I do not feel
comfortable giving you an “ain’t so” story. I cannot ask you
to support St. John’s because the church has all the answers or that being
a person of faith will guarantee you success and prestige. Indeed in our current
society whose standard evaluation of practically everything is “how will
it benefit me?” the opposite will more likely take place. Often the Gospel
compels people of faith to take courageous stands that society will oppose, or
will consider hopeless and irrelevant.
The first lesson is an interesting window into the witness of courage and endurance
people of faith have exhibited throughout the ages. The passage was a later addition
to the book of Isaiah. It was written some years after the people of Israel were
allowed to return to Jerusalem after nearly a fifty-year exile. They had returned
with high hopes to rebuild the city to its former state, but various factions
began to squabble with each other as it became obvious that Israel was many years
away from any hope of regaining its former prestige among the nations in the area.
People began to lose heart. Yet an unknown student of the prophet reminded Israel
that God had invited them to be an instrument of blessing for all the people of
earth. He reminded the people of God’s great vision for the future of humanity
and expressed it in timeless language that has crossed centuries of time and chasms
of different cultures. “ They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity. The wolf and lamb
will feed together. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”
It was God’s vision that inspired the people of Israel not to give up in
despair or cynicism.
Today’s
Gospel reflects the situation in the decade following the destruction of the Temple
and the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem some forty years after Jesus’ resurrection.
For the early church the temple in Jerusalem had served as a focus for worship
and holidays. In ensuring years, Christians had to devise new structures and ways
of organizing their common life. The synagogues began kicking the Christians out.
As more non-Jews became Christians, the break between synagogue and Christians
became more pronounced. Then in the year seventy, the temple and traditional priesthood
were destroyed and the Jews began the process of redefining their own structures.
Suspicion among Jews, early Christians and the Romans contributed to a climate
of great anxiety and unease.
The
first readers of today’s Gospel lived in a volatile situation where it was
easy to retreat into a shell of selfishness or to give up on the future. Jesus
assured them, however, that while they didn’t have to have a tight hold
on the future and know what it would bring, they did have opportunity in their
day be a witness to the enduring hope of God’s Good News.
In our age, the church is no longer a central part of modern society. The outside
culture is very ambiguous; sometimes antagonistic, other times indifferent. Only
rarely is it mildly supportive. In the midst of this transition, we are called
to be faithful to the Gospel while, at the same time, we are not sure what the
future structure of the church will be. Yet Christians affirm that God is always
lifting up ways to respond. Stewardship involves knowing that God is still calling
us and people of faith do not shirk away. The future church may not be what we
anticipated when we started our own spiritual journey, but both our resurrection
and the coming age are in God’s hands. The only stewardship message I know
is that God is inviting us today to be a part in supporting the grand enterprise,
encouraged and envisioned by prophets, martyrs, and brave witnesses, known and
unknown, too numerous to count.
There is an old Chinese proverb that goes something like this. “You cannot
prevent birds of depression and pessimism from flying over your head, but at least
you can discourage them from making nests in your hair.” I was tempted to
ask the stewardship committee to send a hair net with every stewardship folder.
That is what people of faith are about— being brave stewards of the Good
News by witnessing to hope, by saying, “Yes” to God’s mission;
trusting in God’s enterprise; fending off the dirty, spoiling birds of pessimism
and despair and being proud to be connected to God’s grand enterprise on
this earth.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
As
adapted from Secrets of Becoming a Late Bloomer, Goldman and Mahler, p. 221
