Stewardship Sermon

1 Kings 17

Acts 4:32

            After Sunday worship, a young boy walked up to the pastor and handed him a dollar.  The pastor asked, what is this for?  I thought you might need it.  And the pastor responded, why is that son?  And the boy responded, every Sunday when we get home from church, my dad always says what a poor preacher you are. 

            As we gather on this Stewardship Sunday, we have these two passages before us.  One is of the prophet Elijah that encounters a widow that has absolutely nothing left to care for her son and herself.  The other is of a community of people that have come together to share of their resources so that there is no need among them.  One is a story of isolation, the other is a story of community.  The widow and her son are on their own.  Once their meager amount of food is gone that is it, there is nothing more and it seems there are no outside resources available to them.  No soup kitchen, no food pantry, no community of faith pooling their resources to get them through.  They are going to die. 

            In the story of community, we have generous hearts, people taking what they have, selling what they don’t need, bringing together resources to make sure the entire group is being cared for.  Barnabas had a field, and he too sold it to bring the proceeds to the community.  We then have another couple, that decide they too will sell some property, but instead of being of one heart with the greater community, they proclaim that they are giving the proceeds of the sale to the group, but they withhold a portion of the prophets for themselves.  Ananias an Sapphira – have so much, and are generous in what they give, and yet.  And yet they cannot completely surrender what they have and the outcome is rather harsh.  They drop dead. 

            We have a widow with nothing that fears she and her son will die, and somehow, by giving the last of what they have to the prophet Elijah, their food does not run out.  Ananias and Sapphira had no fear of going hungry, no concern that their life might come to an end, but they also just can’t seem to fully trust in the community to which they are a part. 

            Throughout the generations, people have tried in various places to live out this type of Christian community.  Is it truly possible to come together as a people and share all of our resources?  And over and over again, people have learned that it just does not work.  The Amish are doing their best to model coming together as a community in times of need to help each other out, but even they do not pool all of their resources together. 

            So, as we ponder Stewardship, as we ponder what it means to be community here together, we each have our own possessions, homes, and cars, but we also have a shared resource and responsibility.  This church building, this sanctuary, this organ, these windows are collectively ours.  Generations of people have contributed from their own resources to come together and share, to share in creating a sacred place where people can gather in worship, prayer, song.  Where people can gather in Sunday School and Bible Study, where people can gather in fellowship and celebration.  This is how we pool together our resources in our modern world so that all have a church home. 

            But we also know we are more than a building, we are more than this sanctuary, this organ, and these windows.  We are to be like the prophet Elijah that goes to the widow and her son, we are to go to places of isolation, places that others have forgotten or don’t care about, we are to go and bring promise, bring hope, bring God’s promise of providing even in times when there seems to be nothing left.  For a small church, we do a lot.  We just gathered at least a dozen grocery bags full of food for the Roxbury Food Pantry’s Thanksgiving basket.  And now, today, we pack items for the military through Operation Shoe Box.  Studies show, that in our current society, people want to give to a cause, they want to give to something that is concrete, something that they can see, something tangible.  People want to give to charities that connect to their own lives such as: Breast Cancer, Alztimer’s research, or diabetes. 

            When we give to God, when we give to the church, it might not seem so concrete.  The work of God in this world, what we proclaim as the Kingdom of God is not always easy to name.  But it is there.  Your stewardship to this church building has allowed a scout troop to gather in this building for years.  Year after year, young men gain skills of leadership and are given the opportunity of becoming Eagle Scouts, and those are the tangible moments of the Kingdom of God breaking into our world.  Stewardship calls us to pool our resources, not always for ourselves, but for the greater community, for the support group that meets here on Monday nights, and for the yearly blood drives.

            Here are a few ways in which people within this congregation have shared why this church, why this community is important.  We can’t put a price tag on these things, but we can proclaim them as the work of God, the inbreaking of God’s kingdom here in this place, and within our hearts, and within our lives. 

            However it is that we are able to give, we, as a community here in this place will need to find ways to gather as a community that fits within our means.  We are fortunate that we are not the widow, preparing our last meal, but we must be good stewards with what we have and with what we receive.  Let us live into the Bible characters of Elijah and Barnabas, whether we are able to take a meager handful of resources and multiply it, or give generously of what we already have, together, we are God’s people and together we are making a difference in our own spiritual journeys as well as sharing love and compassion with the world around us.  Amen.