Preaching in August is for the salt-of-the-earth folks who come every Sunday whether or not you are having a four-course coffee hour.  It is also for the folks on vacation that you would never see otherwise; but they happen to be in town for the weekend.  It is for the people who come in their boat shoes, ready to grab their fishing poles and birding glasses just after the service ends.  And is for the people who do not have anywhere to go, who have no invitation to join a friend on a deck for a cookout, whose children are distant or deceased or in prison, and whose parents never planned a family trip.  The church needs its August preachers, and the opportunities to speak about stewardship are diverse and important.

August is a month of transitions.  It is a time for children to head to clothing stores and select back-to-school clothes that aren’t too big, yet will last through the season.  It is time for college students to shop, pack, get in touch with friends, choose books to take along, and gather all the addresses to remember.  It is time for those on an academic schedule to say farewell to the slower pace as well as the heat of the season.  It is also time for many who are short of money to worry about how to finance the expenses of the fall, and struggle with being unable to provide for families as they wish they could.

August can be a time of disappointment.  For those without children, the contrasts with a child-oriented culture must be reckoned with: as parents get their offspring ready to go back to school, train for football, field hockey, and gymnastics, and others sit at home with the spare room still empty.  Some have undertaken heroic measures to conceive children while others have gone through great struggles and expense to try to adopt a child.  Nonetheless, many remain childless and this may be a source of regret heightened by the activities of others at this time of year.  August is also a season for elders to remember times when there was so much to do, and perhaps grieve over how much things have changed.  For some, it is a season to sit in loneliness as family constellations have shifted.

On the other hand, August is a month of fertility.  In New England, our gardens are rich with corn and squashes and chare; the basil and cilantro are exploding in the fields.  The beets in New England are many-colored and rich, and the August cucumbers are multitudinous.  Such abundant harvest speaks to us of stewardship as we seek to find ways to care for the land and our bodies.

August is also a time for thinking about stewardship for the world’s people and cultures, especially with the anniversary of the explosion of nuclear weapons on two August days in the twentieth century.  The devastation of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, 1945, was a sobering call to a shift in the world’s stewardship priorities.  There is much to be pondered as we consider the relationship of people to lands and civilizations.  Economic stewardship is one approach to the practical implication of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the costs to rebuild these cities were enormous.  Human stewardship is another challenge.  In Japan today, there are still many Hibakusha- citizens burned by radiation who continue to live in hiding, ashamed, and covering their injuries with clothing and darkness.  These living sufferers, of course, are in addition to the hundreds of thousands who lost their lives.  Ecological stewardship is still another approach to nuclear weapons, as we think of the environmental effects of war.

If we are to define stewardship as the overseeing of resources and treasures, then the August lectionary passages are rich with chances to reflect on the theme.  Stewardship of each other, of each other’s lives and emotions, of human sexuality, of money, of individual spiritual development, and of land, are among the themes to be raised.

August 2, 2009

2 Sam 11:26-12:13a;
Ps 51: 1-12

In this painfully famous story from the Hebrew scriptures, David has fallen in love with a married woman, Bathsheba, and has sent her husband to the front lines of battle, so that he would be killed and she would then be “single” and available to him.  His plan backfires, of course.  Nathan confronts him for his impulsive and lustful behavior, he repents and is punished.

The story and the Psalm that accompanies it with its confession bring up several key themes for stewardship.  Cain’s questions from the early chapters of Genesis rise again: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer is, of course, “Yes, you are.” David has broken no fewer than four of the Ten Commandments.  Breaking the sixth commandments, he ahs plotted to kill Uriah.  Breaking the seventh, he has committed adultery. Breaking the ninth, he has deceived Uriah.  Breaking the tenth, he has coveted his neighbor’s wife.

The stewardship themes of this story revolve around a challenge to citizens to take care of each other.  Surely many people in our congregations have felt just as David did, watching Bathsheba bathing in her quiet reverie.  If we are to look after other as part of our faith practice, to be stewards of our own sexuality and of each others’ lives, then we must turn to God in prayer when lust overcomes our heart and not act in impulsive ways.

When I counsel couples preparing for marriage, I am very specific about the loyalty vows and what they mean, as couples make promises to each other.  Monogamy casts a far great net than simply avoiding sexual intercourse, as a recent president of the United States most unfortunately has called to our attention.  Fidelity requires restraint long before the sexual act. It comes long before the first embrace; it comes at the point of spotting the bather on the roof and turning away in modest.  As I prepare couples for a lifetime of faithfulness to each other, I insist that the promise means not just saving our bodies sexually one for the other, but also abstaining from a kiss, a touch, from intimate contact that takes our focus from our betrothed.  The societal pressures are enormous to “give in and cheat,” and the precedent comes from all directions: the media, the government, and both conservative and liberal religious leaders.  Yet the possibility to be careful stewards of our sexuality is present to us at all times, with the help of God, and it is well worth it.

August 9, 2009

Eph 4:25-5:2

This passage from the letter to the Ephesians offers two other perspectives on stewardship.  The first is the challenge to be proper stewards of our relationships with each other.  The second is to be industrious stewards of material resources for the sake of generosity.

Anger management is one key to this scripture passage, as the preacher reflects on stewardship of human relationships.  The author of Ephesians begs the reader to consider the fragility of people’s feelings, and when conflicts arise, to be wise and swift in handling them.  In this way, the reader is offered chances to handle strong emotions.  Across the broad scope of the Bible, anger is mentioned more than 500 times.  Frequently, when antagonism is mentioned, the challenge is to turn to God who can help avert disastrous conflict.  In the case of the fourth chapter of Ephesians, the author suggests to the reader to be wise in the presence of rage.

