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Rector's Reflection—16 Pentecost, Proper 20
Stewardship—September 20, 2009
To tell the truth, I am always a little befuddled about what to say about stewardship—particularly the money part of it. We spent last Sunday finding arenas in which we could best
employ our time and our talents, and there are still plenty of ministries and committees that need
your help if you missed out last Sunday. Today, pledge materials are being distributed and
everyone knows that the pledge card is where we focus on money.
Through the years I have tried a variety of approaches from carefully drafted treatises on
the theology of giving... to observations about whether folks live with an attitude of abundance or
of scarcity... to citing scripture and what it has to say about money... to avoiding any mention of"money" at all because "it isn't really about money"... to Flip Wilson's character The Rev of the
Church of What's Happening Now who works his congregation into a frenzy talking about
getting the church from crawling to walking ("Make it walk, Rev") to running ("Make it run,
Rev") until he says "And to make this church run, it takes money"... to which the congregation
replies "Let it crawl, Rev."
In any stewardship campaign, there has always been one vignette that stays with me, even
if it isn't the theme of the campaign. It's the scene where Jesus is in the temple and he is asked
by officials whether it is lawful to pay taxes. Jesus, you'll remember, asks for a coin and inquires
as to whose image is there. Since Caesar's image is on the coin, he tells them to give Caesar the
things that are Caesar's. Essentially, they owe it to Caesar. Luke says they were all amazed.
I have always wished Jesus had gone one more step. What if Jesus had said, "Now, bring
me a man"? Whose image is there? Well, if you remember your creation stories, God said "Let
us make man in our image... in the image of God he created them; male and female he created
them." If the coin with Caesar's image belongs to Caesar, the human being in God's image
belongs to God.
In any season when we plan for Ascension's future, it is always a good idea to take stock
of the gifts we have and to seek ways in which we can use them to spread the Gospel and be
faithful stewards of God's bounty, a bounty that includes not only our gifts and our gold but also
the received faith that has formed Christians for a couple of thousand years. It is becoming
increasingly clear in this season that we have a critical role to play as witnesses to an authentic
Gospel—a Gospel that bids us to "seek and serve Christ in all persons" AND to "continue in the
apostles' teaching..."
I know that each of you values this Ascension faith community and the plain truth is that
for us to stand as a beacon of grace, fidelity, and truth, your participation is essential. We are all
on fixed budgets, but if we offer up our gifts, I believe we will see results not unlike the feeding
of the 5000, when a little became a lot
Susan+
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