Vision and Stewardship

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The Book of Proverbs writes, that "without a vision the people perish." It’s a phrase that is quoted a lot in religious circles because it points urgently to the need we have to hope in the future. A vision becomes a goal that is achievable, if not in specifics, then in concept. Institutions will write vision statements based on the direction they hope to go and the spirit in which they want to get there. A mission statement has specific goals, but a vision statement is wider, it takes in dreams and hopes for the future. It encapsulates what the person or institution is trying to build.

Without a vision of the future and the hopeful possibilities it holds, we just plod along in a survival mode on a treadmill with no particular motivation. We become dry and bitter.

Isaiah’s passage contains something akin to a vision statement for the people of Israel who were held in captivity in a foreign land. It holds a vision for how their lives should and will be in the future when they are released from that captivity. In their past, they worked fields and never knew for sure if some marauders would attack at harvest time and leave them without the fruit of their labor. They might be attacked in their towns and driven out, and the attackers take over the homes that they themselves had built. In Isaiah’s vision, none of that would happen. They would be safe and secure in their homeland and live to ripe old ages. More than that, even the animals would live in peace. The wolf and the lamb, the lion and the ox - all living peacefully. The only one who doesn’t share in the bounty of Isaiah’s vision is the serpent. The serpent’s food shall be dust. They never really forgave the serpents for the whole Adam and Eve thing. Not everyone gets to share the vision!

The vision in the Gospel of Luke is not as rosy. It’s triumphal in an important way, but it isn’t without suffering and anxiety. The early Christians faced hard times. When the Gospel of Luke was written approximately 40 years after the events it describes about Jesus, Christians were persecuted by the Romans and the Jewish leadership. Christians didn’t acknowledge the divinity of the Roman Emperor, or the traditional law of the Jews, and they suffered the rejection and persecution of each. The Gospel of Luke wrote the words of Jesus in the context of a church in distress, much like Isaiah wrote to people in the midst of distress. Whereas Isaiah’s words were poetic and blissful, Luke’s were ominous, because it contained their realities. Family members did turn against each other and turn their Christian members in. If one member of a family was a Christian, the whole family could be punished. Rather than face that, family members publicly turned against each other and remained safe that way. The temple was torn down in 67 AD, so the words of Jesus describing a time when even that would happen was seen as the fulfillment of a prophecy, and the hope of another prophecy that the second coming of Jesus was only a short time away. The early Christians held to the hope that Jesus would appear in their lifetime and bring the faithful to heaven. Both visions kept the people they served hopeful and connected to their faith.

Visions can sometimes backfire, however. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians to get after them for being lazy. Paul had done such a good job of convincing them that the second coming of Jesus was so immanent that some took it as a reason to stop working and wait. Why bother getting up for a job you don’t like if Jesus is right around the corner? Ah, don’t worry, be happy. Paul told them to get back to work and stop being a drain on the folks who did work.

Planning for the future and looking ahead with a vision is easy in one sense and difficult in another. It’s easy to dream up a utopian world and hope for a vague someday. It’s quite another thing to set realistic goals that stretch us but not so far that we despair that the dreams will ever happen.

The workers for abolition, or women’s suffrage, civil rights, and now marriage equality had and have a vision for a better world that at times seemed so far away and yet so close to possibility. In each struggle there were victories and set backs. There was optimism and frustration, the motivation to move ahead and the temptation to give up. The vision of each group was aided by the belief that God was at work in the journey toward justice and equality. The inherent value of each person as a child of God give us all a promise that we matter and that we are just as good as the next person and that the rights of one need to be available to all. If we believe that we are equal in the eyes of God, then we need to fight to be equal in the eyes of the law. In order to achieve these visions, sitting idly by isn’t going to help. Great strides have been made and further strides need to happen.

We have a vision here at St. George’s too. We envision a world in which all people are welcome in the eyes of God and each other; that the gifts and talents of each person are valued and celebrated; that we discern God’s call to us individually and as a community and find the faith and courage to live into it. We have a legacy of the work done so ably by those in past generations who have preceded us in this building. We have done a lot of work in this generation and we are making it possible for those who come after us to meet the challenges of their day. Our stewardship of the buildings and resources of St. George’s speak of our faith and how we believe God is calling us to use them. We reach out and we reach in. We reach out to the local and global community with our physical labor and financial contributions. We respond to global and national crisis. We offer food and shelter. We visit the sick and those in prison. We provide for children and families in need. We witness for justice and equality.

Occasionally at Diocesan and other church functions I’ll receive compliments about St. George’s for the work we do here. At first I’m confused because it’s become so second nature here that I assume all churches do what we, and am often surprised to learn that they don’t. We roll up our sleeves and do a lot of work and raise a lot of money and we still enjoy each other’s company doing it. Apparently this is not the case everywhere.

Yet, as wonderful as that is, we cannot be like the Thessalonians and sit on our past successes. There is still a lot to do. We still have a vision of what can be done for families, and children in particular. Providing an environment of faith takes intention and commitment. It doesn’t happen overnight or without work. Our work in the area of stewardship is a witness to that. In each of the stories told by parishioners this year and in years past, the discovery of God in this place emerged and the desire to be actively engaged as a result has gotten expressed in as many ways as there were stories.

One of the prayers in the Baptismal Covenant is that the person baptized has an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works. Stretch in the stewardship of your time, talent and treasure. Engage in the vision of this community in our work and witness to God’s love and live into the baptism of being a disciple of Christ.

Pledges are a personal thing. The stewardship committee and the different levels of church organization often tip toe around the topic hoping not to turn people off or offend. We keep the pledges confidential and it’s important to give that assurance. We will teach about proportionate giving and the tithe. Proportionate giving is taking your salaries or financial resources and deciding on a percentage to pledge to the church. The tithe simply refers to the proportion that is ten percent. Whether before or after taxes is not a conversation we usually get into, except to say that it is up to the individual.

To a newcomer this may seem like a lot, and in a way of speaking it is. But when we look at the growth we’ve received in our lives, it’s generally been after some huge event or huge intentional action. Giving to God’s work in the world is such an intentional action. Your giving may be divided between this church and other places where you feel God’s work is being done. I’ve heard it put that "my money goes where I can’t."

