21st Sunday after Pentecost
October 18, 2015
Joel 2:25-29; Psalm 116; Colossians 3:1-3; Matthew 6:25-34
Extravagant Generosity, Week 3
(Or watch here: https://youtu.be/CGRTxoA8GkE )
Have
you ever seen the movie The Bucket List,
with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? Two terminally ill men develop a list
of all the things they have always wanted to do. They face their task with a
great sense of urgency. Since bucket lists are things you want to do before you
die, I’ve also heard it rephrased as a “Life List” with the argument of who
wants to wait until you’re dying to start living? Life lists are full of goals you want to
accomplish by a predetermined date. Today
we will explore our life list for the church for 2016. [PG: This week’s card
asked you to consider what you would most like to see happen in the church in
the next year.] Consider [now] what you would like to see happen in your life during
2016. In what ways do your passions for the church line up with your personal
desires? Today I will share some of my passions for the church in this coming
year.
First,
though, let’s review some of those key verses we just read. The passage from Joel is one we usually read
at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and the day we
celebrate as the birthday of the church.
Verse 28 says, “I will pour out
my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old
mean shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” Here, Joel
offers direction for us, as we consider our vision of the church. Vision comes
about as God inspires people to prophesy, to dream and to have visions. What
has God inspired you to envision for the coming year? Then in Colossians, Paul writes, “Therefore
if you were raised with Christ, look for the things that are above where Christ
is sitting at God’s right hand.”[1]
Colossians instructs us to set our hearts on things above. It is very
difficult to focus our attention on God when we are distracted and overwhelmed
by the cultural influences in our lives, but that is the call on our
lives. The world offers us a lot of
shiny, attractive things, like fame and recognition and a life of comfort. However, we are to look for things that are
above, things that are where Jesus is. Finally,
in Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “Desire
first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things
will be given to you as well.” Matthew’s
Gospel sets our personal and community priorities. Together in community, we help one another to seek God first in
all things, to strive for righteousness, or right standing, with God. We do this together. You cannot be a Christian by yourself; we
need the body of Christ, we need each other to help each other, to be Jesus for
each other, to help each other stay on the straight and narrow road that leads
to life. These verses give us the
starting place for understanding what God has called us to do and be as a
church in the coming year.
What
are your hopes and wishes for us for 2016?
And if you say “keep the doors open and the lights on,” I have bad news
for you. [Pause] God’s plan for us is
not just to keep the doors open and
the lights on. I wasn’t sent here just
to keep the church open. I came here to
work with you all to discern what God’s next plan is for our life together and
once we have an inkling, to work on that until we get to the next inkling. A vision is sometimes not super-detailed, or
super-describable, I have an idea in my head, but all I see are glimpses. It’s our church, with the doors literally
open, with cars in the parking lot and people coming and going. It’s sunshine and smiling faces and people
who are happy to be here, and happy to work with one another to do what’s best
for the church, what God would have us do.
It’s working together and in harmony; it’s strengthening our existing
ministries, like adult Sunday school [PG: homeless dinners] and Streets of Hope
and our music ministry, developing our new ones, like children’s Sunday school,
and dreaming up brand new ones to start.
Not so that we’re doing lots of things, and not so that we can brag
about what we do, but so that we’re working towards God’s vision for us. He doesn’t want us just sitting here,
gathering together for ourselves, sometimes bickering and sometimes getting
along, like any family. He’s called us
here to be his family, to be a
witness to him in this corner of Baltimore County.
Cowenton – Six months ago I identified three key values and
the feedback I got was that those were indeed key values here. Our children and youth are important, and so
we are to continue to put our time and effort into developing our ministries
with them, like the nursery and Sunday school.
I’d love to grow our children’s Sunday school so that our teachers say,
“we need help!” and we say, “just tell us what to do!” Education is a key value, and I’d love to see
a strengthened adult Sunday school as well.
They’ve got new curriculum, dated for this fall, but Mr. Mel’s been a
little concerned about the class. Please
keep our Sunday school classes in your prayers.
The third core value I brought up was music and our history of music in
this church, with the enormous music library over here to my right. Let’s work on developing our choir and music
ministry, on encouraging our choir as they’re trying to figure out a time to
practice and when to start robing up.
You all know what a difference it made last spring when the choir
starting wearing their robes for the service and processed down the aisle.
Let’s
encourage each other, speaking words of kindness, words that build up and not
blame. Let’s “seek ye first the kingdom
of God” by putting God’s kingdom, the
church, first, and not ourselves and our own desires. Let’s ask, “What’s
good for the church?” and see what answers come to mind when we ask that. [Anyone have an answer?] I can tell you two concrete things and one
vaguer answer: apple dumplings are good for this church; weekly bible study is
good for this church; and strong, healthy families are good. Let’s be in prayer
to discern specifically how to strengthen our families and our church family.
We
are already doing so well! We are coming
together as a church to pay our bills, to hang out with coffee and donuts once
a month, to wear matching t-shirts, to cover the expense of a new HVAC at the
parsonage and new air conditioner units for our sanctuary.
