Sermon Archive
The Second Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 49:8-16a
Thus says the LORD:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
saying to the prisoners, "Come out,"
to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves."
They shall feed along the ways,
on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.
And I will turn all my mountains into a road,
and my highways shall be raised up.
Lo, these shall come from far away,
and lo, these from the north and from the west,
and these from the land of Syene.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me."
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.
Matthew 6:24-34
Jesus said, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you-- you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
"So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."
Sermon
The Rev Susan B. P. Norris
In nominee...
than usual from this pulpit,
and squawked mightily about the - at that time "not in the budget"-
payment of our full diocesan asking.
Apparently I added something useful to the vestry's discussion,
because shortly afterwards we, as a congregation,
refocused ourselves on seeing to it that the
parish's outreach to the poor, the needy and those in danger,
remains a spending priority in this parish.
Many, a majority of us, have raised our pledges
and done the hard - and often also fun - work of fund raising.
The wardens and the finance committee tell us that we are now essentially
able to pledge and pay our full diocesan/national share.
We have upped that line in the budget once already.
Hooray for the sanity and generosity of this parish!
BUT, to quote Jack last week, ("And you knew that "but" was coming")
there is more to be found and understood
in this story of our re-ordered priorities.
Listen again to the final bit of today's reading:
"Stop worrying, then, over questions such as 'what are we to eat,' or 'what are we to drink, or "what are we to wear?’
Those without faith are always running after these things.
God knows everything you need.
Seek first God's reign, and God's justice,
and all these things will be given to you besides.
Enough of worrying about tomorrow!
Let tomorrow take care of itself."
"Those without faith are always running after these things."
A traditional translation is "The Gentiles are always running after these things."
In this context, you see, a "Gentile" (being a non-Jew) is a person who,
having no memory of God's rescuing the Hebrew people at the Red Sea
has no particular reason to trust, to "have faith in," God -
certainly not in matters as important as food, water, and clothing
those means of survival!
We, Jesus points out, are not gentiles in that sense,
And we are certainly not among those people who have no reason
to trust in God.
(I'm pretty sure we just spent eight weeks celebrating the miracle of Easter)
"God," Jesus says, "knows everything we need."
Indeed, Jesus promises us that God knows what everyone needs,
and, also to the point, Jesus reminds us to realize that God has
already provided for everyone's needs.
He tells us to stop "running after," to stop "striving for," those things.
Instead we are to "strive for," to "run after," to "work our heads off for,"
"God's reign," and "God's justice."
Then, Jesus says, the other stuff, ALL the other stuff,
will be given to us as well.
In our terms, Jesus is saying,
"Listen, oh my band of disciples, when you
work toward God's reign, and God's justice,
then food, clothing, shelter,
your priest's salary, the organist's budget, the Sunday school materials
the coffee hour buns, the sexton,
and the heat, light and insurance, will turn up also
because God knows that churches need such things."
That, from Jesus' perspective, is the agreement.
This assumption is grounded in the Biblical idea of a tithe -
It assumes that we offer a percentage of our possessions -
(and not simply A percentage of our possessions,
but the FIRST percentage of our possessions) to God.
This percentage OFF THE TOP of our personal or congregational income
is to be given immediately to God.
After all the whole keschmeil is God’s to begin with!
What we call "giving our money to God" is, in reality,
our deciding how to use God's money and God's possessions
so they will do the most good for our society and our world.
When we talk about being co-creators with God,
we must remember that every single thing we use in "co-creating"
already belongs to God.
We "create" and "possess" things in this world, only
by God's grace and God's gift.
God gives us things, because we - and all people - need them.
God expects, indeed God demands, that we use them widely and generously for anyone who needs what we have.
Sharing God's gifts is actually the point of our having ANYTHING AT ALL.
God wants us to share such gifts as we have with anyone who needs them.
On the radio this week, I heard an interview with several people
in the Chinese earthquake zone near Chungdu.