We have a vision for the church that includes an increase in program, involvement of our members and reaching out to people who really want and need to find a spiritual home in which they feel welcomed, challenged and safe. We need to feel the presence of God in our prayer, music and fellowship. That comes from intentional giving, it doesn’t just happen. But we also have a vision for each individual among us. We are at our best when we give outside ourselves. Confidence and generosity are the characteristics of a spiritually healthy person. Fear of scarcity, withdrawing and isolating are signs of trouble. This is a sensitive and touchy area, but one that needs to be looked at in a safe way. We want to grow and be strong physically, spiritually and mentally. It takes intention and commitment. Growth doesn’t happen by chance. Stewardship time is one occasion in which we discuss our need for the contribution of our members to do the ministry that we do here, to keep it going and to help it grow. But it’s also an invitation for each of us to grow individually as well. Our ancestors in the faith overcame amazing odds to spread the Gospel of God’s love and became transformed in the process. We have daunting challenges in our day as well and with their example and the grace of God at our backs, we’ll meet ours as well. Amen.

©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

What's in a Name?

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

Juliet, under the prompting of William Shakespeare, asked "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." And perhaps it would, but she was to discover that names are indeed very important. Names are essential for communication and understanding. They evoke emotional responses. Perhaps joy and anticipation. Perhaps warning or fear. Perhaps anger.

Children call out that "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me". Again, that may be true in a physical sense, but it’s more complicated than that as the children get older.

In the Bible names are very important. From the beginning with creation, the naming of the animals and even of people is a thoughtful process full of significance. If there is a name used in the Bible, you can believe it’s not used casually. And it needs to be looked at.

In the first lesson God sends the prophet Elijah to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon." Does that raise any red flags for you? Well, it certainly would have for the writer and first readers of these scriptures. The Israelites hated Sidon, and all of its parts including Zarephath. Sidon had been a powerful state near the Mediterranean Sea in what is now southern Lebanon and had controlled Israel for a while. The Hebrew scriptures have many nasty references to Sidon with heartfelt pleas for God to destroy it. King Solomon had married a Sidonian princess in an attempt to make a treaty and that backfired, spiritually speaking when she brought her gods and upset the religious practices of the courts. Sidon was also the home of such villainous luminaries as the legendary Jezebel who married King Ahab many generations later and created havoc in her own right.

So it would have been quite shocking to hear that God sends Elijah there on a mission of mercy. Not only the enemy state, but to a widow of all people and her son who might, for all they know, turn into a soldier who might attack them some day. Elijah saved them from starvation.

Quite shocking indeed.

Widows and foreigners, especially hated foreigners, play a large role in the teaching of the scriptures since they are socially the least of the least. The were considered beneath contempt, and yet the point is that in God’s love they are seen, heard, and provided for. They are loved and valued. So, of course, Elijah would be sent to her because she was in need. The widow in the Gospel story is also an important figure because of the teaching of her gift to the poor. None were poorer than she, and yet she gave to help others. These women, whom scripture doesn’t even name, are known to God and to us so many millennia later.

It’s no accident that these stories of giving are in the Lectionary around the time that most churches are engaged in their stewardship programs. Like the stories we’ve been hearing from parishioners, these stories can be helpful in giving us some inspiration to pray about our own giving in general and our pledge to St. George’s in particular. Each of the stories has been personal and unique. Each person who has told their story expressed some powerful feelings after sharing. It reminds me that we don’t often get the opportunity to tell our stories to each other. We get busy with committee work or other business and overlook the deeper conversations untold. Sometimes the action of putting our lives in a brief outline and articulating our values, needs and hopes crystallizes it in our own minds as well as offering inspiration to others.

And at its core, that’s what giving is all about. Sharing ourselves as a way of growing. As a way of stretching and discovering parts of ourselves even as we share it with others. Personally, when my sermons include deeper stories from my past I get deeper feedback from people who identify. I have to tell you, it’s not easy to reveal some of the stories and truths, especially the painful ones or those that highlight my foolishness. Still, they seem to get the deepest resonance and not surprisingly since we all share core vulnerabilities as well as strengths. I have to admit that when I share even the most painful stories from this pulpit or in other forums that I felt stronger and a sense of healing. It’s a gift to be able to share personal stories because of the growth it offers. It’s also a gift to be able to give of our time, talent and treasure for the same reasons.

Most of us experience fears and insecurities about all sorts of things. We want to put up shields and pull in, especially at times of scarcity or uncertainty. We all do this to some degree. And yet we do so at our own peril. Fear and insecurity might cut us off from the people and activities that we enjoy and that keep us alive in our most basic sense. We might be afraid that what little we have will be taken away.

The scriptures don’t tell us how these widows fared after the stories we read took place. I would like to believe that they were all right. But the lessons they teach us is that if anyone had reason to pull in and hold tight to what they had, it was them. Ye they gave because in doing so, they lived.

For those of you who are members of St. George’s and who are prepared to pledge today, you may have brought the pledge card that was sent in the mail to you. If not, there are pledge cards on the pews and in stacks by the doors. We hope you’ll be ready to place them in the offering plate when it comes by later on, or mail it in when you can.

Part of membership is the support of the ministry of the church and that includes the finances. Yet, it also needs to be stated clearly that the pledge should be realistic and given with confidence and faith. If circumstances change during the year, the pledge can be modified up or down as you direct.

There is a spirituality to giving that is very important. God works through us to accomplish great things, even if they appear small. But in order to do that, we need to make ourselves available to God through the actions of giving. It calls for risk and vulnerability. And through it we discover the strength and joy we never thought possible.

One of the gifts being given today is a tricycle. It is a bitter, sweet gift. Given in memory of Gabriel Batista who died at age two almost a year ago, this tricycle will be blessed and donated by his parents Suzette and Miguel and his grandmother Yolanda to the family shelter in Irvington called Turning Point Community Services. Deacon Chris McCloud is the Director of the shelter and some of our members sit on the board. This gift will go to a child at the shelter.

Grief can do many things to us. At its worst, it can make us withdraw from life and shut out any rays of sunlight or joy. Or grief might lead us to offer ourselves to God’s service in helping others who struggle with similar challenges. Miguel and Suzette met several families at the hospital during Gabriel’s illness and even through their grief have continued to minister to those families with support and prayers.

The work of the church is to provide a place of hope and healing as well as be a center of pray and worship. We take God’s call seriously to minister to everyone who comes to us and to those God sends us to in strange and beautiful ways.

I was once asked to visit an elderly Jewish man in his last days. When I arrived in my collar he looked up at me with an expression of surprise and said sardonically, "What are YOU doing here?" And I said, "I don’t know, but since I’m here, how about we talk." And we had a good talk that day about the journey he was about to take.

We cannot know what is in store for us each day, but we need to be engaged in life in all its aspects to live into the gift of life that God has given us and to be of service to others. Sometimes it easier than others and sometimes we just need to get through to the next day and hope it’s better. But in all things God is near and calling us to move forward. Forward in love, forward in healing, forward in grace. Amen.

