Lectionary Stewardship Insights - "Radical Gratitude"
Each week, Radical Gratitude, a Stewardship Newsletter from the United Methodist Foundation of the Pacific Northwest will be posted on this page. You may subscribe directly to "Radical Gratitude" by emailing Tanya Barnett - tanya@umfnw.org.
Grace and peace,
Vin Walkup
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Rev. John Wesley:*
"Verily, FREE GRACE is all in all! ...It does not depend on any power or merit in man. ...It does not in anyway depend either on the good works or righteousness of the receiver; not on anything he has done, or anything he is. It does not depend on his endeavors. It does not depend on his good tempers, or good desires, or good purposes and intentions; for all these flow from the free Grace of God; they are the streams only, not the fountain. They are the fruits of free Grace, and not the root. They are not the cause, but the effects of it."
For Reflection
In part, we express Christian stewardship through (to use Wesley's words) our good works, endeavors, desires, and intentions. If being good stewards can't "earn" us God's Grace, what continues to call us to good stewardship?
Footnote
From John Wesley's sermon "Free Grace"; Wesley is a key founder of the United Methodist tradition. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the sixth Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary texts for May 17, 2009: Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17
"Stewardship for Wesley," writes UM Bishop Kenneth Carder, "has its origin in the nature and mission of God," rather than in money, humanitarianism, or duty. By nature, "God gives God's own self for the creation and salvation of the cosmos" and "creation itself is permeated with God's grace." God's mission, according to Bishop Carder, is that "all receive and respond to the divine grace in its full dimensions." Every time we lovingly "receive and respond" to Grace, we say to the world: this is how I/we express Christian stewardship. These substantial ideas ring through today's readings: God's Grace permeating creation in the Psalm, God's free- flowing Grace "poured out" to all people ("even on the Gentiles") in the Acts reading, and the love/Grace-filled friendship that Christ offers in the reading from John.
Could it really be that all of this Grace flows so freely? Could it really be that we don't have to do anything to earn God's Grace - that we're simply called to lovingly receive and respond to it? At first glance, today's reading from John may seem to suggest otherwise. Often we read this text to mean that God's loving Grace is contingent upon our ability to earn it: "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." (v.10) Certainly, these words have been used to support a legalistic, works-righteousness (i.e., the belief that one earns/maintains God's Grace and "friendship" through works of merit) theology. It's as if Jesus demands, "If you want to be/remain my friend, then you're going to have to earn my friendship!" But, when we trust that we can never earn God's freely given Grace and love, we start to see that Jesus' words point us toward a different, very simple reality: that we have always lived within God's loving Grace and that Grace remains ours to enjoy and share. Furthermore, in John 15:16 "Jesus reminds the disciples (including the readers) that their place with him is the result of his initiative, not theirs; relationship with Jesus is ultimately a result of God's Grace."* (Wesley would refer to this as prevenient grace.) So why should we keep Jesus' commandment to "love one another" if it's not going to earn us Grace? We keep (or "hold dear," tereo, in Greek) Jesus' commandment because it helps us to remember that we continue to abide in Grace - especially at times when we start to think otherwise. It was easy for the early Christians (represented in John) to think otherwise. Within their persecuted context, continuing to abide in Grace and to maintain friendship with Christ entailed a very deliberate choice. Their's was a context in which choosing to be a "friend of Jesus" stood in sharp contrast to being a "friend of Caesar' (as Pilate craved in John 19:12) or other "friends" with promises of security, freedom, wealth, and power in very oppressive times. In our current context so many competing entities promise us power, wealth, freedom... if we would but display our undying "friendship" to them. When we "hold dear" Jesus' commandment we are better equipped to remember the unmerited friendship that only he can offer - to remember that we always abide in a place of un-earnable Grace, peace, freedom, and abundance. What is the upshot of holding dear Jesus' commandment (which is not "burdensome," 1 John 5:3); what is the result of deliberately choosing to continue abiding in Jesus' unmerited friendship? Joy. Not the sort of joy that comes when we work to satisfy our personal appetites and anxieties - the sort that easily evaporates once new appetites and anxieties arise. It is the sort of "complete" joy that only comes when we confidently abide in Grace and stop at nothing to share this Grace-filled place with others. Footnote
*Gail O'Day, New Interpreters Bible;bold added for emphasis. Image source: Hermanoleon Clipart |
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Taking a "Sabbath" from Driving
Awareness
With vacations (needed Sabbaths) and traveling on many of our minds -- and with the high economic and ecological costs of doing so -- we have an ideal opportunity to look at our driving choices through the lens of good stewardship. Please consider these following statistics and suggestions for giving yourself, others, and God's creation a rest from driving:
Action
Footnotes
*American Automobile Association **World Watch Institute ***Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition ****Office of Brethren Witness *****World Watch Institute |
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Offertory Prayer for May 17, 2009
God, we wonder:
"Could it really be that we don't have to do anything to earn Your Grace?" And You reply, "Yes." We ask: "Could it be that we're called simply to receive Your Grace and respond to it?" And You reply, "Yes, my beloved child." Help us to trust in Your freely given Grace. Help us to know how to receive and respond to it, and let this time of offering be practice for doing so. In Your name we pray, Amen. |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference
^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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Father Michael Skelley, S.J.:*
"The fact that we continually experience God makes it very difficult for us to be explicitly conscious of experiencing God. We take our experience of the absolute mystery for granted and overlook it, precisely because it is the most pervasive and unavoidable human experience. Our chronic inability to see God in the midst of ordinary daily life is not a confirmation of God's absence but a consequence of God's radical presence."*
For Reflection
How do you intentionally open your eyes to God's "radical presence" in your daily life? When your eyes are open to this presence, how then do you respond; how then do you live your daily life?
Footnote
*Michael Skelley, The Liturgy of the World: Karl Rahner's Theology of Worship (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 72; bold added for emphasis. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the fifth Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary texts for May 10, 2009: Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25- 31; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8
Both of today's readings from John and 1 John (which some scholars believe to share the same authorship "school") provide words and images that remind us that we abide in God and that God abides in us. We cannot live apart from God's Grace -- whether described as the "true vine" or as love -- and hope to thrive.* Playing on the "fish" analogy in our greeting above, it would be like removing a fish from water and expecting it to thrive. We, as the poet Rumi said, live within "an ocean of God."
Furthermore, this ocean of God -- God's Grace and love that permeates and sustains all creation -- lives in, moves through, and becomes "perfected" (1 John 4:12) in us. In other words, we're both recipients of freely given, unmerited Grace (1 John 4:10) and channels for its expressions in the world. Such expressions take the form of "love for brother and sister" (1 John 4:20-21) and many other "fruits" that our lives bear (John 15:4-8). This is the essence of Christian stewardship: receiving Grace and allowing it to produce fruits in and through our lives. Footnote
*To be clear, the notion in John 5:2a that God "removes every branch in [Jesus] that bears no fruit," may be challenging to read if we truly believe that God is full of mercy and unlimited Grace. John is using a metaphor that would have been well known among those familiar with Hebrew scripture: a metaphor for Israel as the vine/vineyard (and God as the "vinegrower") that can be pruned/cleansed and even "removed" (e.g., Ps. 80:8-16, Isa. 5:1-7 & 27:2-6, and Ezek. 19:10-14). John's use of the metaphor has a great deal to with the context in which John wrote, especially with the early Christian community's (of the late first century) painful separation from the Jewish society to which its members belonged. |
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Allowing "Immersion" Experiences to Transform Our Lives
Awareness
As this issue of Radical Gratitude suggests, we can all become so immersed in our individual realities that we have a hard time truly appreciating God's presence and gifts in our lives or understanding the realities of others. Certainly, there are many things that we can do to open our eyes to God's "radical presence." One pathway, according to Methodist theologian Joerg Rieger, comes through encountering those in need and those who we consider different from ourselves; such encounters "shed light on our understanding of God. ...That is to say, [these encounters] are channels of God's grace that help us better understand who God is."*
Action
Many churches already engage in a number of different "immersion" experiences on a regular basis. These experiences may include hosting meals for persons who are in need; staffing foodbanks; helping with disaster relief and/or ecological restoration (locally and throughout the world); ministries of visitation; tutoring/mentoring; and many other times of "encountering those in need and those who we consider different from ourselves."
In order to immerse yourself more fully in these potentially eye-opening and life-transforming opportunities, please consider the following:
Footnote
*Joerg Rieger, "Between God and the Poor: Rethinking the Means of Grace in the Wesleyan Tradition," in The Poor and the People Called Methodists, Richard Heitzerrater (ed.) (Nashville: Kingswood Books, 2002), 96-97. |
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Offertory Prayer for May 10, 2009
O God,
You are love, and those who live in love live in You, and You live in them. May these offerings be a reflection of where it is that we truly make our living. In Your name we pray, Amen. (Based on 1 John 4:16) |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference
^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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1 John 3:16-17:*
"We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?"
Kabir:**
"I don't think there is such a thing as an intelligent mega-rich person. For who with a fine mind can look out about this world and hoard what can nourish a thousand souls?"
Footnotes
*This text is one of the Revised Common Lectionary readings for this coming Sunday. **Kabir (c.1440-1518) was a poet, musician, and religious reformer from India. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the fourth Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary texts for May 3, 2009: Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
On May 3rd,, many churches will celebrate "Good Shepherd Sunday" and explore the protective, shepherding images that Psalm 23 and John 10 suggest. These images convey those aspects of God's nature that provide the rest, care, nourishment, and Sabbath that every living thing requires.
But, Psalm 23:5-6 offers another protector/provider image: the image of God as household host. This is a protective image in that ancient Hebrew laws of hospitality required that hosts take their guests under their full protection. These verses call to mind God, the host, who lovingly provides a lavish "table" overflowing with Grace - the host's own gifts of life abundant, freely poured out for the delight and flourishing of all. This Psalm sings of the same host who prepared an abundant feast of manna for Israel while they wandered in the wilderness (Neh. 9:20-21). God's open, giving hand "satisfies the desire of every living thing." (Ps. 145:15-16) And, in God's household, residents "shall not want" because (to use the words of UMC Bishop Kenneth Carder), "God's economy [- a Greek word literally meaning, 'household rules' -] is one of abundance rather than scarcity. Because all creation has its origin and destiny in God, there is always enough when the resources are appropriately shared. When treated as an expression of grace, gifts multiple and are as inexhaustible as the grace of God who is their source."* By "appropriately shared," Bishop Carder is speaking specifically about the type of sharing expressed in today's 1 John 3:16-18 passage: "We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Just as God abundantly anoints our heads with oil and showers Grace upon us, we too have the delight and the responsibility to allow God's Grace (revealed through the "world's goods" and in countless other ways) to flow - unimpeded - through our lives to nourish our brothers and sisters in God's creation-encompassing household. Footnote
*From "A Wesleyan Perspective on Christian Stewardship" presented by Bishop Carder at the United Methodist Summit on Christian Stewardship, February 4-6, 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia. |
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The Hunger Site
Awareness
While God's "table of abundance" is meant for all to enjoy, about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.*
Action
If you use the Internet, you can help to share God's abundance with hungry persons by simply establishing "The Hunger Site" as your default "home page." On a daily basis you can click on the "Give Free Food" button and, at no cost to you, send food to hungry persons in countries like Bosnia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Honduras, Mozambique, Eritrea and the United States - anywhere there's a need.
To date, more than 150 million visitors have clicked to give more than 14,000 metric tons of food (almost 250 million cups of food) to hungry persons throughout the world. The staple food is paid for by The Hunger Site sponsors and distributed by America's Second Harvest and Mercy Corps. |
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Offertory Prayer for May 3, 2009
God of abundance,
Over the course of our lives You prepare for us tables of nourishment and fellowship, love and comfort; and, indeed, our "cups" overflow with Your gifts of Grace. Please receive these offerings for what they are: the natural outpouring of the gifts that You first lavish upon us. May these gifts help others enjoy Your lavish Grace as well. Image source: Hermanoleon Clipart.
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference
^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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St. Augustine of Hippo:*
"O Lord...you have made us and directed us toward yourself, and our heart is restless until we rest in you."
From Dee Dee Risher:**
"We are not content people. Indeed, there is an overwhelming cultural...bias against contentment. ...I suppose it's inevitable. Our social and economic structure has long been driven by discontent. Its survival hinges on its ability to foster in people a desire to want and consume more. In most of us, it has been successful. ...Given our worldview, a spirituality of contentment is threatening. A spirituality that would free us, creating space to exist and simply live in God, is the most radical, revolutionary spirituality one can cultivate."
For Reflection:
Through observing the Sabbath (in whatever form you regularly observe it), we can enjoy blessed "rest in God" during our lifetimes, not just after them. Have you ever felt -- even if for just a brief moment -- a sense of "rest in God"? Take time to remember and offer thanks for this opportunity. How do/might you experience such moments on a regular basis?
Footnotes
*St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions (Book 1, Chapter 1): St. Augustine lived from 354-430 C.E. **Dee Dee Risher, "A Spirituality of Contentment," The Other Side, Summer 1992; bold added for emphasis. Dee Dee Risher is a writer and former editor of The Other Side magazine. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the third Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary texts for April 26, 2009: Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48
Today's Gospel reading uses a Greek word that occurs only four times in the New Testament: pselaphao, meaning to touch, grope, or mentally seek after. The risen Jesus uses this word in reference to himself: he invites his terrified, doubting disciples to look at him and to pselaphao him. Jesus invites his disciples - wrestling with grief, confusion, and fear - to not only glance at or lightly touch him, but to grope and understand his scarred (as we read in last week's text from John 20:24-29), very real flesh.* Through their groping, Jesus somehow transforms his disciples' fear and confusion into the familiar and deeply comforting: a simple meal and a profoundly fulfilling conversation.