In the Chinese nation, one man explained, they were
taught that when anything went wrong for any people in their country
In was the job of everyone from the "littlest and poorest" to the terribly wealthy to give everything they had to "help their fellow countrymen."
Whatever they had needed to be rushed to the scene of the problem.
China is officially a non-Christian nation, but that sounds like Jesus talking,
and whether the man knew, or did not know,
where his understanding came from
I am quite certain that God is providing both the impulse to help
the earthquake victims using everything available,
and also providing everything that is available.
In God's mind, that is the way we humans are supposed to live all the time.
Contrast that way of seeing the world, with the fearful vision of the
Junta in Burma - who can't accept help for fear of looking weak -
or being harmed in some way by strangers entering their land.
To ease those fears, they may allow tens, even tens or hundreds of thousands of people to die
while help remains nearby, but mostly closed out of the country.
We humans land in terrible places, when we lack trust in God
and God's caring for us -
or when we are striving after "things," particularly money, power and control, rather
than after the reign and righteousness of God.
Back to our own situation - which is blessedly much more trusting and caring,
and, back to our quote of the morning,
"Those without faith are always running after these things."
I suggest that revisiting the budget,
And deciding to"fix" our pledge to the diocese, is our way of
"seeking first God's reign, and God's justice."
There is still more to that sentence.
Jesus continues, "and all these things will be given to you besides."
That promise calls us to step up even further than we have yet gone.
It calls us not only to the highest use of our time and money,
but to actually trust in God FOR OUR OWN CONGREGATIONAL LIFE.
It calls us to give our "pledge," our fair share of reaching out,
as the FIRST percentage of our budget.
Not the bill we pay last, when we finally are sure the money will be there for all the other stuff on all the other budget lines.
Mature trust in God calls us to pledge and to pay our mission monies first.
Yes, first. Pledged and paid even before the staff or the heat,
the lights or the insurance.
Those things, Every one of those things, priest(s) included, comes under
"All these things will be given to you besides."
The first claim on our budgeted monies, must be our full fair-share of diocesan/national
outreach - our seeking of God's reign and God's justice.
Then we can take up fund-raising, as that is necessary,
to pay for the priests,
the upkeep of the building, the utilities, even the buns for coffee hour.
We can even raise money just because the Roast Beef Dinner is fun!
At this point in our congregational life, pledging and paying our full share FIRST,
is a basic meaning of "trust in God."
As we have already seen, when we're doing the right thing
God provides very generously.
God supports our intention to do Her will,
even when we have further to go in understanding quite how best to do that.
We need to do this my brothers and sisters,
Not because I doubt that we will in fact pledge and pay,
BUT
Because it is our ministry to each other and to the people here
In Mercerville and Hamilton township,
To demonstrate by the way we live as a congregation
that running endlessly after "things"
trying to make ourselves secure and just a little bit better off
than our neighbors,
is a DEAD END. Literally "a DEAD end."
"Running after things" is destroying us, our country and much of creation.
The solution to our many problems and great fears is NOT to "go shopping."
And it is certainly not to spend most of our energy on the
"getting and spending" of the American status race.
We can and must do infinitely better than that.
We are better people than that,
We can trust the God we have know in Jesus, in the Church, in each other,
and get on with making our community and
our world a place of hope and basic security for all people everywhere.
Fear and worry are the basic enemies separating us from God
From other people, and from a full and faithful life.
We do not need to turn our lives and our energy over to them.
Instead, turn to God, who lives within and among us,
and remember the words of Jesus, our brother.
"Stop worrying, then, over questions such as 'what are we to eat,' or 'what are we to drink', or "what are we to wear?"
Those without faith are always running after these things.
God knows everything you need.
Seek first God's reign, and God's justice,
and all these things will be given to you besides.
Enough of worrying about tomorrow!
Let tomorrow take care of itself.
For past week's readings and sermons, please visit the archive of sermons.