Taking My Own Advice

My wife and daughter infrequently label one of my sermons a “keeper.” They did yesterday.  So did my congregation.  Obviously, I am not going to give it away word for word.  I will say that it was a stewardship sermon based on what I say in Preaching and Stewardship:  Proclaiming God’s Invitation to Grow.  I preached from the lectionary, using the appointed First Reading and Gospel from the Revised Common Lectionary—Isaiah 55:1-5 and Matthew 14:13-21. 

I began by asking, “How much is enough?”  I acknowledged this is a question I ask, a question we all ask.  The disciple’s answer, at least in terms of loaves and fishes, is, “Scarcely enough for ourselves.” Again, I acknowledged that this is often my answer.  It is often our answer.  I then gave Jesus’ answer: “Bring them here to me” (Matthew 14:18).  I described what Jesus did with our scarcely enough and then talked about the offering being us disciples and bringing Jesus scarcely what we have.  First, I described what Jesus does with bread and wine—Eucharist—then with our money in terms of hungry people.  God’s vision and goal are found in the reading from Isaiah.  God wants to feed everyone.  I talked about the Horn of Africa.  I talked about a stat that says every American knows ten people who are hungry—sorry I lost the link.  I told this story about a 9 year-old girl and clean water. http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/01/washington.girl.death.donations/  I talked about thousands responding to a little girl’s death and moved to how we respond to Jesus’ death.  I unpacked Jesus’ death and resurrection in terms of the gospel. I said our giving is and must be bigger than paying our congregation’s bills.  We take some of our scarcely enough for ourselves. We place it in Jesus’ hands, and Jesus uses it to feed and change the world.  It preached.