 | The New England Church PulpitNew England Congregational Church UCC |
IT’S TIME TO GAMBLE | Jeremiah 31.33-34 | Pentecost 20 |
A year ago, we were confronted with a challenge which now pales by comparison but which at the time was traumatic. I offered a sermon that unexpectedly sent shock waves that reverberated for many months afterward. It was a sermon about stewardship, and even a year later, some of you still remember it. In some way it grabbed your attention to the point that we subscribed our operating budget for the first time in ten years. We were up against the wall; we had no choice but to support the ministry or cut it back. You resoundingly spoke with your pledges that we were not about to cut back. The letter that I sent to you this past week bears witness to the good things that are happening from your willingness to step up to the plate.
Well, guess what? I’m back!! And it’s that time of the year again. And I make no apology for pushing us to the edge again in a new adventure. You will get only one letter this year regarding stewardship. There will be no fancy packaging, no clever logo, no catchy theme. As I talked with the committee, our thought was this: New England Church is everyone’s church. It is our family. Why should we need to beg or cajole each other to support it? If we’re interested in maintaining the ministry we have at this church, we should be able to simply remind everyone that it’s that time of year again.
It’s time to gamble again. We don’t know what the future will be in terms of our safety in the air, or on the ground, or in the mail for that matter. We are confronted in a powerful way with the precarious nature of any future and our own vulnerability. If we cower, we lose. And the religious institutions in our culture embrace at the very heart of their existence the belief that life is ultimately not found in safety, or comfortable lifestyles or things but rather in Something that transcends all of these.
In this time of crisis, it was the religious communities to whom people turned for some understanding. We had no answers, of course, but churches and synagogues and mosques responded in ways that people found helpful: candle vigils, prayer services, time for meditation, words of hope. Now is the time for the church to be bold, and to do so, we must invest ourselves and our resources.
Noted author Stephen King has something to say about all this. In 1999, King was hit by an automobile as he was walking along side the road. Lying in a ditch, covered with blood and mud, a thought went through his mind: “I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard.” In the ensuing months, he recalls a painful but valuable reassessment of life. “We come in naked and broke. And we may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. Bill Gates? Going out broke. Tom Hanks? Can’t take it with him. Steve King? Broke.” Not a dime of his money or an ounce of his fame can he take with him.
“All the money you earn, all the stocks you buy, all the mutual funds you trade–all of that is mostly smoke and mirrors. It’s still going to be a quarter-past getting late whether you tell the time on a Timex or a Rolex,” he says. “All we have is on loan, anyway, [and] all that lasts is what you pass on.”
Insightfully, he continues, sounding more like a preacher than an author: giving isn’t about the receiver or about the gift, but the giver. It’s for the giver. One doesn’t open one’s wallet to improve the world, although it’s nice when that happens; one does it to improve one’s self. I give because it’s the only concrete way I have of saying that I’m glad to be alive and that I can earn my daily bread doing what I love. Giving is a way of taking the focus off the money we make and putting it back where it belongs–on the lives we lead, the families we raise, and the communities of the world that nurture us.
He concludes his article: I ask you to begin giving and to continue as you begin. I think you’ll find in the end that you got far more than you ever had, and did more good than you ever dreamed. (Family Circle, 11/1/01)
Our immediate response to a crisis is to give to the cause, and we need only to refer to the millions of dollars being volunteered by people like you and me. But often the response to long-term investments is to pull back. We want to make sure we have enough for ourselves. We don’t know what the market will do, we don’t know if we’ll have to buy quantities of Cipro, we don’t know if we’ll have enough to maintain our lifestyle. Giving to church and other charitable causes is something we think we can’t afford. But I suggest that it is something we can’t afford to pass up.
If any good can come of the present tragedy it might just be our willingness to care a little bit more, to hoard a little bit less, to share more of what we have with those who have less than the minimum standard requirement for human beings in the 21st century. This is precisely the time for the church to put it’s money where it’s mouth is instead of putting our foot where our mouth is.
Jeremiah suggests that we know in our minds and in our hearts what to do; giving is part of the evolution of the human species to ensure the future. God has given us an innate sense of what is right. Birth is a beginning, death a destination, and life is a journey. Like the woman in Luke’s story, we must be among the high rollers who take the chance that our persistence and tenacity for generosity will pay off.
In the words of the hymn writer:
We are not our own. Earth forms us, human leaves on nature’s growing vine, fruit of many generations, seeds of life divine.
We are not alone. Earth names us: past and present, peoples near and far; family and friends and strangers show us who we are.
And if love’s encounters lead us on a way uncertain and unknown, all the saints with prayer surround us: we are not alone.
Let us be a house of welcome, living stone upholding living stone, gladly showing all our neighbors we are not our own! (Brian Wren, 1987)
It’s time to gamble on the future. Who will roll the dice?
–Gary L. McCann
A reading from the Jewish KOL NIDRE service:
Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
And life is a journey:
from childhood to maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then, perhaps to wisdom;
From weakness to strength
Or strength to weakness–
And often back again;
From health to sickness
And back, we pray, to health again;
From offense to forgiveness,
From loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude,
From pain to compassion,
And grief to understanding–
From fear to faith;
From defeat to defeat to defeat–
Until, looking backward or ahead,
We see that victory lies
Not at some high place along the way,
But in having made the journey, stage by stage,
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
And death a destination.
And life is a journey
A sacred pilgrimage–
To life everlasting
| Copyright © 2001 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |