The following talk was presented to the 197th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia by the Revs. Cynthia Taylor and Lonnie Lacy.
Taylor: Let us pray
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Taylor: I find this to be one of the most powerful prayers in our prayer book. It speaks of the transformational power of God. And even thought the word love is never explicitly used, it is the theme that runs through this prayer.
The God who Loves uses the Power of Love to raise up things that were cast down. The God who Loves uses the Power of Love to take things which have grown old and make them new again. And the God who Loves uses the Power of Love to bring all things into perfection through Jesus. We know that as Christians. It’s in our blood. We know that God IS love. It’s our modis operendi in ministry and we share that love in everything we do as follows of Jesus with the exception of one little tiny area of our church….
Lacy: Stewardship! Chances are that any longtime occupier of an Episcopal pew has heard more than her fair share of stewardship sermons. In those sermons, she has doubtless encountered dozens of reasons for why stewardship ought to be away of life for every good Christian.
• There is the reason of divine duty: “All we have comes from God, and it is only right to return a portion unto him.”
• There are reasons of personal piety: “Living and giving generously makes us better, holier people.”
• There is rational responsibility: “How we care for what we have speaks to who we are. If we cannot be trusted with a little, we will not be trusted with a lot.”
• There’s the more mission minded rationale: “Your giving makes possible the work of the Kingdom, the spread of the Gospel, and the future of the Church.”
• And then, of course, there are the trusty standbys of panicked pragmatism and good old guilt: “If you don’t pony up, the doors are going to close, the lights are going to go off, and the church is going to die!”
In a sense, there is truth to all of these, but in their oversimplification, each misses the mark. Ultimately, stewardship is the Christian way of life not because of light bills, parish programs, or personal spiritual progress, but because of one fact and one fact alone: God is love.
It all begins in Genesis, where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—or, as St. Augustine once called them, “the Beloved, the Lover, and the Love” fashions us in their own image, calling us into being and into relationship with them and with one another. We owe our very existence not to a happy accident of amino acids or to the whim of a disinterested deity high atop some Olympian mount, but to the One who is Love itself: a love that is generative, contagious, and cannot be contained. The love of God ought to be the motivating factor for all we do, for truly it is the motivating factor for all that God has done.
And yet, since the beginning, our own motivations have always skewed less loving, less giving, less divine. Despite having been conceived in and for the love of God, “we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” One would think God would have given up on us long ago, scrapped it all, and walked away, for what else is a loving, giving God to do when his own creation refuses to love and give in return?
Turns out, he goes for broke. He bets the farm. He gives it all.
Taylor: And it’s not like God hid God’s love like some perverted Easter bunny, making it hard to find or to pull out for special occasions. That love is right up there nailed to a cross. That love is right down in a feeding trough, cooing like only a newborn can. And that love is right smack dab in the middle of the Gospels when we read God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but may have life everlasting.
What was shared in the darkness of night when one seeker after God came to see the one who was God is to be shared in the light and from the mountaintops. Do you see the action of God in this verse? God loved. God gave.
All the attributes of God wrapped up in those two words – loved, gave. One commentator put it this way:
For God: The greatest subject ever
so: The greatest extent ever
loved: The greatest affection ever
the world: The greatest object ever
that he gave his only begotten Son: The greatest gift ever
that whosoever: The greatest opportunity ever
believeth in him: The greatest commitment ever
should not perish: The greatest rescue ever
but have everlasting life: The greatest promise ever
Lacy:From Genesis to Jesus, the witness of Scripture is clear: if we want to know God, we must know him as Giver. It follows that if we want to know ourselves—if we want to know whereof we are made and whom we are meant to be—then we must know ourselves as givers, too.
We are made in the image of God, born in his likeness, and built for something more than ourselves. This loving, self-giving God has placed in us a need to love and to give, too. It’s written on our spiritual DNA. Simply put, it is who we are.
Such giving, of course, takes many forms. Often, we hear the tried and true formula of “time, talent, and treasure.” We urge one another to support the work of the church financially; to volunteer our hours as a valuable commodity; to bring our unique skills to bear on the many projects and pursuits of the parish.
All of these are good and right, but in reality, the stewardship of the Christian life goes deeper. Each of us have much to offer, but the thing that God offered was his very self, his very life. God, above all others, “gave ‘til it hurt,” to coin a phrase. It is when we experience a similar kind of giving—a giving that moves beyond the depths of what we have into the depths of who we are—that we begin to know something of the true joy of life in the loving, living, life-giving God.
Taylor:
I have this icon hanging in my office right across from my desk where I can look up and see it every day. I’d like to say it’s there for a spiritual reason, but the truth is I hung it there to hide an outlet.
It’s more like that old 70’s song, I’m not in Love where the writer says,” I keep your picture upon the wall. It hides a nasty stain that’s lying there.” But I think God had a deeper purpose for me than just using a nice icon to disguise a flaw. God has me look into this icon on a daily basis and look into the place of love, the place of joy.
The joy of this loving, living, life-giving God is best experienced in community and that’s what we see in this icon of the Holy Trinity. Rublev shows the heavenly Father in his resplendent robe. The incarnate Son bearing the red of our flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit adorned with the green and blue of their creation. All gaze dynamically back and forth at one another, in constant communion and community.
Most importantly, though, they leave a seat open at the table as the Spirit extends a hand, an invitation to us to join in their communion. It’s Jesus saying we’ve saved a space of you. Our joy will not be complete until you’ve joined us.
Now let me show you a different kind of icon by the Pilipino painter Emmanual Garibay.
What do
you think this is? What do you see? [Let convention take a few guesses] I see joy. And it’s the joy of the disciples recognizing the Rise Lord at Emmaus. I love the sharing between the three.
Christ in the middle bearing the stigmata. The travelers laughing that they didn’t
recognize Jesus in the first place. The
sharing of food and drink, laughter and joy.
And that space – that space for us.
The chair reserved for us. That place for joy because holy joy is contagious.
Like theirs, the joy we experience in giving is meant to be a shared joy. Giving of who and what widens the circle and deepens the fellowship.
Perhaps we see this played out no more clearly than in Acts 2:43-47, as the early disciples give freely and joyfully of who they are and what they have:
“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Lacy: It is clear that the Lord—theHoly Spirit—is moving, changing, and remaking these early disciples more and more into the likeness of the loving, living, giving God. And yet, without their “glad and generous hearts,” would the Spirit would have been able to work at all? The joy of mutual generosity, of shared sufficiency, of happy trust, and welcome gift is both seed and fruit, an ingredient for and the product of abundant life in the Triune God.
The word “stewardship,” like a heavy sack, holds many meanings for many people. Despite the Church’s best efforts, that one word too often comes down to a simple sense of burden . . . duty . . .obligation. But this is not the nature of our God. Ours is the loving, living, giving God who has created us for love, who has rescued us at great cost from our own selfishness, and who has done so as pure gift, free and clear.
This is the One of whom the great hymn sings, Thou our Father, Christ our brother, all who live in love are thine; teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine.”
The Rev. Canon Joshua Varner then led the convention in singing:
Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee,
Praising thee, their sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and
sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!
All Thy works with joy surround
Thee,
Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and
mountain,
Blooming meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain
Call us to rejoice in Thee.
Thou art giving and forgiving,
ever blessing, ever blest,
well-spring of the joy of living,
ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our brother,
all who live in love are thine;
teach us how to love each other,
lift us to the joy divine.
Lacy: So why stewardship? Why give? Why teach others to give too?
Taylor: Because God is love. That’s why
