I had the privilege last Sunday (Aug. 31) to preach once again at my parish,
St. Augustine's-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church in Freeland, Washington. Here is what I said.
It’s Labor
Day Weekend, the last holiday of what has been a dazzling summer here on
Whidbey Island. Our rector is taking a
rest from at least his preaching labors today.
As
a result, you’re stuck with me. A
retired dude with nothing better to do on a Labor Day Weekend. And besides I can’t go anywhere because the
ferry line is backed up.
There
is, however, some method in this madness.
September begins tomorrow. And
many of you know what that means.
Stewardship season gets underway at St. Augustine’s. And yours truly is chair of the annual
stewardship campaign.
So
that’s what I’m going to talk about today – stewardship. Now as I say that, I may notice some of you gaze
longingly out the window, check text messages on your cell phones or turn down
your hearing aids. But give me a chance. I’m going to share some thoughts on what stewardship
means in a modern Christian community.
Yes,
stewardship does include making a financial commitment to our parish. We have to pay our bills. We’ll ask you to do that during the pledge
campaign that kicks off on September 14.
And yes, stewardship does include making a time and talent commitment to
our various parish ministries. Somebody has to do the work. We’ll ask you to do that at the Ministry Fair
after worship services next Sunday, September 7.
And
a reminder that this year, the Ministry Fair takes the place of the old volunteer
check-off that used to come in the pledge card.
That just didn’t work. So this
year’s pledge card will ask only for our financial commitment, and the Ministry
Fair will ask for our time and talent commitments.
As
we begin this 2015 stewardship season, I’d say we are in pretty good shape at
St. Augustine’s. We don’t owe a penny of
debt to anybody. We’ve had a record
number of people making financial pledges in both of the past two years. In fact, there were 110 pledgers this year. Our ministries remain diverse and dedicated. More new people continue to join us.
We
do face a serious financial challenge because of the loss of the generous and long-time financial support of more than half a dozen people who have left us this year.
We
needn’t live in anxiety about it. Our
parish is blessed to have resources to help us meet this challenge, if we use
them wisely. But it does make our stewardship
season this year all the more important.
The future really is in our own hands.
By
stewardship, however, I mean way more than writing a check to the church once a
week or volunteering to be part of a ministry.
I believe it means this: serving,
sharing, tending and protecting what God has given us. Serving, sharing, tending, protecting.
Those
are all active verbs. Stewardship is not
a passive, somebody-else-does-it endeavor.
Let’s
dig a little deeper and go all the back to the beginning. Genesis chapter Two. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the
Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” To work it and take care of
it. Sounds to me like the Lord God told
us what our stewardship responsibility is right from the get-go.
Moving
forward a few thousand years to First Chronicles: “For all things come from you, Oh Lord, and
of your own have we given.” In other
words, everything we have comes from God and it’s our duty to give it back. Sounds to me like somebody was writing the
very first pledge campaign letter.
Traveling
on a few centuries to the Gospel of Matthew:
“Jesus said, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Your treasure and your heart. Those are key words. We’ll come back to them in a minute.
Finally,
there is today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans. As always with Paul, he’s doing a full-throated
exhortation about how we’re meant to live.
This particular reading almost approaches a primal scream. Listen to some of the language he uses: Love one another. Outdo one another. Do not lag in zeal. Be ardent in spirit. Live peaceably. Rejoice. Feed. Persevere. Contribute.
Bless. Overcome evil. Live in harmony.
Hear
all those active verbs that Paul uses?
That’s what stewardship sounds like.
And
that’s why stewardship isn’t just about making a pledge or volunteering for a
ministry – although please, please do both!
It’s really a way of life. Living
in gratitude for all that God has given us and demonstrating that gratitude in
a hundred ways every day of our lives.
St. Francis of Assisi said it better than I just did when he told his
disciples to preach the Gospel and use words if necessary.
I
could spend the rest of this homily spouting stuff about stewardship you’ve
probably already heard. But you get the
picture. Instead I’m going to tell you a
story about someone very close to my heart.
This
is about my great aunt, Bertha Carter.
She was born in Washington Territory, before we became a state, in March
of 1889. And she died in Tacoma in 1993
at the age of 104. She was my
grandmother’s sister, the oldest of six siblings.
My
Aunt Bertha was what we used to call “a good Christian woman.” That’s a term that has fallen out of style
these days, and what a shame. We really ought to reclaim it. Those simple words carry great positive energy
and meaning, and in my humble opinion they are the main reason we come here
every week. To become good Christian
women and men.
So
let’s try something. Please turn to the
person next to you right now and say to them, “You are a good Christian woman
or man” and have them return the favor to you.
