Offerings
11 November 2018
Proper 27B
Homily preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
8:00 a.m. Said Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Each time we celebrate Eucharist, at
the time when we present the bread and the wine, as well as monetary gifts, at
the altar, the priest gives a sentence of scripture or a bidding. On page 376 of the Prayer Book, you can find
several that the priest may choose from:
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and make good your vows to the Most High.Ascribe to the Lord the honor due his Name; bring offerings and come into his courts.Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.I appeal to you, [beloved], by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that [a person] has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled…, and then come and offer your gift.Let us with gladness present the offerings and oblations of our life and labor to the Lord.
The Prayer Book also allows “other
suitable passages of scripture,” among which is one of my favorites, from the 1928
Prayer Book, here in modern language:
“The one who sows little shall reap little; the one who sows abundantly shall reap abundantly. Let everyone follow their own heart, not grudgingly, or forced to do so, for God loves a giver who is cheerful.”
Today’s Lectionary readings are all
about offerings and sacrifice. The Gospel
and Hebrew Scripture tell stories of women who give their all: the widow of
Zarephath feeds the prophet Elijah and finds that God provides for her for
years; the widow in the Temple gives her last remaining coins, and serves for
Jesus as an example of abuse of the faithful by religious leaders. Hebrews talks about how Jesus Christ as a
metaphorical high priest is better than any real or historical one, and his
sacrificial offering the real thing, where all others are but shadows and types
pointing to it.
Sacrifice or offering was at the
heart of the religious life of Israel’s Temple.
The basic idea of an offering is expressed in the word terumah: a
lifting up, a gift given with a heave.
Sacrifice served several uses:
making up for past misbehavior, cleansing or purgation of ritual contamination,
reconciliation, expression of gratitude and thanks. It sought to repair and strengthen our
relationship to God through that most simple of human acts, sharing food. Some offerings were sacrifices with blood
where the animal was burned and the tasty bits shared by the ministers. Some were of incense. Others were of grain
and oil. In all these offerings, you
shared with the deity and the altar servers.
Prophets at times spoke out against
sacrifice considered as some kind of cheap bribery of the Almighty. They put these words on God’s lips: “If I were hungry, do you think I would ask
you? All the flocks of the fields are
mine. Do you think I drink the blood of
goats or cattle?” “I demand obedience,
not sacrifice.” “The sacrifice I demand
is a humble heart and a contrite spirit, a sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving.”
Jesus criticizes the Temple ritual
and its rulers. The system is corrupt, a
means by which the rich devour the poor.
But he still honors the act of offering itself.
American Sign Language’s sign for
“sacrifice” makes clear the idea: taking
both hands as if they hold something, then turning them both up, open wide, as
if to say “I let go of this. It’s all
yours.” The essence of offering is
letting go of control, and giving up something of yourself with no
expectations.
That’s why Hebrews says Jesus
offered himself as a sacrifice, even though Jesus was never a member of a
priestly family in the Temple. Hebrews
is using a metaphor: what Jesus did for
us in dying is to give himself for us.
He thus accomplishes what Temple sacrifices sought to do: he reconciles us to God, drives away our
sins, and makes us whole. By giving
himself. By offering.
Holy Eucharist is a “sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving.” In it, we
offer bread and wine, product of the created world and of human hands, as
tokens of what Jesus accomplished. In
the act of offering, it becomes a communion, or mutual sharing. That is why we remember Jesus’ words at the
last supper, “this is my body, this is my blood.” And though Jesus died for us only once, as
said in today’s lesson from Hebrews, the bread and wine, thus offered, thus
sacrificed, are our communion, or sharing, in this.
Offering, giving, sharing—all these
are ways we build closeness with one another.
It is how we build closeness to God: not because God needs to be bribed
or placated, but because we need to put our things in second place after our
love. It is all about hospitality and
generosity, about sharing and welcoming.
It is a basic spiritual rule and guideline. It is one of the ways we follow Jesus and
serve as his body in the world.
We are in Stewardship pledge season. The temptation is always to preach the
Widow’s Mite as an example Jesus gave us to follow: she gave her last penny,
and so we should be willing also to give until it hurts. But that is decidedly
not what Jesus is getting at here. His point is that this
poor woman is so controlled and brain-washed by the teaching of the
scribes—those devourers of widows’ houses—that she gives willingly all her
livelihood while those who oppress her give only a tiny portion of their
abundance.
For green lampshade guys, the
widow’s mite is laughable in comparison with the lordly sums of the
scribes. But Jesus says her contribution is greater than all of
theirs. She sacrificed while they did not. Hers was an open-handed
offering, while theirs was a small gratuity.
The Widow’s Mite, if applied to
Stewardship campaigns, if anything, talks about the Church’s responsibility to
be open in its accounts, responsible in its use of contributions, and fixed on
the task of helping and standing with the poor and the oppressed.
It also talks about the real issue
at heart in our giving to the Church. It is not about trying to impress
others. It is not about soothing a bad conscience or boosting a bad
self-image by doing one more great, praiseworthy act. It is not about
people pleasing, or even God-pleasing. Our gifts and pledges to the
church should be an offering, not a tip.
They must come from a thankful heart, a vision that the Church’s
ministry is God’s work, and a sense that all that we enjoy comes as a free gift
from the Parent of us all.
Some of us tithe, or pay a tenth of
our increase, as a way of trying to put offerings first, like the widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah asked to give first and then worry about her short larder. God did and does provide, after all.
Our giving to the Church must be an
act of community, where we draw nearer to each other, not an act of competition
or objectification, where we draw away from them. It must be an act where
we take responsibility for God’s work, not where we try to take control of it.
When all is said and done, it is
about faith. John Wesley famously used to inquire into the spiritual
health of the faith communities he had founded when he would visit them.
A regular question he would ask, to help them determine the quality of their
faith was this: has your faith affected your pockets? If it
hasn’t, then it probably is weak and feeble.
You
are hard-working, faithful, and generous.
You are already giving much to show God’s love in the world. I invite you to continue in this path of
gentle wisdom. We are set as stewards,
or temporary managers, of God’s abundance and creation. God the Giver is
joyously generous, as we must be.
Trinity is a special loving community, and its varied ministries show
God’s love in creation. I invite us all
pray for the courage to break out of our insecurity and fear around money into
the world of an abundant God. Open our
hands, heave up our gifts, and bring offerings into God’s courts with
praise.
In the name of Christ,
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment