PROPER 24B 2009
Second Stewardship Sunday for 2010 Pledges
Text: Mark 10-:35-45
As many of you know, if you have been around a while, and many of you might not know, if you are new, in the Episcopal church we engage in what we call the fall stewardship drive, or campaign. We used to call it the ever member canvas. It is a part of our cultural DNA. It is one particular characteristic of our church that one gets used to, like many of our family customs. In general, we approach it with two emphasis: a theological one and a practical one. Through drama, talks, sermons, written material, etc. we try and share our privilege and responsibility to give to God as well as the fact that it is worth your while to give to the local church. At the end of it all, in a few weeks, we will gather for a stewardship dinner and ask you to make a pledge to God through this church for the coming year. After a few more Sundays of taking pledges, we then have the Episcopal mafia visit each home and shake you down, and let you know what will happen if you don’t give!
I thought this drama presentation portrayed pretty realistically the process that many of us go through when it comes to giving. Learning to give is a process, and this skit demonstrated this very well. When a person is first challenged to give in the Christian community, it often does feel like it is these “upper middle class guys” up there lecturing us to give away our hard earned money. The church is seen as something that is run by “them”, and we are not really a central part of it. There is often resentment and even anger when “they” talk about “us” giving “them”… meaning the church… our money. I know that this is the way that many of you feel, and I would venture to say that this is the feeling of a large percentage of church goers. This time of year is often a process simply to be endured.
But since God is gracious, and we do grow spiritually, it often happens that our view on giving begins to change as we grow, just as it did with this couple. They began to understand that the church is not just a club, or social institution, but it is a divinely ordained gathering of people. In Bible words, it is the Body of Christ. Somehow, someway, with all of its faults and sins, the divine dwells in the midst of it. As this couple began to see, it was not they, the “upper middle class guys” who were asking for money, but rather it is God asking us to give of our resources so that the truth and the love and the gospel of God can be shared and lived out in a dark and often cruel world.
This is a profound realization that changes our entire concept of giving. Yes, if it is just Pastor Liz or I standing up here, asking on our own authority, for our own purposes and enrichment, then you should be upset. In the long run, at the end, on the final day, when we all give account of our lives to God, it will make little difference to me, or to Pastor Liz, what you have done with your life and giving. Our concern will be our own life, not yours!
So we try and base our challenges to give on a much higher authority than ourselves, and that of course is found in the scriptures. Last week we read about a rich young man who could not follow Jesus because he loved his wealth more than God. And then Jesus tells his followers:
Mark 10:23-27 ( NRSV ) 23………..“How hard it will be
for those who have wealth to enter the
From this passage, and many, many more like it, we learn that that giving to God is a central part of following Jesus. Giving is a way of life for Christians. As Pastor Liz mentioned last Sunday, giving money away freely is counter-cultural.
I am reading a book now that is emphasizing in a brilliant way just how counter cultural Christianity was in the first centuries of its existence. Because today we live in a culture which has been shaped and molded by Christianity, it is hard for us to see just how radical our faith really was, and still is. What we often take for granted in our lives really is a result or the triumph of Christian thought over many other religions and ways of looking at life. Because our way of looking at life has been so imbued with Christianity, we can read a passage like our gospel this morning and have no clue at how radical the teachings of Jesus really were, let alone his suffering death on the cross.
Right after Jesus tells his
followers that the rich, who are
supposedly the blessed ones by God, are
going to find it hard to enter the
Mark 10:32 ( NRSV ) 32 They were on the road, going
up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid…..
We can sympathize with these disciples if we realize that everything they are hearing and learning is so incredibly new and different from many of the religious and cultural values and norms they had learned. We see this when James and John ask to be seated next to Jesus when he is in his glory. This is a normal and logical human desire. James and John think, since we are his close friends, and we have been following him around for all this time, well then, it is only fair and logical that we get to reap some of the rewards. We have earned it.
But again, as with the rich young ruler, Jesus turns everything upside down. James and John and the other disciples had had their values shaped by the culture around them. In that culture, the Roman and Greek and even Jewish culture, those who rule, get to rule. They are the privileged ones. If you are a slave, this is just your lot in life, and you live out your life as a slave. Kings and governors rule…. Others are ruled. This is the divine order of life.
But listen to this statement by Jesus after he tells them that in this is the way of life in the world. In our translations it reads:
“But it is not so among you…” In other translations it reads… “It shall not be so among you.”
This saying leapt out at me as I pondered this passage. Again we see how radical, how counter cultural the teaching of Jesus is. He is saying.. “The world around you lives this way… but you will not live that way… your way of life will be different…. Instead of ruling over others… you will be servants.. you will be slaves..” And then he tells them that even he has come to be a slave, and even to die.
Now this was not what the disciples
wanted to hear. They had visions of being rulers with Jesus. The could see
themselves riding down the streets of Jerusalem, or Rome, on beautiful horses all decked out
in gorgeous apparel, with the people all
around bowing and shouting as they rode by… or something like this.. I just finished a book about Queen Elizabeth
and Queen Mary of
Well, instead of this, Jesus says they are to be slaves… if they want to be great.
How radical was that teaching then,
as it still is today!
The church is a place where we let teachings like these ferment among us. We try and take living the Christian faith seriously. And because we are so used to concepts like mercy, forgiveness, loving, striving for justice, caring for others…. At times these norms don’t seem all that radical. We often think that they are obvious. But if anyone looks at the history of humanity down through the centuries it will become clear how radical the Christian way really is.
A few weeks ago in our Believers class we were discussing why the world is not a better place after two thousand years of Christianity. And this is a good question. But as I think about it, I like to also ask the question… what would the world be like without the Christian faith? While we like to think that concepts like mercy, love, forgiveness, justice, etc. are instinctive human traits, I think that history proves that this is not so. Instead, the natural human traits of selfishness, power, control of others, love of wealth, and revenge and more are our dominant traits. It is “natural” for rulers to lord it over those they rule… It is un-natural, or against much of our nature, to be able to rule, but instead to serve.
In a real sense, Jesus and all of scripture calls us back to live according to the divine image of God in us that has been tainted by what we call sin. In each one of us the divine image exits, desiring to thrive and grow. We who gather in the community of faith are those who confess that we want the good, the divine part of our nature to overtake and control the sinful and selfish part of our being. And in a real sense, that is what does happen in the local church. We do learn to give our money away for the good of others. We do learn to care. . We are challenged to strive for justice. We do give so that others around the world might have food and medicine and education. We do try and forgive others.
And all of this is a process, just as we saw in the drama this morning. We are all in a different place in this journey. The most important thing is that we are on the journey. Hang in there. If our asking for money makes you uncomfortable, or even angry, hang in there. We all need to grow. We all need to be challenged. None of us are ever “there”. All we need do is be open, and God will do the rest over time. AMEN!
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