Here we are at the first Sunday of Lent. The Sunday where we acknowledge our intentional journey towards Easter, a journey acknowledging the promise of salvation that we first hear about in the Genesis account. But we need to prepare ourselves for that time of God’s promise, and so we have this season of Lent, this distinct time set apart. Lent’s theological backings come from this very Gospel we’ve just heard. Jesus has just gone through his baptism, and then he is very starkly forced into a time of test and trial. (Mark does not mince his words – the heavens are torn apart for the Spirit, Jesus is thrust into the wilderness, it’s quite harsh, and without any time for preparation.) And Jesus is there, in the wilderness, for 40 days – which is why our season of Lent is 40 days long, so that we too can try to walk closer with God and share in a minimal way what Jesus experienced.
So let’s consider Lent. It is a time when we have Purple hanging in the church – and on my stole – purple representing suffering and pain. And so the very colour we hang in the church, and the yoke I wear on my shoulders, acts as a constant reminder that this is not meant to be an overly joyful season.
Lent is a time where we are encouraged to examine ourselves spiritually, and to take up three specific tasks, every day. These are: fasting, prayer, and charity. These are meant to be acts of individual undertaking, acts that we do but do not boast about. So let’s consider those in turn.
Fasting. To do without. We often hear of people doing a fast, that is to voluntarily go without food or water. There are so called health plans out there these days that promote fasting for weight loss or internal cleansing. There are just as many health professionals who suggest that such fasting is not healthy, nor is it overall effective in the long haul.
So how do we fast in a spiritual way? How do we do this task in a way that will be of long-term benefit not just to ourselves but to the world? And how do we do it in such a way that we ourselves stay healthy, and promote a healthy spirituality to others? We find the answer to this is we turn to the scriptures. Isaiah 58.6-7 tells us this:
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”
This passage makes it very clear that the acceptable fast is not merely abstinence from food or water, but a decision to fully obey God's commands to care for the poor and oppressed. And these wishes are repeated in Daniel, in Zechariah, in the Acts of the Apostles (among many others). We’re given the example of fasting not just by this one account of Jesus, but also by the actions of Moses, King David, Anna (the prophetess who announced Jesus as the Messiah), Paul, and many others.
We’re invited to a spiritual fasting that comes with a lot of history.
So in these days, our fasting may be seen in the tradition to ‘give something up for Lent’. This is one of the most common questions – what are you giving up for Lent. For some people, it’s chocolate or sweets, for others it’s something more addictive like cigarettes. I’ve known people who gave up sloth by beginning a new exercise regime, others who have given up TV, many who are giving up Facebook and other social networking. Whatever it is, though, it should be something that has meaning to you. Something that you would otherwise enjoy on a daily or almost daily basis. Something that you will distinctly notice is missing – and therefore be reminded of the severity of the season, of the denial of self as a spiritual practice in which you are intentionally walking closer with Jesus. And may you find strength from that journey with the Christ in your time of denial.
So now we turn to another area of Lenten observance – prayer. We are called to pray daily, but we are especially reminded of this during our Lenten season. Jesus spent his time in the wilderness in prayer – we hear in today’s Gospel how the angels attended to him there, as an answer to his prayer. For Jesus, the whole journey was not about himself, but instead was about God. And so he focused his attention during his time of test on God. And we’re invited to do the same.
So why do we pray? Well, there are several reasons – we pray for guidance, for assistance, for strength. We pray for others, people and situations, who are in need of the same. We pray for the forgiveness of our sins, which means we first have to confess our sins – both to ourselves AND to God. Which can be a profound experience.
We pray in direct petition, to establish conversation with God, like an ongoing chat throughout our day. We pray in structure, in order to better learn from God, such as when we follow our prayer books. We pray rationally, to better focus our thoughts on divinity, like reading theology as a means to understanding God. We pray to experience God’s action in our lives, to better centre ourselves as God’s children, such as through meditation or contemplative prayer. We pray to be transformed by the experience, to have a new understanding that wasn’t there before, not to influence God but to change our very nature. (Soren Kierkegaard)
Whatever our prayers are, however often our prayers are, our daily prayers are a focus of this season. And we’re invited to consider our prayer practices during this time. Some people will include a new prayer cycle, others will try a new practice. Some will include intentional prayers at new times – our Islamic friends pray 5 times a day; imagine what your life would look like if you set aside time and space to pray 5 times daily during this Lent. Some people light a candle during their prayer time to help focus their attention, others will try a new devotional. Whatever your prayer practices are during this Lenten season, I hope that you will enter them intentionally – aware of the benefit of prayer on your relationships – with God, with those around you, with your very self. And I pray that we will all be diligent in our Lenten prayers and continue this part of our journey throughout, and beyond, this season.
