Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 29], rcl yr c, 2022
First Sunday of St. John’s 2022 Stewardship Programme
Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 TIMOTHY 3:14-4:5; LUKE 18:1-8
As we prepared our Stewardship Programme last year, it became clear quite quickly just how important it would be to include time and talent to our understanding of stewardship.
Now financial contributions to our shared life is foundational to stewardship, and to the Christian life, and not something we can ignore; so we will give you an opportunity this year to renew and/or change your plan for giving.
But the point about time and talent is an important one. And so this will be the focus for our Stewardship Programme this year. More specifically, we will be exploring the baptismal life and what it means to be a baptized Christian over the next few Sundays as we approach one of the primary baptismal feasts in our calendar: All Saints.
Before we get to baptism, though, this Sunday I’d like to begin by exploring something about our lives that comes before our baptism: I’d like to explore what it means to be a creature, what it means to be made by God, and with that, too, what it means to be a fallen creature. And I will do this with two illustrations: one from my early work in camping ministry, and another from a far more venerable source, St. Augustine.
So, illustration number 1: serving others as a fallen creature of God.
When I worked as a young adult in a children’s camping ministry, the staff (me included) would often have conversations about how amazing camp might be without the kids. How great it would be, we dreamed, if we could just enjoy the wilderness, the canoeing, the camping, and the relationships among staff without having to care for any of the pesky little children.
Of course, the camp wouldn’t exist without the ministry to children we shared as staff, and the General Director would tell us this regularly: that in fact, the camp’s core purpose was to teach, and care for, and minister to kids. No matter how many times he might’ve said this though, we were guided by lesser loves than the love of serving others; we loved canoeing, we loved the wilderness, we loved swimming in the lake, and we loved the idea of going home with a new girlfriend or boyfriend.
But two things happened. For one, even though our motivations were suspect, even though our loves were lesser loves, at the end of the day children were served and cared for. Because that’s what the camp was built for. For another, over time, as we grew in experience, as we grew in maturity, and as we grew in responsibility, our motivations became less suspect, and our loves were purified. Even though we continued to love camping, the wilderness, and some of us would even find spouses through the work we did at camp, we grew in the ministry we were there to do together: to care for children, and to form children in the Christian faith. It was something we learned to love doing.
Illustration number 2: love and misguided loves in St. Augustine.
One of the wonderful things about Augustine— this towering theological figure from the 4th and 5th centuries—is that he didn’t just write prayers and theological treatises; he also wrote his Confessions, in which he tells the story of his life, and not just the bits that make him look good and holy.
The Confessions is partly about all of Augustine’s misguided loves, his love of things other than God: he loves to be praised of his peers; he loves his sexual adventures with women; he loves the spectacle of the games in the coliseum.
But what Augustine wants us to know is that these loves, as misguided as they are, are still rooted in the love of God.We may desire the wrong thing, but the desire itself is a desire for God. These misguided loves and desires will never be entirely fulfilling though, not until we find our place in God, and in praising and loving God.
For Augustine, we are made, as human beings, to love, to praise, and to rest in God. As Augustine so famously prays to God, in the first words of the Confessions, “ … you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.”
What I’m hoping to point out here is that we are built, we are all made, we have been created by God to love God, to praise God, and to rest in God. And we are built to serve others in God’s name. Even though we sometimes get it wrong—we love canoeing at sunset (in itself a good thing!) but forget that we are in a place where we can canoe at sunset because we are first there to serve others at camp; we may desire the wrong thing, money, sex, power, and many other less interesting things besides, but the desire itself is at its root a desire for God, because we are built to love and praise to God.
So what does all this have to do with the stewardship of our time and talent? What I’m hoping you hear today is that you are built to be here, you are made in such a way that participating in the worship and praise of God is the most natural thing in the world for you to do. And that offering your time and talent to the church is one of the ways that you take part in the worship and praise of God.
Now you might be doing it already, or thinking about doing it, for the wrong reason. Some of us are here out of guilt, right? Some of us hope that God will notice us and reward us, right? Some of us might even like to be up front in the hope of adulation and to avoid the abyss of our insecurities, right? And some of us are afraid of hell, right?
And on the one hand I want to say, ok. Sure! We don’t always come to church for the right reason. We rarely, if ever, serve with pure motivations. But that’s because we’re fallen creatures. You’re still welcome here. And in any case, at the end of today, no matter our misguided loves, no matter our mixed motivations, God will be worshipped. And today, and all week, no matter our misguided loves, no matter our mixed motivations, others will be served in God’s name.
So that’s one thing I hope you hear today. But there’s another thing as well, I also hope you hear that when you make the venture of love, and take the risk of service, God will not leave you where you are. When you make the venture of love, if you do take the risk of service, no matter your misguided love or your mixed motivation, God will do the work of purifying your love, and of redeeming your motivation. Because this is what it is to be a creature, and to be made by God: it is to be continually drawn towards God, and into God’s life.
And all this, the growing in the love and praise of God, and the growing more deeply into his service, we do so by his love and grace according to his ever-widening invitation, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Revd Dr. Preston Parsons