Who We are in Dangerous Times: A Stewardship Sermon - Nov 10, 2024
Advent 1 (7 Week Advent)
November 10th, 2024
Scripture readings for the day: 1 Kings 17:8-16; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:24-8; Mark 12:38-44
We are beginning Stewardship Season today as is our practice. Stewardship refers to right relationship and right use of our talents, time and energy, and money for the purpose of doing God’s work in the world. I’d like to reflect on stewardship in light of the bible and current situation in our country. Is the gospel a praise or a critique of the widow? Both – praise of her generosity and devotion to God, and a critique of b/c the requirement is not to sacrifice everything one has to live on. Critique of the situation – b/c the temple as the center of religious life and commerce was overseen by priestly and political classes who colluded w/ Rome; and the upkeep and privileged lives of those classes relied on offerings and taxes on mostly peasants. So Jesus praises the widow’s devotion, but it’s misdirected and misinformed b/c the temple system was corrupted and the rel-pol authorities exploited it for their own benefit. Reading this in our context, we need to ask, what are we giving to when we give to the church? And that is connected to the question, what is the identity and mission of the church? As I reflected on these questions in light of our country’s situation, I have looked to the history of Christian communities for guidance.
Esther de Waal, the Anglican historian and author, opens her book Seeking God with the story of St. Benedict, who was born in Nursia around 480 CE (de Waal 1984: 15-23). He grew up in a world that knew little security or safety. In 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome, the center of the Western world. The church was riven by divisions. People struggled to make sense of what was happening. In this time, Benedict founded a small community of monks who would dedicate themselves to prayer and life in community, creating within the ruins of Roman civilization what he called the school of charity. This school would be an ark where the light of faith in Jesus Christ and the Way of Love would be preserved through the chaos and turmoil of history. In time, this refuge that the Benedictine monastery provided the Western world made it possible for spiritual life, art, and learning to grow and flourish.
An essential practice of the Benedict’s community was hospitality to the stranger. In his Rule, Benedict writes, “Let all guests who arrive be received as Christ, because he is going to say, ‘I was a stranger, and you received me’…. Let care be scrupulously shown in receiving the poor and strangers; for in them specially is Christ received.” (The Rule of Benedict 53 – solesme.com). Where does this value of hospitality to the stranger, the outsider, and the poor come from? It comes from the gospels, especially Matthew 25, and the Hebrew Bible, as we read in the first reading and Ps.
God’s command to treat the foreigner and the poor with generosity and justice is repeated through the entire Bible. It is a refrain in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which is built on the memory of the nation’s origin in ancestors like Jacob who were immigrants to Egypt during famine and God’s liberation of Israel from slavery. The experience of Israelites as immigrants and slaves is directly tied to hospitality and justice to the foreigner: Leviticus 19:33 says, “When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the foreigner. The foreigner who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the foreigner as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
This memory and ethos of hospitality and justice beyond one’s tribe is closely tied to the key principle that everything ultimately belongs to God, and that the human race as a whole are strangers on God’s land. So Leviticus 25:23 says, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but foreigners and tenants.”
Precisely because the land and everything in it belongs to God, people are to offer one-tenth of their harvest to God each year in gratitude. When the people give their offering, it is distributed to vulnerable groups in society - foreigners, widows, orphans, and the priestly class who had no land (Deut 14:22-28). The offering is also given back to the people, so that they can feast alongside the vulnerable population. [Since the land is God’s gift, human beings also have the responsibility not to exploit it. The Torah (Exodus 23:10 -11) requires the land to rest and remain fallow every seventh year, so that the poor may eat freely from what grows on it and foreign workers can rest.]
It is this biblical vision of life as a practice of gratitude, hospitality, justice that we find in Matthew 25, where Jesus identifies himself with those who suffer; it is this vision that infused St. Benedict’s community. In a time when the known order of society was destroyed, and the violence and greed of the privileged and powerful ushered in chaos, Benedict called those who were willing to come together in the Spirit of Jesus. His community would preserve and continue to nurture the way of Jesus, so that the path that leads to a truly full life may not be lost.
Benedict’s world is not too different from our own. While we uphold the validity of everyone’s choice to vote according to their conscience, we are entering a time when we will face clear consequences of the election. Those consequences will be dire especially for immigrants, LGBTQ+ community, Muslims, women, other vulnerable groups, and the earth’s climate. In the face of this reality, the story of Benedict and his small band of monks shows us how small Christian communities have arisen throughout history, often during the most chaotic times, as a bulwark against the forces of hate, greed, and ignorance. Such communities have made it possible for a way that leads to genuine flourishing and justice for all to survive and thrive again. It reminds us that the church – ekklesia in the original Greek, the root sense of ‘being called out of the world’ - was born from the trauma of Jesus’ crucifixion and the fall of Israel under Roman oppression, and came to bear witness to the truth of Christ’s resurrection by the force of love and compassion. Whenever a group of people offered themselves wholly to Christ, the power of the resurrection has manifest again and again throughout history. That is undeniable. And that is our call now as St. Paul’s: to offer ourselves wholly to God and to serve Christ in all, so that we may do our part in Christ’s work of healing and liberating; so that St. Paul’s may also be an ark where the light of unconditional and inclusive love for all, hospitality, and justice can continue to shine. I ask you to consider seriously how you can offer yourselves - your gifts, time, and energy – to St. Paul’s so that it can be the church God wants it to be in this time. Never has there been greater need for St. Paul’s to be faithful to its call to strive for peace and justice, and to respect the dignity of every human being, especially the marginalized and vulnerable. Everything you give goes to the ministry of service to the members of our community and the ministry of care and justice through our outreach programs. We have need for increased staff hours, ministry resources, as well as many more volunteers and training of ministry leaders. I ask you to give what you can, and give generously if able. We have serious work to do, and we need everyone’s help to do it. Let’s get on with being God’s church.