Category Archives: Stewardship

October 16, 2011

Face to Face

By marciglass

A sermon preached October 16, 2011 at Southminster Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho

Exodus 33:12-23

Moses had a different relationship with God than just about anyone in the Scriptural record, other than Jesus.  Certainly different encounters with God than I have had.
Before the passage you heard this morning, God had told Moses, “your people are stiff necked people. So I won’t go with them. But I will send a pillar of cloud with you to guide you on your journey.” God says that if the Divine presence were to travel with such stiff necked people, the Divine anger would consume them. It is the equivalent of those families who love each other but do better with 500 miles between them.

Yes, God loves the people. But boy do they drive God nuts.

Also, this is after the whole incident of the golden calf, when the people melt down their bracelets and start worshipping something other than God.

We are also told that as the Hebrew people traveled, Moses would set up the Tent of Meeting, and God’s presence would settle on the Tent and the people would stand outside and watch as God and Moses spoke.
“Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (33:11)

We can have great prayer lives, but it is not the same as God coming over to your tent and having a chai latte and muffins while you talk about things.

The Lord spoke to Moses, face to face, as one speaks to a friend.

And later in the text, as we just heard, God tells Moses that nobody can see God’s face and live, so this shouldn’t be imagined literally. Ancient Hebrew leaves room for contradictions like this. It is a poetic language, with the roots of the words heading off in different directions as needed.

The Hebrew word for “face”, panim,  is the same word for “presence”.

And from the perspective of the Hebrew people, watching the cloud settle over the tent, it must have seemed as if Moses was having a face to face with God. At least Moses was interacting with God differently than they were doing. The Lord spoke to Moses, presence to presence, if not literally face to face.

This isn’t a casual conversation where one person is checking for emails on their phone while the other person describes what their dog did last weekend. This is a conversation where both parties bring their attention, their focus, and their very presence, turning to each other face to face.

And when you have that kind of relationship, you can say things to people. You can tell them when you think they’ve done something that is good and important. You can also tell them when they have hurt you or when you think they have made a mistake.

These kinds of conversations are important.

They are also difficult.

But they need to happen.

Face to face.

So often in our culture, we don’t have conversations face to face. We have them side to side. Where we tell everyone except the person we’re upset with what they have done wrong or how they have hurt us.

But side to side conversations don’t move toward a solution. They don’t cause us to really bring our presence into a potentially difficult or awkward moment, to say something important that needs to be said.
Luckily, God and Moses talk face to face. Presence to presence.

And Moses tells God to reconsider his plan to not travel with the people. “Yes, God. We’re stiff necked people. But we’re YOUR stiff necked people. You created us. You have blessed us. You can’t just abandon us out here in the wilderness. Because we can’t do this without you.”

And there’s the truth.

We can’t do this journey through the wilderness alone.

God probably knew that already.

But I suspect that perhaps Moses didn’t know it was true until he’d uttered the words.

“If you aren’t with us, God, we’re finished. Don’t leave us now.”

Because Moses could talk with God, presence to presence, he was able to make an important claim and learn something about himself in the process.

And it is an important and difficult lesson to learn that we can’t do it alone.

It is one of those lessons, that I, at least, have to learn again and again.

Last weekend, after I finished reading the ordination exams, I went to my college reunion. It was such a gift to be with those friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen in 20 years. But it was with them, while I was in college, when I learned for the first time that I couldn’t make it through the wilderness alone. I am so thankful for that community who taught me that lesson.

And Moses has his moment of truth, as he is presence to presence with God, all pretense of self reliance stripped away, and he gets God to agree to his request.

The LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

And then Moses goes further.

Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”

This is another spot where the Hebrew is tricky. Glory, Honor, Weightiness, and Divine Presence are all translations from that word in Hebrew, kabod.

What is Moses asking for?

God has already agreed that God will travel with the people in the wilderness. Is it that agreement that leads Moses to ask for more the way my kids ask for 3 cookies once I’ve told them they can have one?
Or does he need more from God? Is Moses at a place where not only does he realize they can’t make it through the wilderness without God but also that he can’t make it outside of the tent without some additional reminder of why he’s doing this in the first place?

I think there are days when we want to see some glory. When we need reminders that this crazy world is not randomness and chaos. When we need to see how weighty God’s presence can be.

Whatever that request means, God is willing to grant part of it. Not because Moses is worthy. Not because his leadership of the Hebrew people has earned him anything. But God says, “and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy”.

So this display of God’s glory is because God will allow it. Not because Moses has earned it.

Also, God tells Moses that he doesn’t really want what he is asking for. If Moses were to see God’s glory, God’s true nature and God’s Divine Presence, he would die. God’s true self is beyond what Moses could comprehend. So God offers to show Moses God’s goodness.

He asks for Glory but receives Goodness.

And there are days when we need that reminder too, I suspect. Days where we ask God for glory, for clear signs, and instead someone gives us a hug and tells us they’ve been thinking about us. Or someone sends you a note, letting you know you aren’t alone. We ask for Glory and power and control and instead, we receive goodness.

