Nothing New to Add

Luke 2:1-20

Christmas Eve Year A

December 24, 2013

First Presbyterian Church Clarksville

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            In 1994, Ursula Askam Fanthorpe was the first woman appointed as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.*  The professorship is more honorary than academic.  The office holder is expected to lecture just two or three times per year during the five year appointment.

            Fanthorpe is best known for a volume of poems for two voices co-written by her lifelong companion Rosie Bailey.  Most of her poetry is a reflection on life in England and themes of the cultural changes since her war-time childhood and the subtle shifts in British national identity. 

            One of Fanthorpe’s lesser known poems is titled simply BC:AD.  It is a short simple poem that seeks to capture a moment in time when nothing was happening…

            …and when everything happened.  It reads:

            This was the moment when Before

            Turned into After, and the future’s

            Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

            This was the moment when nothing

            Happened. Only dull peace

            Sprawled boringly over the earth.

            This was the moment when even energetic Romans

            Could find nothing better to do

            Than counting heads in remote provinces.

            And this was the moment

            When a few farm workers and three

            Members of an obscure Persian sect

            Walked haphazard by starlight straight

            Into the kingdom of heaven.

            Once we clear away the holiday add-ons, the holly and the ivy, the wrapping and the tinsel, what is left is a rather ordinary night in Bethlehem when nothing was happening and everything happened. 

            To say that life in that first century Roman province was not exciting is probably an understatement.  Now to be sure, there were problems and life was not easy, but compared to the excitement of Rome, things were pretty calm and quiet and, well, boring.  Things must have been relatively quiet for the Roman authorities to be bored enough to order a census.  Surely there were easier ways to raise money for Caesar.  But, here in this quiet backwater town of Bethlehem, that is exactly what they do.  They decide to count everyone.

            Outside the city, a few shepherds watched the flocks under their care.  It was a day like any other- nothing special at all.  As day gave way to night, the only thing they really had to look forward to was night yielding to day again. 

            Coming to town with her new husband for the mandatory census, a young mother, her time finally arrived, gave birth to a baby.  Despite what the hymn writer would later say, my guess is that like every other baby since the beginning of time, this one did some crying make.

            There in Bethlehem, it was just a night.

            Like any other night.

            Boring.

            Mundane.

            As pedestrian as a night could be.

            It was just a night.  And that, Fanthorpe observes, is the paradox because it was into this entirely unremarkable night that God became human.  Haven to earth came down.  Eternity intersected the daily. 

            Before gave way to After. 

            It was that night, in that moment, when history came to a point- God’s whole relationship with creation came together in one moment.  In his letter to the Galatians, Paul would refer to the event of the birth of Christ as “the fullness of time.” 

            All of the years- the generations- led up to that moment…in the fullness of time. 

            On the pulpit at St. Salvator’s chapel at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland there is an hourglass.  There are all sorts of legends about why it is there, but the likely culprit was a longwinded bishop.  It is placed so that it is just at the bottom of the preacher’s field of view so that no matter where you look from the pulpit, that hourglass is there.  Before the sermon begins, an usher walks up and rather unceremoniously flips the glass, gives the preacher a knowing look, and returns to his seat.  I can say from experience that hourglass is intimidating.

            It did not dawn on me until I was working on this sermon that in a way the hourglass is not just a warning to longwinded preachers.  It is also a pretty accurate symbol of that first Christmas night.

            In that moment when a new baby took his first breath and a newlywed couple became a holy family, the fullness of time that came together in that moment, began to expand again.  Before became After.     

            The miracle of Christmas is not found only in its own specialness, but in what this extraordinary moment can teach us about all the other ordinary moments we live each year.  Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canerbury and now Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge University, frequently speaks about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary; how even in the most pedestrian moments, God can do extraordinary things.  Williams writes:

"here we are daily, not necessarily attractive and saintly people, along with other not very attractive and saintly people, managing the plain prose of our everyday service, deciding daily to recognize the prose of ourselves and each other as material for something unimaginably greater — the Kingdom of God, the glory of the saints, reconciliation and wonder."

            The birth of Christ in the midst of such an ordinary night gives us a glimpse of what God can do with the ordinary circumstances of our lives; this moment that happened in the fullness of time opens our imaginations for the extraordinary work of God.

            After all the parties are over, the gifts are exchanged, the eggnog consumed, and the last bars of Silent Night are left hanging in the air, life for most of us will get back to ordinary.  No more hectic shopping, no more caroling, no more last minute gift wrapping, just the normal everyday stuff of everyday life.

            The birth of Christ reminds us that it is just such ordinariness that provides the building blocks for God’s unimaginably greater work in our midst.

            If God can work such miraculous things in such an ordinary night, imagine what God can do in the everyday of our lives.  Even the most mundane winter night can be the place that God does wondrous things.

            As I sat in my office doing my best to stare down the blinking cursor on the blank screen, my frustration finally got the best of me and I declared, “Linda, this is my 15th Christmas Eve sermon and I have no idea what to say.”  Linda, who serves dually as our church secretary and the resident sage of wisdom, gave me a wry smile and said, “Nothing new to add, huh?”

            It dawned on me when she said those words that in fact, no. I don’t have anything new to add.  And in truth, there isn’t anything new to add.  This story, in all its miraculous simplicity, says it all. 

            Even in the most ordinary of moments, God can, will, and does do extraordinary things.

            Friends, my prayer for us all is that in this night and every night to come, we may know what it is to encounter the extraordinary in the ordinary and, in the fullness of time, walk haphazard by starlight straight into the kingdom of heaven. 

            O come, o come, Emmanuel.  Amen.

*The connection between this poem and the nativity as well as the Williams quote was made by a writer whose essay I read a few years ago. My notes did not include the writer’s name or where I encountered this helpful insight.  Although this sermon is entirely my own, I want to give credit where it is due.

Joseph Was a Righteous Man

Matthew 1:18-25

Advent 4 Year A

December 22, 2013

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville and

Harmony Presbyterian Church

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

          In the Old Masters Gallery of the palace museum in Kassel, Germany there is a painting that you have probably never heard of before.  It is a Rembrandt, but unlike his self-portrait or the Storm on the Sea of Galilee famous for being stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston, this painting is relatively unknown and so nondescript that it almost blends into the background. 

The name of the painting is The Holy Family with Painted Frame and Curtains.  The left side of the painting shows a tired mother holding a clinging child- Mary holding the Christ child.  The mother and child are bathed in the bright yellow light of a small fire in the fireplace.  A cat sits eating the crumbs from a bowl on the floor.  A blanket in the cradle appears ready to receive the child.

On the right side of the painting, barely discernable in the shadows, sits a man- Joseph.  He is sitting in the dark, his elbows on his knees, leaning forward in thought seemingly ignorant of the peaceful maternal scene just across the canvas.

It is, I think, perhaps the most honest depiction of the Holy Family I have ever seen.

Mary looks tired.  Jesus looks on the verge of tears like a real baby.  And Joseph, well Joseph looks worried, pensive, a little panicked, you know, like a new dad.

Joseph does not get much air time during the holiday season.  As we journey to and through the nativity of the Lord, we encounter shepherds, angels, a reluctant young mother, an inhospitable innkeeper and three wise men who bring gifts fit for a king if somewhat inappropriate for a baby.  Joseph is little more than an extra filling out the cast for this holiday pageant. 

As I was looking back over old sermons on this passage and other Advent texts, I began to realize that I have always treated Joseph as just that; a Christmas prop- an extra filling out the cast in the show.

So after five trips around the track on the preaching lectionary, I find myself curious about that shadowy figure in the background of Rembrandt’s painting.

Scripture tells us little about this man.  He does not appear in any of Pauls’ letters or in the early gospel of Mark.  It is not until a generation after Jesus’ resurrection when the gospels of Luke and Matthew are written that we get any mention of the man who was the earthly father of Jesus and even they are conflicted on the details.

Other than his role in the nativity, there are two things the scriptures agree about concerning Joseph.  He was a technon- a carpenter or woodworker and he was dikios- righteous.

Joseph was a righteous man.

The text does not say it, but it is probably a safe assumption that Mary and Joseph were young.  In fact they were probably very young.  While most young people their age today are slogging through high school and studying for their driver’s exam, teenagers in the first century were young adults and 20-somethings, while not exactly middle aged, were far from just getting started with their lives.

As we enter the story today, we encounter these two young people and we learn two facts:

1.      They are engaged.

2.      Mary is pregnant and the child is not Joseph’s.

            Those are the circumstances by which Joseph finds himself surrounded.  He is acutely aware of his situation.  Somehow I think that moment captured in Rembrandt’s painting is not the first time that Joseph, the righteous carpenter, sat alone in the dark contemplating his reality. 

            The culturally popular thing to do would be for Joseph to publicly shame Mary and openly reject her and their pending nuptials in favor of saving his own reputation.  The cultural expectation- the popular reaction to this circumstance- was to kick Mary to the curb and be done with it.

            Joseph takes a different tack.  He determines to leave her at the altar, so to speak, but to do it without a public spectacle.  As the text puts it, “Because he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly.”

            The text does not tell us what his motivation was other than not humiliating Mary.  I like to think that Joseph was aware of what would happen when it became widely known in the community that Mary was pregnant before she was married and he did not want to pile on the trouble she would already face.  So he quietly packs his bags, calls a cab and prepares to sneak quietly into the night. 

            It would be as if he was never there.

            Mary would have to face the cultural backlash of her pregnancy but Joseph would not add to her plight.

            Joseph was a righteous man.

            If there is a central point to this text, an axle, around which the rest of the text revolves, it is the next verse- or the first part of it at least.  The English translation reads, “As he was thinking about this…”

            The Greek word translated here as “he was thinking” is enthumathentos.  Like so much of Greek, the English translation does not quite capture the fullness of the meaning.  “Thinking” is accurate, but a more illustrative and accurate way of saying what Joseph is doing might be “he was sitting with this thought.” 

            Some problems need a little sitting if a solution is ever to be found.  Occasionally life presents us with a ready exit from a problem, but more often than not we have to spend some time searching around to find the best way forward.

            The idea of enthumathentos evokes less a picture of intellectual mulling than a picture like the one Rembrandt conceived; sitting in the dark with thoughts mulling- pondering- praying.  It seems, from the text so far, that Joseph has made up his mind about what to do with his relationship with Mary.  However, here we have evidence that rather than pack his bags and storm off in a huff, he decides to sleep on it.  He decides to let the decision steep a while before he walks away.

            It is in the midst of this pondering that Joseph evidently drifts off to sleep and in his slumber he is visited by an angel of the Lord.  The angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph and told him not to be afraid, to marry Mary and to raise Jesus as his own.  Now, on the surface that seems a pretty innocuous encounter.  In truth of course, this was much much more.  Because the child growing in her was not any other child, it is the son of God.  Joseph is called to care for the mother of the son of God and the son of God himself.

            And that is exactly what he does.  He takes Mary as his wife.  He also refrains from sharing their marital bed before Jesus is born.  In addition to taking on the responsibility of raising a child that is not his own, Joseph takes pains to ensure that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the child does not belong to him.

            Before he drifted off that night, while he was in the midst of his pondering of this major life decision to leave the woman he intended to marry, Joseph could not have known what was going to happen.  He was trying to do the most right thing that he could and leave Mary quietly.  Then the angel visits and everything changed.

            Joseph went to bed a righteous man.

            Joseph woke up the step-father of God.

            What happens in between those two realities is one of the great mysteries and miracles of this season.  You see, the birth of Christ is not the only nativity that happens.  There is also this oft ignored and little understood nativity of Joseph. 

            What we witness in these few verses is the rebirth of a man and the birth of a father. 

            Matthew does something very clever in the way he tells this story.  He makes it clear that Joseph’s righteousness does not depend on how he responds to the angel.  Joseph is declared to be righteous before the angel visits.  It is pretty easy to read into the text that this righteous label would have been ripped away if Joseph woke up and ignored the angel’s invitation.  The problem is that is not in the text.  Joseph is righteous not because of what he does after the angel appears but because of who he is before.

            Joseph is a righteous man.

            What changed is that in his sleep- in the midst of his prayer and discernment- Joseph found another way through his reality.   Faced with a seemingly inescapable problem, Joseph spends his time with the decision he feels compelled to make and, as it turns out, it was time well spent.  After the angel visits in the night, his choices were no longer stay and be humiliated or leave and humiliate Mary.  The angel, whispering in Joseph’s ear, shows him another way forward; a way that will graft him into the impossible truth of Messiah; a way he could not find alone.

