rmons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] November 20, 2022 “What Are You Building?” Isaiah 65: 17-25 –Common English Bible Look! I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth: past events won’t be remembered; they won’t come to mind. 18 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I’m creating, because I’m creating Jerusalem as a joy and her people as a source of gladness. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad about my people. No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again. 20 No more will babies live only a few days, or the old fail to live out their days. The one who dies at a hundred will be like a young person, and the one falling short of a hundred will seem cursed. 21 They will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They won’t build for others to live in, nor plant for others to eat. Like the days of a tree will be the days of my people; my chosen will make full use of their handiwork. 23 They won’t labor in vain, nor bear children to a world of horrors, because they will be people blessed by the Lord, they along with their descendants. 24 Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear. 25 Wolf and lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the snake—its food will be dust. They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain, says the Lord. The Israelites lived in exile for 70 years. They were taken by force to live in a foreign land as captives, forced to sing the songs of Zion along the river bank while their instruments hung from the trees. But eventually they adjusted, life became routine, if not even normal. Couples were married, babies were born, houses were built. Like many immigrant families, life is different but humans are resilient and create home wherever they are. After a few years, new ideas become traditions – we have new ways that we’ve always done it. Yet, I can imagine never fully losing the longing to return to your “real” home. As the decades moved on, increasingly these were only memories for a small few, yet the topic of vivid stories told to the young, handed down generation to generation. And now they’re actually returning home, on their way back from Babylon. What joy to wander past the streams you’ve heard about all your life, to walk on the roads described in those stories, seeing what your grandparents saw. But what they found was not beautiful homes and bountiful gardens and fields with amber waves of grain. It looked like a garbage dump. Their houses were crumbled. The fields were choked with thorns and weeds and scattered piles of rubble. And most significantly, the Temple, the beautiful, glorious Temple built by King Solomon that had stood for 400 years was in complete and total ruin. There was no more Zion about which to sing the old songs. What a heart-breaking scene. I visited Sri Lanka in 2019. One of the areas I went to was the city of Jaffna on the northern coast, the area that had been controlled by the Tamil Tigers during the 30-year nationwide civil war. It was now 10 years after the war and it was plainly obvious which buildings had bullet holes patched and which ones were newly built, with lots of empty lots in between. But it was in the rural areas outside the city that one saw the worst destruction. For miles in every direction, every single home had been bulldozed during the war or burned out. I didn’t fully appreciate the scene until the night I stayed in a brand-new guest house and met a family at breakfast who, like many, had escaped to Canada. It had been a rough day for them. They were back for the first time to see what was left of their home. They found one wall standing. The trees were gone. Weeds choked out anything they had planted. But they were determined to rebuild. After all, it had been their family home for generations. Later that day I met another man who had also made a new life for his family in Canada. Like my brother, he was a long-haul trucker. This man’s route that extended from Toronto to Vancouver and kept him away from home for weeks at a time. He too was back for his first visit. But when he saw his family home in ruins, he decided to go back to Canada instead of rebuild. Today my heart breaks for the Ukrainian refugees around the world longing to return home. Who knows how long it will be. But what will they find when they turn the corner onto their old block? What will be left? They’ve already seen news coverage of their cities leveled, their hospitals bombed, their bridges crumbled, parents weeping over their children. Throughout human history, these kinds of things have played out too many times, whether in world wars or natural disasters. But humans also have a long history of rebuilding. Look, says God, I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth. Isaiah speaks directly to rebuilding in vivid ways that could be easily understood from their lived experience: You will eat the fruit of the vineyards you plant. You will build houses and live in them. In many ways we are rebuilding after the pandemic and all the disruption of church life. Unfortunately, too many churches are not rebuilding but rather closing, including my beloved home church in North Dakota of which I speak so often. Experts say that the pandemic only quickened the pace of what was already happening. If a church was growing pre-pandemic, it’s growing now. If it was in decline, the decline is faster and is now in high speed; not necessarily a decline in spirit or ministry, but in size, at the end of last year, half of UCC churches reported 103 members or fewer. Half of UCC churches now have 40 or fewer people in worship; half have more than 40. For context, we are larger than 93% of UCC congregations in the whole state of California. As we rebuild post-pandemic, what are we building? Once upon a time, a traveler came across three stonecutters. The traveler went up to the first one and asked, “What are you doing.” He didn’t look up and said, “I’m making a living” and kept working. A few steps further, a second stonecutter was asked what she was doing. Standing up straight and tall, “I’m striving to be the best stonecutter in the city.” A few steps further, a third was asked, “What are you doing?” “I am building a cathedral!” What are we doing here? Today is the conclusion of the annual tradition of a stewardship campaign. How long has this been “the way we’ve always done it” way? It wasn’t done this way in the early years of our parent church, First Congregational. It wasn’t until the late 1890s that the first stewardship campaigns began in city churches among people who had steady incomes and regular employment. Before, a church may have had a few wealthy patrons but not a system that included everyone. Or churches might sell or rent pews. When someone says, “You’re sitting in my pew,” at one point that was literally true. The larger the gift, the closer you sat to the pulpit. Of course, some might have preferred the reverse. If you go back far enough in American history, some Congregational churches were supported by taxes. It was in post-war Protestant churches in the 1950s that modern stewardship campaigns became commonplace, complete with the little envelopes in a box, one for each week. Do you remember those? Does anyone remember the first envelope in the box? It asked for a donation to pay for the box of envelopes. As churches moved to the suburbs in the 1950s they adopted systems and complex structures of boards and committees and funding mechanisms that reflected modern corporations. Stewardship in the 1960s continued to evolve, adding the idea of time, talent, and treasure that became popular and helped make stewardship more inclusive of many gifts. However, by the 1990s and 2000s, stewardship campaigns from the 1950s began to lose their ability to inspire and meet the needs of churches, yet nothing really caught on to replace them. Online giving has helped tremendously, though a side effect is that many post-pandemic churches have stopped passing an offering plate during worship. Giving is central to worship. Generosity is our response to the Gospel. Money isn’t, however, or shouldn’t be, the sole focus of stewardship. After all, stewardship has to do with every aspect of life. The stewardship of our bodies through healthy living. What are we eating? How much exercise are we getting? Or the stewardship of creation, an earth upon which future generations may live. What are we doing to keep our air clean, our oceans from being polluted, to stop the extinction of species. All of this is stewardship, but in many minds, stewardship means a financial campaign every fall – just like today. The question is appropriately asked, what is the goal of a stewardship campaign?
Three stonecutters working on the same project were asked, “What are you doing?” The first stonecutter was making a living. And it’s absolutely necessary to take care of our family. Of course, a budget should be a goal. The second stonecutter was becoming the best at her craft. We too should aspire to do our best to honor God. And so, of course, funding this should be a goal. The third stonecutter said they were building a cathedral. They were also making a living, striving to do their best, but what is a cathedral? Perhaps it’s a building, but really, its purpose is something of lasting beauty for generations, something transcendent, beyond ourselves, that takes our gaze upward, intended to glorify God. Our stewardship goal should be nothing less than the glory of God, but not for ostentatious reasons. Irenaeus said the glory of God is human beings fully alive. All human beings fully alive, characterized as a world
It is a vision of San Diego today that gives glory to God – health care for children and seniors; wellbeing for families with food enough and shelter enough; the end of bullying and peace among nations and among the people of our nation. This is not only the hope of a rebuilt Jerusalem thousands of years ago but the hope of San Diego today. Yes, we need sufficient budget for our programs. But only the transformation of our lives in response to the gospel will change the world. One stone at a time. What are you building? Is it a cathedral?
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