskets were like piles of thank you notes to God – a way of articulating how blessed we are and how grateful we are for the resources we have and our ability to share and support ministry with those resources.  Each card held a story – a story of someone who feels connected to and passionate about Hickory Neck, who has been nurtured and challenged in this place, who has a unique life story, and who has encountered Christ here.  As I thought of the conversations, prayers, and reflections those cards represented, I could not help but smile.  There is something quite beautiful in witnessing the intimate, vulnerable exchange between God and parishioner.  I felt privileged to bless that sacred act.

In the coming weeks, I have the privilege of entering into that sacred space of thanksgiving and gratitude.  I have the task of thanking each pledging member.  When the Stewardship Committee and I first talked about the campaign, we joked about whether my hand would be able to survive writing so many notes.  There may be times my hand actually does get sore, but so far, I am nothing but grateful to be writing those notes.  I have found that writing them has been a tremendous time of blessing – an opportunity for me to pray for each parishioner, to thank God for the gift of them to our community, and to send my blessings upon them.  The “duty” has become an incredible gift that keeps the cycle of gratitude going.

How are you participating in the cycle of gratitude?  In what ways do you cultivate a spirit of generosity, passing your sense of gratitude and blessing on to others?  I look forward to hearing how you are participating in the cycle, and how God is using you to bless others.

On Living Generously…

Tags

abundance, commitment, conversation, discernment, generosity, God, journey, Living Generously, persistence, pilgrimage, pledge, scarcity, steward, stewardship

Photo credit:  www.tens.org

This past Sunday we kicked off our Fall Stewardship Season, “Living Generously.”  I talked about the campaign in my sermon, but we also have many invitations into this time of discernment for our parishioners.  We each received a packet of information about the ways we can support the life and ministry of Hickory Neck.  We have reflections written by national and parish-level leaders that invite us to consider their experiences around stewardship.  And we are having conversations with each other about how pledging works for each of us.

Just last night, the Vestry took on one of those conversations.  We looked at the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday (Luke 18.1-8) and talked about the challenge of persistence when it comes to stewardship.  We realized that no matter what financial situation or phase of life we are in, living generously does not come naturally or easily, but takes intentionality and persistent commitment.  In our small group, we had a person with young children – including some in childcare, a person with teens approaching college, a person who is thinking about retirement but has taken in an aging parent, and a person in retirement on a fixed income.  Despite those differences, we all have to be intentional with our commitment to stewardship because we all have commitments that can distract us from generosity and tempt us into scarcity.

There was something powerful about talking about hard keeping our commitment to stewardship is with other parishioners.  Too often we take those pledge cards home and embark on a discernment process that is very individualized.  Certainly, we all need time with our God on our own to fortify ourselves to being generous stewards.  But we also need companions on the journey – fellow parishioners who can say, “Yes, it is hard living generously!”  We need those fellow pilgrims because they also remind us of why we keep at it.  These are the same people who will remind you why you are grateful.  After the Vestry talked about the challenges of living generously, then we talked about the benefits.  Stories started pouring in about what we each get out of Church.  We talked about the ways that Hickory Neck feeds us and brings us joy.  We talked about the ways that, throughout life, God has been so faithful to us, and what an honor it is to be able to harness some of that generosity in our own lives.

On Sunday, I encouraged us to spend some time at home in discernment about our stewardship of God’s abundance.  This week, I also want to encourage us to spend some time in discernment with each other.  Share those challenges to being a steward; but also share those blessings of being a steward.  Those conversations may feed the conversation you have at home and will certainly renew your spirit.  Join us as we embark on this journey toward living generously together!

Homily – Luke 7.37-8.3, P6, YC, June 12, 2016

Tags

awkward, extravagant, foolishness, forgiven, generosity, gratitude, homily, hospitality, Jesus, little, love, Pharisee, scandal, Simon, sin, woman

Most of you know that before I went off to seminary, I worked with a Habitat for Humanity affiliate.  My time at Habitat taught me a lot about politics, about motivating volunteers, and about organizing people for change.  But some of the more profound lessons came from the homeowners themselves.  The Habitat program includes sending homeowners to financial counseling so that once they purchase the home they are financially stable enough to stay in the home.  I remember getting feedback from one of our financial counselors.  You see, in looking at one particular homeowner’s budget, the counselor realized that the homeowner was giving 10% of her income – a tithe – to her church.  The counselor tried to reason with her – that the 10% could really get her out of the hole – even if she only gave 5% to church, the homeowner would be able to manage some of her debt.  But the homeowner refused.  The Lord had gotten her this far – and there was no way she going to stop giving to the church now, she argued.

