Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 1:1-4,2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16
Welcome to the 2012 stewardship season! What, no applause? Now, this may not be a season you look
forward to quite as much as, say, football season or the Christmas season, and
that’s understandable. For many of us,
“stewardship” is the Church’s code language for, “Give us money.” Coming to church in the fall can feel like
turning on NPR during the pledge drive – you wait for the pitch to end so you
can get back to regular programming.
Even though we’re officially kicking off
our pledge campaign today, a number of you have beaten us to the punch. At this point, we’ve already received 70
pledges for 2013, including seven new ones.
You’ll hear more from one of our Stewardship chairs, Glenn Crawford, in
just a few minutes.
So yes, there’s certainly a financial
component to stewardship; but it doesn’t
mean, “Give us money.” And I hope this
year’s stewardship season makes that point loud and clear. For example:
The pledge card this year does ask for a financial pledge, but it also
asks for a pledge of time and talent, because your bank account isn’t the measure
of your life. And the pledge card is
about more than pledging, too. It
includes a bookmark with Scripture verses for you to read and pray over each
day in order to flesh out the deeper reality of stewardship: that our lives are
gifts from God that bless us when we pass them along. That’s why the theme for this year is choosing
to say “thank you” for the love that God showers on us.
But that begs the question, what exactly
do I have to be thankful for? I mean, we all know we’re supposed to be
thankful; but frankly, there’s a lot that’s wrong these days. We’re anxious about the economy, with many
people still out of work or uncertain about their jobs. We’re anxious about our social institutions
like marriage and family, with “long-term relationships” now measured in a few
years rather than lifetimes. We’re
anxious about our nation’s politics and the polarization that keeps us from
governing ourselves responsibly. We’re
anxious about the future, fearing that our children’s lives will be harder than
ours have been.
So there’s plenty for us to worry
about. And yet, this pledge card reads,
“Choose to say, ‘Thank You.’” Thank you
for what?
For me, at least, our readings today point
to an answer: What we have to be most
thankful for is the gift of relationships.
The reading from Genesis begins the
story. After six days of creation, even
as God has spun the majesty of the heavens and the earth out of nothing, God
realizes the work isn’t quite done. All
the “stuff” is right – oceans and forests teeming with life; food free for the
taking; the human being serving as God’s deputy, naming the animals and caring
for creation. But the human being is not
yet complete. He yearns for something:
mutual relationship with someone who makes him whole. God sees it and makes for him not another thing
to manage but a partner to complete him.
The human being now has “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (2:23), and
the two can become the “one flesh” together they each long to be (2:24). The gift of relationship begins there in the
Garden and makes creation perfect. And every
time God calls us into the fullness of relationship with another human being,
every time we make ourselves vulnerable and give ourselves to another, every
time love happens and endures – that perfection of creation blossoms once
again. That’s quite a gift to be
thankful for.
And in the reading from Hebrews, we hear
what holy relationships look like: They look
like the relationships modeled by Jesus, the one sent not simply to speak for
God but to show us “the exact imprint of God’s very being” (1:3). This is why Christianity is so shocking, even
2,000 years later – because the exact imprint of God’s very being looks like
giving yourself up for those you love. In
fact, God loves us at the ultimate cost, experiencing human death in order to
defeat it and let us live forever. In
Jesus, God gives us a relationship of love that never dies. That’s quite a gift to be thankful for.
And then there’s the Gospel reading, where
we hear words we may find harsh, even judgmental. When it comes to divorce, Jesus is clearly
not a fan. But to me, at least, the
point here isn’t simply “divorce is bad,” and it certainly isn’t that divorced
people are bad. The point I hear Jesus
making is about love and control. When
we can’t get what we want, sometimes we choose control over mutual
self-giving. But the gift of deep
relationship comes when both parties give up trying to control it, when we
empty ourselves of power over the relationship.
