Reverend Donna Trebilcox's Sermon
March 25, 2007
Good morning. It is good to be back. You probably know by now that three people from our parish, Sue Gore, Louise Robitaille and Joyce Monachina, joined me in attending the Province I Conference on Stewardship and Evangelism. And this conference could not have come at a more important time in the life of our church at large in New England, and more especially in the life of our own church, St. George’s.
Now don’t worry. I am not about to give you a report on that conference. We were well-warned at seminary that regardless of how excited we become by the wonderful things we learn at such conferences, we should not victimize our congregations by telling them all about it during sermon time. I did, however, return to Lee on Sunday afternoon quite excited by the messages I heard around stewardship and evangelism, and I caught the energy of enthusiasm which swept through the convention. I knew I was with people who are serious about their faith and dedicated to keeping their churches strong and vital for the sake of the Gospel. And this experience could not have come to me at a more opportune time in my life and in my ministry with you. After all, you called me here in the hope that I might help you renew your life as a congregation and turn around your financial decline.
But don’t worry. As excited as I am about the ways we might move forward, I am not going to report to you about that conference—at least not now. Except for one thing. I am happy to report that the leadership of our church is already ahead of the curve in understanding our financial situation here at St. George’s, and our need to reach people in our community with the good news of the Gospel and the good news of our church. By all accounts, we are on the right track as we move into the initial stages of our plans to make the operations of this church sustainable, and to grow our community of faith. And we are beginning to see evidence of it.
But the best reason I have for not telling you about our Province I Stewardship and Evangelism Conference is that everything we heard there can be found in our scriptures today. Early last week when I read the lections for this Sunday, I was amazed to find that the messages we heard at our conference are clearly evident in these texts. Merely a coincidence? I think not. It is not often I get such a clear message as to what I should preach about. But there it was. It was clear to me that I could say everything I needed to say about this conference: all I had to do was preach these texts. But now I had a different problem. Where do I start? Where do I start with texts which so clearly show us God’s way forward for us as a people of God and a community of faith in this church we love and care about so much?
I finally chose only one of the many possible texts which spoke to me about our situation here at St. George’s. I chose the conflict between Judas and Mary in John’s Gospel. The conflict is simple, really, and so is the message. It is a conflict of opposing values regarding money, and each of us is sure to find ourself somewhere in it. This morning, I would like us to find ourselves as a people of God in this congregation of St. George’s engaged with Judas and Mary in our gospel account, because in this context, the conflict between Judas and Mary is a conflict of stewardship. The biblical concept of stewardship is clear. We are to see ourselves not as people who own our money and possessions, but as stewards of all the money and possessions we have been given or we have received from this material world. So just what is a steward?
A steward is a person who is the caretaker of something of value he has been given to care for. A good biblical image for modern times might be of the wine steward at a fine restaurant whose purpose is to care for the wine placed in his possession by the master of the vineyard. The wine steward does not own the wine, nor does he possess it for his own use. The wine steward’s ultimate purpose and delight comes not in keeping the wine to himself, but in pouring it out for others, so that they might also enjoy the fruits of the vineyard. Today’s gospel account makes us consider how we might see ourselves as stewards of the money and material possessions we have, not as things we own or possess, but as valuable resources and commodities we have received from God’s vineyard either by the fortunate circumstances of our birth, or by the opportunities we have been given in our life to receive them. John’s gospel wants us to examine our own views and values around money and possessions against the example of Judas and Mary to help us understand the real value they have and God’s only purposes for our having them.
As we are well aware, Judas is the steward of the disciples’ money; he is the keeper of the books. Judas controls the purse and he is responsible for the ways money is received and spent. The problem is that what Judas values most is the money, and he confuses his role as caretaker of the money with possessing it and even owning it. Judas obviously has rigid guidelines for the ways money should be kept or spent, and he presumes others share his own values about how money is wasted. And if Judas has any scruples about the means by which he receives money, he is certainly willing to put them aside for the sake of gaining a modest sum in exchange for selling out Jesus to the Roman authorities. For Judas, the bottom line is money—getting it, keeping it, and not wasting it on things you don’t value. You just get a sense that Judas knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, not even money itself.