Piney
Grove – Six months ago I identified
three key values and the feedback I got was that those were some of our core
values. Our children and youth are
important, and so we are to continue to put our time and effort into developing
our ministries with them, like Vacation Bible School and Sunday school. I’d love to grow our children’s Sunday school
so that our teachers say, “we need help!” and we say, “just tell us what to
do!” Our mission work is amazing, and
something our community would miss if we were to close our doors. We have a high percentage of the congregation
involved already, and I gave the challenge last month to make it 100%, that
each household here somehow actively supports our missions, whether
volunteering to fix the meal for the homeless one night or for Streets of Hope
one night, or to cover the cost of the meal, or to provide supplies or a ride,
or whatever may be needed. When we work
together, we can do so much more and accomplish so much more for God, not to
mention strengthen our witness to Jesus.
Hospitality, rolling out the welcome mat, is something that is important
to us, although it was mentioned that while it’s a value, it’s not currently a
strength, and I think that’s accurate. I
think our hospitality skills could use some refining as we remember how to be
friendly without being overbearing, how to welcome with open arms without
overstepping personal space. Many of us
are huggers, but not everyone is, and we have to respect that. One way we’ve extended hospitality this year
is towards Pastor Jorge and the Hispanic ministry. The more overlap there is between the two
congregations the healthier we will be.
“Silo ministries” don’t work very well, where someone does their own
thing over there and someone else over here, and another ministry over
here. The more we say this is something we do, something that is part of our church, rather than something they do, or that part of the church, the more whole we will be. We need congregational support of each of our
ministries, we need the support of the family, the body of Christ.
Let’s
encourage each other, speaking words of kindness, words that build up and not
blame, words that bring people together and don’t cause division. Let’s “seek ye first the kingdom of God” by
putting God’s kingdom, the church, first,
and not ourselves and our own desires. Let’s ask, “What’s good for the church?”
and see what answers come to mind when we ask that. [Anyone have an answer?] The first answer that comes to mind is
healthy relationships: healthy marriages, healthy families, healthy friendships
and partnerships. Let’s be in prayer to
discern how specifically to strengthen our relationships.
We
are already doing so well! We are coming
together as a church to pay our bills, to start back our own Vacation Bible
School.
Both: We have things going on that haven’t happened in a
while, like children’s Sunday school.
Instead of remembering what this church used to be like, I’d like to
start putting more time and energy into what we want this church to be like in
the future, and not just long-term, but next year. I’d love to hear what you’d like to see here
next year. Let’s keep dreaming and
catching glimpses of how we can bring about God’s kingdom here on earth, his
“kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Let’s keep seeking God’s kingdom first, above all things, working toward
the good of the church, Christ’s body. Let’s
continue to be generous with our resources, so that we cannot just survive and
keep the lights on, but thrive, and grow.
And I’m not talking about the number of people here. There’s a meme going around on social media
that the effect a church has isn’t by the number of people that go to it, but
the number of people whose lives were transformed by going to it. Let’s not worry about numbers, but about
changing people’s lives as we all grow closer to God and become more like him
in whose image we were made. One part of
that image is God’s generosity, of which we’ve all been recipients.
PG: As we conclude the third week of our stewardship
focus on Extravagant Generosity, I know many of us are reading the daily
devotional guide from Practicing
Extravagant Generosity. In the Thursday reading for Week Three, the author
tells of the apostle Paul’s own battle with aligning his priorities with God’s,
which Paul describes in Philippians 4:
Both: “Generosity
derives from a profound reorientation in our thinking about how we find
contentment in life. Paul writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever I
have,” but Paul was not a slacker, lacking in initiative! He was industrious,
competitive, and ambitious for the work of God. Paul realized how seductive our
activity and our appetite for more could become. We begin to believe that
happiness depends upon outward circumstance and material comforts rather than
deriving from inner spiritual qualities—love, peace, compassion, self-control,
gentleness, prayerfulness. Possessing greater wealth does not mean that we
experience contentedness. We can still feel panic, emptiness, striving, and
isolation. We feel needy, and our appetites become insatiable. Surrounded by
water, we are dying of thirst.
“Breaking the cycle of conditioned discontent
requires courageous soul work. Abundant living derives from generative
relationships, from mutual support, and from knowing how to love and be loved.
Contentment arises from seeking that which satisfies.”[2]
Over
the last few weeks we have considered what we love and value in our church, who
has made a difference in our spiritual lives, and our best hopes and dreams for
the next year. These kinds of questions
give us direction about where to put our time and energy and resources in 2016
to work on bringing about God’s kingdom in this beautiful corner of his creation.
PG: Next week we will each make a critical decision
about how we will express and grow in our generosity. Our leaders have already
responded to the call and have pledged almost $20,000 in giving for 2016. When you receive the Estimate of Giving card
this week, please be in prayer and seek God’s direction for your expression of
generosity toward the life and vision of God’s ministry through this church. This is important. It’s an estimate, and God understands that
things may come up and you may have expensive unexpected expenses. That’s why it’s an estimate. You can call the church office at any time to
update your estimate, whether to decrease it or increase it, but God knows that
sometimes we receive into unexpected resources, like a bonus or tax
refund. God simply asks you to put him
and his kingdom first.
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