The third component of Lent is that of charity. Now, the practice of charity is defined as benevolent giving and caring. In this vein, the notion of alms-giving is often translated today as ‘charity’ And so, this may be the time where you expect me to speak of my favourite ‘charities’ (PWRDF, Anglican Foundation, our church, etc.) However, I’m going to focus on the very concept of the Christian virtue of charity. This is defined as the concept of unlimited love and kindness. Or, to paraphrase, charity is doing something for someone else, unasked, unexpected, which makes their life a little bit better. A little bit happier.
Charity does not have to be a huge thing. We were not born to change the whole world on our own – if we had been, we would have come into the world wearing tights and a cape. We were born, however, to change OUR world. To make it that happier, better place, a little bit at a time.
We, in general, try to surround ourselves with goodness and love, and ignore or reject any evil or sadness that may be lurking. But charity challenges us not to reject or ignore those negative spaces, but to influence them, to change them,. To invite them to come into the positive place that we know as God’s children.
We experience charity as a small difference – it can be a smile, a door held open. It can be welcoming a stranger with kindness rather than with hesitation. It can be a refusal to jump to conclusions about someone else. It can be an intentional act to make someone feel comforted and comfortable.
It can also be the act of receiving charity – and being gracious about it. Jesus in the wilderness accepted the kindness and ministrations of the angels – we too are invited to accept the unlimited love and kindness of those around us.
This week I had the privilege of receiving an act of charity. On Wednesday I was in the midst of traveling home, and at one of the layovers had the chance to attend an Ash Wednesday service at the airport chapel. The place was full, and when it came to the offering I realised that I did not have any cash on me. Before I knew it, the man next to me had simply dropped a dollar bill onto my lap – and when I looked up I saw he had done the same with the woman on his other side as well. It was a tiny thing – a small gesture – the man had intended to put all this money in the offering anyway. But by silently and discretely placing a bill on our laps, we were able to feel that we were contributing. We didn’t have the awkward moment of passing the plate on without adding anything to it. And we all know that THAT moment can feel uncomfortable when we’re not at home. Nearer the end of the service, I made a point of thanking him aloud, and he simply and politely shrugged it off – I was just the nice thing to do, he said. But I was aware of the gift that had been given – and that I had taken part in. This man had practiced true charity – he had changed the world by giving just a tiny bit – a tiny bit of money, a tiny bit of dignity, and tiny bit of compassion. And so the world was a tiny bit better because of this nameless man. And my life is a tiny bit better because I got to witness, and receive, this act of kindness, of charity.
And so I invite us all to continue these types of acts of charity – acts of unlimited love and kindness – to those we see around us. We don’t do these things to be acknowledged, or even known – I’m sure my airport friend would be mortified if he knew he was in a sermon this morning – but we do these things simply because we can do them, to make the world a little bit better. And we receive these things because we recognise that someone else is trying to make the world a better place, too. So whatever your heart is calling you to do this Lent, to demonstrate love and kindness, I encourage you to do it.
So throughout fasting, and prayer, and charity, I pray that we might all endure throughout this season of Lent in such a way that when we emerge at Easter we are truly prepared to celebrate the joyful resurrection of Christ in our lives. I pray that we journey these 40 days with intention, with care, with purpose. I pray that at the end of our 40 days, we may recognise our appropriate response to Jesus’ command to “repent, and believe in the good news.”
28 February 2012
Stewardship Sunday (5th after Epiphany)
It’s that time of year again. It’s Gift Sunday, or Stewardship Sunday. So I want to challenge you to think about what it means to be good stewards of something. I know that most people hear the word ‘stewardship’ and feel financially imposed upon – I once had someone tell me that I had no right to discuss financial matters in the church because Jesus NEVER would have allowed it. (For the record, Jesus talks about money almost 30 times; more than anything else except the Kingdom of God, more often than of Heaven and Hell combined. 11 of 39 parables, and one in 7 verses in Luke’s Gospel speak of money).
