Loving Faithfully: homily for Oct. 8, 2023
This last week, I met with members of the Oakwood Historical society. It was a really fun meeting for me because they brought with them so many old photos, and clippings of newspaper stories about the founding, growth and life of this church. I read stories from 1922, 23, 25, 26, and even into the 30s. I read about the first wedding here at St. Paul’s. I read about a little boy who brought money for the construction of our first building, and then on his way home was struck by a car and died.
I read about the faithfulness of generations, faithfulness to God’s love and care for this place, Oakwood, Ohio and the people who live here, even amidst strange and difficult times. .
I’ve scanned those stories and this morning put them on the Rector’s Corner blog on the website if you’d like to take a look at them for yourself.
Thinking about our story has me seeing the story of the Israelites in a different way this morning.
We’ve been following the drama of the Israelites for months now, going back as far as their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, and through the four centuries they spent in Egypt, centuries that ended in an epic liberation and flight across the desert. And now, as they sojourn in the wilderness, as they wrestle with starvation and thirst, and the temptation to return not only to Egypt, but to idolatry as well, God gives them the Law. Unfortunately, while Moses is on Mt. Sinai receiving the law from God, the Israelites, wayward and anxious as ever, are simultaneously at the foot of the mountain melting down their precious metals to make an idol to worship.
It’s a sorry way to express thanks to the God who provided for their daily bread with manna, God who prevailed over the Egyptians, God who did not forget his people or the promises he made to their ancestors.
Now you might be thinking that the advent of the law, here in the middle of nowhere, when the fate of the Israelites is up for grabs, at least in their minds.
But the story of the Israelites and the story of God are both stories about abundance.
If you look at the first commandment, you see that God is reminding the Israelites that he is the same God who made the world in an orderly way and provided for the needs of every creature. And this is the same God who has been providing for the Israelites from the moment he called their ancestors our of Ur.
Creation and the Law are connected. ANd not just because it’s the same God who created and now is giving the law, but because it’s the same abundant love and care and provision that made the world that is now securing the future of Israel, so that Israel will be a blessing to that world.
Unfortunately, The Israelites are still holding out for the food they knew. They still don’t believe their daily bread will be provided. They still don’t believe in God’s abundance.
But God provides. Whether they want to accept it or not. They are in a relationship with their maker. The Maker of all things, visible and invisible. There are ways of behaving and being when you’re in a relationship with the maker of heaven and earth.
The cornerstone of our faith is that only Christ makes us righteous. We don’t make ourselves righteous any more than we make God love us. So, it follows that loving God does not MAKE us righteous. However, returning the Love that God gives us freely, returning that love freely, that is the truly Godly and loving thing to do. Isn’t returning love the only appropriate response to being unconditionally loved?
As Paul says, this is how we make it our own. Straining forwarded for what lies ahead, pressing on toward the Goal.
God gave the Israelites abundant water, manna, and land. But the abundant gift that exceeded all others was the gift of his love, a gift he gives to all creatures, great and small. All he asks in return from us, the creatures made in his image, is that we return his love faithfully.
And yet, we like the people of the Exodus, are slow to love faithfully. The human story is one of deceit, idolatry, forgetfulness, bitterness, even toward God. We, like the Israelites, struggle to be good stewards of what God gives us, holding on to it tightly for our own small minded intentions, when we ought to be giving thanks.
All the while, God continues to walk with us, offering us manna each day.
You know, over the last century in Oakwood, we too have been the benefactors of God’s abundant love and mercy. What started as a mission Sunday school to the children of Oakwood became a thriving parish and concern of the community.
I’m sure that over the years, it was convenient to look at our building and our bank account as signs of how successful St. Paul’s was, just as I’m sure it’s tempting to look at those things now and credit previous members with our abundance. Or perhaps the greater temptation, as our bank accounts get small, is to hoard our manna rather than eat it daily in gratitude and confidence that God will continue to provide for us.
I know you see that both temptations, the nostalgia of the past and the worry of the future, are idolatry because both supplant the power of God with the power of human activity.
Giving our past members the credit or hoarding the wealth today are both like when the Israelite amassed all the gold that they had brought out of Egypt, melted it down, and worshipped it like it was God.
If we do that, when we do that, we ignore the real abundance.
The real abundance is here in our midst right now. No where do we experience and encounter the abundance of God’s mercy and grace given to us daily than in the Eucharist and in the gathered community of the body of Christ, the Church.
When you think of stewardship, I want the first thought on your mind to be the Eucharist, because everything we do as the Church—and I don’t just mean St. Paul’s, but the global Church—everything we do is about bringing people into an encounter with the Father through his Son, Jesus Christ.
No where is that more readily and more powerfully available than in the gathered body of Christ receiving the Body of Christ.