But even God’s goodness is beyond human understanding. Even God’s goodness is beyond what we experience in human goodness. So God directs Moses to a cleft in the rock and shields him with a Divine Hand or Wing, so that as God’s presence passes by, Moses can get a glimpse of God’s goodness.

And while there are jokes to be made about Moses seeing God’s backside—Moon Over the Sinai—there is also great truth in it. Because we don’t see God’s goodness when it is walking toward us. We only see it in hindsight. As it is walking away and we realize what just happened.

It is with hindsight that we see where God showed up and offered us goodness.

Because of my college reunion, I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately. I’ve been looking back and seeing how blessed I have been—that God put those extraordinary people in my life at the time I would need them the most. Did I know that at the time? Maybe. Maybe I had glimpses of it. But after it has passed by, and God’s hands have unshielded my eyes, it is clear.

That is the tricky part of faith, isn’t it. I can’t promise that if you join the church you will see great manifestations of God’s Glory. Perhaps you will. God will be gracious to whom God will be gracious, after all. But I can promise you that you will see glimpses of God’s goodness in hindsight, after it has passed by.

And so we need to become people who move forward by looking back.

Moses and the Hebrew people didn’t stay in that one place in the wilderness, waiting for another glimpse of goodness. They kept on their journey.

And God is also calling us forward on our journey.

So we are called to proclaim where we have just seen God’s goodness, as we invite people to join us on the journey.

I know that for many people, talking about money is not the way you want to think about God’s goodness, but consider this. As the Stewardship and Finance Committee is putting together our budget in the coming months, they are asking you to pledge the budget, to say, “we don’t know exactly how God’s goodness will look as we move towards it in this coming year, but because of the glimpses of goodness we’ve had in the past, we will pledge the budget so that people in this building, people in this community, and people around the world will also get a chance to know of God’s goodness.”

Stewardship is an act of faith, moving forward on the journey based on the experiences of Divine Goodness that we have seen in the past.

In the past few years, as the economy has stalled out, your Session has been careful stewards of our resources, bringing expenses down as much as possible. But they have also maintained our commitment to supporting Mission and outreach both here and abroad. They have also maintained our commitment to education, to worship, and to the upkeep of our facilities. Pledge cards and stewardship campaign information is in the narthex and you’ll be hearing more about it in the weeks to come. But I invite you to prayerfully consider how financial giving to the church allows other people to get a glimpse of God’s goodness.

Stewardship is about more than money. It is about how we give of our time as well. And I am humbled by how much time many of you give in this place to work for God’s kingdom. But for some of you, perhaps you are being called to join in with your time. I am sure that the people who volunteer at Grace Jordan could share with us how they have seen God’s goodness in their time volunteering at the school. I’m sure the Deacons and the Presbyterian Women who go out and visit homebound members could share stories of how they experienced God’s goodness in visitation.

However we live into Stewardship, we are called to be on the lookout for these glimpses of God’s goodness. And these glimpses then call us to move forward, into the future that we trust will be loving.

So, where is God’s goodness in our lives today?

How attuned are you to be watching for glimpses of it?

I invite you this week to pay attention to those moments where something unexpected passed by, where you caught glimpses of goodness. We are called on the journey together, because we can’t do it alone, and called to help people see the goodness of God when it has passed by. What a gift we’ve been given. Thanks be to God. Amen

Leave a comment | posted in Exodus 33, God's Glory, Stewardship

October 17, 2010

Big Barns

By marciglass

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian

October 17, 2010

Luke 12:13-31

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable:
“The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’  Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.  For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!
And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.  For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.

Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Before I look at today’s text, I want to revisit last week for a moment. First of all, thank you to those of you who were willing to share a piece of your story in the middle of the sermon.  I know we all have differing levels of comfort with that sort of public testimony, but last week, I think it really brought the gospel home in new ways.
But there were some other stories in the news this past week, of people who were willing to share their radical gratitude and were willing to make a public stand, sharing their story. I want us to consider the connection between the thankful Leper who came back to say thanks to Jesus, and some of these stories.

As I’m sure you’ve no doubt heard in the news, there has been a tragic rash of suicides in the past few weeks, among young people across the country. Many of these were kids who have been picked on, bullied, and attacked because they were either gay or lesbian, or just because they looked like they were gay or lesbian.

As members of Christ’s body, it is time for us to speak up. Because we don’t want our silence to be misconstrued as acceptance of this intolerant and often violent behavior. Even if we agree to disagree about what the Bible actually says about the topic, I hope we can all agree that bullying and attacking someone because of their supposed sexuality is not what God calls us to do. It is time for us to make sure that this kind of bullying does not happen again. If one more kid takes their own life because they have been told a lie, we, as a community, need to take ownership.

We need to speak with our kids and make sure they are not participating in this behavior or being subjected to it.

We need to be willing to stand up for kids who feel so alone.

We need to reach out to young men and women who have been told that they are “less than”, that they are “abominations”, and we need to offer them a different story.