On the other hand, Mary has chosen to uncork her best bottle of perfume to pour its entire contents over Jesus’ feet. Now, a bottle of perfume like that might cost a year’s wages for someone like Mary. Such perfume will be used only for special occasions, usually for sacred rites of burial (but that is another sermon). Nevertheless, Jesus’ visit to Mary’s home in Bethany is so special it prompts a spontaneous act of extravagance and generosity beyond anything Judas can imagine. As a matter of fact, I imagine Judas becoming quite sick over the whole thing. All he can see is good money going to waste. And he says so. Jesus has no choice but to respond to Judas’ insincere criticism of Mary’s generosity and Jesus’ acceptance of it. “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor?” asks Judas. But Jesus is not “buying” Judas’ rebuke. And the gospel writer makes it clear why. Judas’ question is not about feeding the poor; it is about Judas’ greed and obsession with money and his fear that money is only wasted on things he believes have no value. But value, of course, is always in the eye of the beholder. Being bathed in precious perfume is not a waste of a precious commodity for Mary, nor is it a waste of money for Jesus. In fact, extravagant generosity, especially to the poor, is what Jesus has been encouraging in us throughout his life in all of our gospel accounts. In the end, Jesus’ reproach of Judas exposes much about what stewardship is in this scenario by who Mary is and who Judas is not.
The simple lesson Jesus shows us is that loving God and loving our neighbor is not about the money. It is never about the money. It is about what we value in this life. Because what we value, what means so much and what matters most to us is where our heart is. And we will always put our money where our heart is. At the heart of Judas, money is only good for getting, keeping and not wasting. Before secure investments and savings accounts, we might imagine Judas stuffing denarii into cereal boxes and between the pages of books. But the joke is on anybody whose primary goal is to accumulate wealth and keep their money in a safe and secure, because in the end money is just paper and metal. It has no value in and of itself. It is easily burned up or melted down, or lost in bad financial transactions. Money really IS only good for what it can buy, and our heart is always telling us what we need to save it for or spend it on.
At the heart of people who believe having money and possessions is about ownership and control, money is only good for what it will buy to satisfy our needs and suiting our pleasures. But at the heart of people who regard themselves as stewards and caretakers, money and possessions become ways by which the heart reaches into the world for the sake of others, and for the good purposes which serve God’s vineyard. Mary’s heart moves her to believe that money is meant to purchase the best perfume money can buy so that it can be used for good purpose beyond her need or greed. And Mary can find no better purpose for her money and perfume than to lavish this fragrance on her beloved friend and mentor—who also happens to be her God. A waste of money and precious perfume? I don’t think so. But I didn’t always think so.
I remember the first stewardship workshop I attended when I first came into the Episcopal Church some 16 years ago. I will never forget it because I thought I was doing all right by what I was putting into the offering plate each Sunday. But on that infamous day, our workshop leader presented all of us in attendance with a challenge. He told us to go home and look through our check book and credit statements and spending receipts. He told us to compare the amount we spent each week with what we gave as an offering to God that week. And then he dropped a bomb, especially on me. He told us that at the end we would have a very clear idea of what we valued in this life and how much we valued it. Because what we give our money to and how much money we give to it would always tell us what we value. It would tell us where our heart really is, and what we truly love. And that would reveal to us the relative value we placed on our love for God and his church.
Well, needless to say, in that moment I was tried and convicted as charged. I didn’t even have to look in my checkbook or at my credit statements or spending receipts. I already knew. But that is not what bothered me. I really did love and value the things I spent my money on, the things I needed to make my life comfortable, and things which were far more than anything I ever really needed. And my heart seemed firmly planted in them. What really bothered me is how little I had been giving as my offering to a God I loved and a church I had become so dedicated to in all aspects of its worship, its programs and its ministries. What I learned that day is that I did not love God or the Church, nor did I value them nearly as much as I loved and valued my growing wardrobe and my increasingly refined tastes for fine food and wine and my wonderful experiences visiting exotic places. I am too embarrassed to tell you what I was offering to God and giving to my church each Sunday, but it was less than any of the meals I would eat out in any given week. It was even less than a modestly priced bottle of wine. It was far less than any item of clothing I might buy, and increasingly less than the tolls I paid to get me to get me to my favorite getaway where I would shop and eat and maybe wander through a museum or attend a play.