In times of grief, confusion, and fear for what do we grope? In these times, some of us may grope for new material things (e.g., partake in "shopping therapy"), or in other distractions, pleasures, comforts, and sources of meaning. For all of us who have attempted to satisfy the groping of our souls in such ways, we may know the sort of restlessness, debt, emptiness, and even depression that these activities can breed (rather than alleviate). When we find ourselves groping for answers, comfort, and meaning, we can remember this image from Luke: Jesus lovingly inviting his followers to grope for something that - at first - may seem strange and even repugnant. We can remember Jesus who invites his beloved followers to grope his resurrected body and the scarred, very real world through which Christ continues to reveal himself. We can still touch Christ through being in direct, compassionate relationship with the most vulnerable of creation. In accepting Christ's invitation, we may find that we are no longer alone in our soul groping. In accepting, we too may come to find ourselves suddenly resting/reclining at table with Jesus, and his/our fellow sisters and brothers, once again. Furthermore, such acceptance (at least according to Luke) precedes our work as "witnesses" (vs. 48) and God's stewards - it is a form of fertile "Sabbath" rest that precedes and allows for all other work. Footnote
*It was very important to "Luke" to declare that the risen Jesus have "flesh and bones" in order, at least in part, to refute prevalent (at that time) Docetic beliefs (i.e., that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body). Image source: Hermanoleon Clipart. |
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April 26, 2009: Native American Ministries Sunday
Awareness
"In this decade, two-thirds of Native people identify themselves, at least marginally, as Christians."* On this Native American Ministries Sunday, (April 26) consider some of the "scars" our Native American sisters and brothers have born and continue to bear:
Action
Study and Discuss:
Footnote
*All of the quotes in this "Awareness" section come from United Methodist Communication's "Dancing with a Brave Spirit: Telling the Truth about Native America, 2005-2008." |
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Offertory Prayer for April 26, 2009
God, our refuge,
Our hearts are restless until they rest in You. We thank You for this Sabbath time - this sacred break from our longings, worries, busyness, and strivings - this time to touch You once again. We pray that all of Your creation might know this kind of Sabbath rest, especially the most fragile, scarred, and broken parts of Your creation. Please accept these offerings as a sign of our intention to help extend the blessings of Sabbath to all of Your creation. In Your name we pray, Amen. |
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The following comes directly from the PNW Conference's H.A.I.L. newsletter (April 2009) . To read other articles on local churches' commitments to fair trade, please click on the newsletter link above.
World Fair Trade Day is celebrated every second Saturday of May. Endorsed by the International Fair Trade Association, consisting of over 300 fair trade organizations, World Fair Trade Day calls on all of us to participate by purchasing fairly traded products and encouraging conventional companies to sell more fairly traded goods. On last year's World Fair Trade Day, UMCOR [United Methodist Committee on Relief] launched a 12- month "100-Ton Challenge" to raise awareness of Fair Trade and significantly increase purchases. United Methodists everywhere have demonstrated their support of Fair Trade through UMCOR's Coffee Project and its partner Equal Exchange, a 100 percent Fair Trade, worker-owned co-operative. Since 2007, United Methodist purchases of coffee and cocoa increased by 19%, totaling over $1.3 million, making UMCOR the single largest partnership for sales. The "100-Ton Challenge" is heading into its final month. Your continued fair trade purchases are encouraged to help UMCOR meet its 100-ton goal by May 9th. Make your purchases now through Equal Exchange. Remember: fifteen cents of every pound of product sold through the project also support farmers through UMCOR's Sustainable Agriculture and Development Program (UMCOR Advance #982188). In addition, over 74,920 fairly traded palm stems have been ordered by United Methodists through the Eco-Palm Project, making it the second largest denominational order. Eco-palm orders totaled over 400,000 palms church-wide. |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference ^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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Wayne Muller:*
"'Remember the Sabbath' is not simply a life-style suggestion. It is a spiritual precept in most of the world's spiritual traditions - ethical precepts that include prohibitions against killing, stealing, and lying. ...How can forgetting to be restful, sing songs, and take delight in creation be as reprehensible as murder, robbery, and deceit? Why is it so important?
"Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the [summer]. If this continues for more than a season, the plant begins to die. If dormancy continues to be prevented, the entire species will die. A period of rest - in which nutrition and fertility most readily coalesce - is not simply a human psychological convenience; it is a spiritual and biological necessity... "The practice of Shabbat, or Sabbath, is designed specifically to restore us, a gift of time in which we allow the cares and concerns of the marketplace to fall away. We set aside time to delight in being alive, to savor the gifts of creation, and to give thanks for the blessings we may have missed in our necessary preoccupation with our work ...Within this sanctuary, we make ourselves available to the insights and blessings that arise only in stillness and time." For Reflection:
Why might forgetting the Sabbath (on Sundays or at another regularly observed time) be a dangerous thing? In your opinion, how might "remembering the Sabbath," be a blessing to yourself, to other people, and to God's broader creation?
Footnote
Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest (Bantam, 1999), pp. 7 & 26; bold added for emphasis. Muller is a therapist, author, ordained minister and founder of Bread for the Journey, a grassroots philanthropic/"micro- granting" organization serving families in need. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the second Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary texts for April 19, 2009: Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
The Sunday following Easter is typically when we reflect on Jesus' first Resurrection appearances to his followers. At the same time, today's Acts reading gives us a "fast-forward" glimpse of life within the church that would grow from the witness of these (and other) followers. Verses 33-34 read, "With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold." What are the connections among witnessing the resurrection, living in a state of "great grace," and the elimination of need through radical sharing? Does one experience/action naturally flow into the next? And today, is it possible that our blessed experiences of the living Christ, the Holy Spirit, and abundant Grace might lead us directly to practices of radical sharing?
John Wesley (the key founder of the Methodist movement) felt that not only was this possible, but he used the descriptions in passages like this one in Acts as models for many of the structures he created in his new movement (especially his "select society" for those in his movement who claimed the experience of entire sanctification). In commenting on Acts 4:32-35 Wesley said, "In all ages and nations, the same cause, the same degree of grace, could not but in like circumstances produce the same effect. For whosoever were possessors of houses and lands sold them - not that there was any particular command for this; but there was great grace and great love: of which this was the natural fruit."* While some contemporary scholars are critical** of Wesley's "romantic view of Pentecostal communalism" and his belief in the "pristine nature of the New Testament church," they also realize just how much Wesley's reflections on the first church laid the foundations for discipleship and stewardship within the growing Wesleyan movement. Methodist scholar Randy Maddox writes: "Wesley came early to understand these passages to be affirming that the community present at the first Christian Pentecost was so open and responsive to the Spirit that they were unanimously and immediately transformed into full holiness of heart and life and that a primary expression of this transformation was the members' love for one another, which constrained them to hold all things in common. In good Anglican fashion he lamented the way that the later Christian church had fallen from this pristine model, and he longed for his Methodist movement to become the pioneering community that led to the church's recovery. ...For Wesley this modeling necessarily included a voluntary sharing of one's resources with the poor in order to return to the biblical ideal of holding all things in common.*** While we can be cautious not to romanticize either the early church or early Methodists, we would do well to ask ourselves if such deliberate, bold, voluntary sharing would help to free modern-day disciples from need (on the one hand) and greed (on the other) - so that all might taste God's Grace. Footnotes
*Click here to read John Wesley's explanatory notes on Acts Chapter 4. **This is to say, criticisms that remind us of factors that "romanticism" often overlooks; for example: cultural norms that may have favored the economics practiced by the "primitive church" (ones that may or may not have existed in Wesley's context or ours today), challenges that this community may have faced but may not have been reflected in this Acts' passage and other passages, and other factors. *** Randy L. Maddox, "'Visit the Poor': John Wesley, the Poor, and the Sanctification of Believers," in The Poor and the People Called Methodists, Richard P. Heitzenrater, ed., Kingswood Books, 2002, pp. 66- 67. Image source: Hermanole on Clipart. |
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"Festival of God's Creation," 2009
Awareness
The Book of Resolutions of the United Methodist Church (2004) states: "As disciples of Christ, we are called to be good stewards of God's creation. Accordingly, we call upon The United Methodist Church to adopt fresh ways to respond to the perils that now threaten the integrity of God's creation and the future of God's children. Specifically, The United Methodist Church: designates one Sunday each year, preferably the Sunday closest to Earth Day, as a Festival of God's Creation, celebrating God's gracious work in creating the earth and all living things, incorporating it into the church's liturgical calendar, and developing appropriate ways for the congregations to celebrate it..." (p. 103, emphasis added) Annually, Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 - so, this year, a Festival of God's Creation could fall on April 19 or 26.
Action
Consider incorporating materials from some of the following sources into your worship on this "Festival" day or within other worship services/events throughout the year:
Image: Earth Day celebration at Plymouth UCC, Seattle; taken by Pete Dorman.