We need to offer them the Love of God and the Hope that comes only through Jesus Christ.

We need to help all of God’s children know that the God who created them loves them through it all and is standing in solidarity beside them.

A number of people are doing all they can to speak of radical gratitude in their lives, hoping that their message of “it gets better, give life a chance” will get through to kids who feel alone. The Trevor Project is one group, asking for men and women who are gay and lesbian to share their stories of how life gets better, and why life is worth choosing, even in the midst of such pain and attack.

An openly gay city councilman in Fort Worth, Texas used his microphone during a city council meeting last week, to testify that he had been bullied, that he had felt “less than” and “wrong” as a teenage kid. But through love and grace he made it through. I applaud Councilman Joel Burns for his public stance and testimony of radical gratitude, which he shared, even though he knew it could have political ramifications for him.

The sharing of our stories, as you did last week, as Councilman Burns did in Fort Worth, matter. You may be offering God’s Word of HOPE, of LIFE, of GRACE to someone in a way that will save a life, that will give encouragement when it is desperately needed.

As you watch it, consider the importance of these public offerings of gratitude and thanks for the gift of life, and remember our thankful leper from last week’s text.

Okay, thank you for that diversion.

Let’s look at the story we have today.

It begins with two brothers, fighting over their inheritance. “Jesus, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!”

Jesus is having none of that. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

That seems pretty clear to me.

But then he tells them a parable anyway.

A rich man has a great farm, and a great harvest.

Let’s be clear that there is nothing wrong with that. Jesus is not critical of the man for his success, for his hard work, or for his good harvest. There is also no indication that he is a crook, or that he didn’t pay his laborers, or that he is somehow a bad guy.

But I suspect he gets in trouble with this next part:
“So he thought to himself, “self, what should I do? I have no place to store my crops. I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones and there I will store all my grain and goods. And I will say to myself, “self, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

Did you notice any problem with his conversation?

Who was he talking to?

That’s right, himself.

Nobody else in the room.

He’s facing a big decision. What should he do with the abundance of grain he has?

But he doesn’t consult anyone else about what he might be able to do with all of that abundance.

Perhaps his family might have suggested he could sell the excess grain to a bakery.

Or his neighbor might have said, “you know, I volunteer at the Boise Rescue Mission, and I bet they could use some of the extra grain you have to feed the homeless.”

Perhaps one of his golfing buddies might have suggested that he diversify his portfolio and invest in a new start up.

I don’t know.

Maybe he still would have decided to build bigger barns. But his decision to just hang on to everything he had strikes me as a failure of imagination.

One of the gifts we have in community is the ability to inspire each other to bigger and more abundant ways of living. “Sure”, we might say, “you could do this…but what would happen if you did this instead?” This routinely happens at committee meetings. A so-so idea of mine, when let loose in the Mission Committee, for example, turns in to a GREAT idea. Almost every program done at this church has started out as one thing, but been made so much more because all of your creative ideas came together.

As we think of stewardship, it is about money. We need to put together a budget. But it is also about the abundance of community. How can we come together, sharing our best ideas to really help Southminster strive for God’s Kingdom?

Our rich man didn’t have the benefit of a community of faith to help him dream a more abundant way of living, or he chose not to seek that kind of community out.  In any case, he decides to build bigger barns and then kick back, put his feet up, eat, drink and be merry.

And God says, “you fool. This very night, your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared—whose will they be?”

It is never good when God calls you a fool, is it.

I hope this text gives us another way to consider God’s abundance. Because I wonder if our rich man is being called foolish because he didn’t know the proper response to God’s abundance. What if God is calling him foolish because God had invited him to be a part of God’s kingdom, using the gifts God had given him to make a difference in his community? God’s abundance is never so that we’ll have way more than we need. God’s abundance is designed so that we’ll have what we need and we’ll have more left to share with others.

What are we doing with our abundance? How are we using what we’ve been given to strive for the Kingdom?

Recently, I heard a story about some farmers who were Shakers. And their crops kept getting stolen. So the sheriff came to them and said, “if you’d put up fences, it would be easier for me to protect your property from thieves and keep the crime rate down.” But the Shakers talked it over and told the sheriff that if people were stealing their crops from the fields, it was an indication that too many people in the community were hungry, so rather than build fences, they would spend their time planting more acreage.

These Shakers understood that with their abundance, they were being invited by God to be a part of the Kingdom.

After Jesus tells the parable of the Big Barns, he has a little teaching lesson for the Disciples. Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or your body, what you will wear.

This is a particularly un-American and fiscally irresponsible passage of Scripture, or at least it seems that way on first glance. Because aren’t we supposed to save up for retirement or for our kids to go to college?

But if we look at it again, Jesus isn’t telling his disciples not to save or be responsible. He’s just telling them to get their focus right. Of course you need to eat, and you need clothes to wear.

But the point of our lives is not to work for food and clothing. We’re supposed to work for the Kingdom, and then the rest of it will follow.