Try it. See what I mean? Those words can unleash an amazing, positive,
grateful energy into the room.
Aunt
Bertha didn’t have an easy life and she wasn’t famous. Nobody wrote a book about her . . . but maybe
I will. She was a poor child who was
forced to leave school after the fourth grade to work and help support the
family.
At the age of 18, she married a man almost
twice her age, and they set out to homestead 40 hardscrabble acres on the road
to Mount Rainier near Eatonville.
Together, they cut down trees and pulled stumps with a horse and harness,
built their farm house and a cow barn, and ran a dairy farm for 40 years.
Here’s
my favorite part of the story. One day
in 1915, her husband Curt got sick and couldn’t drive his rickety Ford truck to
get their milk to the dairy in Tacoma.
So Bertha did it. When she got
into town, a cop pulled her over and demanded to know what she was doing. He scolded her that women aren’t supposed to drive.
She
pointed her finger right back at him and said if he didn’t get out of her way
and let her get to the dairy the milk would go sour and the farm would go broke. Well, she made it to the dairy.
And
the very next day Bertha showed up at whatever the Department of Motor Vehicles
was back then and got what our family believes was the first driver’s license
ever issued to a woman in the state of Washington.
When
Curt died, Bertha was 60 years old. She
had to give up the farm. And in order to
support herself as a woman alone she took in and cared for what she called “old
ladies” until she was 94. Some of those
old ladies were younger than she was.
Bertha
understood what living in gratitude means.
There was no church out in the country where she lived, so she started one. A one-room, all-denomination Protestant
church. When she couldn’t persuade a
pastor from town to come preach, she or Curt would do it. She took communion to
the sick. Taught Sunday school. Brought
food to everybody. And read the Bible to
people who couldn’t see any more.
She
never owned any expensive clothes and didn’t want any. She always wore simple cotton print dresses,
and when they wore out she’d cut them up to make patches for the crazy quilts
she sewed.
She
had a habit of repeating certain key phrases – words to live by, she called
them. “Waste not, want not”….was
one. She made a pie out of every apple
she ever picked. “The Lord will provide”. . .was another. She didn’t live in fear; she knew her God
would always come through. And,
of course, there was, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” She hurled that one at me when she caught me
reading comic books instead of mowing the lawn.
After
she left the farm, she would make what she called her “rounds” every Saturday
morning to visit “her people.” She drove
the same car for 25 years. It was a 1940
Ford V-8 with those “suicide” rear doors that opened backwards. I loved that car. I remember her pulling up to our house, bringing
us something she’d grown or baked, always asking the same question: “How are you folks doing today?” We’d fill her in on our lives, and then she’d
move on to the next set of “her people.”
She
wrote little notes of encouragement on scraps of paper, in her fourth-grade
school girl script, and mailed them to those she thought were “down in the
dumps.” While I was in the Army in
Vietnam, she’d send me chatty letters about the apples in her yard or the birds
on her fence. Sometimes she’d enclose some religious pamphlets from Oral
Roberts. She’d scribble a note on each
one saying something like, “Read this just before bedtime” or “Jesus wants you
to know this.”
She
gave away most of what little money she had.
She’d always say others needed it more than she did.
The
last time I saw Aunt Bertha was a few months before she died. She was living in a nursing home. She had become very impatient with God and just
couldn’t understand why the Lord hadn’t taken her yet. She was frustrated that she couldn’t drive
and make her rounds any more.
As
I came to her room, I looked in and saw her standing at the bedside of her
roommate, an elderly, bedridden woman with dementia. The woman was moaning and trying to mouth
some words. Bertha was standing beside
her, holding her hand, trying to calm her and asking if she’d like a drink of
water or a bite of peaches. Still taking
care of old ladies, I thought to myself.
My
Aunt Bertha was a good Christian woman. She
lived her life in gratitude for what God had given her and she demonstrated it
in a hundred ways every day of her life.
Her treasure was where her heart was.
She was an active verb.
And
so, my friends, my good Christian women and men, that’s the challenge I give
you as we begin our stewardship season here at St. Augustine’s. Live your lives in gratitude for everything
you have been given. Demonstrate it in a
hundred ways every day of your life.
Show that your heart and your treasure are in the same good place.
And
guess what. You can get started when you
leave this room in a few minutes by signing up for the Stewardship Kick-Off
event on Sept. 14. The sign-up sheets
are just outside Campbell Hall. Then come
to the Ministry Fair next Sunday and find a new ministry to commit yourself
to. Then pick up your financial pledge
packet at the kick-off on September 14 and spend some time considering how you
will support our parish in the year ahead.
Then turn in your pledge card at the All-Parish Dinner on October 23.
And
most of all: Make yourself an active
verb.
