24 Pentecost

Stewardship Sunday 

November 15, 2020

 

Matthew 25.14-30

 

+ Today, of course, is Stewardship Sunday.

 

It is the Sunday when we begin this short but very important season of Stewardship.

 

It is a time in which we look hard at ourselves and ask ourselves the important questions of what St. Stephen’s means to us, and how we contribute of ourselves and our resources to St. Stephen’s.

 

For some churches, stewardship time is a difficult time.

 

It is a time of uncertainty.

 

It is a time when people kind of groan and inwardly complain.

 

“The priest is going to talk about money!”

 

But for us at St. Stephen’s, it’s never really like that.

 

For us, here, people LIKE to be members here.

 

And people here LIKE to help our congregation out.

 

People here like to step up to the plate.

 

Why?

 

Because people can see what we do.

 

People can see that although we are not a mega-church, we are not a giant church, we do make a big difference.

 

We are a place where we don’t just “talk the talk,” we very much “walk the walk.”

 

We don’t just pay lip service to our commitment to making a difference in this world.

 

We actually work hard to make a difference.

 

And let me tell you, we have done so even this past year, during the worst pandemic we have ever had.

 

Although we, like every church, had to adjust to the pandemic, we also knew that we had to still provide something for people.

 

We still had to DO something.

 

Although we closed for public worship, we quickly adjusted to online worship and, without a beat, provided Mass each Sunday and Wednesday, even in the darkest, most frightening days of pandemic.

 

And because we did, as we heard from many people who tuned in, we provided some comfort, some sense of normalcy, even then.

 

Of course, behind the scenes, we also struggled.

 

We weren’t certain at times how to do what we needed to do.

 

None of us were tech-savvy.

 

We didn’t even have a tripod at first.

 

All we had were our phones and, thankfully, our Facebook group.

 

But before we knew it, we worked it all out, and we were able to provide Mass for people.

 

And even during the pandemic, we also did the ministry we needed to do.

 

People’s pastoral concerns were met, although at a distance.

 

We still did funerals, and baptisms and weddings, although all of them were done in new and innovative ways.

 

We even welcomed 5 new members into our congregation.

 

And we even were able to celebrate the ordination of our first Deacon during this time.

 

Plus, we renovated and made fully available one of our most public and visual ministries for the public, our labyrinth, which has also provided spiritual substance to people during the pandemic.

 

What does all of this show us?

 

It shows us that we are not a lazy congregation.

 

We could’ve been.

 

We could’ve closed our doors.

 

We could’ve chosen not to do virtual worship.

 

We could’ve postponed the baptisms, the weddings and said no to the funerals.

 

We could’ve just stopped.

 

But, when the going gets tough, we all rose to the occasion.

 

We did the ministries that needed to be done.

 

And we served Christ and each other the best we could.

 

All this talk of laziness ties in well with this strange, difficult parable for this morning.

 

We get this parable of the talents, of money lent and the reward awaiting those who were entrusted with the money, complete with its not-so-subtle wag of the finger at us.

 

Trust me, I did not purposely pick this scripture for this Stewardship Sunday; it just happened to come up in the lectionary today.

 

But, man, is this parable is a very good story for us today!

 

Most of us can relate to it.

 

We understand how good it is to have people invest money for us and to receive more in return.

 

It certainly speaks in a very special way to us in this strange, scary and unstable time in which we are living at this moment.

 

But, this parable isn’t really about money at all, as we probably have guessed, just as Stewardship I just about money either.

 

The parable is about taking what we have—and in the case of today’s reading Jesus is talking about the Gospel—and working to expand it and return it back to God with interest.

 

We, as Christians, are called to just this: we are called to work.

 

We are called to do something with what we’ve been given.

 

And the worse thing we can imagine as Christians is being called by that ugly word I mentioned earlier:

 

“lazy.”

 

Lazy.

 

See. The word cuts like a razor.

 

I hate that word!

 

None of us want to hear that word directed at us, especially regarding our faith.

 

It is that shaming admonition we hear in this parable: “You wicked and lazy slave!”

 

It’s not what we want to hear.

 

Rather, we want to hear:

 

“Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”

 

Over and over again in Scripture, we find this one truth: God is not really ever concerned with what we have; but God is always concerned with what we do with what we have.

 

And we should always remind ourselves that it is not always an issue of money that we’re dealing with when we talk about what we have. 

 

The rewards of this life include many other things other than money—an issue we sometimes forget about in our western capitalist society.

 

The fact is, God is not always concerned about who we are or what we do.

 

God does not care about our ego.

 

God does not care about your ego!

 

But, God is always concerned with what we do with who we are and what we have.

 

And when we’re lazy, we purposely forget this fact.

 

When we’re lazy, we think we can just coast.

 

We think we can just “get by.”

 

We think we can just give lip service to our gratitude and that is enough.

 

We expect others to do the hard work while we sit back.

 

But it isn’t enough.

 

To be "good and trustworthy”  is to take what we have and do something meaningful with it.

 

By doing something good, we are showing our gratitude for it.

 

In these two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, we might find ourselves thinking about all the things in our lives we are thankful for.

 

And we should be expressing our thanks to God for those things.

 

But what God seems to want from us more than anything else is to let that thankfulness be lived out in our lives.

 

Yes, we should give thanks to God with our mouths.

 

But we must give also thanks to God with our actions.

 

Today, we are reminded that, essentially, from that first moment when we became Christians in the waters of baptism, we are called to live out our thankfulness to God in our very lives, in what we do and how we act.

 

Our thankfulness should not simply be the words coming from our mouths, but also the actions we do as Christians.

 

As Christians truly thankful to God for all we have been given, we are to live a life of integrity and purpose and meaning.

 

Integrity.

 

Purpose.

 

Meaning.

 

And standing up again and again to what is wrong.

 

We show our thankfulness to God in our stewardship—in the fact that we are thankful by sharing what we have been given.

 

By sharing the goodness we have been given.

 

And in that sharing, we find the true meaning of what it means to be gracious.

 

In that sharing, we find purpose and meaning in our lives.

 

In that sharing, we find true contentment.

 

We all have our treasures in this life.

 

We all have these special things God has given us.

 

It might be our talents, it might be our know-how, it might be a blessing of financial abundance.

 

It might just be our very selves.

 

We have a choice with these treasures.

 

We can take them and we can sit on them.

 

We can store them away and not let them gain interest.

 

And in the end, all we have is a moldering treasure—which really isn’t a treasure at all.

 

Or we can take a chance, we can invest them and, in investing them, we can spread them and share them.

 

During this stewardship season, the message is not “Give”

 

The message of this stewardship time is “be grateful.”

 

Even in a pandemic.

 

Be grateful to God for the treasures of this life. 

 

These are the things we have—our talents, our God-given abilities, the material blessings of our lives—and to be truly thankful for those things, we need to be grateful for them and to share them.

 

We can’t hoard them, we can’t hug them close and be afraid they will be taken from us.

 

And we can’t go through life with a complacent attitude—expecting that others are going to take of these things for us.

 

We must share what we have.

 

And we must share what we have with dignity and self-assurance and with a graceful and grateful attitude.

 

We must be gracious

 

We must not be the lazy slave who hoards what is given him, afraid to invest what he has.

 

We must instead be like the wise servant, the one is alert and prepared, the one who is truly gracious.

 

That is what Stewardship is really about.

 

It is about giving of ourselves, even when the times are tough.

 

And it is about making sure that we at St. Stephen’s can continue to do that and be that place in the future.

 

So, let us be the wise servants this Stewardship season.

 

Let us continue to step up to the plate and do what we must do.

 

Let us make sure that we as a congregation can continue to be a place of safety, of integrity, of holiness and love, when times are good and when times are bad.

 

Even during a pandemic.

 

Let us give thanks to God for all that St. Stephen’s does and is and continues to be.

 

And let us make sure that we can continue to be this radical place we are, this unique and eclectic and Holy Spirit-filled place we are.

 

And let us all do what we are called to do in our service of God and one another.

 

And if we are, we too will hear those words spoken to us—those words we all truly long to hear—“Well done, good and faithful one…enter into the joy of your master.”

 

Let us pray.

