Future Faith. So what do you do when the enemy is at your gates? If you are commercially savvy, you liquidate your assets.

Transcription

1 Future Faith Have you ever noticed in the Bible that some of the most important characters are caught doing some of the strangest things? Abraham as an old man left his homeland to go to a land that God had promised to give him, even though he had never been there before. Moses gave up his quiet life in the country to go back to Egypt, where he was wanted for murder, in order to lead the Hebrew people out of their bondage. David gave up his simple life as a shepherd to become king over Israel, even though it meant he spent much of his life on the battlefield. Amos gave up his quiet life as a farmer in order to speak a word of judgment against the northern kingdom of Israel. Peter, Andrew, James and John gave up their lives as fisherman in order to follow Jesus, a decision that changed their lives dramatically. Now I am sure we can ask the question, Why would people do such things? Why does Abraham want to leave town and go to some unknown place? Why does Moses want to put his life in jeopardy by returning to Egypt? Why would James and John leave their father in the boat and follow a stranger? We can ask that question of Jeremiah in today s lesson. We have here either one of the greatest examples of faith in the Bible or one of the most foolish investments ever made in human history. Let me set the context for this passage. Things could not be worse for the nation of Israel which is under siege by the greatest military power on earth. Most of the country is occupied territory. The enemy army has surrounded Jerusalem preparing for the final assault on the city. So what do you do when the enemy is at your gates? If you are commercially savvy, you liquidate your assets. You get your

2 money mobile. Maybe you buy safe passage out of town, even if that means bribing the guards. But what does Jeremiah do when his cousin comes to him and says, Buy my field you have the right of redemption. It doesn t take an MBA from Stanford to know the answer to that question. There is absolutely no benefit in buying such a field. Every reason argued against it. And so, what does Jeremiah do? He buys the field. To my mind, one of the most amazing sentences in the Bible is: And I bought the field at Anathoth. Why would a seemingly sane, sensible person make such an investment? I think Jeremiah bought the field because, at some point in his life, he decided to place his trust in God. That trust was at the very core of his being. He could not escape it. He could not look to another source of strength. He could not find another source of meaning in his life. He had promised that God would restore the fortunes of God s people. The city shall be rebuilt; again you shall plant vineyards, and enjoy the fruit. That is what he had said. And then came the moment when he had to decide whether he would act on what he said he believed. In that moment, he simply trusted God. He bought the field in the face of a fearful and uncertain future. Now the question is: Was Jeremiah being faithful or foolish in buying the field? I don t think Jeremiah is being naïve or engaging in wishful thinking. He knew the future was fraught with troubles in which there were no comforting answers. Life can be difficult, challenging, even unfair, but faith is living fearlessly, sometimes foolishly, because our trust is in the goodness and love of God. If you need your life to be bigger than it has been, if you need to do

3 something brave and generous that gives witness to what is most important to you, then you go on faith, trust God and buy the field. So what might it mean for us to buy the field? Right now, just months before a new Rector comes to this parish, I think it fair to say that Nativity is one of the most promising churches in the Diocese of Arizona and possibly in the entire Episcopal Church. Nativity has come a long way in ten years. We have a growing membership, no debt, a fully paid contemporary church building with room for expansion, a talented staff, dedicated lay leadership, and we exist in one of the most prosperous areas of the state. In the coming years Nativity should continue to grow and do well as an Episcopal presence in north Scottsdale. But for growth to take place it will require sustained support on our part that goes beyond our annual pledge or even a donation to a capital campaign or some worthwhile cause. You know the three-legged stool of Anglicanism: Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Well, there is another three-legged stool for a growing church. One leg is our annual pledge to the parish which funds operations. Another leg is donating to special mission, ministry and maintenance projects. The third leg is what we call planned giving or giving a bequest to the church when we die. Believe it or not, the Prayer Book requires clergy to instruct the people about the duty to make wills, while they are in health, arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, not neglecting, if they are able, to leave bequests for religious and charitable purposes. (1) Planned giving is a way to fund the mission and ministries of Nativity even after we die. Our bequest becomes part of an endowment which helps insure a solid financial foundation for the church. The endowment can be used to fund mission and ministry projects and to maintain our church campus as it needs repair

4 and renovation. The endowment supplements our annual giving, insures that this church continues to reach out with new ministries and provides a safety net when tough times come our way, as they inevitably do to every parish. Having an endowment goes a long way to insuring that the church will be a vibrant center of ministry for a very long time to come. Now you may be asking how much should I bequeath to the church? That is entirely up to you, but may I suggest that you consider 10 percent of your estate a tithe. If you have never managed to tithe while you are living, you can still tithe when you are dead. That s the beauty of planned giving ten percent to the church and ninety percent to family and causes that are meaningful to you. You may think will my little amount matter? Of course it will. Every amount matters. In fact, here is a rule to remember: when God is in the gift, God takes what we give and multiplies it, threefold, fivefold, tenfold, or even a hundredfold. Mother Teresa, who is now a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, began her ministry with the most meager of resources. She told her superiors, I have three pennies and a dream from God to build an orphanage. Mother Teresa, her superiors said, you can t build an orphanage with three pennies with three pennies you can t do anything. I know, she said smiling, but with God, three pennies and I can do anything. Today Mother Teresa s religious orders for women and men flourish around the world, and their work continues to help millions of the poorest of the poor.