©2009 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

Make a Difference

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The lessons leading up to the first Sunday in Advent which is in two short weeks have contained echoes of the themes normally found in Advent, namely, waiting and watching; being prepared. Last week the parable of the ten bridesmaids and the warning to be prepared since we don’t know the day or the hour. This week the landowner goes on a trip and the servants know he’ll return, but they don’t know when and they hope to have something to show him when he returns so they set about working with what they’ve been given.
Paul’s Epistles have these themes also with the frightening images of destruction coming suddenly despite the assurances they received from others that all is well. Paul says the Lord will come “like a thief in the night.” He advises his listeners to be ready with a breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet of hope.

These are disturbing images and yet compelling. Paul and his followers expected Jesus to come any day and raise the faithful into the heavens and leave the non believers behind. It’s a belief that continues to this day with stark warnings of apocalyptic destruction, end times and the rescue of the good people and the anguish of those who were not ready.

In Paul’s time as in our own each prediction of the “end times” proves to be wrong. History is full of stories of communities gathered around someone who believes they cracked the code to predict when the actual end was coming only to be foiled. This line of thinking provides great fodder for the movie industry who makes great action movies giving graphic images of the destruction some say is described in the Bible.

After two thousand years of the starts and stops of this form of belief, it might be a good time to reconsider the meaning. I, for one, do not believe that the Creator of the world will destroy it through violence. I believe that such stories can be exploited to create fear and manipulate people who are inclined to believe the stories.

If God were going to destroy the world, there have been plenty of opportunities and reasons to do so. It would appear that the only ones poised to wreak the kind of havoc and destruction of apocalyptic proportion are people themselves. War, genocide, atomic and nuclear weaponry are of human design, not divine.

I think the spiritual truths of such scriptures focus on the realities of life as we live it and the conditions of the worlds in which we find ourselves. Disasters and wars do, in fact come suddenly. Attacks are planned secretly and are carried out by surprise. Even natural disasters can come without warning or prediction. On a personal level, accidents, tragedy and death can come by surprise and catch us unprepared. Moods of fear and anger can catapult a peaceful situation into an attack with disastrous results. In the ancient Hebrew mind these incidents all came from God with people only the instruments. Our thinking today puts the responsibility for most of these violent acts on the people in whom they originate.

Yet, be that as it may, innocent people are still often caught unaware and do need to be prepared in spirit for any eventuality. God comes at these times, not as the originator of the disaster, but as the spirit of courage, strength and vision to help the individuals transcend it.

Let’s take a look at the Gospel. The lesson of the talents is a wonderful parable. It often makes its appearance around the time that most churches are doing their stewardship campaigns. I suppose it’s to inspire us to pledge more.

It might be a way of saying that in order to grow you have to give more. It takes money to make money, that sort of thing. That’s true, I think, for the most part. But these days seem to vindicate the fellow who buried his talent. I find it hard to believe that the one who invested five talents would have a 100% return to produce for his master. Yet again, if everyone invested their five talents at the same time, we might turn things around and prove the parable true in an economic sense. But somehow I don’t think that’s what this parable is about. It uses the investment of money to illustrate the investment of spirit. It’s about engaging in the world and presenting ourselves in service to the world. Talent is a good ambiguous term that can be used as money and also as that part of our characters and spirits that represent the gifts that we have as individuals we are unique and each of us has something to offer the world that no one else does. What a shame if we are not fully ourselves, since the world, our various communities in a smaller sense and even we ourselves in another way, would be the lesser for the lack of our gifts being used to their full potential.

I see the talents given the servants as symbolic of their willingness to be engaged in the world around them. Some people are “out there” really involved and living their faith in action. These people are rewarded in a high quality of relationships and even more than that grow and develop as people. They say “nothing succeeds like success” and being involved in the world around us inspires us to be even more involved and to care even more. Others hide. Some people allow their fear, anger or insecurities to prevent them from being part of the wider society, or even a group of friends. As a result, they suffer from isolation and loneliness that goes deep into the soul. There are endless gradations of this spectrum. Some are world leaders, some are local leaders, some are church leaders, some are people who just show up to help a cause they believe in. Wide varieties of talents invested in different ways, with some having remarkable abilities that bring them to national and international levels, and others on much smaller and anonymous levels. But each person who uses their gifts enjoys the reward that comes from being engaged.

On the first Tuesday of every month I go to a Daytop facility in Mendham. Daytop is a string of drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers for adolescents. I volunteer to lead a discussion meeting with some of the kids. Most of these kids have been placed in the facility through court orders as an alternative to jail or institutions. For many it’s a last chance and most have been addicted to substances from early ages and their chances to make it in the world seem dim, and yet we have to keep trying to reach them.

The first Tuesday of November of course was election day and I went that evening h hoping to be done in time to get home and watch election results. I got there early and sat on a bench near the office waiting until the room where the meeting is held was made ready. There was a young man also on the bench looking nervously at the administrator’s door, jumping each time the door knob rattled. Usually it’s an indication that the kid is in trouble waiting for judgment, but this time as I learned while talking to him, he had just turned 18 and wanted to vote. He was registered in Morristown and hoped the administrator would give permission and arrange a ride for him. After a few minutes and a few door rattles, permission was granted. He was ecstatic and the light in his eye gleamed in a way that is absent from most of the kids. As he was getting to the door to leave I called after him, “Hey, go make a difference!” He turned back to look at me and said “I’m going to.” And he did. When he joined the group later that evening after voting, his smiles were contagious. The other kids felt it and wished they could have voted. They were drawn to his joy and wanted to feel some of their own. Had he stayed in the building that night, hidden his talent, he would have felt the pain of only wishing he had tried. No one would have benefited. But he made an effort and it was rewarded. He grew from the experience, the others in the program grew from it. He did make a difference.

Each of us has talents to offer. What we do with them is our choice. Through faith and effort our lives can be transformed and our transformation can inspire and transform those around us, and even the world in time. If we don’t we might as well be cast in outer darkness where we’ll be tortured by the memories of lost opportunities and sad refrains of “What if...” That’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. But it’s not God that condemns us to that, it’s our own fear of trying. Even if we fail in achieving our goal, the act of trying is where the growth happens.

The world is full of dangers and mishaps. It’s tempting to hide and not risk anything. But the irony is that in not risking, we lose everything that matters anyway. Our spirits dry up, and our integrity suffers.

It’s our ability to be engaged in the world around us with whatever amount of talents we have that prepares us for whatever happens. It is in fact the breastplate of faith and the helmet of hope Paul talks about. Later in the service we’re going to hear about Broadway House and the work they do with people living with AIDS. They’re involved and their work rewards them and those with whom they work.

We are finishing up our stewardship campaign and despite the conditions of the world around us we are doing well and it has to be because our membership is also involved in this church and it’s ministry. Our work here is rewarding to the degree that we are involved and many around us benefit from that work as well.

I do not believe God pushes us out of fear, but invites us in faith to transcend those fears or other limitations to grow into people rich in spirit and witness to those who hide their talents in the ground. Life is rich and full of meaning, joy and fulfillment. God is calling us to enter it. Go and make a difference! Amen.

© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

The Greatest Commandment

By The Rev. Christian Carroll, Priest Associate

If you have been here the last two Sundays or opened your mail in the last two weeks then you know we are in the middle of our stewardship season. I don’t like the word “stewardship”.

What does it mean when we add “ship” to a word? Think about it. “Friendship”, “Companionship”, “Leadership”. To me they’re concepts that point to activities. It’s the activities we’re interested in. The meat is in the “friending”, the “companioning”, the “leading”, the “stewarding”. So what’s “stewarding”?

If a steward is someone given the job of maintaining and spending assets (think of a wine steward with the key to the wine cellar where the good wines are kept and maintained) then stewardship would be reflecting on stewarding or how the job of maintaining and spending assets is going.

So when I say we’re in stewardship season I mean we’re at the time of year when we start reflecting on our individual and joint “stewarding” or how we’re doing at the job of maintaining, protecting and spending assets.

We’re asking “how am I, how are we doing at maintaining, protecting and spending the assets that we’re charged with.”

In a church the assets are not bottles of wine and the job is not just maintaining the correct temperature so they’re ready to be enjoyed. In a church our asset is God’s grace in our lives. Jesus gives us our most important charge in this morning’s gospel. That is, loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind and loving our neighbor as our self.

Stewardship is reflecting on the “our stewarding” that is the actions that flow from our conscious desire to know love and serve God with everything we’ve got.

So every year at this time, a stewardship committee, made up of congregation members is gathered and charged with leading the congregation in reflecting on how we as individuals and as a congregation are responding to our charge to be stewards of God’s grace in our lives.

During this time we think about God’s grace. We think about God’s presence and impact on our daily lives. We think about, how or if we are motivated to respond. We ask “How are we doing with what Jesus calls the greatest commandments?” We listen to members of the congregation when they step forward to bear witness – to share their reflections and their experiences in stewarding. As we will again in a few minutes.

We take a step back and take an inventory of ourselves, our talents, our finances, our gifts, our time – all the stuff of our individual households – all the stuff that makes us who we are – and we acknowledge that – all things come of thee oh Lord – and question how – we are giving from what has been given us.

This inventory is not so we can passively offer thanks to God with a grateful heart but to see how we have lived the greatest commandment to “love the Lord our God with all your heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind”.

This inventory is not so we can passively offer thanks to God with a grateful heart but to see how we have “loved our neighbors as ourselves” using what is given us by God. Have we loved our neighbors as God has loved us?

And we form a committee to get us started. I have served on the stewardship committee for two seasons. And it’s not easy. Each year the members of that committee struggled.

We were uncomfortable. We struggled with the fact that the word “stewardship” seems to take center stage in our corporate life only when it’s time to plan next year’s budget.

Stewardship seems to always come down to the action of asking for money so we can keep the doors open, the lights on, the silver polished and the place warm, and ourselves doing all the things we have been doing here.

And each year the committee laments that we know that stewardship is not all about money. We know it’s about individual and corporate ministry. We know it’s about how we individually and corporately seek to witness to new life in Jesus Christ.

I think part of the struggle with stewardship as we practice it in this season occurs from a sense of embarrassment. That is embarrassment that, although we know better – stewardship always seems to get brought back down to money, despite the many ways we do indeed share our blessings in ministry both inside and outside these walls. Why is that?

We seem unable or unwilling to embrace stewardship as an ongoing reflection that can be a celebration of how we spend ourselves to the glory of God. We seem inattentive to integrating the joyful celebration of “our responses to God’s grace in our lives” throughout the church year.

I think I have an idea why. It has to do with fear and forgetting.

Because stewardship gets linked to money the whole reflection on blessings gets tainted. We taint the whole practice of seeing how we’re doing at using what we’ve been given. Linking stewardship only to money links stewardship to a resource we have that can become scarce at the drop of a hat. Poof, “money”, now it’s here, now it’s gone, will it ever come back? That particular asset is so tied to our self-esteem, our value and sense of security that money becomes hard for us to talk about. “Money”, now it’s here, now it’s gone, will it ever come back?

When stewardship gets linked principally to money it gets linked to fear and fear gets linked to giving. “If I give it – anything – I will not have it, – I will not have it and I will not be safe. If I am not safe, I might die.

The scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “Stewardship is not about raising money for church, but about asking if there is any alternative to the culture of death in which we live.” Translate “the culture of death” in your mind to the “culture of not enough”. To restate Brueggemann then “Stewardship is not about raising money for church, but about asking if there is any alternative to the culture of not enough in which we live.” In the culture of not enough fear replaces stewardship – that is – our responding in action to God’s graces in our lives, becomes something fearful. “Fear that there won’t be enough.”

And the fear that there won’t be enough, says Brueggemann, is really about seeing our past, individual and corporate” as “barren of miracles”. “A past without gifts and a future without hope gives a present that is an arena for anxiety.” If there is no acknowledgement or a denial of miracles, of God’s beneficence, then “the only way to get anywhere is to invent yourself and scramble for whatever you can get.”

If we leave unchallenged “a culture of not enough” or if we turn away from challenging our own fears of what will happen to us if we do not have enough than Brueggemann suggests we end up living as if our neighbors are a threat and the greatest and second greatest commandments are too much for our fears to bear.

The alternative is to step away – even if only in small steps – from whatever it is that stymies us from embracing in celebration all the ways we do spend ourselves to the glory of God. The alternative is to step away from whatever it is that stymies us from integrating the joyful celebration of “our responses to God’s grace” throughout the church year. The alternative is to reclaim stewarding and “stewardship” from money and fear.

I’m convinced we have a new opportunity here. We can throw open clouded up windows and take a new look at stewardship. Reclaim the word. Take it away from money; dissociate it from a financial burden. Don’t think about the money.

