Building Up the Saints

Beloved Saints of God, grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God who Creates, Jesus who saves, and the Holy Spirit who walks with us. Amen.
Last week we celebrated and gave thanks for the saints who gathered at the table. The table is a wonderful metaphor for the kingdom of God. A place where we come to be fed, to enjoy one another’s company, to give thanks, and to share what we have with one another. A Generous Table is the theme of this year’s Stewardship emphasis. If you’ve seen the posters in the building and in your mailings you’ve perhaps noted that in addition to Saints at the Table, we have three other ways of looking at the Generous Table this month….Building up the Saints, which is the theme for this day; A Wider Table, which will be the focus of Bishop Wee’s words to us next week; and A Generous Table will enfold the final Sunday of this month, when we return our Intent of Giving cards to the table. Today you will receive a marvelous tool to help us understand how our stewardship enables our ministry for the sake of the Gospel. And today’s theme: Building Up the Saints, reminds us why we do this work in the first place. If you grew up in the Church, and even if you didn’t, perhaps there was a person whose support of you built you up. Strengthened your capacity to believe….in God or in yourself or in the inherent goodness that exists in the world. We all need those people. And we need them even after we’re all grown up. And this work happens in other places….in schools and clubs and among friends and family. But it is the work of the church that we build one another up so that the love of God can be shared and be alive and be present in the world. This is how the church makes a difference. This is why this building up matters. In Ephesians 4 Paul describes the way that gifts are shared in community. Paul writes ”that some are apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. These gifts were given to equip fully the holy ones for the work of service, and to build up the body of Christ.” These very gifts that we share are the gifts we use to build up the body of Christ, the saints, so that we are equipped for service. And that service shares the love of Christ. In the Stewardship materials you receive today, I’ve written that one of the beautiful truths about this congregation is that we are relatively small and yet we make a BIG difference in the world around us. In fact, I would argue that we make a bigger difference than congregations many times our size, (although it’s not a contest, after all.) My point being, that our existence here on the corner of 132nd and Greenwood matters to this community. The building up of the saints around us is not only a vital part of what we do but of how this neighborhood exists and lives together. All of this being said, it can be very easy to be distracted by other things. In the Gospel reading from Luke today the Sadducees engage Jesus in one of the strangest conversations we find in Scripture. They ask who a woman who has married a series of brothers will be married to when they all die and get to heaven. Why does this even matter? It’s important to remember that as odd as this notion sounds to us, Levirate marriage, marrying the brother of one’s deceased husband, was common in Jesus’ day. It often was the only way a woman had of being safe and sheltered. In many cultures, even today, it is a way of keeping a family or a clan in tact. But what a ridiculous question to ask: Who will she be married to in heaven? And this is essentially what Jesus says to them. He gives them a paragraph of a lecture and never does answer their question directly. Instead, he shows them that this detailed distraction simply does not matter. It is not what is important to their life together. In these days, the days in which we live, it is hard not to be distracted by, well….everything. The anxiety with which we move in the world is higher than I have ever recalled. (And that was before Alabama lost yesterday). The Church is not immune from this. We wonder if we will continue to exist as a Church (Big C) and as a congregation in light of statistical evidence that fewer and fewer people are part of a community of faith. Being present in worship is clearly not a priority for most people anymore. I mean there are so many other options: brunch and football and soccer and our children’s activities. What will the church look like in 10 years, we wonder, or even next year. Beloved, the Church, as long as we continue to engage in our relationship with the Triune God, will continue to share the love of Christ in the world. To be sure, there will be new ways of being church together. And we shouldn’t be afraid of that. On the contrary, we should rejoice and watch with excitement and curiosity. In our own synod, Northwest Washington, there are congregations whose primary gathering time begins with a meal (Emmaus Table, at Green Lake); there are others whose worship is centered around the act of hiking through Creation….God’s original cathedral (Echoes). Maybe we will have the chance to help birth something new some day. Or rather, maybe we will have the chance to birth something new again. This congregation has a history of birthing new things….of building up the saints. We exist because we birthed a congregation out of a Sunday School. We birthed homes for 59 families. We have birthed interns into pastors. We have birthed Steve into a seminarian. Who knows what might be next? And this is why your support….in the time you give and the financial support you share and the gifts and talents you bring to the table….the generous table. This is why they matter in the world. In a world where the BIG thing….the BIG corporation or the BIG non profit or the BIG mega church or the BIG cathedral is celebrated….too often we forget that some of the greatest gifts…some of the greatest signs of the Kingdom on earth…..come in small packages. The early church was small enough to worship in homes. But they were faithful followers of Jesus. Here is the reality, statistically being born out across the United States and Europe: congregations are smaller. And it’s so tempting to say that this means they are dying or they are ineffective or irrelevant or insignificant. But dear ones, look again. People in this neighborhood depend on you for food and homes and places to meet. They depend on this congregation to speak truth to power and speak out against injustice. These are not small things. These are things we do because the Gospel compels us. Stewardship, you have heard me say every year at this time, is what we do with what we have. The ministry that happens from this place deserves our support. The Gospel deserves our support. We do not do it for ourselves, but we do it so that the light of Christ might shine forth into a broken and battered and anxious world. I invite you in the weeks ahead to a prayerful and careful look at how we do ministry in this place. The facts and figures are all in this wonderful pamphlet. But the story is told on the faces of families who come home to a warm apartment and whose children can feel safe here. The story is told by those people who gather here multiple times a week and find a safe place to share their deepest struggles. The story is told when a person who received lunches for years here gets a job at last, and comes back with a grocery bag of food to donate….to give back just as he was given. The story is told when we buy a hotel room for a sick person to get them off of the street for just one night of good rest. Or a bus ticket to get them home. This building up of the saints…..it matters. And it only exists when we support it. It’s how we follow Jesus, the shepherd of us all and the one who holds all of our stories. Thanks be to God and let the Church say…Amen.