Chairs are interesting things.
They give rest. They help us gather together.
They symbolize hospitality. Pull up a chair. Sit a spell.
In philosophy class they always seem to be used as an illustration for platonic philosophy, this chair is the appearance of the ultimate form of chair-ness that exists in a higher reality.
Chairs get used for all sorts of things, even sermon illustrations.
There is that wonderful scene in To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus Finch sets out a chair and a lamp outside at night, on the front porch of the prison, and sits down to read the evening paper guarding Tim Robinson from an expected lynch mob. He sits and waits in the light on a dark night.
Imagine God coming along and pulling up a chair, having a seat, and watching, giving full attention to us, paying attention, knowing, caring about what he sees, what he sees us do, what he sees in our hearts.
Imagine God pulling up a chair and keeping watch.
So Jesus sat down and he watched. He paid attention. He cared.
The man who is the attentiveness of God, the caring of God, the watchfulness of God.
Jesus pulls up a chair and sits a spell, and watches.
And he says there are two kinds of people, those who give because it is easy, and those who give because it is hard. Those who give out of convenience and expedience and those who give all.
Jesus sits, from a still place, a watchful place, he calls attention to the difference.
The widow gave her two small copper coins, her two cents worth, her humble offering of everything.
It is a moment of affinity.
Jesus is the two cents worth of God, the humble offering of everything.
A moment filled with the cross, with attention, with caring.
Jesus is God’s stewardship.
Ultimately stewardship is about much more than a financial offering. Stewardship is about ministry and ministry is about paying attention and caring.
Because Jesus is the attentiveness and the caring of God given to us how will we pay attention and care in response? Where will we pull up a chair and keep watch? Where will we offer up our attention?
I’ve been your priest for a little over eight years now, my first couple of years here we gave a great deal of time to setting up a network of ministry committees, organized ways of paying attention and caring.
Some worked great, some had highs and lows, some worked for a little while. That network of ministry committees has pretty much worn out, most no longer meet, or are only sporadic. It is part of the natural life cycle of a parish.
It is time for Grace Church to reboot. It is time to redesign how we pay attention, time to rethink how we care. We keep recreating the previous year. It’s time to start creating next year, not last year, and the year before, and the year before.
One of the most common ways for a parish to reboot is for the priest to leave and for a new priest to come along and start fresh. However, I do not feel any inkling of a calling to leave yet.
I am actually interested in learning how to help the same congregation reboot over and over again. I want to know what that is like. That is the kind of wisdom and maturity that I seek to cultivate.
I am actually kind of excited for this next phase of our life together. It’s an adventure to start over together, to pull up our chairs together and to decide how we will share the watch, how we will pay attention and care together.
Let’s be specific. De and Opie Ried, they have convened our welcoming ministry for about seven years. They have gathered a close team together and have organized a way to pay attention and to care for our visitors and to help them connect to the life and ministry of this parish. Our Welcoming ministry has helped spread the germ of welcoming, the congregation has caught on to paying attention to new folks. We’re not perfect, but there is a faithfulness there that is noteworthy because of the persistent attentiveness and caring of that ministry.
De and Opie are graduating from that ministry this coming June. That ministry is looking for new members and new leadership. It is a very concrete way of paying attention and caring, of noticing. Consider a calling to this.
Our Altar Guild is looking for some more folks to help care for the altar so that we can break bread together three times every Sunday. They need help. Especially with the 8:00 Eucharist.
We don’t have an active group caring for the fellowship of the parish or for the pastoral care of the parish. What great ways to pay attention and care. Hospitality at coffee hour still needs some more help.
Then there is Christian Formation, or Youth Group.
Our Outreach and financial oversight ministries are still very active and committed but it’s been pretty much the same people for a long time.
Its time to do more than just do a better job of rotating ministry members and conveners. Lets think about the possibility of something that is just different. I don’t know what it would be. I have nothing particular in mind, the changes might be big or small, I don’t know.
But I am sure that now is the time to start over in some way.
There are many ways to organize, but the important part is the matter of the heart, of making the offering of paying attention and of really caring. That is Stewardship. That is ministry. That is Jesus.
So let’s pull up our chairs and put in our two cents worth.