            In so many ways, Joseph waking from his dream, gives a glimpse into what will be expected of this child he is now called to raise a his own.  It is as though the angel whispers to him;

“There is a place for you in this story.  This child, the one you will name Emmanuel, will need a dad.  He will need someone to comfort him when he is scared at night. Someone to teach him a craft in the world with which he will so long to truly connect.  Joseph, if you do not walk this hard road to Bethlehem, who will teach him how to climb the cruel hill to Calvary?”[i]

            Far from the reluctant groom of a pregnant young bride, Joseph is called to be the one who will greed God into the world and be there while he grows up. 

            Sometimes we forget that the nativity of the Lord is the birth of a baby.  And the lost years between Jesus later childhood and his adult ministry can leave us with the impression that the Christ child went straight from swaddled infant to enigmatic adult, but somewhere in between someone had to change his diapers and comfort him while teething, make him eat his vegetables and teach him the stories of the faith, help him with his homework and teach him to throw the Galilean version of a baseball.  He would need someone who, when the work ahead seemed too much to take, could look back on a dream and remind the child that just when there seems to be no way out, a new way will be made clear; a way defined not by the imposition of the customs of the world, but the intrusion of the grace of God.

Jesus is not the only one who needs an example like Joseph.  We all have moments when we yearn to know that God’s Good News is indeed true.  We all need, from time to time, to hear from a seasoned voice that the hope we find in Christ is not misplaced or mistaken. 

            We all need a Joseph from time to time.

            There is no way of knowing the moment Rembrandt had in mind when he painted that image of the holy family.  I like to think that it captures a moment in time so familiar from the hymn:

O Little Town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie 
Above they deep and dreamless sleep the silent starts go by 
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light 
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

            Sitting in the dark, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, Joseph knew what it is to sit at the junction of hope and fear.   He knew what it was to fall asleep in fear and uncertainty only to be awakened by hope and promise.

            May we each and everyone know the truth that stirred Joseph from his sleep; in the birth of an infant, when the hopes and fears of the world meet, hope emerges to show us the way.

            May the angel of the Lord whisper to each of us in the stillness of our hearts and when we wake from our dreaming may we all know the courage of Joseph; the courage of the hope of a righteous man.

            Amen.

                 

---

[i] From an article by Alyce McKenzie on the Patheos website titled The Fear of Betrayal: Advent Reflections on Matthew 1:18-25.

Visible Signs of Invisible Faith

Colossians 1:11-20

Christ the King

Year C

November 24, 2013

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville

And

Harmony Presbyterian Church

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

                Most days I find Facebook an amusing annoyance. 

It is amusing how many people think I care what they had for lunch or how cute the cat was playing with the ball of yarn strategically dropped in the middle of the room while being filmed. 

It is annoying because as easy as it is to use Facebook to connect with friends, it is also an easy forum to get into a back and forth debate on any given topic from football to politics.

Earlier this week I was in a back and forth with a seminary friend who sees the world through distinctly different glasses than me.  Still, I know him well and know that he is a good man and a faithful pastor so theological debate with him is fun and even productive from time to time.  For an entire day, we had a debate going back and forth between Iowa and Arkansas and by the end we had resolved nothing other than the reaffirmation that after 15 years, we still don’t agree on many things.

As often happens with Facebook debates, the discussion prompted comments from some spectators who were reading along but not participating.  One of those spectators, a childhood friend, sent me a private message telling me that he was going to pray for me and my soul and ask that God forgive me for my wrongheaded opinions.  In what I know he intended to be a kind note, he basically told me that if I was not careful I was going to burn in hell and God was never going to forgive me. 

After the discussion ended in its usual stalemate and I got on with the rest of my day, I kept thinking about that note.  At first I was a little angry at the presumption that he thought that he knew the mind of God or the faithfulness or lack thereof of my relationship with God.  The more I thought about it though, the sadder I became until finally I settled in the place I still find myself this morning. 

I feel profoundly sad for him and for anyone who goes through life that scared of God. 

What, I find myself thinking, must it be like to go through life feeling like God is keeping score and waiting for you to trip up; feeling like God is anything but on our side. 

20 years ago there was a wonderful Far Side cartoon- remember those?  They were one frame drawings that in the simplest of terms offered profound commentary on life.  There was one I remember in particular.  A man in a white robe with a long white beard surrounded by puffy clouds is sitting in front of a computer.  On the computer screen was a man walking down a sidewalk next to a building and over his head was a piano suspended by a rope.  It was obviously being moved into an apartment in the building.  With a wry grin on his face the man, obviously meant to be God, had his finger poised over a computer key marked “smite.”  God, just waiting for the right moment to hit the button, let the piano fall and smite the man when he least expected it. 