Justin and I learned long ago, back during our poor student days, that if we paid our pledge at the beginning of the month, we still had money left at the end of the month for the things we needed. But when we worried about the other stuff first, and left our pledge for the end of the month, the money wasn’t always there. That still holds true. Each year we try to increase the amount of money we give away, and as long as we start with that first, we always have enough left to take care of the boring things like phone bills and grocery bills.

“For it is the nations of the world that strive after food and clothing, and your Father knows you need those things. So, instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.”

Friends, God is inviting us to use the abundant gifts we have been given, of both money and of creativity and other gifts, to be a part of God’s Kingdom work here in our community. Whether it is helping out at Grace Jordan School next door or providing a building for community groups such as Boy Scouts and Al Anon, with our budget we are working for God’s Kingdom.

Whether we are paying our utility bills or sending money to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, with our budget we are striving for God’s kingdom.  As you prayerfully consider your stewardship pledge for 2011, remember also this story. The abundance of gifts in our lives are not just for our own benefit, but can be used to be a blessing for so many other people. And as we strive for the kingdom, the rest of our worries and concerns will sort themselves out. May it be so. Amen.

Leave a comment | posted in anti-gay bullying, Joel Burns, luke 12:13-31, Stewardship

September 26, 2010

Subprime Prophecy

By marciglass

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian

September 26, 2010

Jeremiah 32:1-3, 6-15

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.
At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the LORD: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;
Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came to me:
Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.”
Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.
And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.
I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.
Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.
In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time.
For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Luke 16:19-31

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.
In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.
Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’
He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’
Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’
He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

We have two very different texts today, and I won’t promise I’ll be able to connect them at all, but you never know.

Let’s start with the passage from Jeremiah. Many of you lost some affection for Jeremiah last year after reading his entire prophecy in one fell swoop.

And I admit it. He can be a little gloom and doom.

Apparently even his fellow Israelites didn’t like what he had to say, because he was being detained by the King of Judah for having told an inconvenient truth—the Jerusalem was to be sacked by Babylon. And that is one of the hard things about being prophetic. It is hard to proclaim truth to yourself in a cave.

Prophecy is an act of a community.

It might have been more prudent for Jeremiah to quietly mumble under his breath that Babylon was going to sack the city, but that wouldn’t have been prophecy.

And communities don’t always like the prophecy they receive. In this case, Jeremiah is detained. The King, himself, is under siege. We can picture him hiding in a secure location in the castle, unable to go about his life.

The only thing not constrained or locked up is the Word of God, which continues to come to Jeremiah.

But this time the Word is not doom and gloom. This message is not about destruction or invasion, or exile.

This message is about a real estate transaction.

Remember that for Israel, real estate really matters. After the exodus, the tribes are each assigned land. And they are given very specific instructions on how to keep it in the family. You pass it down to your son. And then down to his son. There was even—gasp—a provision for daughters to inherit the land if no male relatives were to be found. If no distant cousins could be unearthed to work the land, only then could it go outside the family. But the family still had the right of redemption.

So, when Jeremiah’s cousin comes to visit him in the hoosegow, it is to sell him a nice piece of property that has been in the family since the exodus. Property that needs to be redeemed so it can stay in the family. And Jeremiah says, “sure, why not? I’ll buy the family land in Anathoth.”

“But wait!” you say. Now is NOT the time to be buying land near Jerusalem! Babylon is singlehandedly ruining the Jerusalem real estate market. Exile and war are very bad for housing values. Subprime housing market, indeed.

Jeremiah buys the land and instructs the deed to be put in a clay jar so it can be kept safe.

For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Jeremiah’s risky real estate transaction is a radical act of hope for the people of Israel.

The war and destruction they see around them will not have the final say.
For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

The failure of the political system in Israel does not mean that Israel has no hope.
God’s Word of hope will come to the people when all around is under siege and when all hope seems lost.

One place we see something similar today is in Detroit. The city that has taken the brunt of the failure of the auto industry has whole neighborhoods that are abandoned and lying vacant. People are buying houses for hundreds of dollars, instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m sure that some people are speculators, and hoping to make money. But some people have been buying these empty homes, these signs of broken dreams, to show that Detroit does have a future. They are fixing them up, inviting homeless to participate in the renovation and then giving them housing. They are using vacant lots as community gardens. There are so many projects at work in that city under siege. All giving voice to the hope that one day, there will be children playing in the neighborhoods again. That it is worth staying in their homes to build a new future together.

Houses, and fields, and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
What the people buying vacant homes in Detroit realize, and what Jeremiah realized was this—what you do TODAY matters for the future. You can’t just say, “I’m going to keep my eyes on that little piece of property, and then when all of this craziness is over, I’ll buy it and work toward making a better community.”

If you want to give your community hope, you can’t always wait and join in once the danger is past. You have to act now, to redeem the property that keeps your family’s claim alive, to make what the world would claim is a risky investment, to show your community that you are more than words.

Jeremiah could have said, “Jerusalem, I love you. God says things will be better at some point in the future, and I’m sure that’s right. We’ll have a great time! But right now, I’m packing up and moving to Boca Raton.”