To add insult to injury, as I was struggling with all of these revelations an even more troubling thought came to me. I realized one day as I was paying my mortgage and heat and utility bills that it never occurred to me how my church actually paid its own bills. I never thought to ask how much it cost to sustain its operational budget, no less to do the work of mission and ministry in the world. All I knew was that the church was warm and comfortable. The lights were always on and the building was cleaned regularly. I could call the church at any time and get a live person on the phone. Every summer the grass was cut and every winter paths were cleared for access to the nave and the parish hall. It didn’t even occur to me to ask how much all that cost, until I became a member of vestry. It was then I secretly began doing the math and realized how much it was costing the church just to have me sit in a pew each Sunday. That is when I learned my greatest lesson. I wasn’t even close to paying my own way, no less supporting the ministries and mission of the church. I came to the sad conclusion that the church was probably the ONLY place in the world I could get away without paying my way. I didn’t have to buy a ticket to attend church, or tender the exact amount for a meal or a drink or an item of clothing. I didn’t have to put down a dime to go to coffee hour and be fed, and the electric company was not threatening to turn the lights off if I didn’t pay my share of the bill. All the while this church was steadily spending down its endowment.
In the end, what I discovered from attending that stewardship workshop amounted to the greatest disconnect of my life. The disconnect between how much I loved and valued God and his church and how little I was willing to pay for it. Even worse, I realized that this church was keeping its doors open for me even though I was not pulling my weight. This church loved me and valued my presence there that much. But at some point I began to think about what would happen to a church where people like me were not pulling their weight, both by being good stewards of God’s gifts and good evangelists of God’s people. I imagined that eventually the lights would go out and the doors would close. And I am painfully aware that the people of St. George’s don’t even have the luxury of imagining that, it is an imminent reality. But what I have come to know in the short time I have been your priest is that the people of St. George’s still have the gift of imagination. Even more, I believe we have the desire and the resources of God’s vineyard to be the stewards and evangelists God is calling us to be. And I can still imagine a God who continues to keep his heart open to his Church, especially this church of St. George’s whose long and fruitful history has been a testament to God’s presence in this church and in this community of Lee.
As I consider our current plans to renew our church and to restore us to financial health, I trust that God is present with us in them. The question is, are we present to God in them, and are we willing to do what God is asking of us. God already knows where our heart is. But do you know where your heart is? I thought I knew where my heart was, until one morning when a workshop leader made me see a simple truth: We ARE the choices we make and the actions we take, especially when it comes to our money and our material possessions. I know I still have a lot to consider as I think about all the unhappy consequences of the choices I make and the actions I take, even as I continue to serve God in his Church and in this world. Judas made his choices and took his actions and we are well aware of their consequences for Jesus. They were based on his greed for money and his fear; his fear of not getting enough, not having enough, and not wasting any of it on anything he didn’t value. Mary made a choice and took an action which reflected extravagant generosity out of the abundance of her love and value for the One who loved and valued her throughout their unconventional friendship. He was also her God, and I have to believe that somewhere in her heart Mary knew that. In generous response, Jesus receives the extravagant generosity of an abundant gift deserving of the God that he is.
It seems to me that the question for each of us in this story is this: where are you and where am I on this continuum between Judas and Mary? Does God get the least of what we have to give? Does God just get what it is left of our time and money and talents? Would it only be a waste to consider giving more? Do we even begin to approach Mary’s extravagant generosity in what we offer to God? These are important questions to consider as we move this Church of St. George’s into God’s future. The choices we make (or don’t make) and the actions we take (or don’t take) will make all the difference. They will say much about us as a people of God and a community of faith in this church and in this community of Lee. They will tell us who we love and what we love, and how much we value them. They will reveal where our heart is. Because we ARE the choices we make and the actions we take. And regardless of what our choices and actions demonstrate about how much or how little we love and value God and our church, we can be sure of one thing; God will always love and value us.
Therein lies our hope, for ourselves and for our beloved church. We can hope in God, but hope is not a one way street. God also hopes in us. In one of her many poems about hope, Emily Dickinson tells us: “The hope of the present is hidden in the present.” In this present moment of St. George’s history, in this present moment of worship, I ask you to look around at the people seated around you. Our hope also lies in each other.