I think that must be what God looks like to my friend.  The God of the smite button.  Just waiting and watching ready to reign punishment down at a moment’s notice.

There is certainly cultural currency to that perspective; the idea of a vengeful and unforgiving God ready to punish transgressions and dole out just eternal punishments for momentary misdeeds in this life.  That image of God makes it easy to divide the world into us and them; to delineate between those neighbors who are deserving of God’s love and therefore mine and those who are not.  That is without a doubt a popular theology of contemporary cultural Christianity.  That is an easy God to worship.

The problem I have is that I don’t find that God in the bible. 

I don’t find a grudge holding, smite button hitting, willing to forgive but not forget God. 

Yes, God is judge.  But that judge is just not vengeful.

Yes, God is the final arbiter of all things in life and in death.  But that God is the God of resurrection and salvation not death and anguish.

Yes, God gets angry with God’s people.  But that same God orders the banquet table set and the best garments brought out to greet the child who returns. 

I just cannot bring myself to believe that God is so petty as to hold grudges or so callous as to simply turn away from us.  I just cannot bring myself to believe in a God that…small.

A similar heresy was creeping through the community in Colossae.  The bold witness to the character of God that is found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had begun to wane in the young church.  Fundamentally the question was not one about whether Jesus was the son of God or the resurrection was real.  The question had to do with the nature of God.  When Messiah came into the world and shared in our human frailty; when Emmanuel, God with us, was born in the innocence of a child; when, as the hymn says, “joy of heaven to earth came down;” was that really God or just a reflection of God? 

In other words, in Christ did God really mean it?

Paul’s answer is simple. YES!!  Yes God meant it!

Christ was not God just dressed up with a people costume.  Christ was truly God come to earth taking on the reality and the pain and the frailty of true humanity.

            Far from being the God of the smite button and miles from being a God lingering in the dark waiting to pounce on our mistakes, in Christ, God is God for us.  Beyond the hurts, wants, worries, stresses, cares and fears of this world, God, in Christ, is for us.

            The day we celebrate today, the Feast of Christ the King, is the newest holiday in the church calendar.  It began in the 1920’s as a Roman Catholic celebration of the reign of Christ on the last Sunday in October.  In 1970, as this new day caught on among Protestants, it found its way to this day; the last Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent. 

            In a liturgical light it makes sense that we celebrate the reign of Christ today at the end of the liturgical year.  We end the year celebrating the reign of Christ as we prepare to come back together next week to begin our journey to the celebration of his birth.

            That is the liturgical and theological reason this day makes sense.

            There is another reason, albeit a somewhat ironic one given our text today.

            The celebration of the reign of Christ occurs on a Sunday with so many other things happening- Thanksgiving, Christmas sales, that last gasp of the semester before exams start- that this day almost goes unnoticed.  We set aside a day to celebrate the reign of Christ and we do everything we can to clutter up the calendar until the day is all but lost in the din. 

            You’ve heard the cliché about Christmas that we need to remember “the reason for the season?”  The same thing can be said about today.  We need to remember the reason for this day. 

Easier said than done, I know.  We all find ways to be busy this time of year.  In a stunning display of hypocrisy I am standing in this pulpit preaching about focusing on the meaning of the reign of Christ, while my to do list and down to the minute and cooking plan for 15 Thanksgiving dinner guests is on my desk and not far from the front of my mind!  Whether it is holiday meals, Black Friday deals, Holiday parties or determinedly avoiding all of the above, we are surrounded by distractions. 

And when we are so distracted; when our lives and our spirits are being drawn in so many directions, we all too easily do what the early Christians at Colossae evidently did, we begin to worship the image of a God who is easier to worship rather than the one who is revealed in Jesus Christ. 

When I am too busy to help my neighbor, it is easier to worship a God who is only concerned with some of my neighbors; the good ones.  When I am too distracted to notice injustice in the world, it is easier to worship a God who sees injustice as just desserts.  When I am exhausted by the demands of the world, it is easier to worship an undemanding God.

