CONSECRATION SUNDAY 2008: Servants and Stewards
(1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34)
As I mentioned at the outset of our worship this morning, we traded our readings today with those for next week. That is, instead of celebrating “The Holy Trinity,” as the church calendar calls for, today has been designated instead as “Consecration Sunday” here at All Saints, and I have chosen to use next week’s lessons because they were a better fit. Of course, next Sunday, then, we’ll simply go back and observe Holy Trinity.
Now I know that such an exchange probably irritates the liturgical purists among us, but, as I shared with our Marianne Zotti, our congregation president when I originally proposed this switch, I suspect that Jesus more than likely would have observed that “the lectionary was made for man, not man for the lectionary.” At least I certainly hope so! Nevertheless, what’s done is done.
And, regardless of whether the switching of lessons is liturgically correct or not, the reason for the switch should have been obvious to you when you listened to them. Because “Consecration Sunday,” of course, is all about stewardship, and commitment, and our faithful response to God; themes that our new lessons this morning (especially the second reading and the gospel) are very much concerned with.
The dictionary tells us, for instance, that to consecrate is to “dedicate,” or “devote” something “to a sacred purpose.” As you know, this morning we have been asked to make an estimate of financial giving for the coming year, which now begins on June 1 and runs through the end of next May. It is this giving that directly supports and funds the work of God’s church, both here in our own congregation and synod, and then also throughout the world.
And these lessons, I believe, have something important to say to us as we prayerfully consider our response and our commitment this morning. So what I’d like to do with you now is take a brief look at two of them, again the second reading and the gospel, beginning with today’s passage from Matthew…
The headlines in USA Today this past week said it all. The front page of Thursday’s edition read, “Foreclosures take toll on mental health.” And then, only adding fuel to the fire, the first page of the “Money” section announced, “Foreclosures skyrocket 65% in April.” Then the weekend edition, which came out the very next day, simply reinforced this heightened anxiety, and the growing sense of worry and dread among Americans, with a cover story entitled, “The Incredible Shrinking Nest Egg: Paltry stock returns, lower home values, dim the view for retirement.”
It’s clear that we are living in “uncertain” times. Even as the experts argue with each other over whether or not we’re in a true recession, or how long this economic downturn is likely to last, everyday people – like ourselves – simply have to deal with the reality. And we know, all too well, that rising food and gas prices, the sagging housing industry, and the overall ripple effect of these dramatic and significant changes to our economy are a cause for concern. And, of course, close on the heels of these unsettling economic realities, there comes that increased sense of worry and anxiety. Largely, I’m afraid, because most of us tend to define ourselves in financial or economic terms.
John Updike once wrote a short story entitled The Wallet. It was about a retired broker, named Fulham, “who had assembled a nice life after thirty years of marriage, a handsome white house in the older suburbs.” Fulham spends his time in retirement managing his own investments and also those of a few favored and long-time clients. Every morning now, he goes to an upstairs room in his house, with his Wall Street Journal and a second cup of coffee, and he looks contentedly out the window at his neatly manicured lawn; surveying and enjoying the life he has created for himself…
Then, one morning, disaster strikes. He suddenly can’t find his wallet. He looks everywhere; under chairs, beds, he even goes through the pockets of suits he hasn’t worn in months. Updike writes that Fulham’s wallet was a “reminder” of his life, “containing charge cards for Bay Bank, Brooks Brothers, Hertz, American Express… and cards signifying his membership in the country club, (and the) Museum of Fine Arts…”
So Fulham panics. He even goes a little berserk. His wife says to him, “I’ve never seen you like this.” And he asks her, “How am I?” And she says, “You’re wild.” To which he responds, “It was my wallet. Everything is in it. Everything. Without that wallet, I’m nothing.”
Or consider the newspaper account from a few years back which read, “When the landing gear of US Airways Flight 479 collapsed last Friday, and the crew ordered an evacuation down the emergency slides, almost half the passengers reacted by grabbing their carry-on luggage… One man grabbed two bags. Another struggled with a large bag. A woman blocked the aisle struggling to get a garment bag out of an overhead bin.”
Now tell me, do we define who we are… or do we somehow let our possessions do that for us?
With these examples of contemporary attitudes and inclinations in mind, we now turn to this morning’s gospel. “…I tell you,” said Jesus, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
I’m reminded here of that old Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” (It’s hard to believe that it came out 20 years ago. Boy, am I feeling old!) In one verse he sang, “In every life we have some trouble. But when you worry you make it double.” He then concluded with, “Don’t bring everybody down. Don’t worry. It will soon pass, whatever it is. Don’t worry… be happy,”
Sounds a bit like denial to me. And is that what Jesus is saying here as well? Simply ignore the troubles and the problems, and that eventually they’ll go away?
Jesus, of course, then goes on to encourage us to consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The birds neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, he says, yet God nevertheless feeds them. And the lilies neither toil nor spin, he points out, yet not even King Solomon, in all of his glory, was clothed like one of these.