But the act of redeeming his family’s land, of investing in land under occupation, was God’s word given concrete form.

What we do now matters.

How are our actions matching our words? Do we claim God has a future with hope for our community with our words? Do we claim it with our actions?
One small illustration of where we are claiming a future with hope for our community is next door at the school. We asked for volunteers to go in and spend time with the kids at our neighborhood school. The school was expecting 3 or 4 people to come forward. 23 people came forward! It is great!

Spending your time helping kids succeed at their education is not unlike buying land at Anathoth during an invasion. The world would tell us that these kids should figure it out on their own, because all across the country, we are cutting school budgets. At our neighborhood school, many kids are refugees from other countries and they are trying to not just learn, but learn how to “be” in America. So, your presence in and with those kids matters now, and it gives us all hope that the future in our community will be brighter and better.

Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.

Our stewardship campaign is getting underway now as well. As the session works to set the budget for 2011, they need your pledges to set a reasonable budget. Making a claim with your money for the work of this congregation is one way to speak prophetically as Jeremiah’s land purchase did. We invite you, in the weeks to come, to prayerfully consider the level at which you can pledge to the budget of the church. The session seeks to be faithful and responsible stewards of the budget of the church, but they are also seeking to dream for the future. We pray you will join in this concrete act of hope for the future.

These sermons never do end up quite where I expect they will go, which is usually a good thing. And there is no good transition that I can think of between stewardship and a rich man suffering in eternity, but I don’t want to forget the text from Luke about Lazarus and the Rich man.

This is probably one of Luke’s clearer, if somewhat abrupt parables. There is a rich man. He has what the world would call a “good” life. Drives a BMW chariot and is a member at the Jerusalem country club. And he dies. And is being tormented in Hades, which was not, we imagine, how he saw his privileged life playing out.

There is also a poor man. Named Lazarus. In life he would sit outside the gates to the rich man’s estate, hoping for crumbs from his table. All he got, however, were the dogs licking his sores.

Lazarus also dies and is carried to heaven by the angels, where Mr Rich Man sees him being comforted by none other than Abraham. Mr Rich Man asks Abraham if he’d send lazarus to bring him a cup of water because it is hot when those flames of hell lick at you. Notice that he doesn’t ask Lazarus the favor. He presumes that the divide between them that was accepted by society in life was still in play. Why would a rich man address a poor beggar covered in sores?

Abraham simply tells him, “sorry Charlie. You had your good life on earth, while Lazarus suffered in ways you’ve never even bothered to imagine. So, you’re on your own now.” And even if he wanted to help him, there is a divide that cannot be crossed between them. Mr Rich Man is on his own, left in an isolation of his own making.

So the Rich Man asks Abraham to go back to earth and warn his rich man brothers so that they can learn from his mistakes and not end up where he is. Abraham said, “we’ve tried warning you. Didn’t work.”

“But they’d believe it if someone rose from the dead to give them the good news.”

Can you see where this is going?

Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

Ouch. Now we are talking about more than the problems that come with being rich. Now we’re talking about Jesus.

He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

This parable is not subtle. And it is not all metaphor about what “wealth” means. Luke is very literal about this. The reversal of fortunes between the rich man and Lazarus is a fulfillment of Mary’s song, the magnificat, sung while she was pregnant with Jesus.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. (1:53)

While I think the author of Luke would like us to sell all we have and go live together in intentional community, I don’t know how to preach that particular message without being labeled un-American. If you think I am exaggerating about Luke’s economic faith views, I encourage you to read the book of Acts.
This parable, which immediately follows the parable from last week, is about money. You cannot serve God and wealth.

But it is about faith too.

What I do want us to notice is that the Rich Man asked Abraham to send a sign back to his brothers. And Abraham said “no”. What Abraham wanted the rich man to finally understand is that there is no magical formula of providing signs and miracles that will bring someone to understand about God.

We’ve been given the signs of Moses and the Prophets.

That wasn’t enough.

We’ve been given the signs through the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God made flesh, walking among us.

That wasn’t enough.

God could put on a reality TV show with a miracle a day and that wouldn’t be enough.

Because at some point you have to have faith.

At some point you have to trust in God. Miracles, signs, and wonders, do not translate into faith.

At some point, you have to trust the intention and the goodness of God.

What the rich man didn’t get during his lifetime was an understanding that he was a part of something much greater than his individual pursuit of success. He didn’t see that how we live our lives NOW matters.

In contrast, the prophet Jeremiah, when he bought that land, acted on faith, trusting that the unknown future would turn out to be loving, and gave his community a much needed word of hope.

Let us go out into our community, and may our words and our actions offer people reassurance that the unknown future will turn out to be loving.  Amen.

Leave a comment | posted in Jeremiah 32, Luke 16:19-31, Stewardship

November 20, 2009

"Money Can’t Buy Me (God’s) Love"

By marciglass

Acts 8:9-25
A Sermon preached at Southminster
November 15, 2009

Our text today takes place in the midst of both an exciting and a scary time for the new church. After the passage Ruth preached on last week from Acts 4 about testifying, the followers of Jesus do some amazing things. The authorities are not happy. These upstarts come in, working miracles and preaching of the power of Jesus. Jesus, the guy these authorities had killed.

