Giving Campaign, Sermons

Sermon, November 15

This Sunday finds us deep in our fall Giving Campaign. St. Dunstan’s, like most Episcopal churches, gets the overwhelming majority of its financial support from its own members – from our giving, week by week, year by year. Every fall we take a few weeks to ask people to make a statement, a pledge, of how much you intend to give to the church in the coming calendar year – 2016. Those pledges allow your Finance Committee and Vestry to plan for the next year’s programs and expenditures with some realistic sense of our income. Response has been great so far – I’m pleased and excited. We’re hoping to have most or, ideally, all! our pledges gathered in no later than next Sunday, our Giving Campaign Victory Celebration. If you’ve pledged in the past and you haven’t turned one in yet this year, you may be getting a gentle nudge this week, to see if you have any questions, if you need a new card mailed to you, that sort of thing…

In conjunction with our Giving Campaign, I’ve worked closely with the Finance Committee to make sure that anyone who’s interested in our church finances can find answers to their questions. We’ve explained our income and expenses, where our money comes from and where it goes, by displaying it in tables and pie charts and glass cylinders full of marbles… Anyone with more detailed questions – how much does Miranda’s health insurance cost? How much do we pay for snow plowing? – you just have to ask. Our finances are open to our members.

Anyway – if you’ve taken a moment to peruse those pie charts and tables, you might have noticed that our Buildings and Grounds are a pretty big expense.  Tied for second largest area of expense with our diocesan assessment, the funds we give to our church jurisdiction to help support the Bishop’s office, diocesan programs like Camp Webb, aid to other parishes, and more. Our buildings and grounds expenses have totaled around $42,000 in recent years – around 16% of our budgeted expenses. Now, a lot of different budget lines are included there – snow plowing, grass mowing, cleaning, maintenance and repair, utility bills, our property and liability insurance, city assessments. But all taken together, that $42,000 is what it costs us to have a place. To have a physical location that we own, and to keep it safe, clean, functional and accessible. (And believe me, that number could be even higher if some of you didn’t pitch in as volunteers to help out with some of that work!)

You don’t have to have a place, to be a church. The mission parish Phil and I helped start in North Carolina rented worship space from a Jewish community. It worked fine. But we, St. Dunstan’s – we have a place. And we spend over $40,000 a year taking care of it.

When I first looked at this Sunday’s Scripture lessons – look, I am going to talk about Scripture! This really is a sermon! – I thought, Well, that’s a mess, what will I do with that? Then I began to notice that all of these texts say something about having holy places. The pros and cons of having a particular place that is the focus of a people’s relationship with God.

We know that God is everywhere. A prayer here is no more valid than a prayer from a back alley, or a speeding vehicle, or a hospital room, or a bathtub. And yet: we like having places… places to come where we feel close to the Divine, places to bring our gifts, offer our prayers, receive blessing. Google “Gobekli Tepi” sometime – it’s one of most interesting archeological discoveries of our time. It’s a carved stone complex on a hilltop in Turkey, about twelve thousand years old – which means it predates pottery, metal-working, writing, the wheel, and agriculture – and yet those people, Paleolithic nomads, built this amazing site, consisting of circular enclosures of finely-carved stones decorated with realistic stone animals. It’s amazing – and it’s a testimony to the fact that, as soon as humans developed the skills and organization to build stuff, we started building holy stuff. Churches, temples, henges. It’s a deep-seated and ancient impulse.

One reason we like having holy places is that they give us a place to go. Sure, we know that God is everywhere, but only young children and saints actually seem to remember that. Most of us need the cue, the intention, the routine, of going to a particular place, to help us focus and open our minds and hearts and spirits to approach and receive the Divine.  We see that in our Old Testament lesson for today, a portion of the story of Elkanah and Hannah, who become the parents of Samuel, the prophet and kingmaker, who anoints first Saul, then David, kings over Israel. In the time of this story, Jerusalem is not yet the capital city of God’s people, and it will be David’s son Solomon who builds the great Temple there. But there is a temple to the God of Israel at Shiloh, tended by a priest, Eli, and his sons.