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Offertory Prayer for April 19, 2009
Loving God,
At those sacred times when we feel the full impact of Your Grace, Your Resurrection, Your boundless Love... we find ourselves naturally doing odd things like sharing more, living less fearfully and more abundantly, loving more freely. Help us again to feel the full impact of Your blessings and let our offering this Sabbath be just one of many odd things that we do throughout this week. In Your name, Amen. |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference ^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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Dr. Larry Rasmussen:*
"Christians, unlike Jesus, ...don't know when Sabbath begins. We think it begins by dawn's early light on the first day of the week, the Big Work Week. Jesus knew better. Of course Sabbath begins at dusk, [as it does in Jewish tradition,] when shadows rise and candles and quiet and night and God come. ...For it is by night and candlelight that we cease our cravings and are taught to open ourselves, allow ourselves to be empty and receptive. Our egos, busy all day and all week, somehow miraculously recede in darkness... Of course Sabbath comes at eventide, when the soft touch of hands held in prayer, or subdued conversation over a good meal, says 'welcome,' 'shalom,' and 'be well' to every tired cell in the body. Sabbath may in fact be the one gift that could save this society, because it is the gift of rest and inefficiency, life at ease well before life is morning and new light.
"Jesus rose by dawn's early light, the Christians say. Yes, but only after, and maybe because, he faithfully lived by Sabbath, with its final trust in God and its confidence in Jubilee. Or did Jesus rise at dawn? He rose on the third day. And in those days 'day' began at dusk, as true living does. Maybe, just maybe, then, Jesus rose in the beauty of blackness. By dawn he was long gone." For Reflection:
What does the word Sabbath mean to you? Over the next fifty days this Easter season, how would you like to "remember" and observe it?
Footnote
*Larry Rasmussen, Earth Community, Earth Ethics, Orbis, 1998; bold added for emphasis. Dr. Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, emeritus, Union Theological Seminary. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for Maundy Thursday, the Triduum, and Easter Sunday
Revised Common Lectionary texts for Maundy Thursday (April 9, 2009): Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Good Friday (April 10) : Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25; John 18:1-19:42 Easter Vigil (April 11): Genesis 1:1-2:2; Psalm 33; Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18, 8:6-18, 9:8-13; Psalm 46; Genesis 22:1-18; Psalm 16; Exodus 14:10- 15:1; Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18; Isaiah 55:1-11; Isaiah 12:2-6; Baruch 3:9-15, 3:32-4:4; Psalm 19; Ezekiel 36:24-28; Psalm 42; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 143; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Psalm 98; Romans 6:3-11; Psalm 114; Mark 16:1-8 Easter Day (April 12): Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18 or Mark 16:1-8 With so many sacred texts -- some of the most powerful in our tradition -- we can find many opportunities to grow our understanding of what it means to be God's stewards. On Maundy Thursday, we see the model steward in Jesus as he washes his disciples' feet and holds this act up as an embodiment of his command (Maundy is from the Latin mandare, "to command") to love one another. The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary notes, "This is his final lesson to his disciples; and the Eucharist [which, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, occurs on the day of the Resurrection] is, if nothing else, his instrument by which and through which he serves us with his whole life and we serve one another in sharing servanthood of all that we are and possess."
On Good Friday, we see the model steward in Jesus as he uses his last breaths to serve others -- to weave back together his beloved household (uniting Mary, likely a vulnerable widow, with her new "son" who would care for her) torn apart by the religious and political powers he opposed. But, perhaps most importantly as we move towards the Resurrection, we see the model steward in Jesus as he declares (in John 19:30), "It is finished," bows his head, and then gives up his spirit. Barbara Brown Taylor writes: "There was one more thing that was finished that day, and that was the separation between Jesus and God. The distance was mostly physical, according to John, and it was only temporary, but when Jesus gave up his spirit his thirst was slaked. He dove back into the stream of living water from which he had sprung and swam all the way home. ...It was the sabbath, his turn to rest. His part was over. His work was done."* The Resurrection announces and celebrates Jesus' full reunion with God -- the sort of communion that we've been working towards all Lent and, perhaps, all of our lives. Easter -- the "Feast of Feasts," the Sabbath of all Sabbaths in the Christian tradition -- celebrates the time(s) when we allow ourselves to rest solely within God's Grace once again. Because Jesus blazed the trail for us (and the Holy Spirit goes with us on the journey), we can allow ourselves finally to come home and be enveloped by God's Grace. While so much of "stewardship" focuses on work, on Easter and within the Easter season stewardship focuses on rest and Sabbath -- on simply rejoicing in God's "very good" work around, within, and through us. We celebrate just being at home in God, with each other, and with God's creation. Just as the Genesis 1:1-2:2 creation account (read on the Easter Vigil) suggests, this sort of rest (after "it is finished") is holy: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished...And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it..." (2:1-3). Easter reminds us of God's blessing of the Sabbath and of the life-restoring balance between work and rest. Christ is risen...let us rest in Grace once again! Footnote
*Barbara Brown Taylor, Home by Another Way, Crowley, 1999; bold added for emphasis. |
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Awareness
Wayne Muller* writes: "The traditional Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown, the Christian Sabbath with morning worship. In both, Sabbath time begins with the lighting of candles. Those who celebrate Sabbath find that in this moment, the stopping truly begins. They take a few breaths, allow the mind to quiet, and the quality of the day begins to shift. Irene says she can feel the tension leave her body as the wick takes the flame. Kathy says she often weeps, so great is her relief that the time for rest has come. This is the beginning of sacred time."