Which then begs the question, what exactly does he mean here?” Does he mean, for instance, that we’re supposed to just kick back and simply trust that God will somehow take care of us? Isn’t life, at least for us humans, so much more complicated than that? Don’t we have to do something?
Writing in the current edition of The Christian Century, Tom McGrath responds to such questions by observing, “…it’s easy to misunderstand Jesus here. We may be tempted to dismiss these examples, thinking that if flowers and birds are carefree, it’s because they’re oblivious and unaware of what might be in store for them.” McGrath then goes on to conclude, “I sense that Jesus points to the birds and the lilies as examples because they unselfconsciously participate in the life of God, life which is pouring forth through all creation. Undue worry blocks that participation, which is why we humans often feel distant and disconnected from God. Fear closes down our hearts; worry puts up a barricade to grace. The birds and the lilies and all of nature have lessons to teach us about being unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace,” he says.
Participate in the life of God, and become unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace… Jesus put it this way, “…strive first for the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
I guess it comes down to a matter of perspective. Former coach John McKay of USC once came into the locker room to address his football team after they had been humiliated by Notre Dame by a score of something like fifty-one to nothing. He saw a group of beaten, worn-out, and thoroughly discouraged young players who were not accustomed to losing. “Men,” he said, “let’s keep this in perspective. After all, there are 800 million Chinese out there who don’t even know that this game was even played!” In other words, keeping score, whether on the football field or in the financial arena… doesn’t really matter in the end.
But it’s also more than that. Putting things into perspective, according to Jesus, also involves setting priorities and understanding just what is important. So if we focus on the kingdom of God and strive for it, says Jesus; if we focus on trusting God; we will then be able to see more clearly what’s truly important in life, and moreover also be able to order our lives around these priorities. For, as he made perfectly clear, no one can serve two masters.
A television program, preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics, once profiled blind skiers who were being trained for slalom skiing…
as impossible as that may sound. Paired with “sighted” skiers, these blind skiers were first taught, where the terrain was level, how to make right and left turns. And then, when that was mastered, they were taken up to the slalom slope where their sighted partners skied beside them, shouting out directions, “Left!” or “Right!”
As they followed these commands, they were able to negotiate the course successfully and eventually cross the finish line. They depended solely on the word of the sighted skiers. It was either complete trust… or catastrophe.
“What a vivid picture of the Christian life!” writes Robert Sutton. “In this world, we are in reality blind about what course to take. We must rely solely on the Word of the only One who is truly sighted – God… (God’s) Word gives us the direction we need to finish the course.”
Jesus’ final observation in today’s gospel was, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
A tourist once visited a cathedral where an artist was working on a huge mosaic. A vast empty wall stood before them, and the tourist asked, “Aren’t you worried about all that space you need to fill up, or how will you ever finish it?” The artist replied that he only concentrated on what he could actually accomplish each day. Each morning, he said, he simply marked off the area he intended to complete, and he didn’t allow himself to worry about what lay outside that space. He just took one day at a time, and he trusted that one day the mosaic would be finished.
So often we approach the challenges and the obstacles we face in this life like they were that empty wall. Of course, we can either worry endlessly about the final picture we hope to create and how we are going to accomplish it. Or… we can simply start to fill in the space (as Arthur Caliandro has written), “with wonderful unique images – the imprint of our lives – by doing the very best we can with each day we are given.”
Now the reason why we need to understand this, the reason why we need to strive first for the kingdom of God, put things into perspective, set godly priorities, and then take only one day at a time, is that God apparently has big plans for us. As St. Paul wrote in our second lesson this morning, we are to think of ourselves as he himself did; that is, “as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.”
That’s quite a job description,” observes Tom McGrath, who goes on to ask, “What kind of stewards will we be if our minds and hearts are closed to the very mysteries we are meant to share?” And then he draws this helpful analogy, “A trustworthy wine steward,” for instance, “has the full run of the master’s house. He descends into the wine cellar and brings up the finest wines… Attuned to the ways of the master and the needs of the guests, the steward matches the wine to the occasion – to the food, to the mood, to the meaning of the moment. As stewards of God’s mysteries,” McGrath concludes, “we are meant to incorporate those mysteries… but not keep them to ourselves.”
Now when Paul was talking about God’s mysteries here, he was primarily talking about the gospel itself, and our stewardship, or “management,” of the good news of God’s unfailing love and incomparable grace. But the word “stewardship,” of course, also reminds us (especially today) that we are called to be “managers” of all of God’s blessings; the material as well as the spiritual.
The story is told of a very wealthy man who once stood up at a church meeting to tell the rest of those present about his Christian faith. “I am a millionaire many times over,” he said. “And I attribute it all to the rich blessings of God in my life. I remember the turning point in my faith. I had just earned my very first dollar and I went to a church meeting that night. The speaker was a missionary who told about his work. Now I knew that I only had that one dollar, and that I had to either give it all to God’s work or nothing at all. So at that moment, I decided to give my whole dollar – everything I had – to God. And I believe that God blessed that decision, and that’s why I am a rich man today.”
