This is a stewardship sermon.  It does not include any charts or graphs or statistics or percentiles.  While metrics may hold us accountable, they are not our inspiration.  Likewise, I’m not going to talk about the 2010 budget or alternately how well your leaders have used your money to accomplish God’s purposes.  Dollars and sense are not the foundation of stewardship.  Stewardship is not fundraising. Stewardship draws from a different and deeper well. 

The stewardship of our lives—and by that I mean what we do with our time, talent and treasure—is driven by gratitude.  And gratitude is inspired by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.  We give because our hearts have been stirred by God. We give because we have been forgiven. We give because God is faithful.  We give because “Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.”

 

This past Wednesday we honored our nation’s veterans.  The oldest, Frank Buckles, fought in WWI.  “Bucky” is 108, the last of his generation.  16 million Americans served in the Second World War.  Visit the War Memorial in Washington DC and you’ll see 4,000 gold stars, each representing one hundred men. 400,000 Americans died in WWII.

Walk a short distance and you’ll see the Vietnam Memorial. It’s inscribed with the names of 50,000 Americans. Routinely, perhaps too routinely, we speak of our gratitude for those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Painting on that canvas, there’s a powerful scene in the movie Saving Private Ryan. 

Private Ryan, now an old man, visits the Normandy American Cemetery.  His family is with him.  Ryan searches for a particular grave marker. He’s looking for the man who saved his life.  When he finds the cross-shaped tombstone, he falls on his knees. His family rushes to his aid.  “Tell me,” he begs clutching his wife, “Tell me I’m a good man. Tell me I’ve deserved this.”

“Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.” 

Must someone die in order for others to live?  How can the death of another remove my guilt, my offense, my sin?  Do I really have any guilt or offense or sin to be removed?  Is there a limit to what God can forgive?  Why can’t God just forgive, you know, with a wave of the hand? Why can’t God simply declare that we are forgiven? Why must Jesus die? Why must he sacrifice?

These are deep and perplexing questions.  They also rest at the very heart of the stewardship. You’re being asked to pledge this morning.  You’re being asked to give your money to God.  Why would you do that? 

I suppose pledging could be counted among other social obligations; you know, like a gift to The United Way or to a school’s annual fund drive or perhaps like a gift to NPR or some other “worthy cause.”  How do you rank your church pledge?  Is it a social obligation like other social obligations?  It is certainly voluntary.  Unlike paying taxes, you won’t go to jail or pay a fine if you don’t pledge.  I mean, you can get away with it.  You don’t have to pledge. So why do it?  Why give your money to God? 

 

“Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins.” 

The writer of Hebrews lived in a time when people believed sin separated them from God.  Sin prevented people from living in communion with God. Because of sin, God was distant, and not only distant, but unapproachable. Even if God were close, human beings had better watch out. Humans couldn’t enter God’s presence without fear, death even, because of sin. 

Moses takes his shoes off in God’s presence. Isaiah says he is undone. Luke says the shepherds were “terrified,” which is also what the first disciples express on Good Friday and Easter. Time and again, when God shows up, people fear. They tremble.  The ancients had a deep sense of God’s holiness and their sinfulness.

I’m not sure we feel that way anymore.  God has become, well, God has become ubiquitous, like a yellow smiley face.  God-talk is everywhere. We’ve got god-talk coming at us 90 miles an hour all day long.  You hear it from the mouths of 12-year-olds, “O my god,” God as an exclamation point. Score a touchdown—touch your lips and point to the sky.  Win a car race and thank the boys back at the shop and the “good lord.” And what would any entertainer’s final bow or politician’s speech be without a final “God Bless?”

Maybe we don’t take God seriously because we don’t take sin seriously? And maybe we don’t take sin seriously because we don’t take God seriously.  I think both are true. 

Even so, while we may have an easy time talking about God, we have a hard time talking about sin; or rather, it’s no longer a working hypothesis accounting for human behavior.  People don’t sin anymore; they make mistakes.  They act inappropriately.  They are dysfunctional.  People have addictions, dependencies, chemical imbalances, low self esteem. If people behave badly, they do so because of peer pressure, bad parenting, or as a result of social and cultural history. When people behave badly, they do everything but sin. 

Our President drew criticism last week when he said the shooter in Fort Hood would face consequences in the next life.  The criticism was fair. The President is not a preacher. There is a wall of separation for a reason, but the President’s intent was right on target: moral actions and inactions have eternal consequences.  Sin, to be sure, marks dysfunction, social and cultural history, peer pressure and generally our propensity to evil; but sin or the language of sin, also marks our worth.  Our lives matter to God. Life is not inconsequential.  By a strange irony, sin marks the ultimate value of human life.  Human life matters so much that God sacrifices to save us.  It is the ultimate sacrifice, the singular and for all time sacrifice. 