They try to stop them.

They ask them politely to stop.

They flog them.

They put them in jail.

But none of it works. The apostles rejoice in prayer as they are being flogged. God breaks them out of jail. More and more and more people follow them.


But not everyone understands their message. And, as people are wont to do when they don’t understand someone, they assume they are wrong—it couldn’t be a problem with us?!—and they start giving negative reports about Stephen. He was full of grace and power. And he gives a fairly succinct history of the Hebrew people to the authorities when they bring him in for questioning. He probably would have been okay with that, but then he gives them one, last, paragraph. It is in Acts, chapter 7:51, if you want to follow along.

“You stiff necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors NOT persecute?

You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it!”

He literally puts them in a frenzy—they were enraged and ground their teeth at him—and they stone him. To death. And then Saul enters the text, approving of Stephen’s death. The apostles are scattered. And Saul begins ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off men and women, committing them to prison for being followers of Christ.

So, this is the context for the passage we heard this morning. But before we get to today’s text, let’s pause for a moment in prayer for those who still, to this day, are persecuted for their faith, for speaking out in testimony for what God has shown to them.

Let us pray:

God, we pray for the courage to testify, but the reality is that speaking out for you, for justice, for inclusion, for peace, for human rights, and for the other issues for your gospel compels us to advocate—the reality is that it can be dangerous. For the Christians around the globe who, even today, are at risk if bibles are found in their homes, we pray for safety and for courage to prevail. For the prophets who tirelessly call your church to remember its’ calling and face critique from within the church for their troubles, we pray for courage to prevail. Give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church through the voices of your prophets. We give you thanks that we can come to worship you in freedom and peace. We are comfortable, but we seek to be alive. Give us the confidence to take your message of love, of welcome, of grace, to a hurting world in need of something only you can provide.

Amen.

So, Phillip has left Jerusalem and headed to Samaria. The crowds listened to him with great eagerness—perhaps the woman at the well had already told them about Jesus—and he healed the paralyzed and the lame and cast out unclean spirits.


And then we meet a man named Simon. He is not the same person who is Simon Peter. This Simon was a magician. He had quite a following in Samaria. They liked his magic and figured that his magic was a sign that his power came from God. And it appears that Simon did nothing to disabuse them of their mistake.

This text, at the least, should be a reminder to us to be careful of a crowd’s tendency to follow a charismatic leader. Because not all leaders are the same. Simon seemed to be gathering crowds to bring himself more power. Phillip was drawing people to Jesus. He wasn’t preaching the gospel for personal power and fame. He was preaching the gospel despite the personal risk he was facing from Saul and the authorities.

But even Simon leaves his magic show and follows Phillip. Simon knew fake signs and wonders. That was his job. When he encountered real signs and wonders, however, he left his 3 card monty on the street, was baptized, and followed Phillip to learn more about Jesus.

Phillip was so successful in Samaria that reinforcements come in to help bring the Spirit to these new converts with the laying on of hands.

Simon wanted to get some of that and he offered them money and said, “give me this power so that everyone on whom I lay my hands can have the Holy Spirit”.

Now, Simon doesn’t fare well here. Phillip says:

(Hear Beatles singing “Can’t buy me love…can’t buy me love….can’t buy me love…”)

No, Phillip actually says,

“may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money!”


And commentators through the ages don’t seem to like Simon either. Do you know what the word is for the buying or selling of church favors or offices? Simony. We even named it after our Simon of Samaria.

And maybe Simon was a bad guy. He’d been a huckster magician before Phillip showed up, after all. Perhaps he wanted to buy this power so he could use it for himself.


But I wonder if he just thought that was how the world worked. If you want something, you buy it. I mean, he has a point. There isn’t much out there that in the world that is free. I wonder if Phillip was too quick to presume Simon’s motives. Perhaps he could have said, “Simon, I know that your experience of the world is that nothing is free, that you have to buy and earn your honor, your prestige, your standing, everything. But that is yet another illustration of the power of God in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of God functions under different rules. God’s Spirit is not something we earn. It is a gift, given freely out of the deep and unknowable mystery of God. So put away your money. Better yet, give it away, lest you think it is something on which you can rely. Money can’t buy you God’s love.”

I am sure the Stewardship and Finance Committee is shaking their heads and wondering if I remember that it is Stewardship season. And I do. I know that this may seem an odd text to preach during Stewardship season. But maybe not.


Perhaps it is good to be reminded that we aren’t pledging money so that we can have God’s power.


Perhaps it is good to be reminded that we aren’t pledging money so that we can buy God’s love or God’s favor.

Perhaps we need to be reminded, like Simon needed to be taught, that money can get in our way. That it can make us rely on our own skills and resources and keep us from relying on God.