So – let’s get right into it. Money. How about money planning – budgeting - how do you make a budget?
Well, you start with your income. Whatever you earn, through job, rental properties, pensions, allowances, gifts, etc. It’s pretty basic, and it’s what you’ve got to start with – and you usually have a decent idea of what the number is going to be.
So let’s turn to expenses. This is the more variable part of the process. So, you need to budget for things like housing, mortgage or rent. Then there’s the car (payments, gas, repairs and maintenance, AutoPac… they’re expensive beasts!) You have to budget for food, utilities, insurance, taxes. Then there’s smaller things like clothing, medication, loan payments, self care (toiletries, etc.), eating out, entertainment, gifts, vacations, and other fun stuff.
So, if your budgeting is anything like mine, the income is a finite number. I’m not independently wealthy. And so the expenses need to be an infinite number as well – in an ideal world the income is not less than the expenses – that’s where people go into debt, which is (in my basic financial knowledge) not a good thing.
So how do you budget? You set your priorities. What you spend your money on identifies what is the most important to you. I try to spend my money on the big stuff first – and I identify big stuff as housing, food, car, loan payments, etc. These things need to be paid first, partly because they’re the biggest amounts, and partly because they’re essential (not optional) – and if I forget this, the bank will happily remind me. Then I can use whatever’s left to identify my smaller priorities like books and dog toys.
I think most people budget something like this – we all recognise that we could buy all the gaming systems and DVDs and books that we wanted to with our money, but without a home to put them in, it would be pointless. We could choose to spend all our money eating out every day, getting fancy haircuts and wearing designer clothes, but if we ignore purchasing our medications, we may not be around long enough to enjoy it.
Our budgets showcase our priorities. They say a LOT about us, about what means the most to us in dollars and cents. And, just as loudly, they identify what does not hold a significant role in our lives by showing what we do not spend our money on.
So let’s think about a different type of budgeting for a moment… let’s think about how we spend our time.
Again, what we have to start with is rather firmly set. Each day we have 24 hours, each week is 7 days, etc. We cannot add to this no matter what we do, so we have to work within these finite parameters.
So how do we spend our time? Well, the average work day is about 8 hours, or one third. Again, not being independently wealthy, most of us need to work in order to support our lifestyles. Add to that our sleeping… we need to sleep, we don’t function well without it, our health will fail. And this is about another 7-8 hours, or another third of our day.
So what else do we do with our time? We cook and eat, and how long we spend preparing and eating food indicates how important this area of our lives is to us – fast food is not a great indicator of health. We spend our time getting some exercise – at least in an ideal world we do – recently a Toronto-based doctor challenged folks to find the ‘magic health pill’ by limiting their sitting and sleeping to only 23.5 hours per day. We spend time with family and friends, we spend time running errands and doing chores. We spend time doing our hobbies, and we spend time being entertained – the average North American spends 6 hours a day in front of computer or TV. That’s one quarter of a day being entertained.
Well – with all of that going on in our lives every day, it’s no wonder we feel we don’t have much time left!
So. When do you pray?
How much time do you budget for time with God?
Some of you today will of course be able to identify your daily prayer time; but others will have missed it, barely even noticed that it wasn’t in that list of daily things to do. And some folks we encounter will make excuses for why they don’t pray daily – the most common one I’ve heard is that they simply don’t have the time.
I don’t believe that though – the reality is not that there IS no time, but that folks are not TAKING the time for prayer. And when that happens, it means that they do not put prayer, intentional God-time, as a priority in their lives. Because we know that our priorities are shown through how we budget – be it money or time or skills, or anything.