Think about this. Let’s look at reality – the reality of how this congregation has been maintaining, protecting and using its gifts.

There is palpable new energy in St. George’s that doesn’t have much to do with money.

We have neighborhood kids joining the choir camp. Our kids are inviting friends to join them in church. Our music program keeps getting bigger and better. We have a new liturgy for people in recovery. We have the willingness to experiment with the shape of our worship space. We have the ability to change.

We have women in the congregation stepping up who want to offer the congregation and the community more. Women who want to pray and learn together. We have new adult leadership jumping in and getting involved in guiding our young people. People from the outside, our neighbors, come in here to take a look at us to see if we have what they want or are trying to find.

We have people in our midst who greet those newcomers with joy and enthusiasm. New people are interested and excited about learning about the church and they come to seekers class. People come here to have their relationships blessed in weddings and civil unions. People come to hear our musicians in concerts. People come here to do yoga. People come here to celebrate the changing of seasons in ritual celebrations. People come here to learn how to stay sober and help other people attain sobriety. We have new people stepping up and teaching Sunday school and new people on the behind the scenes committees like property and finance. We have a talented and generous web master. Our wardens are active and vestry members supporting individual ministries.

And there are other ministries going on behind the scenes. Volunteerism, the pastoral visits, the gardeners, the people who pray with people for healing, the people who loving and prayerfully maintain the sanctuary, the people who make our worship function smoothly and all the helping hands giving unbeknownst to all of us. We have people serving on not-for-profit boards. We have people hammering nails for the Abraham House project. We gave over $20,000 to community organizations whose work reflects our commitment to be of service. If I’ve forgotten you or your ministry activity forgive me.

Let’s get used to speaking about the plenty we have here and let ourselves be inspired to keep using it. Let’s keep holding up our graces. Let’s keep holding up God’s beneficence in our lives. Use it, Use it, and Use it.

We each are an opportunity to witness to God’s grace. Your life itself is the opportunity. I challenge us to free stewardship from fear and concentrate year-round with stewarding – active intentional spending our treasures.

If I could I would give you all little keys to put on your key chains. They would be reminders like the wine steward’s key. They would be like the key to the wine cellar but our wine cellar has the bounty of the kingdom of God and we’re going to keep opening it up everyday to every neighbor we touch. And we’ll commit to doing this when we remember the miracles and when we fear they’ll stop. We keep doing it with or without fear. That is our charge. We’re going to keep opening the Kingdom up everyday to every neighbor we touch.

© 2008 The Rev. Christian Carroll

The Great Experiment

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

There was a small item in the news this week that was lost amid the financial turbulence. It involved a man by the name of Paul Emory Washington. Perhaps because it's an election year, or perhaps because of the turbulent times we're now in, or most likely in a bid for advertising by a genealogy company, research was done on the ancestry of our first President George Washington to discover his oldest living heir.

The process was complicated by the fact that George Washington had no children. But the intrepid genealogists followed the rules of their science of kinship to trace the line which led them from the late 1700's to 2008 to 82 year old Paul Emory Washington of San Antonio, Texas.

Being of presidential lineage is not that uncommon, as a matter of fact, we're pleased to know that one of our own church members is a direct descendant of President Ulysses S. Grant.

However, what makes Paul Washington of interest is that in the days following the Revolutionary War, George Washington was offered the monarchy. The role of President had not been invented yet, and the new American country only knew one form of leadership, that of Sovereign Monarchs. So grateful was the nation to George Washington that they offered him the crown. Perhaps Jesus was the only other person in history to decline such an honor. But, Washington so believed in the leadership capability of the people that he championed the idea of President and elected terms as part of the great experiment of Democracy. Had Washington accepted the crown and become King, Paul Emerson Washington of San Antonio, Texas might just have been our reigning King.

Mr. Washington humbly brushes aside any notion of regal standing, though his children are quoted as being quite sure he'd make a dandy king.

In the early days of American independence, there was a great deal of fear and worry that the "great experiment" as it became known would fail. Drawing up a whole new governmental system as it was adopted in 1787 didn't seem quite as easy as it had in 1776 when they signed the declaration for independence. It was indeed risky and the lives of everyone in the country weighed in the balance.

Many people looked back to the traditional method of monarchy as the solution to their fear. It's what they knew, and in the anxiety of facing an unknown, untried "experiment," to many people, returning to the monarchy seemed a conservative and prudent course of action.

To some degree this is the mind set of the Israelites wandering in the desert as we continue this account from the Book of Exodus. They really didn't know what they had gotten themselves into. Yes, they had been miserable; and yes they cried out for help. But who was Moses anyway? Modern readers have the end of the story and several millennia of myth and lore surrounding it to know who Moses was, but to the people in the desert he was a young, relatively unknown, untested man whose only claim to authority was speaking to a burning bush. He told them of a God whose name was so holy that they couldn't even say it. A God who was everywhere, yet invisible, and a God who had singled them out for a particular relationship. It didn't bode well.

There were signs and wonders along the way, but quite possibly they were coincidences. And there was that disturbing habit Moses had of going off by himself climbing mountains and disappearing for months at a time. In our first lesson we read about the last straw the Israelites were prepared to endure. He was gone too long, they were scared and lost and fearful that Moses and this God were gone forever. They decided it was time to return to what they knew. And what they knew were carved images they called gods. The needed the security of seeing their gods and carrying them and knowing where they were. They wanted to know their names and speak directly to them. They had reached a point of thinking their own great experiment had indeed failed and it was time to return to the old ways.

Well, Moses did return and he set them straight. We know the ending of that story and how the people of Israel did continue to make their way through the desert to their promised land, and similarly we know the ending of the story after the American Revolution, how the Constitution was written and how each community put their trust in God, engraving it, in the former case on tablets of stone, and in the later case on dollar bills.

The Gospel lesson gives us another very strange image of God's invitation to community. What a wedding that must have been! I don't think I've ever received and invitation to a wedding that has elicited from me a hostile response toward the mail carrier - much less kill her. Nor would it have occurred to me to re-examine the cause of a town's destruction to be the work of an angry father of the groom. I can only imagine the second round of guests looking at the carnage around them and tell the next set of messengers they'd be delighted to attend the wedding. It sounds like a real blast. This is like the Kingdom of Heaven, huh? Some parables work better than others.

Sifting through the debris of the Gospel lesson we can actually see how the invitation from God to enter into joy is often met with resistance. The messengers who were the prophets did try to prepare the people for righteous living worthy of God and they were ridiculed and killed. This is where I differ with the teller of the story. I don't believe that a loving God retaliates against the wrongs done to the messengers. I think the towns tend to destroy themselves through their own pettiness or carelessness, or greed, or hostility.