5 Several years ago there was a ninety-one year old black lady by the name of Osceola McCarty who passed away in Mississippi. She was a washer woman. She washed other people s clothes all her life. And every week she put a little aside in a savings account. Eventually the money started to accumulate and her banker told her to invest it. So, she did. In the summer of 1995 she did something unheard of, she donated $150,000, most of her life s savings to the University of Southern Mississippi to help students get an education and have a better life than she did. Her unselfish gift inspired others to give as well. Some six hundred people have added over $330,000 to the original scholarship fund. And her gift is what inspired and prompted Ted Turner to give his billion dollar donation to the United Nations. Osceola McCarty was a servant all her life. She worked for everyone else. Yet she became a leader and inspiration through her being a good steward of what God had given her. When she died, she had left, not just a gift, but a legacy that will touch other lives for a long time to come. When I was at St. Peter s in Morristown, New Jersey, we had an endowment that was begun with a bequest from a lady from New York City. Years before this woman needed a church for her daughter s wedding. Several churches denied her request, but the Rector of St. Peter s graciously agreed to perform the marriage. The lady paid for the ceremony and was never heard from again. That is, until she died. In her will she left St. Peter s one-half of one percent of her estate. When I left the parish, that one half of one percent was worth over six million dollars. Of that money, the parish was able to provide outreach grants for worthy causes that totaled over $90,000 annually.

6 Or take John Harvard. He was one of the most promising scholars of his day, a graduate of Cambridge University who was ordained a Puritan minister in a country with an Established Church that tolerated no dissent. In the summer of 1637 he and his wife immigrated to New England where he was appointed a teaching elder and assistant preacher at a church of the newly founded Massachusetts Bay Colony. Scheduled to teach divinity at a startup college, he died tragically of tuberculosis on September 14, He deathbed bequest of his entire library and half his modest estate to the new school was so gratefully received that the college was named after him Harvard College, later to become Harvard University today the most heavily endowed university in the world. And to think, the college began with half of a very modest estate from a Puritan minister whose salary was barely enough to support his wife and himself. Sometimes we may think that our gift is too small to make a difference. But the truth is: every gift matters. Every gift to our endowment is an act of faith in the future, an investment in the kingdom of God; a belief in the power of the gospel, and a resolve to insure a viable Episcopal presence in north Scottsdale, even after we pass from this life to heaven. With planned giving we will not see the fruits of our gift, but over time what little we give can hold the world together and build a civilization of love in which caring and compassion light up our lives and our planet. Many of you may not be familiar with L Arche, but it is a wonderful worldwide community of special needs people founded by Jean Vanier. When Heather, Allison and I lived in London, Ontario, we were invited to dinner with the residents and staff at one of the L Arche communities. After dinner everyone gathered for a worship

7 service. It was a simple but beautiful liturgy, with residents playing instruments, singing songs, praying and being attentive to God. At the intercessions, the leader of London L Arche, a gentle and wise francophone woman originally from Quebec, announced to the group that she had been diagnosed with cancer and was scheduled to have her breast removed. Immediately after her sharing, everyone in the room gathered around to pray and lay hands on her. People in wheelchairs, people who could hardly speak; people who walked with a limp, all were eager to minister to this dear woman. As we were driving home after the service, Heather said to me, What we experienced tonight was a glimpse of the kingdom of God. - I think she was right. We experienced a community of people who were bound together by their strengths and their brokenness, a community of people who were limping toward the sunrise, but knew that God s love claimed them, each and every one. L Arche was begun in August 1964, when Jean Vanier invited two men who had been living in an institution for people with mental disabilities to share a house with him in a French village. Within a year that little community started to grow, and today there are 132 similar communities in 34 countries, including the United States. How did he do it? Jean Vanier looks back on the founding of L Arche and says that sometimes if the prayer is deep enough and the faith strong enough decisions which seem irrational are bathed with a kind of wonder. As this parish moves forward into the future, and you consider your own legacy to Nativity, you will discover that the choices you make are bathed in a kind of wonder. As Jean Vanier said of the L Arche residents, Even if you cannot speak, even if you cannot

8 walk, even if you have been abandoned, you have a gift to give. (2) Yes, we all have a gift to give. We can take the little we have, give it to the Lord, and let God multiply it in ways we can scarcely now imagine. We can leave this world a better place by the life-giving gifts we leave behind. So what are you waiting for? Have the future faith of a Jeremiah. Extend your arms into the future. The best is yet to come. Dr. Gary Nicolosi August 12, 2018 Text Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 Proper 16, B 1. The Book of Common Prayer, p Jean Vanier s Gift of Faith in America, December 22-29, 2008, 22