Elkanah expresses his faith in God and his gratitude for God’s blessings by going to that temple every year, and offering animal sacrifices there. It’s not our thing but in early Old Testament Judaism, sacrificing animals was one of the central ways for people to honor God and express their devotion. Now, Elkahah and his family have done this for years, but this particular year, Hannah finally breaks. She is barren, childless, and that grief and grievance overwhelms her. And it drives her away from the family party and to the temple, where she feels herself to be in the presence of God; and there she pours out her distress, her bitterness, her heartfelt longings, to God in prayer. She is so moved, so worked up, that Eli the priest thinks she’s drunk. But they get that misunderstanding straightened out, and Eli blesses her and sends her away. And she leaves the temple with a new sense of peace and hope – “her countenance was sad no longer.” A few months later Hannah finally gets pregnant – but note, please, that she finds relief from her anguish long before her prayer is answered. Coming before God and releasing the passionate prayers of her heart in that holy place helped her. Eased her mind and heart.

That holy place – church, temple, sacred grove – can be especially important when we’re walking the road of grief, anger, anxiety or struggle. People tell me regularly, “I’m holding it together OK most of the time, but when I come to church, the tears just come out.” And I say, That’s OK. That’s good. It’s safe here. This is a place where you can unlock your heart. Weep and rage before the altar, like Hannah, if you need to. I’ll try to be like Eli, honoring your pain and joining you in prayer.

So that’s one thing about our holy places. They give us a place to practice our piety and pour out our prayers. We could do those things anywhere, and some of us do – I do a lot of praying in my car. But it seems to help us to have a defined place.  And it helps us to have a place to gather with other people of faith. This was assumed, in Old Testament Judaism – that people will gather, learn, and pass on faith to their children. In the New Testament, and especially the Epistles, our Scriptures begin to call us clearly and consistently to gather regularly as a community of faith. Christians were a minority, often despised, sometimes persecuted. Their ways of faith and life were very different from those of the surrounding society. They needed to come together, for solidarity and strength, for mutual support and sharing of prayers and resources.

Listen again to these verses from the letter to the Hebrews (10:24-25): “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another.” The author goes on to remind the Christian community of the struggles they’ve already been through, and how well they endured, caring for one another even through imprisonment and loss, holding confidently and courageously to their faith. They’ve stuck it out because they stuck together, holding each other up, encouraging each other, reminding each other of God’s steadfast love in the best possible way: by showing steadfast love for each other, even in the worst of times. Holy places are places for God’s people to gather, to meet together, encourage one another, learn and live more deeply into the teachings of our faith, and provoke – I love that verb! – provoke one another to love and good deeds.

So. Our holy places – churches, temples, henges and groves – they provide a place for us to practice our piety. A place to bring our deep yearnings, struggles, and joys, in prayer. A place to gather with others, to be made and re-made as God’s people.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The people to whom the letter to the Hebrews is speaking – they didn’t have a church. They were meeting in somebody’s house. Maybe, when times were especially bad, they were meeting in underground tunnels or other hidden locations. When this author talks about entering the sanctuary, passing through the curtain into the holy of holies, he is using imagery from the Great Temple, from the practices of Old Testament Judaism, to describe a new way of worship, of approaching God, in heart and soul, without a temple or any other special holy place to visit. Because the Temple was gone.

In today’s Gospel, the disciples marvel at the great stones, the majesty and beauty, of the Temple in Jerusalem – the heart of Jewish faith and identity, the Second Temple, rebuilt even greater and grander than the first, Solomon’s temple, destroyed by the Babylonians. And Jesus says, Soon, not one stone will be left upon another. All of them will be thrown down.  Jesus is absolutely right in predicting the destruction of the Temple, but with all due respect, it’s not his most visionary moment. Probably lots of people could have seen that coming. Imperial occupation is an inherently unstable political situation. The Romans were unpopular and the Jews were restless. There was going to be a revolt, eventually. And it would probably be a religious revolt. And the Romans would win, because they were the greatest military power of the age by a long shot. And the Temple would be torn apart, to make it very plain to the Jewish people that they should not let their funny little God encourage them to revolt against Rome any more. It happened maybe forty years after the conversation in our Gospel, in the year 70.

