“I Take Thee...”     

First Congregational United Church of Christ

November 25, 2007

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

Scripture Readings: Jer. 31: 31-33, Luke 1: 67-75

I am a great fan of the actor Sean Connery.  I will always believe that he is the only “real” James Bond, and I’ve seen nearly every movie he has ever made.  One of the very best, I think, was “The Untouchables,” for which he won an Oscar for his role as the good Irish-American beat copper Jim Malone. 

            Now, I’m not normally a fan of gangsters-and-cops pictures (even though this one was really pretty good)  because in nearly every gangsters-and-cops movie – regardless of whether it was made in the 1940s or in the last two years – there is at least one large, brutal character who is usually named “Joey” or “Guido” (or something equally sinister) who plays the role of the “Enforcer.”  This is the guy – and he’s always a bad guy – who gets sent out to beat up – or to torture – or to hang from meat-hooks – or to otherwise terrorize – the good guy, usually in a way that results in the good guy ending up with large amounts of blood and body tissues splattered all over the screen.  The good guy survives, of course, and in the end, he’s usually driven to kill the Enforcer guy, in as brutal and bloody a way as possible.

            All of which brings me to the fact that today marks the official culmination of our official Fall “Stewardship Season” here in the church.  And the fact that every Fall, I, and thousands of my clergy colleagues, struggle with the fact that during this season, we too often end up feeling like the Enforcer guy in the churches we serve.  While we’re not usually as direct as the guys in the movies – we seldom kidnap parishioners’ family members, or leave dead animals in their mailboxes – it often feels like our role is the same.  Annually, we are summoned – by our well-meaning church Councils or Trustees – to sweet-talk as persuasively as we can, to twist arms, to coerce, to threaten, or to do whatever else we have to to get church members to give enough to keep the church going for another year. 

            Now, if the whole Enforcer thing seems a little over the top for you, at the very least, we’re called each year to copy the tactics of the NPR folks to convince their listeners that they need to financially support the network.  I need to say that Bob and I enjoy NPR, and do support them financially from time to time, but even so, I get pretty annoyed this time every year (as well as again in the spring), when every time I tune into NPR, instead of hearing news or programming, most of what I hear is a couple of incredibly jovial announcers (who sound like they’ve had way too much coffee) joshing with each other, and then warmly encouraging their listeners to “decide what NPR is worth to you … is it $5/week? $10/week? or more?”  And having made that decision, I am then invited to send them the appropriate amount of money. 

            I was doubly annoyed when, not long ago, I received a couple of solicitation letters from the alumni/ae associations of some of my former alma maters, using the very same approach.  The letters read something like this:  Dear Alum, We here at (insert university’s name) are so proud of the good work our school is doing.  We know you value it too.  In fact, we want you to think about how much you value it.  What is your education from (insert university’s name) worth to you?  Let the value you’ve received from this fine school be reflected in your gift back to us.”

            And I was truly appalled when, not long ago, I saw in one church newsletter that they were using exactly this same approach to their annual stewardship campaign.  “Dear Member, what are you and your family getting from ____________ Church?  Let the blessings you have received determine how you will bless others with your giving.”  Argh!!!

My friends, that is so profoundly not what stewardship in the church is about.  Because that kind of giving – giving in response to coercion or giving as a form of reciprocity, of “tit-for-tat” – that is, I get this much out of this organization, so I’ll give that much back – is about what we call contractual agreements. 

            Contracts involve two parties, and a relationship where one of the parties does something only in exchange for the other party doing something else.  They are about doing something, including giving money, in order to get something.  To follow our gangster example, I’ll fix your racketeering charge if you won’t break my arm.  Or with our NPR example, I’ll give you money if you’ll keep providing the kind of programming I want.

            All of us enter into contracts with other people all the time – like when we hire someone to mow our lawn for us, or we buy a car or a computer or a new shirt, or we hire someone to calculate our taxes, or any time we agree to give someone a certain amount of money in exchange for a particular product or service.  Contracts are one way that we keep society ticking.  So I’m not saying they’re a bad thing – I’m saying they are a very different thing from the model of giving that we see in the Bible – from the model of giving that we are called to as people of faith. 

            Because the Biblical model of giving is not about contractual relationships – it is about covenantal ones.  And covenantal relationships are completely different in nature.  They involve agreements to do something for someone, or give something to someone, not in order to get something else, but simply because one person is in relationship with another person. 

Probably the most compelling example is reflected in the fact that many of you are, or have been, in married relationships or other committed long-term relationships.  And when you took vows with that other person – to love them, to treat them respectfully, to be faithful to them – when you said “I take thee to be my husband, or wife, or beloved life companion” – it was not because of what you were going to get out of the relationship. 

