It’s Not About The Budget
Psalm 62: 5-8
Ephesians 2: 19-22
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church

Victoria Schlintz is a dear colleague who was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), Lou Gehrig’s disease, two years ago. She was told she probably had two to five years to live just weeks before she became pastor of a tiny, conflicted, rural church in Atwater, California…her first appointment as pastor of a church.

Last Wednesday my friend Victoria said, “I live as if I have no tomorrow and every tomorrow.” And then she added, “But then that’s always true when we surrender our brokenness to God.”

Victoria shared with a group of us that she believes in miracles, though it may not be the healing of her body. And she said that she has learned a lot about God’s grace in last two years.

First, she’s learned perspective: she’s learned not to see narrowly, not to give power to feelings of the moment that will pass, and not even to think about sweating the small stuff.

After the diagnosis, her doctor advised her to travel around the world, to live any unfulfilled dreams– but Victoria realized that she was doing exactly what she needed to do. And so she began her pastoral ministry in Atwater. Living with dying shows her how to live, she said, and how to give, and how to keep first things first.

Secondly, Victoria’s living into a theology of suffering.
Together she and her congregation are dealing with why bad things happen. Children asked her directly if she would get better, or if she would die. They talked theology. Last week when they were reviewing that all the parts for the children’s service were covered, one seven-year old asked, “Who gets to help the pastor walk?” Victoria said she understands what I Corinthians 4:13 means when it says, “We do not grieve as those without hope.”

Victoria said that most of all she has learned that God’s grace is more than sufficient. God is her rock – her fortress and refuge. God is the rock –from which she was hewn. God is her rock and redeemer. God’s grace is the bedrock, the sure foundation of daily decisions and of her stewardship of every gift she has.

Victoria’s disease has progressed. She cannot dress, shower, sit, stand, or walk without assistance. But she finds God’s grace is still more than sufficient. When Victoria had difficulty standing up at a public event, a member of her congregation stepped out of the crowd to help. Responding to questioning looks, this congregation member said, “My pastor has a disability. I use my gifts so she can use hers.”
That’s what stewardship is about. Using our gifts so others can use theirs. Stewardship means tending, caring for the gifts entrusted to our care by giving them away, redistributing them, sharing them in service to God and one another. Whether physical strength, speech, spiritual gifts, prayer, money, time, talents, property, …….. We follow Jesus by stepping out in faith, using our gifts so others can use theirs for the sake of the world that God so loves.

Victoria’s testimony challenges me to live as if I had no tomorrow and every tomorrow, to trust God’s sufficiency in all things. On Wednesday, when we closed our time together, she asked us to pray for her -- that she remembers to trust God’s sufficiency, and she asked us to praise God.

By surrendering our brokenness and blessedness to God, we are freed from surrendering our gifts to fear and scarcity. We are freed to live and give with joy. We are freed to live as stewards of the gift of life.

Stewardship is not about the budget.
Even Epworth’s stewardship campaign is not about the budget.
Our budget will be built on our gifts and our trust that God is at work in us and in this community.
Stewardship is about trust.

Brennan Manning wrote a beautiful book entitled Ruthless Trust. Ruthless means “without pity.”

On the very first page of his book Manning describes how this book began writing itself with a remark from his spiritual director. “Brennan, you don’t need any more insights into the faith,” he observed,” You’ve got enough insights to last you three hundred years. The most urgent need in your life is to trust what you have received.”

Let’s trust what we have already received, what we already know in our bones about living and giving.

When I’m afraid that I cannot be, have or do enough, I do not even pray, “God, help me to trust.”
I pray, “God, help me to be willing to trust.”
If I am willing, trust is a gift of God.

Manning describes,
Ethicist John Kavanaugh went to India to work for three months in Calcutta in order to find a clear answer about how to spend the rest of his life. On his first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, “And what can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she asked. He named the need that had brought him thousands of miles from home, “Pray that I have clarity.”

She said, “No, I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

Let’s hold onto the stones that our children gave us this morning as reminders to trust in God’s sufficiency, reminders to share our gifts to make soup, make community, make a world that is a fitting dwelling place for the Holy. Let’s keep these stones as reminders to step out on faith, living as if we have no tomorrow and every tomorrow. AMEN.