On September 11, 2001; thirty-eight airplanes landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a Canadian town of about ten thousand people. This is because U.S. airspace had closed because of the terrorist attacks that happened that day. Nearly seven thousand travelers ended up stranded in Gander, almost doubling the size of their town.
Immediately a local television ad went out to the townspeople, “lend a hand, do what you can.”
Residents began giving food, bedding, clothing, and toiletries. Pharmacies filled prescriptions without charge. Free public phones allowed passengers to reach their families. The community center’s ice rink became a place to store donated food. School buses were arranged to carry travelers into the surrounding communities. Schools and churches became places to sleep.
The people of Gander shared their space, supplies, expertise, and transportation; they lent a hand and they did what they could.
Resources that normally served their own local community were made available to meet an unexpected need; a need of 7000 people instantly stranded.
The people of Gander could not change what had happened in our country that day, but they could decide what to do with what they had when they saw people in need.
That is one of the simplest ways to understand stewardship. We receive things into our care: money, time, abilities, relationships, property, opportunities. And then we decide what those things can make possible, not just for us but for other people.
Today we begin our pledge campaign and a worship series around the theme “Because of Christ’s Love for Us.” Before we ever consider what we can give, we remember what we have received. We have been loved by God in Jesus Christ. We have been welcomed, forgiven, sustained, and drawn into a community we did not create for ourselves. Over the coming weeks, we will explore how that love – Christ’s love – shapes the way we share, include, love, proclaim, and dedicate ourselves to God’s work. Our generosity should grow from that love, especially when we consider others in need.
Our Exodus reading begins with a community in need. The Israelites have left Egypt and are traveling through the wilderness as the Lord commanded them. They camp at Rephidim, and there, there is no water to drink. So the people demand water from Moses. Moses responds and asks why they are quarreling with him and why are they testing the Lord. So they push back and ask Moses why he brought them out of Egypt to let them, their children, and their livestock die of thirst.
Moses, out of fear for himself worried that the people will stone him, cries out to God for help. God tells him to go ahead of the people with some of Israel’s elders to the rock of Horeb, where God will be. Moses is instructed strike the rock, and when he does, water will come out for the people to drink.
Moses then names the place Massah (testing-place) and Meribah (quarreling) because the people quarreled and tested the Lord, asking, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
While this story takes conflict between God and God’s people seriously, there’s another important part of the story: the need for water, which sustains life, is real. The Israelites followed God’s direction and still arrived at a place where they needed help. And after a little quarreling, God responded by providing what they needed, even while they were questioning whether God was with them.
At our foundation, we know: people need things like water to sustain life, and when we see people in need, those people deserve our attention.
And while our Exodus reading begins with people in need, our Philippians reading begins with what the people have received. Paul names encouragement in Christ, consolation from love, sharing in the Spirit, compassion, and sympathy. Paul then asks the Philippians to look to the interests of others in the same generosity they received from Christ: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” And he asks them to remember the one who was in the form of God took the form of a servant, entering human life and becoming obedient even to death on a cross. And it is the risen Christ who gathered them into a life where they belong to him and therefore must become responsible for one another’s well-being.
This is true also for us. Having the mind of Christ involves other people’s lives guiding decisions we make about our own money, attention, time, and influence.
Now in our own Presbyterian understanding of ministry – this is found in our Book of Order, one of our asks of our members to participate in Christ’s ministry by “supporting the ministry of the church through the giving of money, time, and talents.” It’s important we understand those words in light of the gospel: we do not purchase God’s love. We don’t earn our place in God’s kin-dom. We don’t even purchase membership at a church. Christ has already welcomed us, and so our giving grows from that belonging. Instead, we offer what we have in gratitude for the grace that has claimed us.
And I want to be clear as we head into our pledge campaign, it’s not just financial offerings. It’s also the giving of our time and talents.
Sharing our time might mean setting aside an evening to serve a meal with someone in need. Or reaching out to a friend because God is telling you that person might need a conversation. Think of our leaders who give their Sunday mornings teaching our children. Or adults who take time off of work to attend youth retreats. We have elders and deacons elected by this congregation who give plenty of hours every month discerning the will of God.