Action
Footnote
*These quotes come from Muller's book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, Bantam Books, 1999, pp. 21-22. |
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Offertory Prayer for April 12, 2009
God of Good Friday, God of Easter Morning,
God of every moment: We praise You for being with us in the depths of our despair, at the pinacles of our joy, and everywhere in between. O God, continue to be with us as we journey toward Resurrection -- toward new, abundant life for all of Your beloved creation. Please bless these gifts, simple tokens of our commitment to be on this Resurrection journey with You. In Your name we pray, Amen. |
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June 23-25, 2009
San Antonio, Texas The National Association of United Methodist Foundations is pleased to sponsor this fourth annual Summer Stewardship Gathering with outstanding presenters and resources. This "Ministry Resources for Challenging Times" gathering features Lovett Weems, Ken Carter and Val Walker. All sessions will take place at Alamo Heights UMC in San Antonio.
Please follow these links to the Event Schedule and Registration Form. For more information, please contact Joyce Russell at Texas Methodist Foundation, (800) 933-5502 or jrussell@tmf- fdn.org. |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference ^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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Father Henri Nouwen:*
"God chose to manifest the fullness of divine love in a man whose life led to a humiliating death outside the walls of the city...Indeed, the one who was from the beginning with God and who was God revealed himself as a small, impotent child; as a refugee in Egypt; as an obedient adolescent and inconspicuous adult; as a penitent disciple of the Baptizer; as a preacher from Galilee followed by some simple fishermen; as a man who ate with sinners and talked with strangers; as an outcast, a criminal, a threat to his people. He moved from power to powerlessness, from greatness to smallness, from success to failure, from strength to weakness, from glory to ignominy."
For Reflection:
This Holy Week, what is one way in which you feel called to follow Jesus' model: moving from "greatness to smallness"?
Footnote
*Henri Nouwen, "The Selfless Way of Christ," Sojourners, June 1981; bold added for emphasis. Father Nouwen was a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books. |
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Stewardship reflections on readings for Palm/Passion Sunday
Revised Common Lectionary texts for April 5, 2009
Liturgy of the Palms: Mark 11:1-11; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9- 16, Philippians 2:5-11, Mark 14:1-15:47 or Mark 15:1- 39 (40-47) This week's texts are some of the richest and most central to our faith. As the UMC General Board of Discipleship suggests, with the exception of some experiential additions (e.g., a dramatic reading of the Mark passages), preacher(s) may want to consider letting the texts be today's "preacher."
At the same time, you may want to let the early Christian (pre-Pauline) hymn in Philippians serve as today's preacher. As the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary notes, "This [hymn] holds before the readers the whole sweep of the Christ event, which begins and ends beyond time-space. ...By singing this hymn, Christians celebrated also their involvement in the Christ event, their being grasped by this movement." And, in this hymn, we find the "whole sweep" of Holy Week as well:
These movements -- glorification/rejoicing to humiliation/death/emptiness/mourning to resurrection/rejoicing/exaltation once again -- define the ever-unfolding story of our experiences of and responses to God's Grace. These movements define our lives as stewards of God's mysteries. Image: "The Lord's Table of Thrid Millennium" by Brazilian artist Corina Ferraz.
