GreggTownsley.com

Take Two–10/8/06

Take TwoPart 2 of the series, “Put Your Right Foot in,
Take Your Right Foot Out!”

Dick offered me the opportunity to speak from this pulpit about four weeks ago, and included this Sunday as well, as a part of Joni and my serving this congregation as temporary part-time pastors.

I’m always amazed when one minister lends another time and space in his or her pulpit. I get that the chancel furniture doesn’t belong to the right reverend him or her. It’s just that serving as a Presbyterian pastor for twenty-some years prior to leaving for an independent and more liberal and affirming ministry, I’m very much aware of how invested a professional minister can be in the life and work of his or her individual congregation.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the pastor, for instance, who wasn’t happy with where his parishioners sat Sunday after Sunday. As it goes, he stewed over the fact that folks found comfortable seats in the rear of the church, leaving the front pews empty. As far as the pastor was concerned, it hurt the hymn singing, harmed the homilies, and generally hacked at his attempt to make the church a warm and friendly place.

So this minister, quite unbeknownst to the congregation’s leaders, went to work. And in time, without anyone’s permission or input, he installed a movable pew system. Here’s how it worked. Church families, individual members and visitors alike would essentially board a pew at the back of the sanctuary. And when it was full, at the touch of a button, the furniture would move forward to the first position, right where the pastor wanted his people to be, next to the chancel and under the pulpit. Ushers would then fill the second pew that appeared at the back, and then pressing the button would watch the bench move to the second position up front and so forth.

Things went well with the new system for a while—most everyone will give a reverend an undeserved break or two when asked—but it didn’t take long for the church’s lay leaders to squirm a bit under the thumb of their pastor and to put together a plan that fixed some of their own concerns.

As an aside, let me say that I constantly make the point in this church that clergy and lay people need to work together to produce a frank and successful ministry. I don’t believe that we want –and I say “we want” as Nancy and I are members of this congregation—a lay-led church as much as one in which pastors and people collaborate together, but back to the story.

In time, the offended lay leaders put their heads together and installed their own device to address one of their own gripes or concerns. And sure enough, when it was installed, the lay leaders were happy with how the device turned out..

When the day for worship came, folks streamed into the church, as they did every Sunday. The ushers smiled as full pews of people were propelled forward to the front of the sanctuary, additional pews rising from the floor in the back to be filled with new people and then pushed forward again. It was great! The songs were awesome. The preaching was warm and friendly. And everyone felt the spirit.

But at ten of the hour, as usual, the pastor was still preaching. Five of the hour and there was still no end to the service. When the end of the hour arrived, the chimes on everyone’s watches signaling they had been in church for a full hour, a lay leader in the back of the church pushed a button. And the pulpit carpet slipped away, a trap door opened underneath the minister, and the pastor dropped from view. Now everybody was happy as the service ended on time!

It’s important that pastors and people work together in a church, don’t you think? “Who among you is wise?” James the brother of Jesus writes in this morning’s readings. And only the brashest and most autonomous among us might be prompted to raise our hand, independent of each other and say “Surely I.” We need the company of a community, don’t we?

Three Sundays

This is the second of three stewardship Sundays at this church, where we’ll be discussing the right-minding of our time, talent and treasure. And frankly, Sundays like these aren’t always the most fun.

But this church tries, I think, to make the annual “budget subscription” time easy and entertaining, Last year Rod Burrus dressed up like a cowboy for a pledge card “round-up.” This year, Laura Frye and Jeannine Murrell, and a whole host of others I’m not yet acquainted with, put together an African safari to demonstrate our need to get on board, to take the plunge, to experience the adventure.

These folks are far more creative folks than me. Fact is, I’m pretty plain spoken. One of the nicknames I had in high school growing up was “tactless wonder,” so I’m just going to say, it’s important for you to give. And then I want to tell you a little bit about the word “stewardship” before we’re done. But first a personal note.

When I signed on here at the Forest Grove United Church of Christ as a part-time, temporary pastor, and similarly when I served the Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Beaverton as its Pastor and Head of Staff, I asked the financial people in the church office to simply deduct 10% from my paycheck up-front. Not that I thought that I had to, or that the Bible told me to, it’s just that I didn’t want to be tempted to do anything less. And truth be told, I didn’t feel that I was doing well enough to do anything more.

Giving from my treasure, so to speak, there’s not a whole lot of it but you know what I’m saying—as well as from my time and talents as I’ll talk about in a few moments—is an important piece of my spiritual walk. What you do is your business of course, but I hope you’ll do something when the pledge card folks come around. It’s important to me to a faithful steward over everything that God has given me, which reminds me of another tall tale. I don’t think this one is true either.

The tale is told of a three-legged pig. One day, the owner of the pig was asked by a visitor to his farm how the pig came to have only three legs. “Well,” the farmer said, “that’s a very good question which leads me to tell you a very important story.”

“There was a night some time ago when my wife and I found ourselves in the back room surrounded by flames. The hog sensed there was danger, drove his snout sternly through the front door breaking it in two. The pig galloped into the bedroom, grabbed my wife by her night gown, and leaped with her through the bedroom window to safety.”

“My God,” said the visitor, “that’s incredible!”