So early Christianity – and our sister faith, rabbinic Judaism – took shape in circumstances that were not favorable for big fancy religious edifices. Eventually those first house-churches started to get a little fancier – altars, baptismal pools, religious mosaics. But the first churches, per se, don’t appear till the fourth century.  I think that’s why the image of Christians as stones in a spiritual temple is so dominant in early Christian literature – early Christians didn’t have special buildings in which to practice their faith, so they developed the idea that they, the community, were the building, the temple, the holy home for God’s spirit.

But. The fourth century rolls around. The Emperor Constantine smiles upon Christianity. No longer persecuted, Christians start to build churches. And then they start to build really big churches. The great churches and cathedrals start to be concrete manifestations of the power, wealth, and glory of religion, just as the Jerusalem Temple was before them. Christians had holy places, to gather, and honor God, practice their faith, and offer up their struggles and their thanksgivings. And that was good in many ways. But it wasn’t all good. Like the Temple, the great cathedrals could carry the message that God lived here and not elsewhere – and that the religious functionaries of that place controlled access to God’s attention and favors. Like the Temple, the great cathedrals demanded resources for their construction and upkeep. They shone with wealth, while most of God’s people lived in grinding poverty.

In last week’s Gospel, the passage just before today’s text, Jesus praises a poor widow for her gift to the Temple. But I just didn’t have the heart to turn that into a stewardship sermon. I believe that Jesus honors the widow’s generosity and, more, her radical trust that if she does what is right and honors God, then it doesn’t matter what happens to her. But the context for that little vignette is Jesus’ teaching about the hypocrisy and greed of the Temple elites. He doesn’t believe that what the widow is giving to, is worthy of her. Two chapters earlier, he was in the Temple court, knocking over the tables of the moneychangers, outraged at profit-seeking in his Father’s house.

Our holy places can become drains and distractions. They can suck up more than their fair share of resources and energy. Every time I visit a fine old church and admire its beautiful stained glass or historic stone walls, I remind myself that stained glass windows can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain, that historic stone walls crumble and let in moisture and have to be repaired or replaced. There are things I don’t love about this building. But I would choose it over most of the other church buildings I know. It’s in pretty good shape, and it serves us pretty well.

But of course that $42,000 isn’t just this building. It’s the grounds and gardens. It’s the parking lot. It’s the 19th-century farmhouse that used to serve as the rectory. It’s that boxy but functional edifice we call the Parish Center, currently home to our neighbor church Foundry414. And it’s the woods – how many of you have ever been in the woods? Ask one of the older kids to take you sometime. They all know their way around down there. Taking care of all of that responsibly, keeping it safe, clean, functional and accessible, that’s what costs us $42,000 a year.

Could we do church, could we be church, the way Foundry414 does, or that mission parish in North Carolina, or like the little gathering that became St. Dunstan’s, in the early years when they met in a soda bottling plant? Making the best of borrowed space, with expenses for our holy place at 5 or 10 or 15 thousand dollars, instead of 40-plus? Sure. If we were starting fresh, or if we had to start over, we could do that.

But we won’t, because we have this place. Built with love and purpose, bequeathed to us by the founders of this church, most of whom are now long gone. We have it, so we take care of it. To honor the past, to maintain and improve for the future – and because we love it.  I won’t claim that we have a clear sense of purpose in how we’re using every part of our property. With the woods, with the rectory, there’s an element of just muddling along in how we’re using them right now. Maybe we’ll do that work, in the next few years – developing a clear sense of how to integrate those assets into our life, our mission as a parish. Make them part of what we are, instead of just part of what we have.

There are pros and cons to having a place. Scripture, history, and our own experiences tell us that. There are risks and downsides, to be sure.  The risk of usual wear and tear or some sudden catastrophe costing more than we can readily afford. The risk that we’ll let some failure of our physical plant – shabby carpet, torn chairs – either matter less, or more, than it really should. The risk that choices made fifty or twenty years ago, about the steps around an altar or the shape of a kitchen, will constrain what we’re able to do today. The risk that, in making this a safe and comfortable place for those of us already here, we’ll create stumbling blocks at the threshold for those who aren’t here yet. The risk of thinking that the building is what makes us a church. The risk of letting this place and what we do here be the fulness of our faith, forgetting that we are sent into the world as witnesses of God’s love – sent to Galilee, as our new Presiding Bishop likes to say.

