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The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 22)
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The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): I Kings 8:22-30; I Peter 2:1-5, 9-10
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
I Kings 8:22-30; I Peter 2:1-5, 9-10
✛
Living Stones Have Stories to Tell
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A man was about to celebrate his Fiftieth wedding anniversary and, before the party, he decided to go to the church where he had his wife had been married and pray: “Lord,” he said, “Thank you for fifty years of happily married life!” “You are welcome, my son,” said God. Startled that he should hear the voice of God the man continued, “Oh Lord, as you have heard my prayer, I bid thee, let me ask of you some things that I have pondered all my life. Why did you make my wife so beautiful?” “So that you would love her, my son,” came the reply. “And, why did you make her the most amazing cook that I had ever met?” “So that you would love her, my son,” said God. “And, why did you make her the most patient and caring mother of our ten children?” “So that you would love her, my son.” The man paused for a moment and then he looked up to heaven and said, “Lord, there is one thing that I have never understood. Why did you make her so stupid?” “So that she would love you, my son.”
One year ago I stood in this pulpit and preached my first sermon for the anniversary of the dedication of this church. I hardly knew you and you hardly knew me. I had answered the call of the Vestry in faith and found myself in a new country, a new city, a new church and the responsibility to lead our every member canvass.
I told you, then, that we needed $2million in pledges in order to grow and not just to be sustainable. We did not make it, though we raised more pledges than ever before.
Now, a year on, I know you better and you know me. Was I right to answer the call of the Vestry – absolutely and the main reason that I can say ‘absolutely’ is because of you, the people of this parish and those who are passionate about the mission of this church and the gospel of Jesus Christ that we celebrate. As St Peter said in our epistle reading, you are the living stones that make this placed alive. You know, if we took away our worship and our music, we would still have this beautiful building; but if we took away the people from this place – even though we might still have 300,000 visitors a year– it would become a museum – a relic to the past. Your presence here, and those of you who are spiritually present listening via the webcast, are living stones that make this Church even more beautiful. Your stories matter as much as the stories told beneath this pulpit or in the stained glass or on the reredos. Yours stories are as important as the stories sung by our choristers – the psalms of praise and adoration; the psalms of sadness and despair; the psalms of protest and challenge – those psalms are all the more important because they are bound up in your stories too. The very fabric of this building echoes not just with the glorious sound of polyphony but resonates with the common threads of our mutual existence.
The beautiful prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the first Temple in Jerusalem recognized the glory and the majesty of God far more than the beauty of the building itself: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” Solomon’s prayer was a prayer that recognized the presence of God and God’s glory filling the Temple – but it was a prayer that recognized the right order of things in creation; the Temple was a sign of the presence of God; a place where people could make intercession and offer sacrifice, but also a place for people to find their identity. Solomon’s prayer, which marveled at the glory of God, also ended with the humility to ask for forgiveness; but by the time of Jesus the temple had become an end in itself and Jesus was angry enough to cause havoc. How interesting that, in our gospel reading, the children glimpsed the glory and the presence of God in Jesus whereas the Pharisees, who knew the Law and the true purpose of the Temple, could not.
What do we glimpse when we come to worship here? What draws us to this place? How committed are we to this place, its mission and its upkeep?
Today I have a challenge for you. I realize that it was too much to expect to raise our pledges by half a million dollars but there is a way that we can do this by working together and in stages. First, I ask all of you to work out what the biblical tithe would be for you; that is, ten percent of pre-tax income. Some of you will already give this amount – some of you more – I know that there are living stones here that give sacrificially and generously. Many of you will have demands on your funds that make the biblical tithe difficult (God does not want to increase people’s debt!). Nevertheless, giving regularly and proportionally is in the same spirit and is just as valuable. Better a whole host of small pledges that add up to one big pledge than to have no pledges at all. So, once you have examined what a gift of ten percent would be – work out what you can realistically give.
So now to the challenge: (working out the tithe was just a math exercise – now we get down to business!). If everyone who does not already tithe were to increase their pledge by ten percent and if we were able to increase the number of new pledges by ten percent of our membership then, if our sums are correct, in two years time we will have our necessary $2 million of pledges. Perhaps that is more realistic for us as a Church and a goal that we can all work towards.
Yes, some of you will say that we have a lot of money invested. My friends, it is the generous gifts of the dead that we are talking about and, yes, it is invested very, very wisely. But for too long we have relied on drawing down more than we should from it. It will not be a problem while I am Rector, but if we continue to draw more than we should it is, again, a simple math equation; we will have less and less and we will not make ends meet.
My dear friends let us do this together as living stones. Let us share the responsibility for this great place. Who will join me in tithing pre-tax income? Who will increase their pledge by ten percent? Who will pledge for the first time and become a living stone? Who will give generously or sacrificially out of thanksgiving to God?
In the Book of Revelation we have an image: “Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.” God has opened the door of this Church to all who want to find his presence here – may he open the doors of your hearts so that, together, we can make him known.