There is a theology in the world that credits God with earthly destruction. I think such theologies are the worst cuts of all. We can look around the world at the wars, violence and financial crisis and figure out that this is not God's doing. This is ours. God invites us to a kingdom of joy and we refuse the offer with, and through, violence.

But in God's love it doesn't stop there. God asks again and again until someone shows up. During my lifetime the biggest crisis and catastrophes I've seen have been the rise and falls of stock markets in 1987, 2001 and this current one. I've seen the devastation of the early AIDS epidemic and lost more friends than I care to count. I watched in horror as the towers fell in 2001 and spent countless hours in pastoral care for those who lost loved ones or colleagues or hope. We all watched the devastation of the tsunamis and hurricanes, especially Katrina.

Yet in each of these crisis I witnessed miracles. The overwhelming power of love to face the challenges. The number of people who rose to the occasion to be God's hands and voice in times of need. Volunteers to work or donate money or time and expertise are, in keeping with the parable, those who accepted the invitation to the wedding feast. People who come to the help of others in time of crisis and need are the people who experience the kingdom of God and its love. In each of these crisis we did not know what was going to happen next, but pulling together we walked through the difficult terrain of unknowing through the sheer will of doing the next right thing.

In times of uncertainty it's a very real temptation to look back and try to replicate older solutions to older problems. But new problems require new solutions and they aren't always clear or obvious. They take faith and will power. They take integrity and patience. When I read about the executives who used part of their bail out money for a $400K junket, I thought of the guest who came to the wedding not dressed properly.

We've lived through crisis before and we'll certainly live through this one. It's an opportunity for all of us to do our daily work and live our daily lives committed to honesty and service to our fellow travelers. If anyone is tempted to feel sorry for themselves, then it's time for that person to help another.

In one sense we picked a horrible time for a Stewardship Campaign. But in another sense, this is a perfect time. People are afraid and giving threatens to be low. But on the other hand the need is greater now than ever to do what we do best, and that is to live, preach and witness the Good News of God in Christ. Hope is one of the foundations of our common lives here. It's a demonstrated fact that whenever public crisis hit, people turn to houses of faith in ways they never had before. We need to continue our work and ministry and be prepared to offer a spiritual haven and living example of the triumph of love in the face of adversity. We are not a people defeated and we are not a people looking backward. We do not look for scapegoats nor do we shrink from difficult questions. Our faith means everything to us and for that reason we must continue to pledge toward the work and witness of St. George's.

Over the next few weeks we'll conduct this program a little differently than before, but ultimately the need remains to make a financial pledge that makes sense for each household. No one of us will presume to tell you what that should be. We will make clear that we made good decisions last year regarding our budget and though we have a deficit it's much smaller than in years past. I think we've found the right balance. We need to maintain it to stay where we are, but we also need to grow our income side if we are to grow in our ministry. Our family and youth programs have been doing so well, I would personally love to see our income grow enough to hire a youth minister. There are a lot of ways we can grow, but first we must recommit ourselves to the value of the ministry we already do and the value of the faith, hope and love that is nurtured in this church. It's up to all of us to keep it strong and it's up to God to help us. God has never let his people down and certainly will not this day.

When the apostle Paul wrote to his church facing hard times he wrote these words for their comfort and inspiration: "...Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you." Amen.

© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ

The Stewardship of Time and Talent

By Chris West, Stewardship Co-Chair

The Stewardship of Time and Talent. That is the theme of today's Ministry Fair. Time and Talent. Seems pretty simple. Not always easy - but simple. A bit of time given here and there. A sharing of talent - of personal gifts - well - maybe that seems a bit more complicated.

Still - it is a new year - not liturgical, not by the calendar. This month we return to Sunday School and regular worship hours and the choir singing and Dinners For Eight and a host of other activities that mark this time.

And we return to Stewardship - that calling out to consider both the new and the renewal of our commitment to share with St. George's (and therefore with each other and the greater church and the larger community) our treasure, our time and our talent.

I'm not going to talk about the treasure part this morning. The Stewardship Committee wanted very much to give full voice and visibility to the other aspects of Stewardship. So today - our Time and Talent Fair.

I want to shift a bit now - to today's Gospel lesson. The one where the writer of Luke almost seems to be telling a story where Jesus is telling his disciples - be smart: be shrewd like the "children of this age" not the "children of light".

A story where a manager is doing a poor job for his boss - and when he gets found out - he decides to add cheating to wastefulness. In his fear as well as his disdain for working or begging - he comes up with the idea that he'll just help everyone that owes his boss money and thereby ingratiate himself with them. And the boss - he seems to think this is fine - because the manager "had acted shrewdly".

At the end of the telling of this story - Jesus says "make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes."

The whole thing makes no sense. A boss who's angry with an incompetent employee and then thinks he's great because he cheats him. And - even more confusing - Jesus talking about being shrewd and being dishonest, like that's a good thing.

But the final sentences - the summing up of the story if you will - are very clear.

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in much - and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. No one can serve two masters - we will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. We cannot serve God and wealth.

Our faithfulness - our keeping our part of the covenant - in little things and big things - is required. And we cannot give short shrift to the small stuff - because when we do - we give the big stuff short shrift as well.

This is what happens when we are not whole and complete. Or maybe it causes that fragmentation. I'm never sure which comes first.

But the splitting of our selves and the battle that can rage between our yearning towards the God of our understanding and the world's demands - can be overwhelming sometimes. A lot of times.

A favorite of my remembered biblical stories is only one of my favorites because as a child I completely misunderstood it.

It is the parable of the talents. And it goes (the quick version) like this: A man going on a long journey leaves his goods with his servants. Now in the bible - the goods are talents - an amount of money, which somewhere or other I read, is the equal of about a thousand dollars today.

Two of the servants invest the talents and double them. When the man returns, he's happy. But the third servant - afraid to lose the talents - has buried them for safekeeping and the man - pretty upset at not having the talents increase - is very angry. This is one of those stories that end in weeping and teeth gnashing.

The thing is - I didn't know the talents were money when I first heard this story. I just thought they were talents - like singing or dancing or playing the harmonica. So I thought the point was - don't bury your talents. I may have also confused this with not hiding your light under a bushel.

Anyway - you get my point, I hope. More about this later.