But I think we’re reasonably mindful of those risks, here. And there are blessings, too. This is a holy place – our holy place. This space made holy – hallowed, in the beautiful old word – by the intentions and hopes of its founders, by artists and architects, by the pure beauty of wood and glass, by the presence and prayers and songs of fifty years of our predecessors here. This ground made holy – hallowed – by the shaping and tending of humans and by the urgent and beautiful grace of the life of the planet, manifest in trees and flowers and birds and squirrels and stones and sand. I met up for lunch with a friend who was then on staff at Asbury Methodist, right next door, a couple of years ago. She walked over to wait for me in our parking lot – and she remarked on how different it feels here from their property, all of a hundred yards away. There’s a kind of peace on our grounds that’s hard to explain without resorting to the supernatural.

This is our holy place. We love it, and we take it for granted. We use it, and care for it, and sometimes neglect it a little. We draw on the walls and spill things on the floor and leave messes for other people to clean up, just like home, because it is home, a kind of home. And we come here like Elkanah to give thanks and honor God, and to find comfort and hope in the familiar practices of our faith. We come here like Hannah, a woman deeply troubled, to pour out the desires and fears and bitter griefs of our hearts. We come here like the first Christians, to learn and teach, encourage and exhort and, yes, provoke.  That sixteen percent of our budget that it asks from us isn’t so much, really, when we look at all the ways it blesses us. With shelter and comfort, space to use and space to share, flowers in the spring, berries in the summer and the beauty of snow-laden pines in the winter, and most of all, simply being a holy home for our fellowship of faith.

Uncategorized

Anticipating Advent

Advent is the season of expectation that precedes Christmas, the Feast of the Incarnation; and it is also the beginning of a new church year! Advent materials, including candles and prayers for at-home use, will be available starting on Sunday, November 22.

Advent Virtual Book Group: Daring Greatly.  Starting on November 22, you’re invited to join a virtual book group. We will read Brene Brown’s bestselling book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, and share reactions and reflections in a Facebook group. We may also plan one or more face-to-face discussions if there is interest in doing so.  Sign up in the Gathering Area and/or join the Facebook group “Advent Reading Group: Daring Greatly.” Please let Rev. Miranda know if you need help getting a copy of the book. It is readily available at your local library or online, in new, used, Kindle and audio editions.

All-Ages Advent Worship, Sunday, November 29, 10am: We will begin the season of Advent with All-Ages Worship, exploring the symbols, stories and songs of this new season together. After the service, craft stations will be available for kids (and non-kids) to make small gifts for their loved ones.

The Poetry of Advent, Sunday, December 6, 9am: Bring a favorite Advent poem to share, or simply come to listen and reflect together.

Advent Mini-Retreat, Saturday, December 12: Watch this space for more information regarding a half-day quiet retreat, to help us enter into the season more fully. Talk to Rev. Miranda or Evy Gildrie-Voyles to learn more or get involved in planning.

Caroling Ministry: Would you like to join a small group of singers, prepare a set of songs and readings, and visit some of our homebound elders to sing for them, one evening near Christmas? Talk with Rev. Miranda or sign up in the Gathering Area to get involved in this new ministry, intended to share the spirit of the holy season and the love of this parish with those who are rarely able to worship with us.

Share your Christmas with our neighbors! St Dunstan’s will sponsor 20 people through MOM’s Sharing Christmas program this year. The tree with gift tags will be up by Sunday, Nov. 22nd. Please take one or more tags and purchase a gift. Wrapped gifts will need to be back at St Dunstan’s on December 13.

Announcements

Announcements, November 12

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15….

A Spirituality of Gratitude: Anne Lamott’s “Thanks”, 9am: All are welcome to a conversation about how to cultivate a spirit of gratitude even in hard times.

