Easter 4A sermon

Easter 4A
May 15, 2011
I want to begin my homily today with a little show and tell. This is my Mother’s day present that I got last week from my daughter MM (who’s six). My gift was made up of three different parts. First, a card made by Mary Margaret at school with a lovely, hand-written note inside. Second, a book, Just Mom and Me, which is made up of activities for mothers and daughters to do together. And finally, a dollar bill—just kind of thrown into the bag. So here’s what’s the coolest part of MM’s gift to me. It is made up of things that we both value: a book that honors our relationship, an expression of her artistic talent, and a dollar; and it is a true offering of her stewardship, made up of the three classic components: time (together doing the activities in the book), talent (in her art and writing), and treasure in the gift of a dollar that was given to her by the tooth fairy.

Senior Warden, Marie Porter, and I spent the weekend at the very first Bishop’s Annual Stewardship Summit (BASS), and we learned a wonderfully succinct definition of what stewardship is. Stewardship is “what you do with all that you have after you say ‘I believe.’”

Our passage in Acts is a beautiful snapshot of stewardship at its best in the life of faith, and it resonates with us because it is about people like us. It starts with the disciples, who had abandoned Jesus at his crucifixion, who are so scared of what might happen to them that they huddle together in one single room behind locked doors. But then, they encounter the Risen Lord, and he transforms their fear into hope, joy, and a passion to spread the good news of Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection. So these formerly scared disciples are given the gift of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and then Peter, who had been the most afraid of all of them, preaches to the crowd and 3,000 people are converted to the new faith and baptized into the body of Christ. These three thousand people then give themselves over to The Way of following Christ, “devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” They give of their possessions and hold things in common, and they even sell their possessions and distribute the money to the common good, to help those who have need. What is most amazing about this picture of life in the early church is that these people, who are no better or stronger or smarter or richer or poorer or more faithful or less fearful than any of us give themselves to what they all have in common, not what distinguishes them from one another. And the people who knew them before and see how they have become transformed are amazed and give glory to God through the power of the resurrection to new life. And even more begin to join them.

Stewardship is what we do with all that we have after we have said that we believe; it’s how we spend and make our money; it is what we do with our time, our attention; it is how we make a difference in this world; it is how we give our heart, and how we trust God. There is nothing stopping us from being that community of faith in Acts, in giving ourselves to what we have in common not what distinguishes us. We know how it’s done—through a commitment that we all make in our baptism and in the renewal of our baptismal covenant. It is a commitment to devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, a commitment to giving our hearts to the Way of Jesus Christ above all else. Nothing stands in our way except our fear that there will not be enough, our fear that we will not be able to do it, that it will be too hard, that our friends will make fun of us, that it will infringe upon our own will for the way we live our lives. Nothing stands in our way except our fear. And my friends, if there is anything that was proven by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, it is that in the Kingdom of God there is and always will be enough; that we have absolutely nothing to fear and absolutely everything to gain.

Think about the difference that we will make in this community, when we give of our love and attention and our money without fear, without scarcity; think of the difference we will make when we give ourselves and our hearts to what we have in common. And let us give thanks for those little ones among us who teach us about the abundance of God and how we might also give generously.