Christian and I were on vacation recently in Maine - we did a bit of research before leaving about what there was to do and where we wanted to go. But when we arrived we found the most amazing Tourist Information Center. It was amazing because it was filled with everything you would need to know about Maine ... and it was organized in a way that satisfied even my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

We went there three separate times - to browse, to get ideas, to be sure we hadn't missed anything - and to revel in the numbers of activities, places, events, restaurants, galleries, nature walks, scenic drives open to us. And everyone else there was doing the same thing. Wandering through this large room - ducking in and out between aisles of shelves. We were part of this small community of sojourners. It was great.

As the weeks leading to today's Fair galloped along, I kept thinking about the Center. And in this last week - when even more parishioners suddenly seemed to jump on the idea of hosting a table - I thought about it some more.

Because when you go down stairs after the service and wander around our very beautiful Parish Hall - you'll have this whole host of opportunities in front of you.

Please don't think of them as duties to be fulfilled - or obligations to be met. Pretend you are going into the Center in Maine the way Chris and I did. And see the smorgasbord of all these things to do and let your appetite be whet. We are entering this hall together - surveying this smorgasbord as yet another community of sojourners.

There are opportunities for fellowship, chances to un-bury talents and let them increase, occasions for grace when our commitment to our life of faith overcomes the calls of a world in which faith, grace and fellowship seem unsupported.

And today you get a One-Day Dispensation from the sin of Pride - (see your bulletin). Good today and today only! Because we want you to be bold, to brag, to pop your jerseys, to let both your big talents and your small skills get put to good use.

Now why do I say 'put to good use'? That's a bit presumptuous I guess.

So let me tell you how it is I really came to be standing here this morning - speaking to you. I have been a member of St. George's for about 12 years I think. I've done a few things here in that time - but the one that has brought me the most joy is teaching Sunday School - 4th, 5th or 6th graders depending on the year. I've done that most of the years I've been here.

I don't think I'm that good at it. But I love it. And I love the children who have been in my class.

I watch with anticipation all the even younger ones - and I start thinking about how eventually I'll get them in my class. So each year when I consider how maybe I'll ask Jane Cates for a year off, I think of someone I've been waiting to see in my class and I postpone for another year that brief sabbatical.

Let me reassure you - this ministry is not without its frustrations. Aside from my own insecurity, there is of course the occasional Sunday morning when I'm certain no one is listening - no one cares - the whole group is out of control and I'm just about to bust.

Following one such Sunday - as I was shepherding the little lambs to the church (there's an irony to our joining you all at the Peace) a few of the children made a stop at the water cooler.

This is pretty routine with them. I slipped into my normal pose and tone of voice when this happens and shushed them along - reminding them "Come on - we're going to church now."

And then something happened. I felt this great sense of calm - of certainty - and I had a waking up moment. I thought - this is their church. They know this place. They know every nook and cranny - from the stage to the altar to the cloister garden to the playground to the kitchen. They've crawled and run and walked over every surface. They feel comfortable here - this is a place they know. The faces are familiar - some grownups even know their names (though I wish there were more of them).

And someday - 20 or 30 years from now, they may be sitting in a newcomers' meeting at a rectory telling people about the church they went to as children. And that will be this place. This church. St. George's will be the church of their memory. It will be the place they remember and even if they don't know that now, it is true.

We create - in our covenant with God and with each other - this memory. It is the work we do here, the worship we pray and sing here, the ministries we embrace and engage in and are engaged by, the place from which we reach out and the place in which we may turn inward, the place we meet the comfort we find in each other with the strength we find in ourselves, the place we try to name the un-nameable.

It is the place of our memory - which we carry with us all through the week if only we will stop to hear, and look, and remember it.

There is ample opportunity today for us to continue - or to embark upon - this memory-creation.

When you walk downstairs look for Joy. Be bold. Take chances. Over-reach. Build a memory - for yourself, for our children, for each other.

Let us pray -

Lord, guide us to be faithful in a little so that we may be faithful in much, show us the way to wholeness and completeness, remind us of our many talents, relieve us of our fears of the finiteness of time, and guide us to continue to create and re-create this church in which we give you thanks and praise. Amen.

© 2007 Chris West

Stewardship Luncheon Sunday

By Dan Austin, Chair, Stewardship Task Force

We all have had "aha" moments, that time of revelation when something we see or hear gives us insight into how this world of ours really works. One of my best aha moments came almost 25 years ago, while sitting in the pews of a small Episcopal parish in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. The rector, a Welshman who truly had seen everything and wasn't fazed by any of it, announced from the pulpit that, after much prayerful consideration, he had concluded that there are, really, only two kinds of people in this world. There are people who wake up every day and say, "Good morning, God!" And then there are those who awake, look at the bright sunlight streaming through the windows, and say, "Good God, morning."

I never forgot that. I'm now -- in late middle age, 60 years out and starting to head home -- a good morning God person.

No doubt some of this is due to the aging process. In my misspent youth -- in college, I was a member of the original animal house fraternity -- partying well past midnight was the norm, and the harsh light of morning was seldom welcomed. Nowadays, I'm usually sound asleep by 10 if not before. But I think one reason I'm happy to welcome the morning -- and my creator -- is that my view of life, of God and of my place in God's universe, has changed.

I am not here to tell you that I was a sinner, and now am a saint. No, this place is still a hospital for sinners, and on more than one occasion, I've needed the emergency room.

But I am here to tell you that I am undergoing a conversion experience. It's nothing exciting, no blinding light, no voice from the burning bush, and it's full of fits and starts, and it seems to never end. But it is bringing me a peace that I, a classic type A, take-no-prisoners kind of guy, never thought possible.

It is broadening my capacity to love my neighbors, even the blockheads next door, and along the way, it is helping me replace rough edges, even anger, with understanding and empathy. And, miracle of miracles in this age of instant gratification, this conversion process is showing me that by giving first of myself, by giving my time, my talent and my treasure, I receive much more in return than any effort to keep up with those nasty Joneses ever brought. I want to share my conversion story because it has everything to do with stewardship, specifically, the stewardship of money, the offering of personal treasure for the benefit of God's people here at St. George's and in the wider world. My hope is that my story won't be what Bruce Springsteen, in his epic song "Glory Days," called "boring stories, eh."

My hope is that my story will make you think about your own story. About where you are as a child of God, as a member of the human race, as someone's son or daughter, as someone's parent or spouse or partner, or perhaps as someone who has chosen to worship God in this beautiful place.

I'm a cradle Episcopalian and through my high school years, was active in my parish, a cathedral parish on the high plains of western Kansas. The dean of the cathedral, Frederick Litchman, was a hard-headed, high-church New Englander who, despite his austere countenance and intolerance of fools, especially young fools, inspired great loyalty in me and other youth. He also taught us a Christianity that went well beyond what we learned in Sunday school.