 Sunday School, Sunday, 10am: This week, our 3-5 year old class will learn about the people of Israel’s journey of Exile and Return, while the 6-10 year old class hears about Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Rector’s Discretionary Fund Offering: Half the cash in our collection plate, and any designated checks, will go towards the Rector’s Discretionary Fund today and on every third Sunday. This fund is a way to quietly help people with direct financial needs, in the parish and the wider community. Please give generously.

Christian Formation Meeting, 12pm: We will firm up our Advent Christian Formation plans and begin planning for our special Lent programs. All interested folk are welcome!

 Evening Eucharist, Sunday, 6pm: Join us for a simple service before the week begins. All welcome.

Younger Adults Meet-up at the Vintage, 7pm: The younger adults of St. Dunstan’s are invited to join us for conversation and the beverage of your choice, at the Vintage Brewpub on South Whitney Way. Friends and partners welcome too.

Kids’ Ornament Sale: Christmas ornaments are available in the Gathering Area, for a suggested donation of $1 each. Buy a couple to hang on your tree or tuck into Christmas boxes!

Remembrance Station: Our Remembrance Station hangs in our nave for the month of November. Consider bringing in a copy of a photo, note, or other token of one of those whom you remember with love, as an extension of our All Saints commemorations. On Sunday, November 22, we will commend these faithful departed to Christ our King.

Episcopal Church Year Guide 2016 Calendars: 2016 Church calendars are available in the Gathering Area. If you wish, a $3.00 donation would be appreciated.

THE WEEKS AHEAD….

Needed – Ushers for 5th Sunday in November: If you are able to help out with ushering on November 29, please let Pamela in the office know at (608) 238-2781. We are also looking for help on the 2nd Sundays from December through May (Dec. 13, Jan. 10, Feb. 14, Mar. 13, Apr 10 and May 8). If you can usher one or more of those Sundays, let us know. Thanks!

Vestry Meeting, Wednesday, November 18, 6:45pm: The Vestry is the elected leadership body of our parish. Any members are welcome to attend our meetings, to observe or raise questions or ideas.

Ladies’ Night Out, Friday, November 20, 6pm: Join our monthly get-together as we dine at area restaurants and enjoy good conversation among women of all ages from St. Dunstan’s. This month we will meet at La Mestiza, 6644 Odana Road, Madison, for Mexican food.

Military and College Student Care Packages: The Youth Group is collecting donations during November to be included in care packages for military personnel and college students. There is a list of suggested items by the donation box. If you have a college student or service member who you would a care package sent to, please provide name and address to the office, email to . The youth will be assembling and mailing the care packages the first week of December. Thank you for your support!

 Piece Be with You! Please join us between services at 9:00am on November 22nd for a festive, all-parish brunch celebrating the ingathering of our prayers, hopes, and financial pledges for our parish life in the coming year. We will enjoy fellowship, delicious pies, quiches and other offerings. Please sign up to bring your favorite pie or quiche. Pre-cut pies with labeled pie servers would be much appreciated. For questions or to help out, contact the office at 238-2781. Thank you!

Grace Shelter Dinner, Sunday, November 22, 7pm: Every fourth Sunday, a loyal group of St. Dunstan’s folk provides dinner for residents at the Grace Church shelter, and breakfast the next morning. See the signup sheet in the Gathering Area to help out.

Thanksgiving Service, Wednesday, November 25, 7pm: There will be a simple Eucharist service on Wednesday evening. All are welcome.

Black Friday Craft-In, Friday, November 27, 1 – 4pm, St. Dunstan’s Church: Tired of the mall? Make stuff. Give it away. This year we’ll host our second annual Black Friday Craft-In, a free public crafting event. If you’ll be in town and would like to volunteer to help out, please sign up in the Gathering Area or email the office at office@stdunstans.com . We can use all kinds of volunteers – whether your skill is sewing, woodworking, stamping, paper crafting, smiling at people and saying “Welcome!” setting up tables, or putting cookies on plates.

ECW Women’s Day Away, Tuesday, Dec 1: Take the opportunity to share a day in a small near-by community with good shopping and lunch. This year we will be going to Baraboo, leaving the St. D’s parking lot at 8:30am. We will stop in Sauk City for coffee and sweets at Leistra, a long time restaurant with fantastic cinnamon rolls. Then on to Baraboo with maps, store listings and the highlighted lunch location in hand. After lunch, we’ll head home or do a bit more shopping. Please see sign-up on bulletin board. There will be Baraboo information in weeks to come.

