A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT

Transcription

1 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT Stewardship Sunday; September 29, 2013 Stephen R. Montgomery OLD TESTAMENT LESSON: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah, where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours." Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the Lord, and said to me, "Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself." Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver. I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales. Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions, and the open copy; and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard. In their presence I charged Baruch, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, in order that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land. PRAYER: O God of the prophets, by the power of the Holy Spirit, speak your Word to us, and seal it within us, so that we might be startled once again by the love you have for us. Then may we respond with our hearts, our hands, and even our pocketbooks. Amen. This is an oxymoronic Sunday. You remember what an oxymoron is: a statement that contradicts itself, like congressional ethics. Let me explain. Today is Evangelism Sunday, the culmination of Soul Fest weekend, the day we share the good news of Jesus Christ and talk about all that God is doing here and invite our friends to come, we roll out the red carpet and have a big pot luck in hopes that newcomers might feel our warmth and hear about our ministries and want to come back. But today is also Stewardship Kickoff Sunday, the day when we begin to think about next year s program and plan accordingly based upon the pledges that we receive over the next six weeks. But here s the kicker: Last year there was a study by the Pew foundation of those young people who were raised in the church, but had fallen away, and when the researchers asked why they no longer went to church, the top three reasons given were their perception that the church was 1) judgmental, 2) homophobic, and 3) only cared about money. SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 1 OF 6

2 So do you see the challenge that a preacher faces on a Stewardship/Evangelism Sunday? True story: There was a young woman here who actually was a BASIC advisor some years ago. She went out to California, and ended up doing rather well in Los Angeles. Got married. When Patti and I went out there last year, I ed her and told her we were thinking about worshipping at the Presbyterian Church in the community where she lived. I knew the pastor, it looked good on the website, involved in the community. Maybe I could learn something. Maybe they could join us. She told me they had tried the church, but it was Stewardship Sunday. Probably not an ideal Sunday to judge a church, she wrote, but we found a wonderful Episcopal church. So all a preacher can do on a day like today is to turn to the lectionary for guidance. For those of you that are new, the lectionary is a three year cycle of biblical texts from the Psalms, the Old Testament, Epistles, and Gospels that guide us. I turn to the Epistle text in I Timothy. Maybe that will have something about being kind to each other, or something like that. No such luck. The love of money is the root of all evil, it says. It talks about the perils of greed and says that the desire for accumulation can plunge people into ruin and despair. The staff was drooling when I read that to them this week. I could have a field day with that if it was only Stewardship Sunday, but I can just see the visitors running to the nearest exit! So I turn to the Gospel reading. Maybe it s a parable about God s all embracing, all inclusive love. People might like hearing something like that. But the Gospel text is from Luke, a parable Jesus taught about the rich man and Lazarus. Long story short, it s about a rich man who did not care for the poor and ended up in the depths of H-E-double-hockey-sticks. It s too late for him, Jesus says. More drooling from the staff. Both of these texts speak some truth, but are they the truth we need to hear today? I don t know. I decided to go with a more radical text, about a story whose hero is a real estate developer who is interested in adding to his own personal possessions. His name was Jeremiah, a prophet in the late 7 th century and early 6 th century BCE. Jeremiah was probably the grumpiest of all the prophets in scripture. He was a harbinger of doom and gloom. Again and again he warned the people and the rulers of Judah that they could fail to heed God s word, God s demand for justice, for only so long. He spoke the truth to the king, a man named Zedekiah, and ended up being thrown in jail, in the guardhouse. You don t get things in order and pay attention to God s agenda of justice, Nebuchadnezzar is going to bring his Babylonian army down and get you. Your city, The Holy City of Jerusalem will be defeated. And as for you, king, you ll be hauled off in shackles to Babylon. Read on in the story and you ll find out that s exactly what happened. So there is Jeremiah is sitting in the guardhouse surviving on a daily ration of bread. But he is better off than his fellow citizens of Jerusalem. The city was under siege. The enemy was encamped around its perimeter and throwing everything they had against its fortifications. Houses were in ruin. Walls crumbling. Blood stains in the street. The graves of children are dug while at the same time women mourn their husbands killed in the fighting. There was no sign of help. SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 2 OF 6