Instead, solely and simply because of your relationship, you made promises to do certain things for and with this other person, and you took on certain kinds of commitments with respect to them.  You didn’t promise to care for them and to hang in with them “in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want” because they were going to do the same for you (although you certainly hoped they would) – you promised to do those things because you loved them, and you were joining your life to theirs in covenant relationship. 

            Jane Smiley, in her book Paradise Gate, has one of the most wonderful descriptions of marriage I’ve ever read.  She says:  “You know what getting married is?  It’s agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you’re the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates.  And he does the same for you.  You’re his responsibility now and he’s yours.  If no one else will take care of him, you will.  If everyone else rejects you, he won’t.  What do you think love is?  Going to bed all the time?  Poo!  … He’s yours and you’re his.  He doesn’t beat you or abuse you, and you’ve made about the same bargain.  Now that you know what it’s like to be married, now that all the gold leaf has sort of worn off, you can make something of it, you can really learn to love each other[1].”  That, my friends, is what covenantal relationships are all about!

            Now in the Bible, the most important “person” – or being – or entity – with whom others are in relationship is God.  Very rarely, do you see people trying to bargain with God, or trying to get God to do something for them in exchange for what they were going to do for God.  Instead, we see people over and over again being asked to do incredibly difficult things by God – and them agreeing to do them not because of what they were going to get out of the whole deal, but because of their covenant with God.

            So we see people like Moses and Miriam and Aaron leaving the comfort of their homes, making the hard journey to Egypt, challenging one of the most powerful rulers of the world in that day, putting their very lives in danger, because the God with whom they are in covenant relationship has called them to do it.  We see a shepherd boy called David, and a Jewish queen called Esther, both putting their own lives on the line on behalf of their people, because the God with whom they are in relationship has called them to do it.  We see people like Mary and Joseph running the risk of the scorn and outrage and punishment of their community, choosing to parent a very special child named Jesus, because the God with whom they are in covenant relationship has called them to do it.  We see prophets, and farmers, and housewives, and business people, people just like us, over and over putting what they value most at risk because the God with whom they are in covenant relationship has called them to do it. 

            And they do it not because of what’s in it for them – because in almost every case     the only thing in it for them is possible hardship … suffering … even death – they do it because they are in relationship with God, and because they take that relationship seriously.  They do it because they knew those ancient words spoken in Jeremiah – and they took them seriously:  “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  And thousands – or hundreds – or dozens of years later, as the new Christian community began to develop and grow and thrive, those new Christians took those words from Luke’s Gospel seriously:  “‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has looked favourably on the people and redeemed them.  God has raised up a mighty saviour for us … Thus God has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered God’s holy covenant … to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before God all our days.”

            Both the ancient Israelites, and the newer Christians, knew that they were God’s people.  They took their covenant seriously.  They knew what it meant (at least some of the time) when they said “I am yours, O Lord.”  “I take thee, O Lord, to be my God.”  And they wanted to live as God’s people.  And that included doing their level best to live out their covenant with God in every way they knew how. 

            From a stewardship perspective, it meant they lived out their covenant with God by living out their covenant with each other.  It meant they tithed their crops and their produce, and they shared what they had with others, and they fed and sheltered the widows and the orphans and the migrant workers and the other strangers in their communities, and they cared for each other in very real and practical – and sometimes sacrificial – ways.

            It doesn’t mean they didn’t mess up from time to time, or never fought or argued or didn’t get along.  If you read your Bible, you know it’s full of stories of people who made bad choices, who treated each other badly, who violated their side of the relationship with God.  But the bigger picture is of a people who, over and over again, kept coming back to God – who in turn, over and over, kept coming back to them. 

            And that, my friends, is why we bother to think or talk about stewardship.  That is why we give our gifts – of finances, of time, of talents – to our God, via our gifts to God’s church. 

            It’s not to keep the Enforcer from showing up on our doorsteps, or to stop the annoying calls and letters from those soliciting our pledges, so we can “get back to our regular programming.”  It’s because we are in relationship with this remarkable God who keeps on loving us, no matter what.  It’s because when we said – to ourselves, or to a congregation – whether right out loud, or silently in our hearts, “I am yours, O Lord,” we meant it.  And we want to take it seriously. 

            We call today “Dedication Sunday” because when we bring our gifts before the Lord … when we come up front, and place them in baskets that will go on our equivalent of the altar … we are doing a holy and sacred thing.   We are naming our gifts as sacred gifts … as gifts to our God … We are remembering and expressing our gratitude for the way God has blessed us, and we are asking God’s blessing on the gifts we offer back to God.  And we are naming ourselves – once again – as God’s people. 

            This day, as we come forward, may we remember that when we do so, we are claiming our covenant with God … that God’s law is written on our hearts, and promising to serve God, without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all our days.  May it be so.  Amen.