And when we offer our talents, we look to people singing in the band and our choir. I give thanks every week for our faith formation leaders. We have Stephen Ministers rooted in compassion and listening. We have teams upon teams serving organizations and people in need. I had a seminary professor who said every congregation has a person whose greatest gift will be to staple all of your papers and to never take that gift lightly. We have three women who come in every month to fold and mail our monthly newsletters to our homebound members; this ministry is invaluable.
And is true that our financial gifts sustain the care that our time and talents also bring. Whether we give our time, talents, or financial offerings; we are entrusting something we have to the work of Christ because Christ’s love taught us to care about the people Christ’s ministry serves.
Each of us experience a particular part of this church but rarely ever the full ministry our congregation offers. That is because our gifts reach beyond the parts of church life we personally experience.
I’m going to give a clear example.
In two weeks, we will place Bibles in the hands of preschoolers, second-graders, and confirmation students. Our financial gifts help pay for those Bibles. But also around each one of those young people is a community of people giving something of themselves. Leaders prepare lessons and bring their gifts of teaching, music, and storytelling. Families make time to bring their children here, and to read with them at home and listen to their questions. Confirmation mentors and youth leaders offer their attention and experience as young people begin putting their faith into their own words.
And as we share our gifts, we begin to discover theirs. A child notices something in a familiar Bible story that the rest of us have passed over. A teenager asks a question that makes us think more carefully about what we believe.
We teach them, and they help us learn; we encourage their faith, and their faith gives us something we need. This is part of the sharing in the Spirit that Paul describes.
Over time, the children who received those Bibles become youth who help younger children at things like Vacation Bible School or they pack food bags for a local elementary school. They discover that they too have something to offer and give. And then adults give days of their time to accompany our on trips and retreats, and when the youth return to share what they have learned, the faith we helped nurture comes back to us through their voices.
And someday, some of those young people may bring children of their own to church. Another Bible will be placed in another small pair of hands, new leaders will give their time, and gifts we cannot yet imagine will begin to emerge. And they will carry what they have received into different congregations and communities, where they love they have received will continue to bear fruit with the people they meet. The giving and receiving keeps unfolding, reaching people far beyond us.
That is part of the reason we invest in our ministry. We have received a church shaped by people whose gifts are still sustaining us, including people who are no longer here to see what those gifts have made possible.
Now we can offer that same care to those who come after us. Long after the Lord calls us to join the Church Triumphant along with the saints who have gone before us, we trust that God will continue the work we have been given a part in.
This is the shared life Paul is talking about when he tells the Philippians to work out their salvation and then reminds them that God is at work in them. The same Spirit is at work in the child and the adult, forming us together in the life of Christ.
God’s grace is already at work, shaping both desire to serve and our ability to act. Our giving belongs within that work of God: love received becomes love offered.
Having experienced God’s care, we want to help this community keep responding to people’s needs. We offer our resources in trust that the God who has been faithful to us will continue to work through the ministry we share.
As we consider our giving for the coming year, whether it be our time, talents, or treasures, I invite you begin that decision with prayer and gratitude. Remember the ways God’s love has reached you. Think of the moments when you received joy, love, grace, forgiveness, encouragement, relationship. Then look honestly at yourself and what you have and what you can give. Because what you can give can bring those moments you received to new people, especially people in need.
I think about our congregation, our life together, our ministry. I ask the same question as the Israelites. “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Just last Sunday, as part of our Vibrant Faith activity, we invited worshippers in our two English-language services to take pictures of where we noticed God’s presence in worship. We received more than one hundred pictures. You got to see them! From one Sunday alone, just two hours, our congregation offered more than one hundred glimpses of where we noticed God among us.
Each person was looking at a different thing and from a different place, but they captured something someone else might have missed. But bringing those pictures together helps us recognize more and more of God’s presence among us.
That happens when we share our gifts too. The person helping purchase a child’s Bible might never hear the conversation that happens at home. The volunteer knitting a hat might never see the warmth it brings. The Stephen Minister might never know the full impact their compassion has made. Yet their gifts become part of those lives, joining the gifts of others in a ministry that reaches beyond what any one of us can see.
Is the Lord among us?
Yes! Yes, the Lord is among us, and the love of Christ is still taking shape in the life we share. That is our hope as we look ahead, whether the next stretch of our journey takes us through wilderness or into a land flowing with milk and honey. But God will be in the next chapter of journey, forming us into people who can offer what we have and receive what we need.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
What have you experienced through this congregation that you hope others will experience long after we are gone?