One quick example: in our Kansas town in the early 1960s, "urban renewal" had arrived, and what it meant then was that a neighborhood of older, smaller homes, which housed a good portion of the town’s minority population, would be bulldozed, replaced by a park and a new Interstate exit ramp.

The residents of this renewed neighborhood would be relocated to what had been military housing on the other side of town, near a Strategic Air Command base.

Needless to say, the residents weren't in favor of being renewed, let alone being removed, or having their houses and their churches torn down. They fought the renewal effort in court, and lost. The pastor of a Baptist church in the neighborhood organized a protest, but few outside that African American community listened. Finally, the town fathers, impatient, decided to proceed with demolition, got a court order to back up the decision, and then sent the county sheriff to enforce it, authorizing him to remove the residents by force if necessary.

On the Saturday morning the bulldozers were set to begin their work, Dean Litchman assembled a squad of acolytes, with yours truly as crucifer, and the cathedral choir, and led us -- all vested -- in car pools to the demolition site. There we encountered a scene straight out of the movies. On one side, the Baptist pastor and several dozen of his flock stood, arm in arm. On the other were two bulldozers, engines running, and an assortment of sheriff's deputies, town police and highway patrolmen, batons at the ready. Right down the middle, led by the dean in his black biretta, stole and purple cassock, came the acolytes -- a crucifer and two candles -- and the choir of Christ Cathedral, singing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The sheriff, who knew most of us, shook his head, put the court order back in his pocket, and told the entourage of police and construction workers to go home.

That day, I saw the power of the Holy Spirit, acting through a small group of people and their priest, change minds, change lives and alter the course of events. The scene would stay with me, filed away deep in my mind. And deep it was. Indeed, within just a few short years after that Saturday morning -- when I had felt so close to God -- I began to fall away from the church, first through the haze of the later 1960's -- and by the way, anyone who tells you he or she remembers the 60's probably wasn’t there -- then the army and Vietnam, and then the launch of a professional career as a journalist, working for one of the most powerful, respected newspapers in the world. There were moments when I would edge back to my faith roots: a rocket and mortar attack in Vietnam, where I learned there truly were no atheists in foxholes. The difficult birth of a child, in which I found myself in serious negotiation with God.

Mostly, though, my wife Gail and I were simply too busy for church. To humor my parents, we would go on Christmas and Easter, usually. But the idea of giving money to the church? A non starter, for us. I was a journalist, not an investment banker. When our first child was born, Gail wanted to stay home with him through at least the pre-school years -- a nice idea but after a move to expensive New Jersey from inexpensive Detroit, an idea we quickly discovered we could no longer afford. She found weekend work, I became Mr. Mom on Saturday and Sunday, and we scraped by. A couple of bucks in the collection plate, even on Christmas, seemed a stretch.

That began to change with the birth of our second son. I had remembered enough of my religious heritage to know that the child needed to be baptized, even if I couldn’t remember quite why. We had Dean Litchman come out of retirement to baptize our first son at that cathedral in Kansas, but his declining health ruled that out the second time around. We had just moved to Pittsburgh with our newborn, didn't know a soul and so decided to church shop.

I would like to say my conversion began there, the day we walked into St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Brentwood, PA, with a baby and a four year old in tow. And in a way it did. We were greeted warmly, I got over the shock of the 1979 prayer book -- I had missed all the controversy that preceded its adoption -- we began to make lasting friends, our baby was baptized and, believe it or not, I soon found myself leading a bible study -- I hadn’t had to cram that hard since my western civ exams in college.

But as we became more involved in this Western Pennsylvania community, I found myself reflecting more and more on why I was back in church after all these years, and why it felt so right.

I recalled the example my Kansas parish and its cathedral dean had set in taking on the urban renewal bulldozers. And then it struck me: they had sought to follow the mind of Christ, even at personal risk, and they had prevailed.

In the epistle today, St. Paul tells the Hebrews that "the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edge sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

What a concept! God knows who I am, sees through all my artful dodging and prevarication, and still chooses to be active in my life, moving me, and others like me to stop acting for ourselves and start acting on behalf of our families and friends and neighbors, even on behalf of our enemies, to let loose ties that bind us -- the ties of material want instead of material need, the ties of hate instead of love -- and free us for the truly good life!

My faith continues to be a roller coaster ride, but at each turn, I've come closer to grasping this essential truth: it is better to give than to receive.

St. Matthew quotes Jesus as saying "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Billy Graham adds, "Give me five minutes with a person's check book, and I’ll show you where their heart is."

Thus, my conversion experience really began in that suburban Pittsburgh parish when Gail and I decided to begin giving regularly to the church we were coming to feel comfortable in.

It wasn't much at first -- probably around 2% of our income -- and it didn't always grow every year. But the more we gave, the more we gave. It wasn't only to the parish church either. Episcopal groups, charities of other denominations, secular non profits with humanitarian aims, educational institutions, art museums, all begin to get checks from the Austins. Not big checks, mind you, but regular ones. By the time we got to St. George's, we didn’t need to be told twice about the importance of stewardship -- writing out a check every week and putting it in those little envelops had become a pleasurable habit. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, we realized that our annual total giving amounted to about 10% of our gross income -- the biblical tithe -- and that we weren't missing a penny of it.

I'm still not sure I would be comfortable with Billy Graham or Bernie Poppe looking at my checkbook. They might wonder about the check to Dave's liquors for a case of that great pinot, or might be inclined to ask if I really needed a new car every three years. Moreover, I know that financial circumstances change. When our last child graduated from college, and I was no longer on a first-name basis with the Cornell bursar's office, it felt like I had gotten a gigantic raise. We were happy to share some of this windfall with the rest of God's creation. On the other hand, last February, in a variation of Jesus' warning that he who lives by the sword shall die by it, a corporate restructuring and cost-cutting effort eliminated my position and sent me into an unplanned retirement.

Our financial situation is now unclear. I got a decent severance payment, but while I'm now close to accepting another job, I know it won't pay nearly as well. But here's the thing. It doesn't matter. We'll get by -- we’ve lived on hot dogs and beans before, and we'll do so again if necessary. We have learned to be good stewards of whatever we are given, and to give cheerfully in return. St. George's, this wonderful parish with its great people, ministries and outreach, along with other very worthy causes and groups, will still get 10% of whatever we have. How could we not support this loving community! More important, I will continue to wake every morning, rain or shine, and say silently or aloud, "Good morning, God!"

Amen.

© 2006 Dan Austin