Abundant God, you provided us always with just what we need; we ask you during this Stewardship time to continue to provide this congregation of St. Stephen’s with the resources we need, with the time and talent needed, to do the work you have called us to do, to be a place of love and acceptance to those who need shelter, to embody those principals in this often dark and uncertain world, and to make a difference among those who need us; we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.  

 

 

 

November 1, 2020

1 John 3.1-3

+ In case you might have noticed it, today is a very, very special Sunday.

All Sundays, of course, are special.

But today is even a bit more special, if you haven’t noticed.

Out in the Narthex, we do have the All Saints altar.

We have the Book of Remembrance, with the names written in it of all our departed loved ones.

People have been sending in the names of their departed loved ones for us to remember at Wednesday night’s All Souls Annual Requiem Mass.

Here in the Nave, we have the white paraments on the altar, and of course I’m all decked out in white as well (as you can see).

And we are celebrating even a bit more than we usually do.

In just a few moments, we’ll renew our Baptismal vows.

You’ll get sprinkled with water.

We’ll take joy in our baptism.

See, it’s a Sunday to celebrate.

Which, as you all know, I LOVE to do.

I love to celebrate.

I will look for any little opportunity to celebrate.

But, today we have plenty to celebrate.

First, we are celebrating the saints.

We are celebrating all those saints that we know of, like the Blessed Virgin Mary and our own St. Stephen.

We are celebrating the saints we have remembered in our beautiful windows.  

We celebrate those saints because they are held up to us as examples of how to live this sometimes difficult life we live as Christians.

And, as those saints would no doubt tell us,  it is hard to be a Christian sometimes.

It is hard, as we all know, to follow Jesus, and to do what Jesus tells us to do—to love God and love others.

It is hard to be, as John says in our first reading for today, the children of God, as Jesus himself is the Child of God.

The saints have shown this fact to us.

They have shown us how to be these very children of God.

We celebrate that today.

We celebrate, by our baptismal vows, that we are loved children of a loving and accepting God.

We are also celebrating the saints we have personally known.

We are celebrating the saints we have known who have come into our own lives—those people who have taught us about God and shown us that love does win out, again and again.

The saints in our own lives are those who have done it, who have shown us that we can be successful in following Jesus, even if they weren’t always successful at times in their own lives.

But, before we go any further, we do need to ask ourselves: what is a saint?

Well, this past week I came across this great story on Facebook.

It is about the great Dorothy Day, who is also being considered for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church.

This story is one we can relate to here.

During the 1970s, in those days after Vatican II and the liturgical reform that Churches like the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church were going though, some priests were becoming rather casual with the liturgy. One afternoon, a priest came into the soup kitchen in which Dorothy Day was working. He wanted to offer a Mass for the homeless. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a coffee mug to use for the chalice.

Dorothy, although frustrated at the irreverent use of houseware for the liturgy, prayed throughout the mass with the priest. After the liturgy ended, she quietly got up and started to cleanse the vessels. Then, she walked outside with the mug and a shovel.

A man followed her and asked her what she was doing. It is said she kissed the mug and then buried it. She told him that it was no longer a mug, but a chalice. It was no longer suited for coffee- it had held the Blood of Christ. She didn’t want anyone to mistake it for a mug again. Once something holds the Body of Christ, it is no longer what it was. When the mug held the Blood of Christ, it changed its vocation forever. It could no longer hold anything less than Christ again.

The story goes on to say this:

“We were common mugs. Simple, functional, practical, and good people. We have a capacity to hold good things. But when Christ entered our lives, we became more. We became Chalices. We started to hold Christ—who is fully divine--within our hearts. Now that we have held the Body of Christ within our bodies, we are no longer common, but rather extraordinary.”

That is what a saint is.

 A saint is a common mug that has holds within it the very Presence of Christ, and by doing so is transformed into something different and wonderful.

That is what we celebrate the saints.

That is what we celebrate today.

And when we start pondering who a saint is, we then can start looking at ourselves.

We can find the saints are not only in church, in stained glass, or on ikons, or their relics we put out.

No, rather we find saints looking back at us from our very mirrors.

We are the future saints.

We celebrate ourselves today—we, the future saints gathered here to worship God.

Together, we strive to follow Jesus, to love God and each other and to serve those we encounter.

That is what it means to be future saints.

Often, as we have known, saints are hidden from us.

Saints often are the ones we least expect to be saints.

