October 28th, 2007
The prophet Joel is just not a household name, even for those who are somewhat familiar with the Old Testament and the prophets. If the prophets of the Old Testament were a baseball lineup, Joel would be the one batting ninth, obscured by his big-name teammates Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the heart of the order. Joel is one of the little guys. He has one big moment in our liturgical year, and even then he’s still one of two options: a lesson from Joel is a choice on Ash Wednesday, which is probably where most of us have heard of him, if in fact we remember him at all.
But this morning, we hear these words of the prophet Joel, and I posit that they deserve some delving into. We start, however, with the bigger picture, even though the picture isn’t all that big! The book of Joel is only three chapters. And the event that drives the narrative in this book – if you can believe this one – is a plague of locusts that has befallen the people. Joel, being a prophet, sees the locusts not as a random event of nature, but rather as a judgment of God upon the people. This is a warning, Joel tells them. You have the chance to make things right between you and God – if you listen. If you repent. And so Joel calls the people to repentance, which is the role of a prophet, after all. And the verse that does this quite eloquently is the one we hear on Ash Wednesday: “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” I’ve always loved that phrase, rend your hearts and not your clothing. In other words, don’t put on an outward appearance of faith; don’t offer up empty gestures to God, but rather, make real change: change your heart. That’s true repentance – a true turning around, a true turning back to God.
All of this sets us up for the words we hear from Joel in our lesson today. In those verses, we get the promise of God. The people are promised the end of the plague of locusts. The people are promised a return of fertility of the land. The people are promised the restoration of the covenant, the unbreakable bond between them and God. And so, we hear words like this: “O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for God has given the early rain for your vindication, and has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.” The language has to do with the land – we can understand the power of the promise of enough rain, and timely rain, that’s for sure: for us who have been suffering in drought these past months, and for those in California suffering from those terrible fires. Grain and wine and oil – those words are both literal – food and drink, necessary for survival – but also metaphorical. They stand for the abundance God has promised. God says not just that the people will have these things, but that they will overflow. That’s abundance: the abundance of the land, the abundance of God’s presence and power.
“I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten,” God goes on to tell us. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.” Wow. Now that’s a promise. It’s a vision of both what is, and what is yet to come – the sense that God has already done these things – God has blessed us with abundance, with food, with plenty. And also it’s a vision of what is to come in the future, in the eternal reign of God. It’s a promise that we will have enough, because of God. And it’s a promise that we will have more than enough, because of God. That’s the power of the prophets, who speak in this beautiful and poetic language about the abundance of life in God, life with God. Not as a ‘wouldn’t that be nice’ kind of thing, but as a lived reality.
It’s this sense of having enough, having abundance, and having all of this because of God which now becomes our focus this morning. Joel’s words are good ones to keep in mind as we continue to do some deep thinking about our resources – our money, really – how we share it, what we give, how we express our gratitude to God for all that has been given us. Joel’s words about God’s abundant blessings, this promise that each of us will ‘eat in plenty and be satisfied’ is an important promise, and an important premise for the decisions each one of us has to make about what we will give back to God, as we make a financial commitment to St. George’s. Reaching beyond ourselves, living the gospel, that’s what we’re trying to live out in our giving. And that starts – always - with an acknowledgement and thanks for what God has done for us.
Did you notice how Joel, speaking for God, assumes that once we have eaten in plenty and been satisfied, we will of course ‘praise the name of God, who has dealt wondrously with us?’ He doesn’t think it, or hope it – he knows that this is what the people will do, in response to the love and abundance they have been given. This is really foundational. It’s the foundation of any commitment to the church, financial or otherwise: a belief that God has indeed dealt wondrously with us, and that it is in our actions – our giving back – that we express and live out our praise and thanks to God.
We’ve talked a lot these past weeks about giving, you may have noticed. All of the speakers we’ve heard (at 10:00) had this question to work with: why do I give to St. George’s? The vestry statements out there in the narthex address the same question. It’s a question I hope you are thinking about as you get ready to make a financial commitment to the church for 2008. What’s been striking to me, as we have heard people speak, is how much it’s become the reverse of that question: what has St. George’s given to me, is what I think everyone has actually told us. The answers to that question have varied, but the theme hasn’t: here’s what St. George’s has given to me; having received so much, that’s why I give in return.
You know, we had this wonderful event a couple of weeks ago with Bishop Dixon and the brunch. After the bishop spoke, we asked everyone to talk with someone at their table about the vestry and stewardship team’s commitment to giving the proceeds of our yard sales next year to outreach. We, the parish leadership, want to make sure that we, as a parish, are reaching beyond ourselves and living the gospel; and then we as individuals do the same thing. Some of the feedback we’ve gotten has been some concern: can we afford this? What if we give money away and then don’t have enough for ourselves? I understand that concern. I really do. I and all of us take our financial situation at St. George’s very seriously. But, I also truly believe that it is in sharing what we have that we truly live the gospel. I truly believe it is by acknowledging with our acts that we at St. George’s have an abundance, that we will be even more blessed. By reaching beyond ourselves, we have made a commitment. Some may say, we are stepping out on a limb. And that might be true. But I think that some of the best ministry just may take place out on that limb. My hope is that all of us will reflect on the abundance of blessing in our lives, and take stock of the blessing the church and our faith play in our lives, and make a financial commitment to St. George’s based on that. And I am going to trust that that will be enough to make up the difference in our pledging the proceeds from the yard sale to those beyond ourselves.
John Westerhoff makes the observation that the Christian life comes only through living it. We have to act our way to a new way of thinking, rather than thinking our way to a new way of acting. This makes an enormous amount of sense. That is, if I shift my vision, to see what I have as abundance – more than enough, instead of not enough, and if I give from that place, even if I can’t quite fully trust that, then my actions will change the way I think and feel. That’s the goal, after all, as we think and pray about what we give to St. George’s this year: acting our way to a new way of thinking. Giving more than we think we can, and letting that act of faith change us, change our hearts. After all, stewardship, giving, and generosity are not about meeting the church’s budget, but about meeting God. We meet God in our actions, including our giving. It can be an act of faith, maybe even feeling like going out on a limb, but it’s something I hope we’re willing to risk. I’m pretty sure that it will come back to us in bigger and better ways.
Ultimately, our faith teaches us that our giving leads us to transformation. And that shouldn’t surprise us: we see this every week, this transformation. The bread and wine which are just ordinary bread and wine are transformed into something so much more – are made sacred not just by the priest saying the consecrating prayer, but by the presence of each one of us around the altar, especially the presence of Christ. The same thing can happen to our money – it too can be transformed, made sacred, as we give generously back what God has given to us. So for us, now, I hope that each of us will recognize the abundance of blessing God has given us. I hope that each of us will respond by giving generously as an act of faith and thanksgiving. At our All Saints Celebration and Ingathering next Sunday, please bring back your completed pledge card. Come and worship next Sunday as we celebrate the communion of saints. Come and give; come and celebrate; come and rejoice in the blessings of God.
Amen.