Soulwork
November 14, 2004
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:1-4
Stewardship Sunday is to Progressive, Thoughtful Christians as Hell-Fire and Brimstone is to our more fundamentalist brothers and sisters.
Stewardship Sunday is the Progressive Faith Community topic that historically feels like Hell-Fire and Brimstone. Many faithful members of the progressive communities across our land are not present today, they avoid the topic altogether. It makes us uncomfortable to talk about our money, our time, our giftedness. And, it feels in opposition to our progressive tradition to be ranking the order of our lives because of our religious beliefs...That's definitely fundamentalist yes? As liberal and progressive people we don't like to talk about what it means to put faith first. How it is to rank faith over spouse, job, vacations, pensions, retirement...And, God forbid, we don't want our neighbors to think we're blindly following any tradition. And. Stewardship Sunday can embody all of these dynamics. So, it pushes our buttons, it challenges us, it brings us out into the open and we feel vulnerable. And, none of us like to feel so exposed to one another, so it's a challenging ride.
Stewardship is defined theologically as respectful and good use of the divine gifts God gives us. It's not about money. It's about the things God has given us...breath, life, family, love, passion...The things, the gifts God has given us, each one of us is filled with special, sacred God gifts and Stewardship is the respectful and good use of those gifts. How do we respect the love God gives us and use it to show the love of God? Gifts are those things that are tucked into the depths of our souls...the simple things that we connect with inside ourselves that seem to fulfill us with each moment of connectedness. Stewardship is spending time discerning our own soul and finding ways to share what lies within, for doing this work shares the very face of God.
2 Thessalonians is a very contemporary message...It's a reminder from those who followed Paul...Paulists who were ministering in his tradition. During this time many thought the second coming of Christ was right around the corner...And, if Christ were coming, why should they do anything but wait? So, people began lying around allowing others to care for them. The disciples/apostles remind...being busy does not mean we're doing our work. Business is not mutually exclusive to doing our God work, our soul work. We all have the right and the free will to be lazy or busy. But, as people of faith we are called to use our right and our free will to quietly go about discerning our souls and finding our own gifts. Then doing what is right, sharing our gifts tirelessly so that the God within us can be shared with one another. And, as we share with one another, this is what we're called to do, it's our giving. But, that doesn't mean we don't have to still keep up our physical dwellings: our bodies, our homes, the places we stay in order to do our soulwork. We must be stewards of all the gifts God gives us and because we are doing the work of God does not mean the other work to survive can stop.
The gospel tells the tale another way...Jesus' opponents are trying to call him out again. They see the world as a Kingdom. A politically structured, closed horizon religion. So Jesus illustrates a different kingdom...He illustrates a Divine Milieu. The widow...a person with no man, no name, no income, puts two of the smallest coins circulating at the time into the treasury. The rich people are also putting their checks and debit card offerings into the treasury. But, Jesus says it is the widow who represents the Kingdom. Even though in human terms she is alone, she demonstrates in this parable that she is alive and capable of giving life by sharing all her living with others.
We are gathering together to create a sort of cultural milieu. We are gathering together to wire ourselves as progressive people of faith. Part of wiring ourselves is discussing why we make certain choices and what supports those decisions. As people of faith, our teachings and writings, our reason and experience all must work into our cultural decisions. We must look into our souls and determine the gifts that God has called into each of our beings. Stewardship Sunday is about naming those gifts and the areas in which we proclaim our giftedness. Stewardship Sunday is about demanding we share all our living with others through giving out of what we are given, not giving our of our abundance or what we have left. When we give of our time, our gifts or talent, our money from a place of beginning, from a place of giftedness it transforms the culture within which we live. It shifts our thinking, our being, from what is left over to what is important. We don't need what we have in America...It's time, we all know it's time to transform this country, and stewardship is one of the ways we need to begin. It's about reaching deep down within ourselves and calling forth the living streams within us and sharing them with those who thirst. And, when we do this, our connection to God grows, our faith deepens, and our lives are more vibrant. When faith is more important with money all sorts of miracles begin to happen...Phones get turned on, churches meet their budgets, extra projects get taken on, and all the bills still get paid. It's giving from the beginning and making it important.
I love communities of faith, I love living my faith, sharing my faith, talking about theological issues. I've been a church geek for quite some time. So finding ways to use my talents with the things the faith communities needed was always easy and continues to be done with much joy. And, at fifteen when I became confirmed I began to tithe. I gave money from my babysitting money, my after school job. But, I only gave what I had left after movies, clothes, and fun. I did it because that's what nice or good church people do. And, when I met Cathy, this was something that was a value of hers as well. So through college both of us gave out of our college jobs. But, our first years of seminary changed all of this. We were terribly poor. Cath was making $18,000 and supporting both of us. I had cashed in everything I owned: retirement, savings, stocks so that we wouldn't have to take out a loan for grad school. We were still paying off Cathy's undergrad and our car, we didn't want more debt. The third year was the worst. We were both doing graduate school, me full time, Cath part. She worked full time, I worked part but we just couldn't seem to make ends meet. I couldn't afford my books and was having to spend a lot of time at the library reading books I couldn't afford to buy. And, more than once, we had to ask for boxes of food from the food pantry. But, rigidly, Cath held us to our 10% tithe. As we stood in line at the food bank we wondered what we were thinking! We could just dip into the tithe money for surely begging for food wasn't the goal of tithing? But, we stood in the lines. We ate a lot of generic food. And, every time we speak of it now, we cannot figure out how it all worked. We cannot add the money up. It doesn't. We paid our bills. I have no seminary debt. We didn't starve, our heat didn't get shut off, the lights were on, we both earned degrees. But, the money doesn't add up. We didn't earn enough to pay for it all. And yet we did. Living in that time taught us to appreciate what it means to need and to want. Living in that time taught us that the gifts we are given are priceless and the gratitude for having gifts is enough to give to support our faith communities. Support the places working to transform this world into a place where no one has to beg for food, feel ashamed, feel left out. Stewardship is that work that we do to give up front...to give out of our love, respect, and care for God.
Let this be the year we all recommit to doing our soulwork. To committing up front the time, talents, and tithes of our faith. The celebration of the divine blessings we live our lives with. To celebrate the framework that allows us to grow beyond our own wants to the needs of our souls to share the living water within us. Soul work...let's go!