Our staff conversations were all over the map about the issue.  We wondered what arguments might convince her – the welfare of her children, the parable of the talents, or something else.  We wondered whether her pastor had guilted her into her tithe.  We wondered how much of the issue was cultural, as most of us were of Caucasian descent, while the homeowner was African-American.  While most of respected her decision, and did not pressure her to give up her tithe, what we never talked about was our own practice around giving.  Being people who work in nonprofit, one might argue that we were already big-hearted people.  But our discomfort with and unwillingness to talk about our own financial generosity probably said more than we ever realized.

That is what is so hard about our gospel lesson today.  The sensationalism of the story tempts us to be distracted from the heart of the story.  I mean, what this woman does with Jesus is scandalous on so many levels.  One, she is a known sinner in the community, so she has no place at the table.  Two, she is showing a level of intimacy that makes us uncomfortable even by today’s standards – kneeling by Jesus, crying on his feet, using her long hair to dry his feet, touching him in a vulnerable way.  Three, she shows no sense of shame – she does this in public, in front of everyone, and she, according to Jesus, does all of this because she knows that she is forgiven[i] – she claims her forgiveness boldly like a slap in the face.

But while our minds are filled with visually stimulating, scandalous images, the real story is happening off stage.  The Pharisee, Simon is exposed as a mess.  He disregards conventional hospitality norms, neglecting to offer Jesus water for his feet, a kiss of greeting, and oil for anointing.  He judges the woman (muttering about her known sinfulness).  He judges Jesus (muttering about his claim to prophecy).  He begrudgingly admits that the answer to Jesus’ parable about the forgiven debts is that the one with bigger debts is more grateful than the one with few debts.  To all this commotion, Jesus says, “the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”

This is the turning point in Jesus’ interaction today.  Jesus does not say, “Watch out, Simon, because the one who loves little is forgiven little.”  But rather than render judgment, Jesus instead simply offers a description:  Those who have been forgiven little love very little.”[ii]  Now, it could be that Jesus is not talking about those who are not forgiven, but those who don’t notice their forgiveness.  Or perhaps those who don’t even think they need forgiveness.  If we cannot admit our need, we cannot receive the remedy for our lack, will not experience the gratitude of those who have received, and so are unable to love with abandon.[iii]

If, then, we are people like Jesus says, who need little forgiveness but then risk loving little, what can we do to find a well of gratitude and generosity that goes deep into the soul?  The number one thing we can do is to surround ourselves by people for whom much has been forgiven.  That means not just helping other people or those less fortunate than ourselves, but really getting to know those less fortunate than ourselves.  That means listening to the stories of those whose struggle is not like our own.  That means examining our lives in light of those experiences, and turning our hearts to abundant gratitude too.

I often think back to that experience with the Habitat staff and wonder whether we could have asked each other different questions.  We could have asked each other how much of our own budgets are designated for church giving – and what that says about our priorities.  We could have had longer conversations about what our financial practices say about our lives of faith – where our sweet spot is between trust, responsibility, and faithfulness.  But mostly, we could have trusted the homeowner – perhaps even admired the homeowner.  The implication was that her tithing was foolishness – but perhaps her tithing was extravagant generosity in the face of threat.  Those questions, like the interaction between Jesus and this woman, are going to feel awkward sometimes.  But the tunnel of awkwardness leads to the freedom of abundance.  Amen.

[i] M. Jan Holton, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 144.

[ii] David Lose, “Forgiveness & Gratitude,” June 9, 2013 as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2601on June 9, 2016.

[iii] Steven J. Kraftchick, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 143.

Showing forth love and light…

Tags

assumptions, charity, community, feet, generosity, gift, God, hands, Jesus, light, love, need

Photo credit: http://www.kiss925.com/2015/07/16/watch-man-surprises-strangers-by-paying-for-their-groceries/

This week I stumbled on a video published this summer about a guy who goes to a local grocery store and surprises customers by paying for their groceries.  The video portrays a series of about ten encounters.  The mystery man, walks up to the customer, looks at the total due on the cash register, gives the amount to the cashier, and walks off.  He doesn’t engage in conversation.  He pats a few people on the back, telling them to have a good day.  For the few people who ask him why, his response is, “God is good.”  The conversations that happen between the customers and the cashier are incredible.  Most end up having a conversation about God.  Many are shocked, some laugh, and several cry.

