November 14 "Seeds of Growth" Isaiah 12, 65:17-25 (The Isaiah Vision) Galatians 6:7-10
So this is my stewardship sermon! I don't think it's going to prompt any one of you to cross out what you wrote on your pledge card and write something else. (I'd be pretty anxious if I believed that, since you might reduce it as well as increase!) No, my purpose today is First, to celebrate what we're doing… And second to place Consecration Sunday into a larger context of Christian Stewardship. And finally, if you haven't already made up your mind to commit yourself to our congregation, to invite you to join us in planting "Seeds of Growth" for the future of the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco.
Eugene Peterson's translation often gets to the heart of how to live the Scriptures. He gives us Galatians 6:8-9 in these words: The one who plants in response to God, letting God's Spirit do the growth work…, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. So let's not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don't give up, or quit.
Galatians gives us the Law of Christian Karma: You reap whatever you sow. Whatever you plant, you will harvest. Little seeds of caring, commitment and love grow into a great harvest of good. Conversely, little seeds of selfishness or fear or anger grow into a patch of weeds that choke out life.
Marianne Williamson, in her book Healing the Soul of America, pp. 108-109, reminds us:
Human beings, on the level of spirit, are not separate but joined as one. In the words of Dr. King, "We are […] caught in an inescapable network of mutuality." The reason the Golden Rule is essential to all religious thought is that what we do to others will be done to us, and if not to us then to our children or our children's children. We will reap what we sow, and what we withhold from others will be withheld from us. Time itself is a trick of the mind. We must give justly, not merely because we're "good" but because we understand cosmic law. It is no longer possible to be realistically satisfied with our own circumstances if the opportunities for the same abundance are unfairly denied to others. The day of reckoning--a kind of instant karma--is at hand.
Of course Dr. King was not speaking of the sort of New Age vision that Marianne espouses. He was writing a Letter from a Birmingham Jail, explaining to fellow clergy why he had left Georgia to get involved in a civil rights struggle in Alabama: I am cognizant [he said] of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
Who are we at PCMK? Are we "insiders" or "outsiders" in the community around us? Are we passive "consumers" of whatever happens around us, or are we "participants" helping to create a world closer to the vision which prophets in every age have told us is the dream in God's heart? Do we really believe "the measure we give, will be the measure we receive" and all that stuff about karma? Have we grown up enough to take responsibility to support the things we value? Or are we stuck in a sort of stewardship childhood, waiting for somebody else to do it for us?
I dare to say that it's not so much the amount you write on your pledge card as the gift of your heart that makes the difference. The Seeds of Growth are planted when we join hands to work as a community where each one of us does what we can, as God has blessed us.
In baptizing a child [Madeline Grace Becker] we are planting "Seeds of Growth." Given proper nourishment and nurture, every child will grow physically. But emotional, moral and spiritual growth require something more. Let's be honest, the hour or two a week that our children spend at church is a tiny share of the factors that influence their lives. But the quality of the welcome, the caring, the relationships they experience here will have an effect far beyond the number of minutes.
In offering our worship here in this sacred space, we are planting "Seeds of Growth." We are fulfilling what the Westminster Shorter Catechism calls our "chief end"--the main purpose of our existence: "To glorify God and enjoy God forever." Let's be honest…
It's often like that with stewardship. The little acts of commitment--of our money, our energy, and our creativity--can make a tremendous difference, because each of these acts is a seed of growth. It's a step in the lifetime journey of faith.
We can rejoice in the seeds that we see sprouting around the church, even as the leavees are falling from the trees. We can have faith that the bulbs which our workers planted last Sunday will produce beautiful flowers next spring. We can dare to believe that the commitments we are making today to the future of PCMK will generate a harvest of goodness that will grow even beyond next year. And even if our karma requires that we go through some more days of austerity, it will be for the sake of our future, not a punishment for our past.
The poem "The Paradoxical Commandments" was written by Dr. Kent M. Keith, and a version of it was connected to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/
For my money, it expresses the paradoxical wisdom of Christian Stewardship:
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
May God protect us from fear, from hurting others, from hardening our hearts to the needs of our neighbors, and teach us to trust God's provision in all our ways. May we plant the seeds that will grow this church into an even stronger and more vital expression of the Good News of God's love. Amen.
--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
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