So imagine if we took time for God. Imagine going one step further, to intentionally MAKE time for God in every aspect of our busy lives. Imagine if we gave back our gifts of skills, talents, time, as well as financial support for the mission and ministry of the church. If we MADE time to focus how we give our talents to the church; how we represented our love for God through our actions in the community; how we demonstrated what was most important in our lives not just by words but by our actions, by our very beings. Imagine if the whole world could see that God is a top priority for us, simply by seeing how we gave back to God
This type of giving, of all areas of our lives, would take a shift in thinking for some people – it would cause them to re-examine not just their pocketbook, but their priorities. It could mean a shift is necessary – maybe cutting back on something else in order to properly add in God. And who better to teach us about finding that balance than Jesus – our great teacher demonstrated that time spent in prayer is time well spent. In the midst of healings and teachings that were being demanded of him in today’s Gospel, Jesus got up early and went to pray. And not just a quick prayer, either – it was still dark when he got up, and he went out to a deserted place. His disciples had to hunt for him, and when they finally did they revealed that ‘everyone’ had been looking for him. It was a good amount of time that Jesus spent in prayer, and his followers learned from his example. Pray, then act. There was a lot of work to be done, but a lot of prayer to be done as well. And Jesus made the time for it. His time-budget identified prayer as a top priority, so much so that he gave up other things in order to accommodate it.
Our other readings today also show clear dedication to putting God first.
Imagine what Isaiah’s budget must have been like – here’s a man who is SO excited about God that he can’t fathom other people’s complacence. “Have you not heard? Have you not known?” he exclaims – it’s all about God! Here is a man who is giving of his whole being – mind, body and spirit, to celebrate the wondrous gifts that God has given. He’s making his time and his resources available to spread God’s message of love because it is a priority for him.
Imagine how Paul’s budget would have looked like when he shares his energy in the letter to the Corinthians – he has identified that he gives his life, using his funds, his education, his talents all together so that he might proclaim the Good News to anyone who will listen, “becoming all things to all people … for the sake of the gospel, to share in its blessings.”
So… what does your budget look like? How much have you prioritised God in how you spend your time and energy and resources? And how do you want your budget to look like? Does that fit what the reality is? If not, then imagine how it could be, and what you can do to re-arrange your priorities to make it that way. Make a budget – a financial budget, a time budget, a spiritual gift budget. Pray on it, then act on it. Celebrate God’s Glory in your life and in the world around you by identifying God as a main priority in your life. Because that is what stewardship is all about – caring so much about a community that you can’t imagine not being actively involved in its life.
And that is what we celebrate here in the church this Stewardship Sunday. We celebrate that we have carefully, prayerfully, budgeted for God as a priority. Or, as the psalmist said, “Praise the LORD! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.”
So – let’s get right into it. Money. How about money planning – budgeting - how do you make a budget?
Well, you start with your income. Whatever you earn, through job, rental properties, pensions, allowances, gifts, etc. It’s pretty basic, and it’s what you’ve got to start with – and you usually have a decent idea of what the number is going to be.
So let’s turn to expenses. This is the more variable part of the process. So, you need to budget for things like housing, mortgage or rent. Then there’s the car (payments, gas, repairs and maintenance, AutoPac… they’re expensive beasts!) You have to budget for food, utilities, insurance, taxes. Then there’s smaller things like clothing, medication, loan payments, self care (toiletries, etc.), eating out, entertainment, gifts, vacations, and other fun stuff.
So, if your budgeting is anything like mine, the income is a finite number. I’m not independently wealthy. And so the expenses need to be an infinite number as well – in an ideal world the income is not less than the expenses – that’s where people go into debt, which is (in my basic financial knowledge) not a good thing.
So how do you budget? You set your priorities. What you spend your money on identifies what is the most important to you. I try to spend my money on the big stuff first – and I identify big stuff as housing, food, car, loan payments, etc. These things need to be paid first, partly because they’re the biggest amounts, and partly because they’re essential (not optional) – and if I forget this, the bank will happily remind me. Then I can use whatever’s left to identify my smaller priorities like books and dog toys.
I think most people budget something like this – we all recognise that we could buy all the gaming systems and DVDs and books that we wanted to with our money, but without a home to put them in, it would be pointless. We could choose to spend all our money eating out every day, getting fancy haircuts and wearing designer clothes, but if we ignore purchasing our medications, we may not be around long enough to enjoy it.
Our budgets showcase our priorities. They say a LOT about us, about what means the most to us in dollars and cents. And, just as loudly, they identify what does not hold a significant role in our lives by showing what we do not spend our money on.
So let’s think about a different type of budgeting for a moment… let’s think about how we spend our time.
Again, what we have to start with is rather firmly set. Each day we have 24 hours, each week is 7 days, etc. We cannot add to this no matter what we do, so we have to work within these finite parameters.