I think that’s why Jesus’ comments about
divorce are followed, oddly, by the story of little children coming to him. The kids aren’t seeking anything but
love. The disciples try to keep them
away from Jesus because children were the lowest of the low in Ancient Near Eastern
culture, and no respectable rabbi would want to get his hands dirty with them (literally). But Jesus sees the kids’ desire to be with
him as the contrast to the Pharisees’ “hardness of heart” in justifying
divorce. The powerless kids don’t come
into the relationship with any need for control. They’re just hoping to be loved. And, Jesus says, that’s the kind of
relationship God gives to us – the
intimate, freely given love of a parent for a child. That’s quite a gift to be thankful for.
But it’s hard to live in a state of thankfulness, remembering God’s
blessings in anxiety and stress.
Frankly, I’m not always as grateful for my life as I know I’m supposed
to be. In this job, there are times when
counting my blessings isn’t exactly the first thing on my mind. I had one of those times a few weeks ago,
when Mtr. Anne was gone on vacation. We
were getting ready for the fall program, and juggling schedules for restoration
work on the building, and developing commission mandates, and planning for next
year’s budget, and working on the pledge campaign. I had a wedding to prepare for, and people in
the hospital, and a couple of funerals to do.
And in the midst of all that, a parishioner whom I’d never met, a member
in name only, was making her way into the last stages of her life. Honestly, it just felt like one more thing I
had to attend to. But as it turns out, I
was truly blessed to be able to visit her in her last weeks.
On the first visit, I sat with her in
her beautiful living room and got to hear about her life – her joys, her
struggles with some relationships, her fight with cancer, and her wishes for
her funeral. We talked about how surprising
it is that healing can come from situations like hers, both in terms of healing
present relationships and in terms of the ultimate healing – God’s love in eternal
life.
Going over to her house for a second
visit, I had more limited expectations.
She had taken a turn and wasn’t able to communicate; family and friends
were preparing for the end. I brought my
oil stock and expected a quick visit – anointing and prayers, then on my
way. I rang the doorbell, came in, and
found her sitting on the couch, dressed to receive guests, with her hair combed
and wearing makeup, and smoking a cigarette.
I was dumbfounded and said something really caring like, “What are you
doing, sitting there on the couch?” She
looked at me, smiled, and said, “Well, I’m smoking a cigarette.” I came and sat with her, and we talked about
the turn for the better she’d taken that morning. Then she asked, “Did you bring Communion?”;
and I said, “No, I didn’t think you’d be up for a meal. But have you got a cracker and some
wine?” So she got up, went into the
kitchen, and came back with the necessary elements for a complete celebration
of Holy Eucharist: a cracker on a small clay plate, a bottle of wine, and a
Dixie cup. We sat there together and
celebrated the Eucharist, making her coffee table God’s altar, and transforming
a cracker and paper cup of wine into the banquet of the kingdom of heaven.
On my third visit, she really was at the end of this life. Her eyes were closed; she couldn’t speak; and
I didn’t know what she might be able to hear.
But I came to her bedside and sat with her, praising her for finishing
up some letters to significant people in her life. I got out my oil for anointing the sick,
inscribed a cross on her forehead, and prayed that she would soon know God’s
ultimate healing – that God would usher her gently from this side of eternal
life and bring her joyfully to other side.
I sat with her a few minutes, holding her hand. Finally, I looked at her and said, “Have a
good trip.”
In the car, driving back to church, I
received a call from the family. She had
died minutes after I left. From the
family’s perspective, she had heard whatever it was that she needed to hear in
order to let go and make her journey home.
Her breathing had changed; she’d become peaceful; and she’d entered into
the fullness of eternal life, coming into her Father’s loving embrace.
What am I thankful for? I’m thankful for the gift of holy
relationships. With my family, with my friends, with you whom I see week in and
week out, and with people I never expected – in all those holy relationships – God
gives me windows into the kingdom of heaven, windows into eternal life begun in
the here and now. That is quite a gift. And
for that gift, I choose to say, “Thank you,” and pass it along.
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