St Mary, Balcombe Trinity 24 (33A) Stewardship 19.11.23

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’ (Matthew 25:14).

Its Stewardship Sunday so far as the Sunday Lectionary goes, a reminder from the Lord that we have been entrusted with time, talents and treasure for a lifetime and must answer for it at death or at his Return. The Zephaniah passage challenging complacent living is a pointer to the Gospel.

Archbishop Rowan Williams once said: “What we do with our money proclaims who we think we are – whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. All our actions in some degree reveal us; why should our economic life be different? Why should this too not be an area in which we help to shape our eternal destiny, a matter of sin or holiness?”

In my travels up and down the Diocese both as Diocesan Mission & Renewal Adviser and now as retired priest with permission to officiate I’ve come across many instances of good stewardship linked to the generosity of the people of God throughout Sussex alongside a great deal of energy and hard work invested in maintaining and beautifying our churches including here – there’s an army of folk in this place who give their time and their talents to sustain its life and its witness.

I looked up what the diocesan website says about stewardship - here’s a couple of paragraphs: 

‘The major source of the Diocesan Board of Finance's income comes from the generosity of parishes through the Parish Share.  Parish Share represents approximately 80% of the Diocese’s total income.  In addition, the Diocese generates investment income from historic endowments and from letting out vacant properties. 

‘The majority of the Diocese’s expenditure is spent on the clergy who serve our parishes.  The cost of providing ministry across the diocese represents approximately 80% of total expenditure. This covers clergy stipends, NI, pension, housing, and the costs of training current and future clergy. It also includes money spent on supporting ministry through the work of the Archdeacons, Rural Deans, Continuing Ministerial Development and the payment of removal and resettlement grants. The remaining expenditure is spent on parish support services such as the provision of buildings advice, supporting church schools and safeguarding services, as well as a contribution to the National Church’.

 

In those words the Diocese recognises it is predominantly through the generosity of folk such and you and I that the Church of England in Sussex keeps its roof on and pays its clergy including pensioners like myself.  Another thing that strikes me as former diocesan officer and parish priest at Horsted Keynes is the range of motivations people have in giving their money and their energy to the Church.

So may I ask: why do you do it? Give money or time or talent, I mean, to support St Mary’s? 

Former diocesan colleagues did some careful research about this

• Some people, they found, place great value in buildings (Come to a place like this you can see why). Is that you?

• Others are drawn in by the church’s service to the community 

• Others are motivated by the church as a centre of evangelism – the sharing of Christrian faith and values. Is that you?

• And others place great value in the act of joining together for worship. Where worship is ‘done well’, congregations are growing. Perhaps that is you?

Different people – different motivations – different things that are precious or valuable to people.

• Let me tell you what I value about the Church.

Firstly, the church helps me to know God, the God who seems to do something quite remarkable - quite inexplicable – at Easter. Luke quotes Peter “this man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, God raised from the dead.” (Acts 4:10b). Now raising from the dead is not something that happens very often and when I read about God raising people from the dead I’m tempted to think that God is winding the clock back a bit, restoring life – putting things back to how they were before death. But no – what is happening in Jesus is God is winding the clock forward – not back. This is what it will be like for everybody, says Paul, when he talks about Christ being the first fruits – the forerunner - as it’s a Christian’s destiny to have life after death - not restored life, not life like we know it here, but something new “Look out for the new thing I am going to do” (Isaiah 43v19)

The second thing I like is what Jesus offers us. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Distrust turning to trust. Paul keeps on making this contrast. Do you put your trust in the past, or do you know Christ Jesus? I particularly love the bit you get in Luke’s gospel – just after Easter – about Jesus walking with his disciples on the Emmaus Road here is a Jesus that is prepared to walk with us a whole day – a whole lifetime probably – in the wrong direction before he gently turns us round and points us back to where we should be heading. The only ultimately meaningful thing in life is what conquers death - and Jesus offers this!

And the third thing I value is salvation - the extraordinary relationship between God and humankind that somehow Jesus Christ makes possible for us even while we’re still here, enjoying, as it were, life before death. As today’s second reading voices it: ‘God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that… we may live with him’ (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10). The assurance of this salvation is a lot to do with the Holy Spirit. After resurrection – if that wasn’t dramatic enough - Jesus promises something else, someone else who’ll make us feel as if we’ve been born again. And in the power of this Holy Spirit, we’ll recognise how we relate to God - Not foot soldiers, with God as our commanding officer; Not slaves, with God as our master, but as children, with God as our Father, someone who loves us beyond reason as many human parents do. That love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

‘It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away’.The Parable of the Talents is a reminder all we’re about as mortal beings flows from God who in giving us life lends us time, talents and treasure in the hope we will, like the good steward in the parable, one day hear his words: ‘Well done, good and trustworthy [one]; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your [Lord]’. (Matthew 25:23)

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty; for everything in heaven and earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.