Here is a three-part program in the opportunity to be stewards of human relationships.  First, in the management of frustration and resentment, the author entreats the reader, “Be angry but do not sin.” In other words, it is certain that one will feel the discomfort of fury.  Such feelings arise from time to time over the course of the human life span and must be understood as natural, as a part of living in relationship with others.  Further, the invitation is to sit with strong feelings or resentment or rage and to acknowledge them.  Rather than running from vivid emotions, the human challenge is to honor the gift of experiencing feelings, which, indeed, is much better than the alternative of having not feeling at all.  But hand in hand with staying present in the company of strong negative emotions is to restrain oneself from acting impulsively or dangerously.  Be good stewards of one’s feelings.  Look after them tenderly, and protect oneself from the much greater burden of having acted with violence.  There will be hurt and resentment, but the challenge to the faithful citizen is to practice self-restraint.  Such discipline is indeed excellent stewardship of human relationships.

Second, in the management of anger, the author of Ephesians challenges the reader to make progress in transitioning past one’s fury.  “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” is a spiritual invitation to tap into the extraordinary resilience of human spirit and forgiveness.  Once the anger has been mediated upon, once one has experienced it fully and faced it head on, the one may release it.  Such a practice is a benefit to both the enemy and the self.  For the self to let the anger go is to be free to experience the fullness of God’s love and joy in being alive.  Indeed, anger is a health hazard – it can contribute to heart disease, stroke, and alcoholism, to name just a few of its hazards – and the release of it is a chance to restore health.

Third, in the management of anger, the author of Ephesians asks for the hard work of conflict resolution.  “Do not make room for the devil,” entreats the scripture in the NRVS translation: “Do not give the devil a foothold,” instructs the author of Ephesians in the NIV. Clearly there is something dangerous about range.  The biblical authors knew this well. Anger allows space for regrettable impulsiveness, for retaliation, for violence.  The author of Ephesians challenges the reader to release such feelings before evil has the chance to move in and wreak havoc.  In the stewardship of human relationships, challenges arise nearly daily to question the practice of knowing feelings, naming them, sitting with them, releasing them promptly, and banishing the cruelty and hazard that can linger when such misery remains.

At the same time, the author of Ephesians offers a much more traditional approach to stewardship.  Such a model, in the same passage, is to put away thievery and to work with one’s own hands in order to have something to share with the needy.  This is a remarkably lighthearted invitation to take up honest work, to earn a living wage, for the purpose of having something to give away.  But the author knows that there is more to work than simply earning money.  Work is also about dignity, self-empowerment, and strength.  In the stewardship of money, as readers are challenged to work hard and share, the end result is not only that the poor are fed but also that the workers themselves find new lives through purposefulness of industry.

August 16, 2009

Jn 6:51-58

John’s Gospel presents an entirely different possibility for the third Sunday in August: the stewardship of the individual spiritual life.  As John portrays Jesus is a rich conversation, he describes the break of heaven.  Such bread is the energy that renews one’s relationship to God.  It never goes stale or crumbles, as does typical table bread.  Instead, like the bread of the feast of the loaves and fishes, it continues to provide for the seekers as long as they request it.  Jesus himself, writes John, is this fresh bread.

For many in the Christian family, it is these passages from John’s Gospel that lead to the theology of transubstantiation: that the bread of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper is truly the physical body of Christ,  Indeed, this was the theology that sustained Martin Luther when he wrote that the “real presence” of Jesus was in the bread of communion.  For others, such transformation is harder to grasp.  John Calvin was one of these.  He wrote from France at the same time as Luther that he was convinced that it was the “spiritual presence” of Christ in the sacramental bread.  Ulrich Zwingli, contemporary to  Luther and Calvin, writing in Switzerland, described it diplomatically, offering a third alternative –the holiness in the bread was the “read spiritual presence.”

In the diverse network of communities that call themselves Christian, the stewardship of one’s spiritual life begins with the nurturance of the human soul.  There are many ways to pursue such a discipline: going to church or taking walks in the forest; joining a prayer group or writing in a journal; signing up for a Bible study or learning how to meditate; organizing a team to give service to the poor or reading a good book about discipleship; joining a peace group or studying the writings of the ancient.  A summer sermon dedicated to the devotional life can take many directions.

August 23, 2009

Ps 84

The Psalmist offers the perspective of stewardship of the natural environment for this final Sunday in August.  “How lovely is your dwelling place,” begins the Psalm, in the earthly world where “even the sparrow finds a home.”  The peaceful contentment of the land is an inspiration for preaching about taking care of it.  Such a sermon might start with the creation story of Genesis 2, in which the man and the woman are place in the garden to be its stewards, to till it, and to keep it.  How are humans to till and keep the land?  With reverence and conservation, for the land belongs to God, as the Psalmist declares.  One might say that humans may look after the land, but only as God’s gardeners.  Preserving the loveliness of God’s dwelling place presents opportunities to preach about open space, about the wild places of the plane.  It also offers rich possibilities to discuss recycling, energy use, and local farming.  Perhaps the preacher would bring in a vegetable, grown in the local garden of a church member, and use it as a springboard for discussion about stewardship of the earth.