“I’m not done,” said the farmer. “I was still caught up by the fear and the fire—the sheets where tangled around my legs—when the pig rolled through the bedroom window a second time, grabbed me by my night shirt, and seeing that the window was now blocked by smoke and flames, dragged me, and I mean dragged all 200 pounds of me, out through the front door laying me along side of my wife in the side yard.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a tale like that,” said the visitor. “You must be awfully blessed, and awfully proud of that pig, too.” “But listen, that doesn’t really explain why your boar has only three legs.”

“Well sure it does,” replied the farmer. “If you have a hog that valuable, you surely don’t eat him all at once!”

Today is the second of three stewardship or conscription Sundays, as I understand they are called here. And I hope that you’ll provide this year’s committee and callers a faithful estimate of your giving so that they can help us do the good that they intend for us to do this year. But more so, I hope that you’ll have a little bit of fun with me as we talk about just how important it is to be a good steward of everything we are and own.

Where the word “stewardship” came from

The word “stewardship” comes from two old English words—“stye” and “ward”—that literally means the keeper of the pigpen. The larger concept, of course, is that of a manager. But it’s funny roots certainly are arresting.

Think about it for a moment. You could come over to our house on Indigo Way and see the wonderful furnishings that Nancy and I have provided each other and our families. You could sit in our rather humble living room on our leather couch or our love seat, or visit with us in any of the house’s bedrooms, or even climb the stairs to our “bonus room” where I have maybe forty boxes of books up on bookcases lining the walls. And you’d never likely come across an area of the house that you might be remotely tempted to say is a pig sty. Well, okay maybe the garage, and then there’s a kind of a hobby area in the master bedroom that I haven’t cleaned that up yet. But you get the point. It’s important to be a keen steward of your life. And sometimes it can be kind of difficult.

Nancy and I just got back from a week in Mexico. We went with a couple of friends to a high class resort in Puerto Vallarta. All I can say is “wow!” We stayed at a time-share on the Bahia de Banderas or Bay of Banderas on Mexico’s central coast. Fue me primer vez en Mexico, as they say in Spanish, or my first time there and all I can say is wow. I just don’t get to places like that very often.

Now, what’s interesting about our stay is that while we were there we lost two pairs of glasses—the only pairs of glasses that we had brought with us, my wife needs them for reading and I need them to see distant things, we’re quite the couple—and the first draft of this sermon. We took the thefts as a sign that we needed to keep some clarity to our vision. It was difficult.

Amidst the grand expectations, the good food, the “golly gee I wish I had bought that,” and the almost mandatory 90 minute sales presentations “wouldn’t it be neat if you owned a week like this somewhere else,” it was hard to keep one’s center. And essentially that’s what stewardship is about.

What kind of “steward” are you?

What kind of steward are you? What are you a steward of, in your life? And how are you doing at being a steward of the treasures your life has been given? These are the kind of questions a good stewardship committee asks its parishioners not just every year but throughout the year. ”What are we doing with our time, talent and treasure?” it asks to keep us on an even keel, so to speak, to make sure there is clarity to our vision and purpose to our living.

It was an Old Testament someone who said, “People who have no vision perish.”

“Who among you is wise and understanding?,” James the brother of Jesus asks. “Let him [or her] show his works by living a good life in the humility that comes from living a life with wisdom,” he says, knowing that talking the talk isn’t hard and that walking the talk isn’t easy.

I don’t want you to think this year that you can get away with saying, “I’m giving my time so I don’t need to give my treasures.” Or “I’m sharing a really valuable talent with my church so I don’t need to give any of my time.” The fact is stewardship is about the whole of our lives. That’s what Jesus wants, it seems to me. A life lived with clarity and charity and purpose. What else could there be?

When I preached here a couple of weeks ago some of you said, “I didn’t know that James was the brother of Jesus.” That’s true. Most of us don’t realize that the Bible talks quite openly about Jesus’ family and that tradition says that the Letter of James was likely penned by Jesus’ brother or by a secretary working for him.

If you were present on that first Sunday of September—this is my second take at that message, if you will—you might recall that the lectionary readings put the first chapter of James in our hand, and in particular the statement: “Religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to care for the orphan and widow in his or her distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

This is one of the ways that we know, or at least suspect, that Jesus brother wrote the book that bears James’ name. Jesus’ life cuts to the quick.

There’s no religiosity about it. No fancy words. No funny clothes or funky habits. He was a man just like any other man and acted that way, except there was a certain acuity to his vision and purpose. The kind of focus that you and I can learn from.
Like the Curly character in the movie “City Slickers” I mentioned in September, Jesus knew “the one thing” that his life was about and kept a good harness on it all to make sure that he got there. How about you?

If we can take the challenge of this season in the church year and answer it fully, we have an opportunity to do the same. We can focus on what we believe our lives are about and make the pieces of our lives conform to it.

As we were sitting on the couch in Mexico a few nights ago, Nancy reminded me of a story you and I might find helpful. Ministers like to tell it around this time of year and I apologize if you’ve heard it before.

A little girl and her family attended church one week. And as was their custom they went out to eat afterwards. That’s where the little girl’s dad chimed in. “What a terrible Sunday!” he said. “The choir was off-key. The hymns were weird and the sermon, my God, was the sermon awful or what?”

The family nodded in polite agreement. To which the little girl expressed stunned surprise. “It was a pretty good show for a dollar dad, don’t you think?”

We need to do better than that. We need to focus our lives on what is important. And then express our lives—our time, talent and treasure—in a new and faithful way.

Amen.