3 Let me share with you how Bernhard Anderson described this hour as one of the bleakest in Israel s history. The Babylonian army was pounding at the walls of Jerusalem. Bread was so scarce that the people had resorted to cannibalism. Death stalked the streets and came in at the windows. It was only a matter of hours until the sure doom would fall, pitiless and dark. Clearly, this was no time to think of the future, for most people, in despair, felt that there would be no tomorrow for Judah. That s the situation. But in the midst of this story of despair and ruin, Jeremiah has his eye fixed on something that most eyes cannot behold, and his mind attuned to something that reason alone cannot understand except through faith. In his guardhouse, his cousin brings word that a certain piece of property nearby in Anathoth is available, and Jeremiah has the right of first refusal to keep the property in family hands. Jeremiah takes that as a sign that God, in the midst of this desperate situation, with Jerusalem ready to fall, is sending a sign of hope. There, in the midst of what seems like a simple property transfer is an ensign of God s grace. Jeremiah buys the land, not because he knows he will make a killing when the war is over, buying when the market is down and selling when the market is up, but because he wants to demonstrate that God s grace and love for Israel will not end, even though the people themselves would be taken into exile, their homes destroyed, their lives collapsed around them. In fact, Jeremiah would never see Jerusalem restored. He never planted a blade of grass on that little piece of property, never raised a roof above his head there. But that is not the point. The property was not bought for that purpose. It was bought as a witness to the truth that God s grace and love is from everlasting to everlasting, more than the eye has seen or the mind has understood. Whatever future there will be will be a future of God s design and intention, confounding and upending our certainties of the way things have to be. It was not a good time to invest in the future, except for one who had a deep conviction that destruction and judgment would not be the last word. Restoration and mercy, he believed, would always be God s final word. As I began to think about that text, and kicking off our pledge season I began to look back at my own life, and maybe you ll find the same thing true in your life, and realized that there has never been a good time to increase pledges. There is always other, more important priorities. You get out of school, you have loans to pay back. You start to get settled, maybe even get married, and there are all those expenses. You need a car this year, and in a year or two you plan to buy a house. There s the mortgage. The pledge increase can wait. You have kids not a good time to increase a pledge. Maybe they go to private school, maybe public, but the costs keeps mounting and mounting. My parents didn t have all the expenses for children and SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 3 OF 6

4 teenagers that we have. X boxes, cell phones, computers. Do we get them a car when they turn 16? Sure would help around the house. An increase in our pledge can wait. Oh, that s right. There s college. Let it wait 4 years oops. Two kids, let it wait 6 years. And then they re out. Now is the time. But retirement is just around the corner, and we haven t saved like we should have. And now there s retirement, and a cut in income. There is no good time to increase a pledge. Unless, of course, you win the lottery, but thus far I haven t heard of any of you doing that. If you do, I ll be there with pledge card in hand. But today I would say to you, the members beloved members of Idlewild Presbyterian Church, that the time has come for each of us to make a bold statement of faith, a statement about who we think the future belongs to. And I am going to ask you to do that by making a pledge if you haven t in the past, or by increasing your pledge if you have. I have never been that direct from the pulpit. But there is a reason I am doing that today. If there is one message we have received from so many of you on committees, on the session and diaconate, it is: Please make us aware of what the needs are. Let us know the wonderful things going on. I didn t know we are doing this. I didn t know we are doing that. Remind us of, what the challenges are. So this is my Sermon on the Amount. In 2008, we were sailing along, increasing membership, and along with it our budget. But then you know what happened in the fall of The bottom dropped out of our economy. Now, I have to say that I still think to this day that we weathered that storm as well as any other church our size that I know. We had to let go of some part-time staff, we added responsibilities to our current staff; we made cuts in programs and came up with a plan over the next few years that would get us through. We had some reserves built up, thankfully, and they were apportioned out. We did this with some of most creative, brilliant and faithful minds that led our budget and finance committee: Steve Valentine, Carol Seamons, Jenny Haddad and Michael Peeler, and of course Betty Anne Wilson from our staff. You would be proud of the way they took being stewards of your gifts as they managed our budgets each month so that we could continue to be a beacon of light here in Midtown. It has not been easy, but they have persevered. And now we have had a flat budget for 5 years. But the problem, if you call it that, is that we are growing, our programs are expanding, the needs in the community are greater than ever and we are going to have to make some more cuts or say no to some new opportunities unless we have more revenue. Just this past spring, we had the largest confirmation class in at least the last 30 years. The QUEST youth group, 7 th and 8h graders, are growing, due to the gifts that Dara Bigger has brought, and the BASIC youth group, led brilliantly through the years by Frank Kelly, is planning a mission trip to Nicaragua next summer. 30 folks! And we have promised them that no one will SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 4 OF 6