And when that is the God we worship; when we redraw the picture of salvation history from our own perspective; we fall victim to the same theological snare that caught the Colossians.  We lose track of the character of the one who reigns over all creation; God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

We lose track of the reason we celebrate today; Christ is king- at the center of all creation, reconciling all things to God- Christ is king. 

            When we get distracted from Christ at the center, it is easy to lose track of the promise that Christ brings; God is for us.  And when we lose sight of God for us, it is all too easy to imagine that God is distant, apart or worse, against us. 

            That is the real tragedy of the Colossians, I think.  It is not their bad theology or their failure to fully comprehend the nature of Christ.  Those are not good, but they are not the most tragic thing to befall that community or ours.  More tragic than bad theology is…despair.

            Despair.

            The groaning of the spirit that cries out in fear and all too easily leads to hopelessness.  When we lose Christ at the center- when the eternal light of hope and promise and love and grace ceases to be the center of spiritual gravity of our lives, we despair.

            And in our despair, we fear.

            We fear being left behind.  We fear being forgotten.  We fear being left outside the radius of God’s love. 

            That is the deep tragedy of the theological heresy of the God of the smite button.  Despair. 

            When Paul writes his letter to the Colossians he has a simple recipe to combat that heresy and its accompanying despair.  It is right at the front of the letter in our reading from today.  Paul, who is no stranger to hyperbole and harsh language, says to his audience, the cure for what ails your spirit is…remember. 

            Paul writes in his letter the words of what is believed to be an early Christian baptismal hymn.

                        The Son is the image of the invisible God,
                           the one who is first over all creation,

                        Because all things were created by him:
                           both in the heavens and on the earth,
                           the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.
                        Whether they are thrones or powers,
                          or rulers or authorities,
                          all things were created through him and for him.

                        He existed before all things,
                            and all things are held together in him.

                        He is the head of the body, the church,
                               who is the beginning,
                                the one who is firstborn from among the dead
                             so that he might occupy the first place in everything.

                        Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him,
                                          and he reconciled all things to himself through him—
                                whether things on earth or in the heavens.
                        He brought peace through the blood of his cross. (CEB)

            The Colossians do not need a new lesson, they just need to remember what they already know from the promises of God. 

            Of all my seminary memories, time spent in class with Dr. Stan Hall is one of the best.  Stan was a good and compassionate man, a gifted teacher and a committed theologian of the church.  Stan taught liturgical theology- the theology of the church’s worship.  Without fail, when he led chapel, at some point in the service, Stan would come to the center of the chancel, stand behind the table, raise his hands in the air and say in his deep commanding voice…”remember your baptism, and be thankful.” 

            In the Reformed tradition, we say of the sacraments of baptism and communion that they are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace.  Another way of saying it is that they are visible signs of the faithfulness of God. 

            I hear echoes of Stan in Paul’s recitation of the Christ hymn in Colossians.  Paul tells them, tells us, to remember the promise of baptism that God is not only with us but for us; that we are drawn into covenant and relationship not with a God who wishes us ill but a God who desires nothing less than all good things for God’s children.

            That God, the God of the baptismal waters, doesn’t have a finger poised over the smite button.  That God’s hands are far too busy gathering in the children of God; bringing them…us…ever closer to the promise of tomorrow. 

            I haven’t responded to my friend who wrote me the note…the one who seems so afraid of God.  Not yet at least.  I think the best thing I can do is to say two things to him.

            First, that I will pray for him as well.

            And second, that I hope he remembers his baptism and is thankful.  And filled with hope.

            After all, that is what we celebrate today. 

            The kingship of Jesus Christ who is hope summed up.

            Amen.

           

            

The Fourth Kind of Stewardship Sermon

1 Chronicles 29:1-20

November 10, 2013

First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

                Surrounding Nelson’s Column at Trafalgar Square in London there are four giant plinths.  A plinth is nothing but a platform built of stone or concrete on which a column or a statue rests.  On three of the plinths in Trafalgar Square there stand great bronze statues memorializing the likeness and accomplishments of past leaders.  The fourth plinth, originally built to hold a statue of William IV on his horse, remains empty.  For more than a century and a half the grate plinth stood vacant as funds were perpetually unavailable to build a suitable monument. 

            About 15 years ago, the city of London began to commission artists to install temporary art that reflected the times.  One artist invited 2400 people to stand on top of the plinth one at a time for an hour each.  Another built a giant rocking horse.  The current installation is a 12 foot tall blue rooster. I’m sure it has some deeper meaning but it escapes me.