Lent 1 Stewardship Sunday 4 March 2012

There’s a battle going on for our Church – would you believe it?

It’s an ownership battle that’s part of the battle for our souls and its part of what Lent’s all about.

In Lent we remember we’re lent.

Is my life mine or is it lent to me? Is St Giles ours or is it lent to us?

There’s a proprietorial spirit that afflicts us all – it’s my life. I do it or did it my way.

Over against it there’s the spirit of stewardship by which we see our whole life as it really is - as lent us by God - so that we are his and St Giles is God’s Church.

Today is stewardship Sunday. For the last two years Lent has brought with it the opportunity to review the gifts we employ in God’s service, time, talents and treasure.

It’s also an opportunity to see how much more our Church is becoming God’s Church and not just a fellowship that enjoys meeting on Sunday in a Grade I listed building of outstanding beauty.

Let me touch on the second area first.

It was evident at last Sunday evening’s healing service that we’re a Church that recognises God at work in lives. What Peter Vince and James Nicholson shared about that was so powerful and made all the more powerful in my mind by their day by day commitment to the fabric and worship of St Giles.

St Giles, unlike New Labour, does God. You may laugh but some churches are guilty of what Paul describes in 2 Timothy 3.5 of holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Members are so concerned to keep their social club comfortable they’re wary of God talk and keep up the outward ritual of Church whilst barely acknowledging their stewardship of God’s mission. One Church over Chichester way fought having a sign to them from the main road in case outsiders came to disturb them!

I prefer to be called Father John, whilst respecting folk who find it too distant. This is because I aim to be everyone’s friend but am primarily here to be God’s priest for us. Do pray for me in that perilous role, as Maker’s rep, called to make our fellowship at St Giles more godly and less proprietorial.

The best people to teach us about where we stand on this are our visitors. If you see a strange face in Church is it your instinct to make time to welcome them after the service or does that concern get lost in your business after service keeping up with your mates at St Giles?

Archbishop William Temple said the Christian church is the only organisation on earth that exists for the sake of non-members. Do we?

I’m only asking because it’s Stewardship Sunday!

There are good signs of our getting there as a Church. Over the last year we’ve started: St Giles Night, a monthly evening with a spiritual focus, to help deepen discipleship, monthly healing ministry on Wednesday evenings and monthly prayer ministry after the all age eucharist. All of these ventures have seen lay members receiving as well as sharing spiritual capital. It’s also been good to see increased attendance at our occasional and regular midweek eucharists.

In terms of stewardship of buildings the glazed inner porch doors installed last May open up St Giles making the building seem more accessible. We’re still working at and praying for the right development of toilet facilities that are so necessary in terms of comfortable access. The thinking behind these changes, and significant changes in the Martindale, isn’t or shouldn’t be proprietorial. We’re not doing these things out of pride in appearances but as stewards wanting to be more effective as a missionary Church. We seek to make the worship of God accessible by better engagement with the local community.

This is what Christian stewardship is about – but it begins like Lent with you and I recognising we’re lent and not our own.

In this holy eucharist, Sunday by Sunday, day by day, we profess this truth of stewardship which sees life as it really is, as lent us by God.

Our Lord Jesus gave himself for the Church to make it his own. He came in fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham that he’d build a fruitful people. In today’s Gospel Our Saviour warns that as he would suffer on the Cross so we will suffer to lose our lives for his sake.

In the eucharist we gratefully recall Christ’s self gift, pledging our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice alongside his self-offering. As we reflect in Lent on the engagement of our time, talents and treasure with God’s Church, may what we say we offer be reflected more in our lives. The test of any act of love is that it hurts self interest.

Epiphany 3 Body building (2) 24th January 2009

We’re thinking again this week about Body building as we continue through 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. Body building changes flab to muscle, weakness to strength. So it is with the body of Christ.

We looked last week at how the ministry gifts of individuals are given to strengthen the church for the common good. To best use these gifts God’s given us we need to be organised and not freelance. Otherwise we’ll see body breaking and not body building! This truth is taken up in verse 28 and following at the end of this week’s section when Paul speaks of the special authority of apostles, prophets and teachers and so on.

On Saturday we launch our stewardship renewal at a special supper. In coming weeks we’ll be inviting church members to consider what God has given them and how they can put their gifts to the best use. I believe this scripture passage is God’s gift to us at this time.

