Sunday, Ocotber 6, 2024
/Proper 22
Genesis 2: 18-24; Psalm 8; Hebrews 1: 1-4, 2: 5-12; Mark 10: 2 - 16
The Rev. James M. L. Grace
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.
There are going to be two parts to this sermon today. The first part is on stewardship, and the second will be a brief comment on the Gospel. So, stewardship. Every fall, for a six-week period, St. Andrew’s raises funds for next year’s operating budget. At our Vestry meeting last month, the Vestry heard from the treasurer and Finance Chair that this year’s fundraising goal is $950,000. That is a seventeen percent increase over last year’s goal, which was $815,000. Because of your generosity last year, we surpassed that goal. I believe we will surpass our goal again this year.
The stewardship materials which I know you all are excited to pick up today in the Oak Table Room explain, in detail, why our ask this year marks a substantial increase from last year. And I am going to share those reasons with you, so that you also hear it directly from me. First, two points. 1) In light of war in Israel and Ukraine, and hurricane damage on our eastern coast, asking for your financial support may appear, well tone deaf. One hundred percent of today’s loose plate collection will go to Episcopal Relief & Development for hurricane relief. 2) Our family has already submitted our pledge, and we increased it seventeen percent. Some of you all will be able to do the same, some less, some more. The point is – I am not asking you all to do something I have not already done myself. Here are the three main reasons for the increase:
1) Over a year and a half ago, a car on 19th street accidentally jumped the curb and drove through the wrought iron fence which surrounds a playground used by church and school children. While school children were on the playground when the car broke through the fence, no one was injured. The damaged section of fence was rebuilt. However, another car could just as easily go through it again. That is why we have that orange water wall barrier around the fence currently, but that was never intended to be a permanent solution. We have a design for a vehicle resistant protective fence barrier that will go around the playground on 19th street. The church and the school will split the cost for it, and our treasurer and Finance Chair determined that the church should fund our portion of the new fence out of our operating budget this year, rather than include the expense with the other capital campaign work. Doing so frees up dollars for other capital improvements on our property.
2) In 2023, we embarked upon a strategic planning process which called for innovative programs and ministries. Last year was too early to budget for them, but as we move into 2025, we are attaching tangible costs to items this plan calls for, such as our already established Saturday Night service, Movie on the Lawn, the Celtic Festival, etc.
3) – We need to protect the investments we are making at St. Andrews funded by the Capital Campaign. This includes higher insurance premiums to cover items such as our new organ. We have maintenance plans on our new HVAC units which will extend the life of these assets, but that maintenance has a cost associated with it. We are expecting to see increases in utility costs and insurance premiums next year. Our Diocesan assessment – that is the money this parish pays the Diocese of Texas every year to support Diocesan ministry will increase ten percent next year to almost $57,000. To state what is already obvious, nothing is getting cheaper.
That is all I want to say about stewardship, for now. I recognize that most of what I said offered little in spiritual value, and likely came across as boring to many. The difficult place of a Rector in a parish is that they must operate in two mindsets, simultaneously. One of those mindsets is that the church is a business. The other mindset, paradoxically, is that the church is not a business. And both are true.
A paradox, which I define as simply two statements that seemingly contradict each other and are yet both true, really defines the life Jesus lived. He was a provincial outsider, and was respected and despised by religious leaders at the same time. It never seemed to bother him. In the Gospel today, Jesus pulled outsiders around him – this time – children, and said that to be part of God’s creation, we have to set aside our analytical minds, our rational selves, and receive it with a beginner’s mind, a child’s mind.
Last week I was on a retreat with other Episcopal clergy, and we canoed and portaged a fifty-mile loop of lakes and trails in Southern Canada. We had ample time to converse about our parishes, our work, and the Bible. At some point we were discussing the story of the Exodus, in which the Bible says Moses famously parted the Red Sea, enabling the Hebrews to safely pass through. My clergy friends shared their interpretations on the story, and used science and archaeology to explain the Exodus event. Then they asked me what I believed about it. I told them that I believed Moses parted the Red Sea. “Oh come on Jimmy, you don’t really believe that do you?” “Yeah, I do.” I have spent so many years not believing it, because I was basically trained not to believe it in seminary, but through reading the Bible again and again, I believe God set aside my need for certainty or logical explanation. It does not matter to me if Moses really parted the Red Sea or not, because I know it is true, whether or not it actually happened.
We are stepping out in faith, with a really high, ambitious fundraising goal. For many of you all, the sticker shock of a $950,000 pledge campaign seems a lot like an impassible sea we have no way of getting around. Friends, we are not raising this money. God is. God is doing all of it, and I can say with great certainty, this stewardship campaign is going to go either of two ways: it is either going to go God’s way, or it is going to go God’s way. Either way, we win. What may seem impossible or insurmountable
to us today, looks quite different from God’s perspective. God finds a way through, every time. AMEN.