5 be excluded because of a lack of funds. This is not a country club or a private school venture. This is the church of Jesus Christ learning and sharing with Christians in other parts of the world. Just this fall we started four new church school classes on Sunday mornings for young adults and others, including college students! I marvel at the way Anne Apple has connected them with each other and then Gayle Walker has sat them down and listened to what they wanted, and designed a program. That s incredible! But that s going to mean more curriculum, more speakers, more AV equipment. More baby sitters for some of their weekday classes. We are now using every classroom available on Sunday mornings. And you have seen the children coming up here on Sunday mornings. We ve have taken vows when they were baptized to do all we can to insure they will get to know the love of God in Jesus Christ, and Elizabeth Houston has been tireless in rounding up teachers and VBS leaders, disciples who volunteer. But the education budgets children, youth, and adult, have been cut over the past few years. They had some reserve funds to help out short term, but they are running dry. What about recreation? If there ever was a signature outreach program over the decades it has been recreation, designed so that our program is not an Idlewild program, but a program for the whole community. And thanks to Ashley Gordon and Anthony Albonetti and Brittany Barbee, its booming. We had more mini-strikers this year than ever; we have had to put a limit on the number of kids who can participate in some of our activities. We need to continue to provide scholarships for NaCoMe so that anyone can attend. There are new programs for adults. And we ve had to cut their budget over the past few years. Once again, reserves are running dry. Worship and Music took some hits as well. I hope all of you know how excited we are that next month we ll be welcoming our new Director of Music Ministry, Barry Oliver. As we were conducting the search, both Barry White, who chaired the search committee, and I heard a lot from the music community in Memphis. And the theme was the same: We are looking to Idlewild to be a leader in music in our community again. We ve had to make cuts in music personnel, and we need to restore that so that we can have a part time musician to assist Barry.. We have made cuts in the music budget in other areas. There was a reserve, but it is running dry. And outreach? I have literally lost track of the number of Outreach programs that Margaret Burnett overseas. And that s because you not simply the clergy, but you are out there in the community and you have hearts for the suffering you see. You, not the clergy, come up with creative ways to meet those needs. We dare not make further cuts in outreach. And now take a look around you. Look at this church. The leaders of the House and Properties committee have worked wonders on a shoestring, and we cannot defer basic maintenance costs. You never know what surprises this old, majestic building has in store for us. SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 5 OF 6

6 Now, those are just some of the needs, but there is one more need I feel called to mention. The greatest need is for me and you to give. It is a spiritual discipline that I need that reminds me weekly of what God has done in my life, and in the life of this congregation. When we think of spiritual practices, we think of prayer, worship, bible study, maybe even service. But there is no more consistent, concrete way to build a strong spiritual life than by giving. Jesus talked more about giving, and priorities and riches than anything else, save the Kingdom of God. So that s the challenge. Every gift, every gift is important. A widow s mite or a king s ransom. So whether you are a first time visitor, or a new member, or a long time member, remember the future that God intends. Remember Jeremiah, who trusted God s promises that restoration and mercy would always be God s final word. And then, what can we do? Well, you ll be getting a letter and pledge card this week. They are ready to go, and will be sent out tomorrow. We can be committed to the power and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ and share the good news. We can thank God for God s abundant grace. We can respond with extravagant giving. We can hope in God. We can buy a field. We can make a pledge. It s not a good time, I know that. It s not a good time for Patti and me to raise our pledge again. We have two kids in college, for heaven s sake. But we ll be increasing our pledge. I don t know how we ll do it, but we believe fervently in God s gracious care. We are thankful. And we want to be a part of the future that God has planned for Idlewild. And after all, Jeremiah might say that there has never been a better time Idlewild Presbyterian Church, Memphis TN SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 A SERMON ON THE AMOUNT PAGE 6 OF 6