So, this stewardship season, let us look toward the Eucharist, our daily bread, our manna from heaven. And let us look to the signs of God amongst us.
Let us be good stewards of these things, these blessings of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, and count everything else as loss.
I read about the faithfulness of generations, faithfulness to God’s love and care for this place, Oakwood, Ohio and the people who live here, even amidst strange and difficult times. .
I’ve scanned those stories and this morning put them on the Rector’s Corner blog on the website if you’d like to take a look at them for yourself.
Thinking about our story has me seeing the story of the Israelites in a different way this morning.
We’ve been following the drama of the Israelites for months now, going back as far as their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, and through the four centuries they spent in Egypt, centuries that ended in an epic liberation and flight across the desert. And now, as they sojourn in the wilderness, as they wrestle with starvation and thirst, and the temptation to return not only to Egypt, but to idolatry as well, God gives them the Law. Unfortunately, while Moses is on Mt. Sinai receiving the law from God, the Israelites, wayward and anxious as ever, are simultaneously at the foot of the mountain melting down their precious metals to make an idol to worship.
It’s a sorry way to express thanks to the God who provided for their daily bread with manna, God who prevailed over the Egyptians, God who did not forget his people or the promises he made to their ancestors.
Now you might be thinking that the advent of the law, here in the middle of nowhere, when the fate of the Israelites is up for grabs, at least in their minds.
But the story of the Israelites and the story of God are both stories about abundance.
If you look at the first commandment, you see that God is reminding the Israelites that he is the same God who made the world in an orderly way and provided for the needs of every creature. And this is the same God who has been providing for the Israelites from the moment he called their ancestors our of Ur.
Creation and the Law are connected. ANd not just because it’s the same God who created and now is giving the law, but because it’s the same abundant love and care and provision that made the world that is now securing the future of Israel, so that Israel will be a blessing to that world.
Unfortunately, The Israelites are still holding out for the food they knew. They still don’t believe their daily bread will be provided. They still don’t believe in God’s abundance.
But God provides. Whether they want to accept it or not. They are in a relationship with their maker. The Maker of all things, visible and invisible. There are ways of behaving and being when you’re in a relationship with the maker of heaven and earth.
The cornerstone of our faith is that only Christ makes us righteous. We don’t make ourselves righteous any more than we make God love us. So, it follows that loving God does not MAKE us righteous. However, returning the Love that God gives us freely, returning that love freely, that is the truly Godly and loving thing to do. Isn’t returning love the only appropriate response to being unconditionally loved?
As Paul says, this is how we make it our own. Straining forwarded for what lies ahead, pressing on toward the Goal.
God gave the Israelites abundant water, manna, and land. But the abundant gift that exceeded all others was the gift of his love, a gift he gives to all creatures, great and small. All he asks in return from us, the creatures made in his image, is that we return his love faithfully.
And yet, we like the people of the Exodus, are slow to love faithfully. The human story is one of deceit, idolatry, forgetfulness, bitterness, even toward God. We, like the Israelites, struggle to be good stewards of what God gives us, holding on to it tightly for our own small minded intentions, when we ought to be giving thanks.
All the while, God continues to walk with us, offering us manna each day.
You know, over the last century in Oakwood, we too have been the benefactors of God’s abundant love and mercy. What started as a mission Sunday school to the children of Oakwood became a thriving parish and concern of the community.
I’m sure that over the years, it was convenient to look at our building and our bank account as signs of how successful St. Paul’s was, just as I’m sure it’s tempting to look at those things now and credit previous members with our abundance. Or perhaps the greater temptation, as our bank accounts get small, is to hoard our manna rather than eat it daily in gratitude and confidence that God will continue to provide for us.
I know you see that both temptations, the nostalgia of the past and the worry of the future, are idolatry because both supplant the power of God with the power of human activity.
Giving our past members the credit or hoarding the wealth today are both like when the Israelite amassed all the gold that they had brought out of Egypt, melted it down, and worshipped it like it was God.
If we do that, when we do that, we ignore the real abundance.
The real abundance is here in our midst right now. No where do we experience and encounter the abundance of God’s mercy and grace given to us daily than in the Eucharist and in the gathered community of the body of Christ, the Church.
When you think of stewardship, I want the first thought on your mind to be the Eucharist, because everything we do as the Church—and I don’t just mean St. Paul’s, but the global Church—everything we do is about bringing people into an encounter with the Father through his Son, Jesus Christ.
No where is that more readily and more powerfully available than in the gathered body of Christ receiving the Body of Christ.
So, this stewardship season, let us look toward the Eucharist, our daily bread, our manna from heaven. And let us look to the signs of God amongst us.
Let us be good stewards of these things, these blessings of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, and count everything else as loss.
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