Provoking Love
Hebrews 10:23-25
November 14, 2021
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlH_HWJ-C-U
They are a discouraged group. They are “tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of Christian education, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going, tired even of Jesus… The threat to this congregation is not that they are charging off in the wrong direction; they do not have enough energy to charge off anywhere. The threat here is that worn down and worn out, they will drop their end of the rope and drift away. Tired of walking the walk, many of them are considering taking a walk, leaving the community and falling away from the faith.” [1]
That’s how Presbyterian pastor and scholar Tom Long describes the community to whom the Letter to the Hebrews was written I don’t know how much that might describe anyone you know or any congregation you know. If Dr. Long has accurately described your temptation – to drop your end of the rope and drift away – apparently you haven’t given in to it yet, because you are here today. Thank you for that.
We don’t know exactly to whom this letter was written. Probably a group of second- or third-generation Christians who have been waiting for Jesus to return. They expected their wait to be over long ago. They are tired of waiting and beginning to wonder “What is the point? What good is our faith? Do we even need to be gathering together anymore?”
The writer of this letter, whose identity is unknown, takes 13 chapters to respond, but offers one very concise answer in the verses Sam read for us, especially vs 24-25 “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another . . .”
Today is Stewardship Sunday. Most years we call this Pledge Sunday. It is the point in the year where we make individual pledges, pledges about the portion of our income that we intend to give to God in the coming year. Many of us have done that already on the Emmanuel church website. If you haven’t done so yet, please consider your own spiritual journey and your commitment to this congregation and take that step. Your pledge will be gratefully received. But instead of focusing narrowly on pledges today, I want to think about stewardship more broadly.
Stewardship has to do with organizing and managing. Stewardship means taking care of something like a large household, the arrangements for a group or the resources of a community. Financial gifts are essential to our communal life. They are one of the most tangible resources we share and they need to be cared for wisely. That’s good stewardship.
It is important for us to have honest conversations about money. It is important for us to be clear with ourselves about the claim that God has on our money if we are seeking to live in right relationship with God. But sometimes we can get focused on the money that we have or that we don’t have, so caught up in how much the budget needs or why some lines were over-spent, that we start to forget what is it we are actually stewarding. I’d like to suggest that what we are caring for, what we are managing is, in the words of this letter, “the confession of our hope” in Jesus the Christ.
Allow me to share a story about another congregation. Fred Shaw was a young student pastor in 1969, appointed to the Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church in Tatman’s Gap, Ohio when he was just 19 years old. He was so excited on his first Sunday. He had gone over his sermon several times, even practiced grand sweeping gestures for the congregation to see from the back of the sanctuary.
On that day, he walked into the whiteboard church and found three old people waiting. They were circled around a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room. It was summer and the stove was lit. (I’m guessing that is a clue that maybe he didn’t need the heat, but they did.) The three church members were siblings, close together in age with the oldest pushing 90. He said “Did I mention that these were OLD people? Especially to a 19-year-old.”
These folks were well acquainted with the ways of church. The brother took up the offering from the two sisters. Then one of the sisters counted it while the other sister dutifully witnessed it.
Somehow the gestures he had planned for the sermon shrunk. The ringing words he had prepared came limply from his tongue. They sang a song, but the piano-playing sister had cataracts so he was never certain what notes she was hitting.
He offered a perfunctory benediction and walked across the gravel parking lot to his car. The brother caught up with him, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, son, you see what we have here. Millie has rheumatism so bad she can’t get out much anymore. John has a heart problem. Wilber is just plain old. We’re about all that’s left, and I suppose the church will die when we do.” Fred thought the man was right and he chafed about wasting his time there.
He drove home, fuming about the stupidity of bishops who waste a person’s talents appointing them to a dying church. By the time he got home, he needed to vent. So, he called his grandfather, the one who had been a minister for 54 years. He listened patiently while Fred whined about his morning.
When Fred finally stopped for breath, Grandad said, “Fred, do you believe in the Communion of the Saints?”
Fred promptly answered that he did. In fact, he had just written a paper about it. Granddad said, “I didn’t ask if you knew about it. I asked if you believed it.”
Granddad went on, “If you believe in the communion of the saints, you didn’t have three old people in worship this morning. You had millions! The Communion of the Saints means that when we gather to worship, everyone who has ever worshipped God is present before the throne of grace. The people in the congregation are the physical link between those millions and the millions who will follow in the future. You just spoke to three of the most important people on earth.”
Well, Fred went back the next Sunday and told those three people who they were. He shared about the Communion of the Saints, and he had real, not practiced, gestures. They even sang with gusto and forgot about whether the notes matched or not.
This time when Fred walked onto the parking lot, the brother again caught up with him. He looked Fred in the eye, and said, “Pastor…, I’m darned if we’ll be the link that broke!”
Those three old people, who had been waiting to die with their church, went into the community over the next few weeks and brought 24 young people into the church. Fred said he didn’t do anything. Those three old people did it by knowing who they were and to Whom they always would be connected. They held fast to the confession of their hope.
In a few years, Fred finished seminary and moved on to other churches. Decades later, when Fred was close to retirement, he got an email from a pastor who was organizing a homecoming for the Mt. Olivet Church. Fred wrote back saying he was sorry that he had a prior commitment and couldn’t attend. But he had a story about when he served that church and he wanted to tell it to the pastor so that she could share it for him at the homecoming. The pastor responded immediately. She said, “Oh, I know that story well. I’m one of the twenty-four people they went out and got.” [2]
I share that story because it is a reminder to me of what we are stewarding, what we are managing, what we are caring for. We are stewarding an identity, a hope that threads its way from generation to generation. We are nurturing a faith that provokes us to love and good deeds, even when, maybe especially when, we are tired of the struggle.
Putting money in the offering plate, like we did in the old days, or sending a check in the mail or electronically on the website, like we do now, is just the surface of stewardship. That money goes to pay the electric bill so that those of in the room can be warm. It goes to pay for high-speed internet so that our signal reaches everyone on Zoom. It pays the salaries of those who serve and lead this congregation as well as our missionaries in other places. It buys music for the choir and sends children to camp and supports the work of FOCUS and many more things large and small. The money we give is vital to our ministry, which is after all, God’s ministry.
In other years, this box was where we put pledge cards. Pledge cards which had written promises with numbers and dollar signs that represented our shared ministry. Today this box offers just a few objects, a few reminders of what we have shared together this year despite our physical separation and our discouragement. Standing in for pledge cards, we find popcorn and sea glass, devotional journals, Christmas Eve candles, and fabric prayer strips. There are so many things that can’t be put in the box which were part of our stewardship this year – like the behind-the-scenes efforts of the choir on Soundtrap, the creative ingenuity of our tech team, and the ways that you continued to show up for each other, offering encouragement with your presence in worship, in phone calls, in prayer, and in welcoming newcomers.
We make our pledges. We give the money and we manage the money, but most importantly, we steward our identity as Jesus-followers. We safeguard the hope that comes through provoking love. We curate the stories of when we were provoked to forgive, provoked to endure, provoked to compassion, provoked to love and action. This is our faithful stewardship. Thanks be to God.
[1] Thomas Long, Hebrews: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster/JohnKnox Press, 2011), p. 3
[2] Rev. Fred Shaw posted on November 1, 2021 - https://www.facebook.com/fred.shaw.56