What I found most fascinating about the piece is who the man helps.  The first few customers looked like they could use the help – of course I say that recognizing my own stereotypes about class and race.  But one customer surprised me.  He was a white male, who looked middle-class, without much wear and tear.  When the mystery giver left, the man and the cashier had a conversation.  He confesses how nice the gesture was, especially considering he was just mugged the week before.  As they talk further, he confesses that he was held at gun point in front of his home.

What shook me up about the encounter were my own assumptions.  There have been several times at stores when I noticed someone using their WIC voucher or EBT card and could sense the tension as they managed how much money they had to spend.  It makes perfect sense to help someone like that.  But what does it mean to help others:  those whose need is not obvious to us?  How often do I cut short God’s work when my assumptions get in the way of how and when I help?  What this mystery giver was giving was not necessarily charity per se.  What he was giving was a chance to have an encounter with God.  The customers received a variety of things that day – a lightened spirit through the gift of generosity, a desire to share the gift with others (one customer actually said, “I’m going to do that for someone else!”), and a deep and profound encounter with God – a God that they could only see through the vehicle of the giver.  In essence, this giver became the hands and feet of Jesus.

I’m not sure this video is calling me to go out and do the exact same thing.  But what the video is inviting me to do is to see my brothers and sisters through the eyes of Christ.  To honor those around me who are probably going through things I know nothing about, who may be in a dark place, or who may actually have more to give me than I have to give them.  At St. Margaret’s, we already know there are needs in our community – in fact, we helped four families this month purchase the school supplies they needed to send their children back to school.  But there are needs beyond financial – there are needs for people to experience love and to experience our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Those are things that they may not experience unless we are willing to offer those gifts.  How might you show forth God’s love and light this week?

Stepping out on faith…

Tags

ambiguity, confidence, control, faith, fear, generosity, God, hope, trust

Courtesy of http://blog.catchthesun.net/2014/09/computer-tools-for-copy-editors-macros/

Control is something I write about a lot.  Perhaps I write about it so much because I never quite master giving up my desire for control back to God.  I am reminded of the book, Divergent, by Veronica Roth.  In it, the dauntless faction seeks to master its fears through simulations.  In the book there is disagreement about whether fears can ever actually be mastered or whether the work is just recognizing the fear and its cues, and then modifying one’s bodily response to those fears.

If you asked me this week whether I was in the “never mastering fears” camp, the answer would be a resounding yes.  As someone who values control, my life has felt totally out of control this week.  It started with a standby jury summons – every day this week I could not know the fate of my day until 5:00 pm the night beforehand.  So I was already in a state of ambiguity, hoping my childcare arrangement for the day would work.  Then, just as the week was starting, I received a late night pastoral care call night, necessitating a visit in the wee hours of the night.  Two nights later my youngest daughter had one of “those” nights: uncontrollable crying, waking up everyone in the house, and leaving us all weary.  Even as I sit waiting to be called for voir dire, I wonder what will happen today.  Needless to say, this creature of control is being pushed to the limit.

This experience is especially interesting to me as I think about what is happening at St. Margaret’s.  We are approaching our Annual Meeting in December, where we present our budget for 2015.  We do not know what our pledges will be this year yet, especially because some of our older members are quite frail.  So during budget planning, our Vestry had to step out on faith with an estimated budget – in fact, a budget that expects a deficit.  And yet, here we are, stepping into the great unknown, praying that God and the people are with us.

As I plod through my stressfully ambiguous week, I appreciate what kind of ambiguity and risk our Vestry has assumed.  But I especially appreciate their faith, hope, and confidence.  They are inspiring us to embrace generosity – generosity of our time, talent, and treasure.  I am grateful for the powerful witness this week.  They are an inspiration to me and the entire parish.

Homily – Luke 19.1-10, P26, YC, November 3, 2013

Tags

blessing, church, generosity, giving, grace, gratitude, homily, Jesus, joy, justice, love, sinner, stewardship, wealth, Zacchaeus

I have always loved the story of Zacchaeus.  I am sure part of my love for Zacchaeus began when I learned that song from Sunday School:  “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and wee little man was he…”  Perhaps I have also always loved Zacchaeus because I too am a bit “short in stature,” and so I have always felt a sense of kinship with Zacchaeus.  I can totally relate to not being able to see in a crowd.  The one time we went to the Macy’s Day Parade, I could only see the tops of floats as I strained to see on tiptoe.  What I wouldn’t have given for a sycamore tree that day!  Plus, Zacchaeus’ story ends so joyfully, that his story seems like a happy little adventure between Jesus and this eager, short man.