Let’s turn to the passage then and read together verses 12 to 14: 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.

You and I are one with Christ. When they say Jim and Sue are an item we know what they mean. Paul is saying you and I and Christ are an item, a unit.

Saint Teresa of Avila’s made a famous commentary on this passage Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks in compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks in compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

It’s a rich passage but there’s a problem with this interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12. We are sinners but Christ is sinless. Yet the Church is Christ’s body of which he’s head and he needs our gifts to do his work. Last week I was listing some of the ministry gifts we exercise here at St Giles. Richard Harrison is to share about the ministries that keep our buildings in order at the end of the service.

Some would question how the body of a man who lived and died in poverty could live on associated through his members with the splendour of St Giles. Richard will have an answer!

More profoundly when you read through Paul’s laboured description of different body parts working together its uncomfortable to recall there are now 39,000 Christian denominations. At least tonight the three or so local variants of Christ’s body will be coming together. This is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – but if Christians really were one with Christ there wouldn’t be need of such a week and we’d be one body and not 39,000!

Do we see what Paul is saying about the church as Christ’s body as just an image? Or is the body of Christ to be seen as an organic reality? I believe the second myself and lament the visible disunity of Christians. Would that nothing we do as Christians worked against the maximising of Christian unity!

One illumination of the word and concept is found in the Hebrew understanding Paul would share. Hebraic thought is different to Greek thought which is interested in the meaning of things in themselves. The Hebrew and biblical understanding sees things by contrast in relation to what they’re called to be. The meaning of an object doesn’t come from analysing it but in its purpose.

Just to illustrate this, the consecration of the Eucharist is an event that’s linked to biblical Hebrew thinking. When Jesus says, or I as his priest say for him over bread, ‘This is my Body’ that bread does not cease to be bread but becomes what it is not. By the biblical promise it becomes the instrument and bearer of God’s presence.

In the same way when we say we’re Christ’s body – or Christ has no body here on earth but ours – we’re talking not of what we are – gifted but sinful beings – but of what God’s calling us to be – sharers of the divine nature!

If you read through Paul’s letters, again and again he tells you Christ is in us. Again and again he tells us that sin is in us. The church is sinful yet Christ-filled. As such it’s a place of hope. As the French theologian Péguy once wrote, a Christian is a sad man saved from despair by the Cross of Christ.

St Paul says he’s ‘a Hebrew of the Hebrews’ and he also regards the Church as the organ of Christ’s presence uniting his members to himself and to one another. He’s talking though more of what we’re to be than what we are now. Our calling is like the consecration of the bread of the eucharist which becomes his body despite its ordinariness. Jesus gives it new purpose.

For us the obstacle to being used by God – our sin - is more than our ordinariness. It’s the destructive virus of sin. Christ by his death has the antidote to sin. Christ by his resurrection life has the empowerment we need to hallow God’s name, build his kingdom and effect his will.

As we read earlier we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body. Our unity as a church within the universal church is given us by our baptism and the associated determination to drown our sin and drink of the one Spirit to use the imagery of baptism. Christ’s body is a body of death – a body that’s discovered how to do away with sin – and a body of life – a body that’s got within it a fluorescent stream of life that shines out from all who bear the Holy Spirit.

Let’s look back one last time at our passage, skipping over the large repetitive section and read verses 26 and 27: 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it. 27Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

We’ve just come out of a time of hardship weather-wise that confirms this sort of thinking for us as a village. We’ve seen people baking for one another, sweeping snow and giving lifts to one another. This is the very sort of solidarity Paul speaks of when he writes of how in the church If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. Isn’t this also true of the international response to Haiti? It has also been impressive to see Christian priests and nuns in the vanguard of caring for the distressed in that troubled situation. People ask where God is in this tragedy but all the evidence is that God’s people and priests are there getting there hands dirty.

The solidarity we know in Christ’s body is built both on human fragility and divine purpose.

Just as human beings gain solidarity from severe weather or an earthquake so we members of Christ’s body find unity in our need for the forgiveness and healing God gives us in Christ.

Just as human beings gain solidarity to serve a purpose such as earthquake relief so we as members of Christ’s body find unity in our desire to hallow God’s name, build his kingdom and effect his will.

To live as Christ’s body is to live united both by our need of grace and by a common cause, the cause that’s been served 800 years on this hill and that will outlast all of us. The coming weeks are a time to consider the investment of our lives and to commit ourselves more fully to this cause which is Christ’s cause no less.

If Jesus Christ be God, and died for us, then no sacrifice can be too great for us to make for Him. His sacrifice is being recalled now at this altar. Will you be more fully part of his body, his cause and his sacrifice?