But we have all known saints in our lives.

This morning, on this All Saints Sunday, and on a fairly regular basis, I think about the saints who have worshipped with us here at St. Stephen’s.

Today, we are reminded that they are still with us.

I occasionally look out and I can see still them with us at times.

I can still see Harriet Blow’s wheelchair.

I can see Betty Spur in that back pew.

I can still see Greg Craychee as an acolyte up front.

I can still see Angel Brekke and Betty De La Garza and her mother Georgia Patneaude, Jim Coffey here with us, smiles on their faces.

And for those who might not know who these people were, it’s just a reminder that ordinary people worshipped in these pews and in this building over the years and are now gone, but are still, in so many ways, with us.

And that, is why we celebrate the saints.

That is why we celebrate the saints with the different commemorations we have of them at our Wednesday night Masses throughout the year.

That is why they are in our windows.

And that is why we celebrate them especially on Sundays like today.

We celebrate the saints because they lead the way for us.

They show us how to live this sometimes difficult life as Christians.

They show us in their successes and they show us in their failures.

And we celebrate the saints as well because we too are the saints.

We are the future saints, who will one day be gathered around the altar of the Lamb, where we will partake of that glory without end.

There is something that you hear me preach about regularly, especially at funerals.

I often mention that “veil” that separates us from those who have gone on before us. 

I mentioned that that veil is actually a very thin one, even though it often seems like a very thick curtain 

But there are moments when that veil is sort of lifted and we can see that very little actually separates us from those saints who have gone on before us who now dwell in the nearer Presence of God.

This morning, we are actually able to see that veil lifted.

Of course, we see it lifted every time when we gather at the altar to celebrate the Eucharist, and God draws close to us.

At the Eucharist, those saints who are now worshipping God in heaven and those who are worship God here on earth—we are, in that one holy moment, together.

The distance between us, in that moment, is brought close.

And we catch a clear glimpse of what awaits.

This is not some isolated act we do, here in St. Stephen’s Church in north Fargo on this morning in November of 2020 in them middle of the worst pandemic any of us have ever known, in a country divided and frustrated and anxious as it awaits the results of a very contentious and all-important Presidential election.

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we do it with every Christian on this earth who also celebrates it.

And when we celebrate the Eucharist, all we are doing is joining, for this limited time, the worship that is going on in heaven for all eternity.

We are reminded this morning that our true vocation as Christians is to be chalices, to carry within us the very Presence of Christ.

Our inheritance is to be children of our loving God.

We are all called to be saints.

It is a wonderful vocation we are called to.

So, let us—the future saints of God—truly celebrate today.

Let us celebrate the saints who have gone on and who are still with us in various ways.

Let us celebrate the saints who are here with us, right now, on this joyful morning.

And let us celebrate ourselves, as we look into our future with God with delight and true joy.

Let us pray.

 

God of all ages, you are truly glorious in your saints; fill us with the Presence of your Christ, so that we, mere houseware that we are, may be chalices of your Presence to those around us who need your Presence; we ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

 

21 Pentecost

 

October 25, 2020

 

Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18; Matthew 22.34-46

 

+ Last week, in my sermon, I preached about the Shema.

 

The Shema is a profession of faith from the Deuteronmony 6.5-9 that goes like this:

 

Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 

 

The Shema is the prayer all Jewish men are required to pray twice each day, once in the morning and once at night.

 

Although I’m of course not Jewish, I also do that.

 

I also pray the Shema each morning upon waking up and each night before bed.

 

It’s a good spiritual practice.

 

But it’s more than that.

 

It’s the heart of what we believe as followers of Jesus and believers in the God of Jesus.

 

For me, as you all know, as you have heard me preach over and over again from this pulpit over the many years I’ve been with you here, this is what it’s all about.

 

This Gospel reading isn’t just a summary of the Law.

 

It is a summary of Christianity itself.

 

This is what we must do as Christians.

 

Plain.

 

And seemingly simply (but maybe not so simple).

 

Now, I once was scolded a bit—this was at another congregation, mind you—for preaching too much about love.

 

“You always preach about love,” this parishioner told me.

 

Yup.

 

I sure do.

 

And if it was meant as a criticism, I do not take it that way.