But the more I thought about Zacchaeus this week, the more I began to realize that Zacchaeus is not exactly a sweet, innocent, short man trying to see Jesus.  Zacchaeus is actually a pretty bad guy in the story.  Tax collectors are pretty notorious in those days.  First, they are considered traitors by most Jews because they willingly are employed by the occupying Romans.  Second, and perhaps worse, tax collectors make a great deal of money because part of the arrangement of being a tax collector is being able collect as much as they want over the Roman tax to pad their own wallets.[i]  Considering Jericho is a big city, and major center of taxation, we should not be surprised that Zacchaeus is not just doing well – he is rich.[ii]  We should also not be surprised when the people in the crowd grumble when this man, who betrays his people and extorts money from them, is welcomed so warmly by Jesus.

We know Zacchaeuses in our lives – those guys who always cheat their way to the top and seem to be rewarded for their cheating.  They do not even have to be attractive to get their way – they might even be some short guy with no physical appeal.  We much prefer stories like the man with the bigger barn who dies before he can enjoy his wealth, or the rich man who burns in hell without the help of Lazarus, because we like people to get what they deserve.  We like the stories of ultimate justice because we have some sense of justice as fairness ingrained in us.  So when someone is consistently rich, and consistently the recipient of favoritism, we sense justice is being violated.

Over the years, my understanding of wealth and what it does to people has varied over time.  In general, I think money has the potential to be corrupting, and so we all have to be careful about our relationship with wealth.  But I have also met many wealthy people who give away a LOT of money.  Whether the person is a wealthy alum from my college, a generous board member for a non-profit, or a wealthy parishioner at church, I have come to see the powerful way that the wealthy can turn their blessing into a blessing for others.  We hear in scripture all the time how hard life is for the wealthy, how money can lead to sinfulness, and how money can curse someone to suffering in the afterlife.  So we tend to prejudge the rich as being a group who has a lot of work to do – almost as if they must atone for something.  But what that kind of judgment does is allow us to judge others without seeing what in our lives is separating us from God too.  Money can certainly separate us from God and lead us to sinfulness; but so can envy, lust, jealousy, and drunkenness.

When we can see Zacchaeus as a man – not just a wee, little man or a rich, manipulative man – but simply a man who is a sinner just like each of us, then we can really begin to see the magic of Zacchaeus’ story.  The magic of Zacchaeus’ story is that despite his sinfulness, Jesus’ uncompromising love changes him.  The last part of the gospel today is where we see the magic unfold.  When Jesus shows Zacchaeus unconditional love and acceptance, Zacchaeus is entirely transformed.  Zacchaeus does not simply say he will start living his life in a different way.  Instead, Zacchaeus pledges to give half of his possessions to the poor.  Furthermore, he pledges to repay fourfold anyone whom he has defrauded – which given his position was probably quite a lot of money.  And in return for Zacchaeus’ overflowing generosity and repentance, Jesus’ love flows even more, as he declares Zacchaeus to not only be saved, but to be considered a son of Abraham – a member of the family of God!  The story almost becomes comical as Jesus and Zacchaeus try to one-up each other in showing love and grace, abundance and blessing.

For those of you who have ever given generously to church, you may have experienced this Zacchaeus phenomenon yourself.  Making a generous gift to the church actually feels really great – like you are a part of some cycle of gratitude.  When you give out of blessing and gratitude, you end up somehow receiving even more blessing and gratitude.  And somehow giving that generous amount – whether a tithe or some other amount makes you more generous in other areas too.  Somehow, that request at Christmas for needy Plainview families seems easier to accommodate; giving to charities and institutions outside of church feels like the right thing to do.  And giving your money generously makes you want to give your time generously too – because somehow in the midst of giving, you receive so much more.

This cycle of gratitude between us and Jesus is what we celebrate today.  When we bring our pledge cards forward a little later in the service, we bring them with a light heart, an overwhelming sense of blessedness, and a joy that almost makes us dance down the aisle.  This is Zacchaeus’ gift to us today – to help us reclaim the joy that only comes from generosity.  Zacchaeus’ joy can be your joy today too.  Amen.

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[i] Laura S. Sugg, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 260.

[ii] E. Elizabeth Johnson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 261.