Stewardship, while it is about building a budget, is not only about that. It is our response to this gift we’ve been given from God in Jesus the Christ.

Stewardship is what we do with what we’ve been given. We could be like Simon, pre-conversion, using our money, charisma, and talents to attract great crowds of followers and great TV ratings. Or, we could be like Phillip and the apostles of the early church, who gave all they had—including their good standing in the community and their physical safety—to follow Jesus.

Stewardship is how we say thank you to God. That is why we have the offering in the service after the sermon—because our offering of ourselves and our resources is a response to God’s word in our lives. We don’t give money in order to hear God’s Word to us. It is our response.

How different would Simon’s experience have been if he had received the power of the Holy Spirit and then offered his money in gratitude and thanks?

Maybe all the commentators are right and Simon was only following Phillip to learn his magic tricks, wanting to harness the power of God for his own ambition. If so, Phillip was surely correct to call him on his wickedness.

But I hope that he just was too new to this crazy world of grace and didn’t know any better. I hope that his prayer was sincere at the end of Phillip’s speech,

“Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.”

I pray that Simon was able to get his mind around this new paradigm of grace, where the real power for change in the world is not for sale.

I pray that we can get our minds around that paradigm too. Because the lobbyists are out there buying political favor left and right. Because Hollywood and the advertising world often sell us lies about beauty, success, and power. Because we often live as if money will buy us love.

But here is the good news. God’s love does not need to be purchased or earned. It has been given to each of us, and to all creation, in the unfathomable generosity of the God who created us. How will you respond to the gift you’ve been given?

Leave a comment | posted in Acts 8:9-25, Stewardship

October 27, 2009

The Word of the Lord

By marciglass

A sermon preached at Southminster
October 25, 2009

1 Kings 17

As you may have already read in the bulletin, today is Reformation Sunday. Our Call to Worship, prayers of confession illumination, and other pieces in the service today date from the early years of the Reformation—back in the mid 16th century. Our hymns today were written by early Reformers as well.

On this last Sunday in October each year, we take a look back at our roots as Presbyterians and as Christians of the Reformed tradition. While the Presbyterian Church grew from the Reformation in Scotland, we also trace our history back to the reformers in Europe—Martin Luther, John Calvin, and many others. On Oct 31, 1517, Martin Luther had some ideas to reform his beloved church. So he nailed them to the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg. 95 ideas in a long list. And while there were people talking about reform before Luther, it is to this moment in history that we put a start date on the Reformation.


Among those ideas that changed the world and influenced our worship today was the understanding of the Priesthood of all believers—which means that we don’t believe that people like me, who are ordained to the priesthood or ministry, are holier than you are. Each of us is capable and encouraged in community to seek an experience of the Divine directly. Rather than mediating your faith through the priest (think of confessions, the selling of indulgences, etc), the reformers believed that we could pray our confessions to God. I know many of you are not fans of the prayer of confession, but try to see it as an act of liberation. Rather than have to come and speak your confessions to me, you are free to approach God yourself. This belief also led to the idea that the Bible should be read by the people in their own languages, and not just by the clergy in Latin. One of the reasons that Presbyterians are known for starting schools all over the world is because you have to know how to read in order to read the Bible. The very act of reading the Bible is a claim we make that God can and does speak to each of us.


In our Year of the Bible readings this week, we began the story of the prophet Elijah.

If you lost interest in daily bible reading somewhere back in Leviticus or Numbers, or feel as if you fell so far behind that you can’t start reading again, I invite you to pick it up with the story of Elijah, which begins in 1 Kings 17. Elijah is a pivotal figure in the history of Israel and is in the minds of many of our New Testament authors. It is to Elijah that John the Baptist and Jesus are often connected, so knowing the story of Elijah will help you understand how 1st Century Jews understood the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Additionally, the story of Elijah is just great storytelling.


As Elijah’s story begins, Ahab is king of Israel. So the united kingdom that Solomon had inherited has divided into the Northern Kindgom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

And Ahab, in the Northern Kingdom, is more evil than any king before him, which is saying something because many of the kings before him were about as evil as you could imagine. In addition to being a bad and evil king, Ahab also married Jezebel, who was Phoenician, from the city of Sidon, shown in blue at the top of the map. While there are plenty of biblical examples of foreigners being faithful and good members of society, Jezebel would not be one of them. Jezebel and Ahab are the poster children of evil, idol worshipping, unfaithful, bad, bad leaders. And Jezebel gives a face to the Biblical campaign against intermarriage. “See—we told you what would happen when you married foreign women!”

And so Elijah appears on the scene to tell Ahab, “as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word”. The punishment for Ahab’s evil is a drought.

And while the drought may come because of the Word of God, note that sustenance in the midst of drought come from God as well. God instructs Elijah to a wadi, or a riverbed or canyon, where there is water. And the ravens feed him in the morning and the evening. So before we move on to the rest of this story, remember that the life of faith is not a promise that you won’t go through a drought, but when you are in a proverbial drought, God will provide. It may just be water in a nearly dry riverbed and food provided by birds, but God does not leave us alone.