We can’t repeat the death of Jesus.  It is unique. It is not one of a series. It is not the first of many.  Christ’s death is one and only, which allows us to approach God with “a true heart in full assurance of faith.” By Christ’s death, our hearts are “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience;” therefore we approach God, not because we are good, but because God is good. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we approach God with faith. 

The opposite of approach is avoidance.  Avoidance is what we do when we live with guilt.  If I wrong somebody, they’re the last person I want to see. When we wrong another person, we avoid them like the plague.  Reconciliation begins when we confess our fault: “I’m sorry. I was wrong.”  Until we say that, we avoid the one we have wronged. 

Our walk with Christ begins with confession: “Lord, forgive me. I am a sinner.”  That’s not the same as saying, “Well, I’ve acted inappropriately. I’ve made a mistake, I’m dysfunctional,” all of which may be true, but those labels don’t get to the heart of the matter: “Lord, forgive me. I am a sinner.”  Until we pray that prayer, not just once or when we’re in a jam, but daily and throughout our lives, we avoid God. 

Listen, and this is very important: confession is not about wallowing in the mire: “O I’m a terrible person.” Nor is it about living with regret.  When we confess we also repent. We become different people. We get up off our knees. We get out of the mire. And we do that because Jesus sacrificed for sins once and for all time.  Confession moves us beyond regret. Confession lifts us out of the mire. While we can’t make up for our sins or dig our way out from under them, we can ask for God’s help: “Lord have mercy.” And then we “hold fast . . .” We accept God’s acceptance. We are forgiven.

 

“We hold fast . . . “

There’s much out there that tells us this is not so.  We live in a world of instant everything.  I think TV is to blame—not really, but yeah, TV.  On TV, things get resolved in half hour segments, an hour tops.  My TV clicker has an On Demand button. I like that . . . On Demand.  But life doesn’t work that way. Life is not On Demand, the click of a button and your child is no longer sick, the click of a button and your marriage is great, the click of a button and a ruined friendship is made new.  Faith doesn’t work that way either. Faith means holding fast which is the opposite of letting go. Our world is big into letting go. The On Demand World requires letting go.  If it doesn’t happen instantly, then we let it go.  If it doesn’t happen On Demand, we let it go.  If we can’t have it yesterday, we let it go. 

Holding fast is for plodders. God likes plodders.  Plodders are anchored deep.  The soul of a plodder is fixed to something greater than instant success. The soul of a plodder is anchored in eternity. Plodders hold fast because God is faithful. Plodders hold fast because God endures, because God waits. God’s waiting, however, does not make plodders complacent. Rather it provokes them to provoke others to love and good deeds.

One day last week I decided to read the paper on my back porch. It was a lovely afternoon. It had been a long day. I was ready to put up my feet and relax.  So, I’m sitting on the back porch, sun on my face, a cool evening breeze, newspaper in one hand and one very persistent cat in the other.  Now don’t get me wrong, I like Superfluous.  She’s a nice cat. We’ve had her for a number of years.  She once belonged to our son, but he gave her to us. She’s about ten years old, a nice cat. 

I’m sitting there reading my paper and Superfluous, which I think is a perfectly good name for a cat, will not sit still. I’ve got the paper in hand and Superfluous keeps jumping up, trying to get in my lap. She’s kneading me, rubbing her face in my face. I put her down and thirty seconds later she’s back in my face again.  Pesky is the word I’m looking for. The word in Hebrews is paroxysmon, which sounds bad just to say. Provoke is the New Revised’s translation. The word also means irritate. “Let us consider how to irritate one another to love and good deeds.”  That sounds about right. That sounds like church.

Why irritate each other?  Because some are in the habit of neglecting to meet together.  We don’t know why first century Christians weren’t going to church. Maybe they feared persecution, maybe they were heretics or maybe they believed they could worship at home. Maybe they had fallen out with their leaders, or maybe they had just given up—“What’s the use?” 

“Irritate one another to love and good deeds.”  People say they can worship at home or in the woods or on a fishing boat. Some say they even prefer to worship that way.  And it’s understandable because when you’re at home or in the woods nobody’s going to ask you to sign a pledge card or recruit you to teach junior highs or call you to feed the homeless poor. 

“Irritate one another to love and good deeds.”  The opposite of irritation is ennui, weariness, dissatisfaction, boredom or what the church classically defined as sloth.  Anybody can get in the habit of slothfulness.  Anyone can get in the habit of staying home.  It doesn’t take long and it requires even less effort.  Ennui is all about a lack of effort, the lack of fight, the lack spirit.  The weary have given up.  They’ve stopped caring.

“Irritate one another to love and good deeds.”  That’s what stewards do.  Stewards provoke one another to love and good deeds because they themselves have been provoked.  God is under their skin. God has stirred their souls with the single sacrifice for all time that cannot be measured on a pie chart or calculated with any known metric.  We give because God has given to us.  We give because we are grounded in faith, hope, and love inspired by God’s grace, mercy, and peace in Jesus Christ. Amen.