So how do we spend our time? Well, the average work day is about 8 hours, or one third. Again, not being independently wealthy, most of us need to work in order to support our lifestyles. Add to that our sleeping… we need to sleep, we don’t function well without it, our health will fail. And this is about another 7-8 hours, or another third of our day.
So what else do we do with our time? We cook and eat, and how long we spend preparing and eating food indicates how important this area of our lives is to us – fast food is not a great indicator of health. We spend our time getting some exercise – at least in an ideal world we do – recently a Toronto-based doctor challenged folks to find the ‘magic health pill’ by limiting their sitting and sleeping to only 23.5 hours per day. We spend time with family and friends, we spend time running errands and doing chores. We spend time doing our hobbies, and we spend time being entertained – the average North American spends 6 hours a day in front of computer or TV. That’s one quarter of a day being entertained.
Well – with all of that going on in our lives every day, it’s no wonder we feel we don’t have much time left!
So. When do you pray?
How much time do you budget for time with God?
Some of you today will of course be able to identify your daily prayer time; but others will have missed it, barely even noticed that it wasn’t in that list of daily things to do. And some folks we encounter will make excuses for why they don’t pray daily – the most common one I’ve heard is that they simply don’t have the time.
I don’t believe that though – the reality is not that there IS no time, but that folks are not TAKING the time for prayer. And when that happens, it means that they do not put prayer, intentional God-time, as a priority in their lives. Because we know that our priorities are shown through how we budget – be it money or time or skills, or anything.
So imagine if we took time for God. Imagine going one step further, to intentionally MAKE time for God in every aspect of our busy lives. Imagine if we gave back our gifts of skills, talents, time, as well as financial support for the mission and ministry of the church. If we MADE time to focus how we give our talents to the church; how we represented our love for God through our actions in the community; how we demonstrated what was most important in our lives not just by words but by our actions, by our very beings. Imagine if the whole world could see that God is a top priority for us, simply by seeing how we gave back to God
This type of giving, of all areas of our lives, would take a shift in thinking for some people – it would cause them to re-examine not just their pocketbook, but their priorities. It could mean a shift is necessary – maybe cutting back on something else in order to properly add in God. And who better to teach us about finding that balance than Jesus – our great teacher demonstrated that time spent in prayer is time well spent. In the midst of healings and teachings that were being demanded of him in today’s Gospel, Jesus got up early and went to pray. And not just a quick prayer, either – it was still dark when he got up, and he went out to a deserted place. His disciples had to hunt for him, and when they finally did they revealed that ‘everyone’ had been looking for him. It was a good amount of time that Jesus spent in prayer, and his followers learned from his example. Pray, then act. There was a lot of work to be done, but a lot of prayer to be done as well. And Jesus made the time for it. His time-budget identified prayer as a top priority, so much so that he gave up other things in order to accommodate it.
Our other readings today also show clear dedication to putting God first.
Imagine what Isaiah’s budget must have been like – here’s a man who is SO excited about God that he can’t fathom other people’s complacence. “Have you not heard? Have you not known?” he exclaims – it’s all about God! Here is a man who is giving of his whole being – mind, body and spirit, to celebrate the wondrous gifts that God has given. He’s making his time and his resources available to spread God’s message of love because it is a priority for him.
Imagine how Paul’s budget would have looked like when he shares his energy in the letter to the Corinthians – he has identified that he gives his life, using his funds, his education, his talents all together so that he might proclaim the Good News to anyone who will listen, “becoming all things to all people … for the sake of the gospel, to share in its blessings.”
So… what does your budget look like? How much have you prioritised God in how you spend your time and energy and resources? And how do you want your budget to look like? Does that fit what the reality is? If not, then imagine how it could be, and what you can do to re-arrange your priorities to make it that way. Make a budget – a financial budget, a time budget, a spiritual gift budget. Pray on it, then act on it. Celebrate God’s Glory in your life and in the world around you by identifying God as a main priority in your life. Because that is what stewardship is all about – caring so much about a community that you can’t imagine not being actively involved in its life.
And that is what we celebrate here in the church this Stewardship Sunday. We celebrate that we have carefully, prayerfully, budgeted for God as a priority. Or, as the psalmist said, “Praise the LORD! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.”
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