Eventually even the riverbed runs dry and the Word of the Lord sends Elijah to someone for help. He goes to Zarephath, a Phoenician town near Sidon, which today would be in Lebanon. So the Word of the Lord sends Elijah to one of these foreign women the rest of the Bible keeps warning us about. And a widow, at that. Women left their own families when they were married and became a part of their husband’s family. But her husband is dead. And a woman without a man to look out for her is in trouble in that culture. This widow, as it turns out, is preparing to make her own last supper. She’s out of food and resources. She and her son are about to die from lack of food.

And Elijah asks her to bring him some water and some bread.

I’m not sure how I would feel if I were about to die and God’s prophet came and asked for my last little bit of food. I suspect my answer would not have been nearly as nice as hers.

And then Elijah gives her an answer that we normally hear from angels when they encounter humans—“Do not be afraid.” What follows the Word of the Lord’s instructions to share her food is a blessing.

Do not be afraid. You may think you are about to die, but you’re not.

Do not be afraid. You may not think you have enough to share, but you do.

Do not be afraid. God doesn’t ask you to give your last food unless God is about to do something big.

Elijah goes on to tell the woman that her jar of meal will not run empty and her jug of oil will not fail. Until the rains fall again, she will have enough to eat.

Elijah is great and all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan. But this widow from Zarephath is my new hero. Perhaps her husband’s family would have taken care of her in normal times, but they are in a drought, the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. She’s on her own. Food stamps have been cut off.

And she’s not even an Israelite. Did you notice what she said to Elijah? “As the Lord, YOUR God, lives, I have nothing baked…” This isn’t even her God she’s helping out.

And then, in a great act of faith, she takes the last of her meal, scraping out the bottom of the jar with her spatula to get every last bit, and she takes the last of her oil, shaking the jug upside down over the pot until all of the oil has drip, drip dripped its way out of the jug, and she puts it in the oven. She didn’t have enough to sustain herself and her son, yet she trusts the word of Elijah’s God and offers that small loaf to sustain her, her son, and Elijah.

She does not say, as soon as God fills up my pantry, I’d be happy to make you some bread.

She does not say, I’d love to help you, but times are tight. Surely you understand why I can’t donate right now.

She does not say, I’d love to help you, but I don’t know you and I’m not sure what you did to end up hungry.

She doesn’t ask Elijah to explain how he got himself in this situation. He’s hungry. She feeds him. Possibly at risk to herself and her child. She doesn’t wait for proof from God either. She hears the Word of someone else’s God and she responds in faith.

We’re beginning our Stewardship Campaign and beginning to plan for the 2010 budget and the parallels are strong between this text and our lives. Our community is also in a drought. Times are tight for many people. Yet the Word of the Lord comes to us and says,

Do not be afraid. You may think you are out of resources, but you’re not.

Do not be afraid. You may not think you have enough to share, but you do.

Do not be afraid. God doesn’t ask you to give unless God is about to do something big.

Our task of stewardship is similar to what the widow of Zarephath experienced. We listen for the Word of God to come to us, even if we’re in the midst of an economic drought. Then we trust the Word of God and go out on faith to do something important. Because Stewardship happens in that order too. We don’t wait for something great to get started and then say, “okay, I’ll support that”.

Stewardship is an act of faith, of saying, “Here’s what I’ll contribute to what God is dreaming to do with Southminster in our community”. And then, once your pledges are in, the Session can build the budget.

We have to bake our loaves even before God has filled the jars with meal and the jugs with oil.

By committing to pledge to Southminster, each year you are like the widow from Zaraphath, answering God’s call to be a witness of faith in this community.

If every member of Southminster pledged what they could pledge, do you know what we could do?

Many of you have talked about wanting to help our youth program grow, but that takes resources. People have dreamed about fixing up our aging facilities, but that takes resources. Ten percent of our budget currently goes to mission work in the church. This year we’d like to increase that to support more local agencies. Think about the people in our community who could be fed, and clothed, and supported as they get back on their feet and out of homelessness. Each of us, individually, may be able to just do a little. But when we respond to God’s call, our jars will never run empty and our jugs will always have oil.

But as we read the text, we realize that the feeding isn’t the real miracle. At least it isn’t the only one. What the work of nourishment does is set in place the chance for new life.

Because the widow’s son falls ill and dies. But Elijah cries out to God, using his own words to seek a miracle. And the Lord listens to Elijah and life returns to the widow’s son.

All of our work in stewardship, planning, and administering the work of the church is not just so we can say we have planned, budgeted and worked. It is so we can be a place of miracles. Who knows what God may do yet in this place! When the widow invited Elijah into her home, her son wasn’t ill. She didn’t let him so he could heal her son. This miracle was something she couldn’t even imagine she would need.

What, yet, may God do for this place? Let us listen for the word of the Lord in the midst of our lives, so we may respond in faith. And may we be on the lookout for miracles that will result. Amen.

Leave a comment | posted in Ahab, Elijah, Jezebel, Stewardship, Widow of Zaraphath

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