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Awareness
Theologian Frederick Buechner said, "Neither the hair shirt nor the soft birth will do. The place where God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
Action
During this Holy Week:
(1) Identify one "deep gladness" in your life. Daily, take time to relish and thank God for this gift of grace. (2) Identify one "place" in which you most clearly feel the "world's deep hunger" - a country, person, species, community, habitat, etc. Then:
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Offertory Prayer for April 5, 2009
Dear God,
Help us to be more like Jesus who, we are told, "though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." In this time of offering, help us to become a little bit emptier of our worries, our possessions, our obsessions, our selves so that we might emerge from this Holy Week a little bit fuller of You. In Your name we pray, Amen. (Inspired by Philippians 2:5-11) |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference ^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430):
"God is always trying to give good things to us,
but our hands are too full to receive them." For Reflection:
As we move toward Holy Week, are there things that you feel called to "release" in order to enjoy God's gifts of grace more fully?
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Stewardship reflections on readings for the fifth Sunday in Lent
Revised Common Lectionary texts for March 29, 2009: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 51:1-12, Hebrews 5:5-10, John 12:20-33
A clean and receptive "heart" is a central image in today's readings from the Hebrew Scriptures. "Heart" did not mean the seat of one's emotions (this was the intestines) nor was it something separate from "head" or intellect. Rather, in both the Jeremiah and Psalm passages leb is the Hebrew word for heart - meaning one's inner- most soul/mind/understandings/conscience/place of values; it is the inner-most core of the whole people God is creating us to be.
"Clean" in Psalm 51:7 would mean a heart purged (which literally means "un-sinned") by God; scrubbed by God with a cleansing agent as potent as the hyssop herb (used in the purification of lepers). This is what the Psalmist desires: a heart that has been washed of all superfluous debris that separates it from God and others. It is a heart now empty and receptive enough to welcome true joy again; it is ready to return to a state of "natural communion" with God and others; ready to know the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All of our chosen Lenten practices have this cleaning potential. Marjorie J. Thompson writes: "All forms of spiritual discipline help us to make more space for God in our lives. Fasting and prayer, the traditional disciplines of Lent, seem to be two of the most effective tools in clearing away our self-preoccupation so we can be more responsive to God's life in and through and around us. Perhaps we can think of it this way: fasting is a form of interior 'spring cleaning.' It involves real labor, but how satisfying and freeing it is to get rid of all that unnecessary stuff!"* In the text from Jeremiah, the prophet's words announce the tender Grace that Israel will come to know now that their hearts have been "rid of unnecessary stuff" - their forgetfulness of the original covenant of Grace and their actions that have deprived one another of Grace. By their own hands (e.g., breaking the covenant that was established to extend God's Grace to all) and by the hands Babylonians (who beseiged Israel's Southern Kingdom, Judah; destroyed the Temple; and sent its peoples into exile), the Israelites were not only purged, but utterly emptied. Whether they chose this state or not, their hearts were now ready to receive God's most intimate covenant. And God - always abounding in Grace and steadfast love - readily enters into the core of their beings. Footnote
*Marjorie Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), pp. 80-81; bold added for emphasis. |
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Cleaning out the closet
Awareness
While John Wesley believed that all people needed "decent apparel," he grew worried about his fellow Methodists who purchased clothing to "nourish pride or vanity" and "tempt others to sin."* With this in mind, consider these modern-day statistics:
Action
For the rest of Lent, consider these questions (you may want to apply them to other "things" lying around your home or church as well):
Footnotes
* See, for example, Wesley's sermons "On Dress" and "The Good Steward." ** Juliet B. Schor, Boston College (Boston). *** Harper's Index, December 2004 www.harpers.org. |
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Offertory Prayer for March 29, 2009
Create in us clean hearts,
O God, and fill them with new and right spirits -- spirits that are able to receive Your Grace more fully and share Your gifts of life more freely. Please accept these offerings as expressions of our desire to make greater space for You within our hearts and our entire lives, this very day. In Your name, Amen. (Inspired by Psalm 51:10-12) |
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"Christian Stewards...
As expressions of their awareness, stewards choose to enter into active partnership with God and others to lovingly care for every gift of grace that God entrusts to them. As stewards grow in this partnership, every dimension of their lives becomes a witness of the living Christ and a channel for God's grace poured out to all." -The "working definition" of Christian stewards, presented by the Stewardship Emphasis, PNW Annual Conference ^"Stewardship in Season":
All materials in "Radical Gratitude" were researched and prepared by the PNW Annual Conference's Stewardship Emphasis staff and advisory group. You are welcome to forward and/or reproduce these materials for church use (please cite "Radical Gratitude," www.umfnw.org). We encourage all friends and members of the Conference to share stewardship stories, quotes, ideas, and questions with us -- so that we can share them with other "Radical Gratitude" readers. Thank you.
Please send your stewardship stories and quotes, and comments to: tanya@umfnw.org
Phone: (800) 488-4179
Web site and "Radical Gratitude" archives: http://www.umfnw.org
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