            Unlike its fellows in the square with their unmovable bronze monuments to moments in time, the fourth plinth reflects a particular vision of a particular time. 

            Stewardship sermons are much like the plinths around Trafalgar Square.  There are four basic stewardship sermons- three that never really change.  They are like those bronze statues.   The fourth, like the art on that fourth plinth, changes with each preacher and each congregation. 

            The first stewardship sermon has been preached since the first time the church needed someone’s money.  It is the fear sermon. 

            Give, or else.

            Give, or God will punish you.

            Give, or burn.

            I can’t preach that one.  I can’t preach it because I don’t believe it.

            The second stewardship sermon is almost as old.  It is the promise sermon.

            Give and God will give back.

            Give and you will be blessed.

            Give and God will love you.

            This is the sermon of the television preacher.  I can’t preach this one either because I don’t believe this theology either.  Plus, I don’t have the hair for television preaching!

            The third stewardship sermon is the guilt sermon. 

            I suppose we could just cut Sunday School.

            There are plenty of other churches who can help the hungry. 

            Give, because after all God gave you so much and you don’t want to seem selfish, right?  Can’t you give just a little back to God?

            This one I cannot preach because I have too much respect for you, for myself and more importantly for the gospel.

            So that leaves us with the fourth stewardship sermon.  Like the fourth plinth around the square, the fourth basic stewardship sermon changes based on who is preaching and who is listening.  Lacking the crutch of fear, guilt or promises of riches, the preacher who preaches this sermon has only two homiletical tools in his or her toolbox; the truth of the biblical witness and the trust of the community of faith.

            This morning, I am going to try to preach from the fourth plinth; I am going to try to rely on the truth of the biblical witness and the trust we share as a community of faith to share with you some thoughts on biblical stewardship and its place in our congregation.

            A first principle of biblical stewardship is this: we are all in this together even beyond the generations.

            When the time comes for David to turn over leadership of the nation to his son Solomon, David addresses the leaders and the people and invites them to join him in building the Lord’s house.  “Who else,” he says, “will volunteer, dedicating themselves to the LORD today?” 

            What is being built is a physical structure and David could probably have afforded to build it himself from his own treasury.  And to be sure, he gives generously toward the project.  By inviting the people to join him in giving, David is not trying to save some money.  He is inviting the people to join him in dedicating part of their lives- wealth, time, energy, talent- to the building of God’s house. 

            Giving to God was understood in the ancient near east as an opportunity for faithfulness not an obligation.  By inviting the people to join him in giving, David is inviting them to join him in faithful living.

            When we talk about stewardship here in this place- this church- we are talking about a shared investment in God’s house.  Over the last couple of years, this congregation has invested emotional, spiritual and, yes, financial resources in moving the church toward a joyous and hopeful future. 

            We are all in this together.  Generations built this building and gave us a strong heritage on which to stand, and now it is our turn.  We are all invited to share from our lives as we are able in wealth, time, energy and talent to the building of God’s house. 

            A second principle of biblical stewardship is motives matter.

            When he prays in thanksgiving to God for the generosity of the people, David says:

            “Since I know, my God, that you examine the mind and take delight in honesty, I have freely given all these things with the highest motives.  And now, I’ve been delighted to see your people here offering so willingly to you.”

            Stewardship is not coercive.  Or at least it shouldn’t be.  Stewardship is meant to be a reflection of our faith and how can a faith defined by grace and promise and hope be embodied in a stewardship of fear and coercion? 

            What David realized is that giving toward the work of the community of God is necessarily an act of faithfulness. 

            John Calvin defined faith as a “firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us.”  Faith is not belief in a doctrine, a statement, a confession or even a particular definition of God.  It is faith in God’s faithfulness; it is faith that no matter what God loves us and abides with us; that no matter how far we may go, God is our everlasting companion. 

            When we give with both generosity of gift and generosity of spirit, our stewardship is a response in faithfulness to God. 

            We give out of faithfulness not fear;

            Compassion not coercion;                                         

            Promise not fear of punishment.

            Motives matter.

            A third principle of biblical stewardship is every gift is worth celebrating.

            As a community of faith, we come from vastly different lives and circumstances.  Faithful gifts come in as many shapes and sizes as there are faithful givers. 

