OS 21 Stewardship Sunday 23rd August 2009.
“This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it? ... After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.” Jn 6:60ff
This is not the most encouraging or helpful of texts on a Sunday when I am hoping to be putting forward the proposition of a stronger sense of commitment to and involvement in the Church in general, but to this particular parish and congregation specifically. That is not the easiest of tasks. Institutional ‘shooting oneself in the foot’ seems to be happening around about weekly these days. The whole idea of Church – the understanding of what being Church entails and who and what are embraced by it – is very much in dispute. The rolling sense of dispute and controversy that can be all consuming if you allow it, is never far away. Even the most far-visioned can find it only just possible to try to work these things out in the context of the local. Where we find ourselves or rather, where we choose to be. Perhaps that is all we can ask for in such times as these.
Yet we would want to reach out beyond ourselves – if only quite rightly to share some of our hopes and gifts with those who have less than we do. So the struggle goes on. It goes on because the idea of God will not go away. It goes on because the example and the actions of God primarily in the person, the teachings and the whole Holy Week saga of Jesus of Nazareth remain so compelling. And the urging and the empowering in community of what we describe as God the Holy Spirit is actually an experience that can be claimed and honoured and lived out.
To this whole unnerving situation of division and dissent, Simon Peter today responded in quiet words of faith ; “Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life…” Because that is ultimately the position each one of us is called to – even then if just about everything is in a mess – so yet we would seek, as the epistle explored this morning , to be growing together as one, as living parts of one whole, with all the care and concern that that image might imply.
Now for a story.
Once upon a time there was a city church. It was a lovely place of quiet beauty. People often came there during the day to pray or to look around. It was above all a place where people came to worship God and to be with each other as they did, especially on Sundays and big festivals. That church was well cared for and obviously much loved. Every day early in the morning a large number of people who needed breakfast came and were given whatever they wanted. There was a team of people who lived and worked there, doing all sorts of things that were good and helpful. The fact that that church was there made a real difference to the lives of many people. It was all made possible by the gifts of those both living and departed who cared about that church and about the God who was worshipped there. And everyone was thankful.
That is a very simple telling of a simple story. It is of course about us and this place. On a Stewardship Sunday when we are invited to consider again our financial support for the life and work of this parish and to make a positive response, there is information and forms available for each one of us to take away with us. And I hope you will, as we move into our time of budget planning for the year that begins for us on October 1st.
The most important indicator of the health of a parish is what is happening to what we call ‘live giving’. Year by year at St Peter’s now for many years, this indicator has been rising. In a healthy parish with a range of resources available to it, including investments and rentals, this ‘live giving’ is most appropriately applied directly to the provision of ministry; the ministries of worship, service and care in and from the parish.
For us ministry also includes our taking a part in the training and preparation for those new in the ministry. No more than 20 parishes across the whole diocese can do this. Part of this challenge is able to be addressed by us through our Klingner Bequest fund which we hold for this very purpose – in the first instance to help identify and raise up ordinands from this community and this tradition for the work of the wider church. In the present context of the wider Church, this is very important. The rest of the meeting of the training ministry cost is part of this wonderful category of ‘live giving’ that I have been speaking of – the combined total of open plate, direct debit or planned giving envelopes collections that come in week by week. The information that is here for everyone at the back of the church this morning relates to this form of support for the parish.
In the 2009-2010 church financial year, we will be looking to provide the funding for at least three effective full time ministry places here at The Hill, including from February 2010 a training curacy for a newly ordained deacon and another theological student placement. This is in addition to the Vicar, the assistant priest, the hospital chaplaincy and the CHN sisters. The arrival of Bishop Graeme Rutherford to serve half time here from mid November will be part of this new structure. Fr Tat Hean Lie is already spending three days a week in parish hospital and home visiting. So over the next 6 months the various pieces of this jigsaw will come together. How readily this is able to happen depends in part on the response and the continued support that we are addressing in our stewardship material today.
The end of that little fairy tale I told earlier was to do with being thankful. I would like to think that all of us who give for the life and work of this place do so out of a sense of thanksgiving much more than out of duty or obligation, let alone for some kind of heavenly insurance policy. There are lots of good and worthy causes we can and do support. But for many of us, this one is right up there at the top. There is a heady mixture of God and place and people; worship, service and care; involvement, participation and engagement; hope, vision and a new shaping of life; skills, gifts and tasks. We are called to offer what we can, as we can and therefore together to make a difference. And we do that in thanksgiving – offering back some of what we have already ourselves received.
This is what I said last year at this time: it bears repeating.
We are surrounded by the prayers and the example of all the faithful generations that have gone before and the material fruits of their labours, but now it is our turn.
We are choosing to do this in a particular way. Faced with conflict and controversy, we are not saying circle the wagons and put up the barricades. We are rather saying that the lights are on and the doors are open. Come and join us. You are welcome. God is worshipped and God is worshipped with great care and beauty, in ways that with joy and reverence reach across the centuries. The needy are served and we seek to engage more and more with the community around us here at this end of the City. We enjoy good times together; we offer care to each other when things are tough. We have responsibilities and we would like to do things better than we do. We need continuing and growing resources to do this.
So that remains the challenge I am happy to put before us all once again this year, giving thanks for the remarkable and generous response that we have seen in the level of giving over the last year and looking very much forward to the year that is ahead, even though or perhaps especially because these are hard times, both for individuals and for parishes.
Some may well choose ‘to stop going with us’ for whatever reason. Others though do choose to join us. It is worth the struggle. The signs of a new Spring growing are all around, to be seen and embraced.
The Lord be with you.
JCD