 

I wear it proudly as a badge of honor.

 

Because the fact remains that this is essentially all Jesus preached about as well.

 

And it it’s good enough for him, it’s sure good enough for me.

 

The gist of everything Jesus said or did was based solidly on what we hear him summarize in this morning’s Gospel.

 

In fact,

 

Every sermon and parable he preached, was based on what we heard today.

 

Every miracle, and even that final act on the cross, was based solidly on what we heard this morning.

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus is clear.

 

Which commandment is the greatest? he is asked.

 

And he replied: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love you neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 

He can’t get any clearer, as far as I’m concerned.

 

And it is these two commandments, both of which are solidly and unashamedly based in love, that he again and again professes.

 

Every day of his adult life, Jesus prayed this prayer.

 

 It was the basis of his entire spiritual life.

 

And this commandment, along with the commandment to love others, is the basis for his entire teaching.

 

When he says, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” we can also add the Gospel.

 

The Gospel, along with the Law and the prophets, is based on these commandments.

 

And so is our entire faith as Christians.

 

I don’t think I can get any clearer on this.

 

I hear so often from Christians—not a whole lot of Episcopalians, but other Christians—that their faith as a Christian is based solely on accepting Jesus Christ as their “personal” Lord and Savior.

 

I have no problem with that in actuality.

 

Our Baptismal promises in the Book of Common Prayer are based on accepting Jesus as our Savior as well.

 

In the Baptismal promises we are asked that all-important question:

 

“Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?”

 

And, of course, we do.

 

But, for Jesus, the real heart of the matter is not in such a professions of faith.

 

He never commands us to make such statements for salvation.

 

What he does command us to do again and again, to love.

 

To love God.

 

And to love one another.

 

And, as you’ve heard me say, Sunday after Sunday from this pulpit, when we fail to love, we fail to be Christians.

 

Any time we fail in these two commandments, we fail to be Christians.

 

We turn away from following Jesus and we turn away from all that it means to be a Christian. I think the organized Church sometimes misses this fact.

 

And we, as Christians, sometimes miss this fact as well.

 

We sometimes think: maybe this is too simple.

 

Love God, love others.

 

It’s just too simple.

 

Well, first of all: it is not.

 

It is not easy to love God.

 

It is not easy to love Someone who is, for the most part, invisible to us.

 

And, as we struggle with all the time in our lives, it is not easy to love others.

 

I don’t need to tell anyone here this morning that is sometimes very hard to love others.

 

So, it is not too simple.

 

But we still want something more occasionally.

 

We sometimes fall into the trap of depending on things like dogma, or the Law, or Canons (or Church Laws), or any of the other rules that define it all for us specifically.

 

Certainly, when we start doing so, we enter dangerous territory. 

 

The fact is, all of those things, confessional statements, dogmas, church laws or any of those complicated rules, are pointless if they are not based on these two laws of loving God and loving others.

 

If anyone wants to know what Christians believe and who we are, these two Laws are it.

 

They define us.

 

They guide and direct us.

 

And when we fail to do them, let me tell you, they convict us and they judge us.

 

So, yes, I know I am guilty of preaching the same thing all the time.

 

But I do unashamedly.

 

I do so proudly.

 

I do so without any sense of remorse.

 

Here I stand.

 

Because all I am doing when I preach about loving God and loving others, is what Jesus did.

 

I am following Jesus when I preach those laws.

 

But more importantly than preaching about them, I hope we can all strive to live those laws in our lives,

 

I try to in my own life as Christian and as a priest.

 

 

I try to help others to do that as well.

 

So, let us love unashamedly.

 

Let us love without limit.

 

Let us love radically.

 

As our reading from Leviticus tells us, “let us be holy” because our God is holy.

 

Let the love that guides us and directs and, yes judges us and convicts us, be the one motivating factor in our lives.

 

Let it be the foundation and basis of each ministry we are called to do.

 

Let love—that radical, all-encompassing, all-accepting love—be what drives us.

 

And let us—each of us—be known to everyone by our love.

 

Let us pray.

Holy God, help us in our following of your Son Jesus that we me might embody and fully live out the Law of loving you fully and loving others with a true, all-encompassing, all-accepting love. We ask this in his name. Amen.