2021.11.14 - Stewardship Season Week 2

Scripture - Philippians 2:1-11; Mark 6:7-13, 30-31

Mark 6:7-13, 30-31
7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
 
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
 
Philippians 2:1-11
2 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death--
    even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Stewardship Moment

Sermon

This is the second week of our Stewardship Campaign - A Future with Hope. Last week we explored what the word Stewardship means - and how we as participants in God’s economy both give and receive - much like breathing, like the very name of God YHWH - what we give out into the world is received as blessing and abundance, just as that blessing and abundance returns to us. We talked about how all that we have and all that we are has its source and origin in God, and stewardship is the management of the resources God has placed at our disposal, and the question sometimes isn’t so much about how much we give to God - because it’s all God’s - but how much do we keep for ourselves?

And we’re having this conversation in the context of one of the most tumultuous periods in human history - where the pandemic continues to impact the lives of millions around the globe, even as we’ve moved out of the challenging period where we were physically separated from one another...and where we face a crisis of catastrophic proportions that affects every human living on this planet, and that is climate devastation. In the Stewardship letter the church sent out almost two weeks ago, we referenced the rhythm of exile and return - of separation and dispersing and reunion and gathering. We’ll explore that rhythm more deeply next week during Giving Sunday and how hope is the thread that weaves it all together.

But this morning I want to explore two passages that evoke this rhythm of exile and return, but include a very important third component that is essential to the nature of the church and is essential in how we understand ourselves as disciples and how we understand the ways we participate in the ministries of this church.


Have you ever been sent out on assignment? Perhaps you’ve worked a job where this was a normal part of a company’s practice - I remember my first job was as a teller for People’s Heritage Bank, and I was mostly stationed at the branch on Forest Ave by the Burger King and Oakhurst Dairy. But from time to time, I was sent out to fill in at the branch further down Forest, or the branch on Congress, depending on who was out sick or what the needs were for the day. It was a job that I could do wherever they sent me, even if the customers were different or the branch was different. I had the skills and was equipped for the work that needed to be done. Or those who have done mission work can also connect with the idea of being “sent” - and I know that there have been many from this congregation and this island who have been sent to Guatemala from this church to work alongside others providing medical care to the vulnerable populations living in the mountains. 

In the church, we understand that part of the life of faith isn’t just for our own personal growth and well-being. We’re also a sent people - the word in the church is “commissioned” - we are a people commissioned for ministry; we move out into the world, sent by God, to be a people of hope and healing.

It makes me think of that line from Blues Brothers, where Dan Akryod’s character famously says, “We’re on a mission from God.” As Christians, that’s true wherever we are.

To help us think about this some more, and to connect it back with the language of exile and return that is framing our Stewardship season, I’m going to start with our Philippians passage, with what some scholars believe is one of the earliest hymns to Christ. Paul, the author of this letter, refers to God’s self-emptying love and the choice to be incarnated - born, embodied - as a human being. The word in verse 7 that gets translated as “emptying” is “kenosis” - and it’s a word that comes with it the image of pouring out. In essence, this is a story of exile - a self-exile that God experienced in the person and body of Jesus. 

Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death--
    even death on a cross.

Jesus, though divine, denied the privilege that his divinity gave him - saving himself from the cross, healing only the rich and powerful, using his Godhood to curry favor with the empire - Jesus did none of that. God in Jesus became human - exiled from the fullness of divine power - for the sake of radical solidarity and love of humankind. God entered into the reality of human experience in an entirely new way, for the sake of relationship and love. This exile was for the purpose of reconciling all of humanity - all of creation - into God’s own being - a path that let to resurrection and exaltation - a reunion with God not just for Jesus, but for each and every one of us. The Incarnation - the self-emptying love of God in Jesus Christ - brought us into a new unity and experience of life with God. The semantics get a little strange if you think about the Trinity and God sending a part of God’s own self into the world in Jesus and yet Jesus still being fully God and fully human, but the important part for our reflection this morning is while we can understand this on the one hand as a kind of exile that Jesus undertook for our sake, we can also understand it as God’s sending forth - God going out into the universe as a human to demonstrate the extent of divine love and desire for connection with us as part of God’s created world.

God is a sending God - even so far as sending Jesus into the world - to bring -- and to be --  hope and healing for all humanity.

Our Mark passage points more directly at this notion as Jesus commissions the twelve disciples to do the work of proclaiming the kingdom, inviting people to repentance, and healing others. He gives instructions as to what they are to do, what they are to take with them -- even what to do if a village isn’t receptive to them or to the message they have. He gathers them together, sends them out, and then they come back around him to share their experience, to talk about what they did - and to take a rest from their labors before heading back out into the world. Jesus sends his disciples out - separating them from him - for a purpose - and then there’s reunion and rest before the work continues.

I think Sunday worship functions similarly -- it’s the time when the disparate community comes together after having lived out in the mission field for a week - it’s the time when we remember who we are as God’s people...and whose we are -- a time to remember our grounding in God, the source that gives us life, energy, hope, that gives our life together purpose. All that we do is at God’s direction -- on the one hand, it is for us ...but it’s for us so that we can be a sent people, being a people of hope and healing wherever we find ourselves - at home, in our corner of the island, at our jobs, on the ferry or in the grocery store, in our conversations with friends and family. It’s all-encompassing. It all ties in with our life of faith - all goes back to the fact that we are making choices how to allocate the time, energy, resources, funds that God places before us. If we understand ourselves as a sent people - a people on a mission from God to be hope and light in the dark places, to be present to those who are suffering and in pain, to be witnesses of a love greater than we can fathom - we learn how to live more fully by God’s invitation, to align ourselves more fully with God’s purposes, to see everything around us as part of what God has placed under our care.

As a people commissioned for everyday ministry in the world - as people who are sent by God’s blessing - we grow in how we give of ourselves and what we have to this larger picture of God’s kingdom of hope and peace - not just here on this island, but wherever we are...and around the world.

Next week is Giving Sunday - we’ll consecrate our pledge of financial gifts for 2022 together next week...and I want to invite you to spend some time in prayer around this. God of course wants us to be able to have a shelter, to eat, to use these resources to sustain ourselves and our households...and I want to acknowledge that there are lots of ways to give back to the church - but I’m going to challenge you this week to think about being a person sent by the church on God’s mission of hope and healing. And to consider if that changes the way you spend your money this week. Are you using the money that you are responsible for in a way that builds up God’s purposes in the world? What would you change about the way you related to your finances if you could bring them into greater alignment with how God might want you to manage them? Are you sending your money out into the world - through this church or in other ways - to bless others? Where may God be inviting you to grow as you step out in faith to make a commitment to the work of this Community Church - this church that we worked so hard to bring about? 

God loved humankind so much that God sent God’s own self to come experience life as one of us to bring hope and healing and wholeness to all of us. Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim this message of grace and new life in the abundance of God’s love. 

As we leave this place as a sent people, may we go forth knowing that we live as God’s people, whether we are gathered here in this place for worship, whether we are separate from each other during the week - and that we live as witnesses to God’s great love in all that we do, and may we return again together having been blessed by the richness of God’s abundance of grace and love. May we do this all so that we can grow with generous hearts in our living and in our giving of ourselves to Christ’s work in the world - for the sake of this island and for our world. Amen.