            When the pledges have been received and the capital campaign to build the temple is over and David prays to the Lord, he uses the same word to describe each and every gift; abundance.  No one is singled out for being a better giver than another-not even David himself.  Rather, David celebrates each and every gift for what it is, a faithful contribution to the community’s collective response to God’s own faithfulness. 

            When we say that every gift matters, those words are more than marketing.  They are theological.  Saying that every gift, regardless of size, matters is a theological claim that God delights in faithful giving from each and every household. 

            Whether the gift is a mite or a million, an hour or a day, proofreading a bulletin or maintaining a website, however we give- whatever we give- it is right that we celebrate every gift as one of abundance. 

            There are many more principles and perspectives and ideas about stewardship in scripture, but for this community in this place I think those speak to who and where we are. 

            In our stewardship:

            we are in this together beyond the generations;

            we give out of faithfulness;

            we celebrate every gift as a reflection of God’s abundance.

            What then can we say about our lives together in light of these principles?

            From a practical perspective, one of the unhealthiest things a congregation can do is rely on one or two members to provide the money needed to run the church.  There is a saying among preachers that many churches are one or two strategic funerals away from insolvency. 

            We are not in that place.  To be sure we have some very generous givers whose lives allow them to give generously to the church and for that we can and should all be grateful, however we are not a church that relies on one or two families to keep the church solvent.  We really are all in this together and thanks to the generosity of past generations and the wise decisions of the session, we have a growing endowment that links the giving of past generations to the ministry of present ones.

            Now it is our turn.  As you prayerfully consider your giving for the coming year, I hope that you will think not only about how your gift will contribute to the work of the church today, but how it might help us build the church for the future.  We are all in this together; the church past, present and future.

            There is a saying among therapists that God has not made the person who doesn’t need at least a little therapy.  Along those same lines, God has not drawn together the congregation that couldn’t use a little more money.  Thanks to the diligent efforts of the session and some creative modeling of how we are going to be church together, we, unlike many of our peer congregations, have a balanced budget and we are able to meet most of our needs with the income available to us. 

            Among small churches, we have the unusual opportunity to frame our giving not in terms of saving the church from financial ruin but as an act of faith in the ministries we are building and the work we are doing together.

            Over the last year, we have begun to explore new ministry opportunities and ways to reach out to families with children, to reengage the university community and to reach beyond the walls of the church to partner with our community in meeting the needs of our neighbors. 

            Our stewardship is an opportunity to share in that ministry; to share in the faith that God has work for us to do in this place and at this time; work being built by this generation for coming generations.

            Pastors debate about the ethics of knowing or not knowing how much an individual or family gives to the church.  I fall on the “don’t want to know” side though I am not sure there really is one right or wrong answer.  I don’t know how much anyone gives and I don’t keep track of how much anyone volunteers.  Whether the gift is large or small in time or wealth or energy or talent, I trust that it is faithfully given and worthy of our celebrating.  I trust in our giving and have faith that it is done with a spirit of generosity.

            That is the comfortable part.  Now for the more uncomfortable part.  If you are going to squirm in your seat, now is the time.

            We do need more.  As a congregation, if we are to maintain the ministries we have and those we hope to build, we need more resources- of energy, time, talent and, yes, money. One of the difficult parts of being a church on the upswing is that our ministries often outpace our giving.  We have reached that tipping point where budgets and staff hours cannot absorb all the needs. We are victims of the realization of our own efforts.   

            We need all hands on deck. 

            I would never compare myself to David, but I will borrow a paraphrase of his words.  Together we are not building anything for ourselves, we are building God’s house.  No single one of us can build it alone.  It takes us all, giving in faithfulness and, together, celebrating the abundance God brings into our midst.  It takes each of us examining our lives and seeing where we might find a little more; energy, time, talent or money; a little more that we might faithfully add to the faithfulness of our neighbors-of the generations-as we celebrate every gift that is given to build God's house.

            There you have it.  That is the truth as I see it.  That is the honest view from the fourth plinth.  No fear, no promises of riches and hopefully no emotional manipulations.  Just the honest view from where your pastor stands. 

            May God open us each and every one to the spirit of generosity and, above all, fill us all with the joy that comes from joining together to build God’s house.  Because that is what real stewardship is:

            Joy.  In God.

            Amen.