His heartfelt gratitude, however, was marred only by the fact that this earlier generosity had not really been as evident during the subsequent years of good fortune and great wealth.
But, nevertheless, when he was finished, there was an awed silence in response to his testimony. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. He then made his way back to his seat, and as he sat down, the little old lady sitting next to him in the pew – somehow sensing that his current behavior, perhaps, did not quite match his earlier generosity, and in response to his claim of having once given everything he had to God – leaned over and whispered to him, “I dare you to do it again!”
“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required,” said Jesus. Now the mistake of that millionaire was not that he didn’t attribute his good fortune to God’s blessings – he certainly did. But he apparently forgot that we are blessed by God to be a blessing… to others. That is, these blessings from God are intended to be used for a cause greater than our own.
In stark contrast to that millionaire, there is the life of John Wesley, the founder of the movement that eventually became known as the Methodist Church. A few hundred years ago, this great preacher and evangelist showed us another way. Just like us, Wesley lived in economically uncertain times. Yet, from humble beginnings, he became so famous and in demand that his income eventually reached 1400 pounds a year; a sum that would be worth more than $300,000 dollars today.
So what did he do with all this wealth? Did he tithe it? No. Wesley went way beyond tithing. In fact, he disciplined himself to live on just 30 of those 1400 pounds he earned each year. In other words, he gave away 98% of all that he earned, and lived on just 2%!
More importantly, he once had this to say regarding money, “It is an excellent gift of God… In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, (clothing) for the naked… It gives (shelter) to the traveler and the stranger (some)where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of a husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We may be a defense for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame…
According to Wesley, there were but three simple rules to guide our response to money, “Gain all you can, save all you can, (but then) give all you can.” The first of these, “gain all you can,” comes pretty naturally to most of us, doesn’t it? The second, “save all you can,” is normally a little bit harder – unless, of course, we’re saving for ourselves. But, in Wesley’s mind, these first two only matter in as much as they make possible the third, “give all you can.”
And not only did he strive to live out these principles himself, but he also once commented, “If I leave behind me ten pounds… you and all mankind (can) bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber.”
But, as Paul suggested in that second reading this morning, our stewardship, nevertheless, goes far beyond our use of money. You see, our stewardship has to do primarily, again, with the mysteries of God’s mercy and grace. As servants and stewards, we are called to be Christ’s presence in the world.
Certainly, the proper use of our money, and the material blessings we have received from God, are an important way in which that presence is felt. Every time I read that the ELCA has sent a generous gift in response to domestic or international disasters, I know that God’s is there, and that Christ’s love is being shared. But sometimes… that presence of God can only be felt when we are physically present.
Tony Campolo tells the story, shared with him by his good friend the late Mike Yaconelli, of a church deacon who just didn’t know how to “deak!” That is, he just didn’t know what he was supposed to do as a deacon. So Tony’s friend, Mike, finally said to this deacon, “I have a group of young people that go out to the old folk’s home and put on a worship service once a month. Would you drive them over there and at least do that?” The deacon agreed.
The first Sunday the deacon was at this old folk’s home, he just stood in the back of the room with his arms folded as the kids were doing their thing up front. All of a sudden, however, he felt someone tugging at his arm. He looked down and there was this old man in a wheelchair. Not quite sure what to do, he simply took the old man’s hand and held it throughout the rest of the service.
The next month it happened again. The man in the wheelchair came and the deacon held his hand. So, too, the next month. and the next, and the next.
Finally, one month, the old man wasn’t there for the service. So the deacon went looking for him and was told, “Oh, he’s down the hall, right-hand side, third door… He’s dying. And he’s unconscious… But if you want to go down there and pray over his body, that’s alright, I guess.”
The deacon went down to the old man’s room, and there were tubes and wires hanging out all over the place. The deacon reached out and took the old man’s hand and prayed that God would receive him, that God would bring the man from this life to the next, and give him eternal blessings.
As soon as he was finished, the old man squeezed the deacon’s hand and the deacon knew that he had been heard. He was so moved by this that tears began to run down his cheeks. He stumbled out of the room and, as he did so, he bumped into a woman. She said, “You know, he’s been waiting for you. He said that he didn’t want to die until he had the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”
The deacon was amazed and puzzled by this, and asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place. ‘He would take my hand and he would hold it for the entire hour. And I don’t want to die… until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.’”
“Think of us in this way,” wrote Paul, “as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.” As much as anything else, that’s what I think Paul was talking about here when he spoke of being stewards of the mysteries of God. Does God use our money and financial resources to make his presence felt in our troubled and hurting world? Most certainly.
But even more importantly, God simply uses us; the touch of a hand, the warmth of an embrace, that word of encouragement in the midst of confusion or despair. Today is Consecration Sunday here at All Saints. We are being asked to make a financial commitment to God’s work. And that’s important, to be sure. But what I think God is really asking for – in our response and in our commitment – is everything, not just our money. That each of us might participate in the life of God, and become unobstructed channels for the flow of God’s grace.
Amen