Sermons, Stories

Sermon, Nov. 8

Naomi and her Daughters exhibited 1804 by George Dawe 1781-1829
George Dawe, “Naomi and her Daughters”

Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.  

That is the sixteenth verse of the first chapter of the Book of Ruth, the source of today’s Old Testament lesson. It’s the most familiar – the most famous – verse of the whole book. Most notably, it’s become a favorite text at weddings. If you go on Pinterest, the notorious craft idea sharing site, you’ll see Ruth 1:16 featured in many an artful wedding decor shot, painted on barnwood, letterpressed on a poster, written in cursive on a vintage globe.

But the thing is, this is not a marriage text. Its message of love and loyalty, of forging new and lasting ties, fits easily in with the language of our sacramental bonds. But these words are spoken by a young woman, a widow, to her mother-in-law. Let me tell you the story – you know I love to tell these stories – and then I’ll circle back round to Ruth 1:16 and Pinterest weddings and all that.

This is how the Book of Ruth begins. In the days when the judges ruled – before the time of the Kings, Saul, David, Solomon – there was a famine in the land of God’s people.  And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the neighboring country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife was Naomi, and their two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. Don’t bother to remember those names, though. Elimelech died soon after the family moved to Moab, but they remained there; the young men took wives from among the Moabites, named Orpah and Ruth. But within a few years Mahlon and Chilion, Naomi’s sons, died too, and left Naomi a widow without sons – a woman without a man to protect and provide for her, one of the worst possible fates in a patriarchal society.

Naomi decides to return home to Bethlehem; there is nothing for her here in this foreign land. She encourages her Moabite daughters-in-law to return home to their families, as well; after all, nothing now binds them to her. The daughters-in-law weep and insist on staying—which is when we start to get a sense that Naomi was someone special. We all know that daughter-in-law/mother-in-law relationships can be tense, and these daughters-in-law weren’t even Jews – Naomi might well have been disappointed by her sons’ choices. But apparently Naomi was such an affectionate mother-in-law that Orpah and Ruth were quite devoted to her. Naomi harangues the girls, reminding them that she has no more sons in her womb for them to marry, and Orpah at last consents to return home.

But Ruth is more stubborn. She insists on coming back to Bethlehem with Naomi. And this is when Ruth speaks those famous words, making a vow to bind herself to Naomi: “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God.” She makes herself Naomi’s daughter, she joins Naomi’s family – and more: Christian writer Lauren Winner writes, “With that pledge, [Ruth] makes herself a Jew.”

So Naomi and Ruth return together to Bethlehem, poverty-stricken. It is harvest time, and in order to get food for herself and her mother-in-law, Ruth goes out to glean in the fields. Gleaning was a duty of the rich towards the poor, established in the Book of Deuteronomy: when landowners harvested their grain, the poor could come and collect the ears of grain which were missed.

Quite by chance, Ruth goes to the fields of Boaz, a distant cousin of Elimelech, Naomi’s dead husband. Boaz is in the fields, overseeing the harvest, and notices Ruth, a young woman, a stranger, and alone. Learning who she is, he extends kindness to her, offering her free access to the workers’ water, giving her some food at lunchtime, and warning the men working the fields not to bother her.   Ruth asks Boaz, “Why should I, a foreigner, be favored with your notice?” Boaz’s reply shows that he is impressed with Ruth’s character: “I have had a complete account of what you have done for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death; you have left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know previously.”

Ruth gleans in Boaz’s fields for the rest of the harvest season, at his invitation, but Naomi wants more for her daughter-in-law than a life of scavenging. And the harvest is ending soon – gleaning won’t sustain them much longer. Naomi knows that Boaz is a kind man, and that he is also a kinsman of her late husband, and that this means he is one of a number of people who has some obligation to marry Ruth. Here’s where you need a little anthropology to understand this story: the ancient Jews followed a set of marriage practices called the levirate. This meant that when a man died childless, his brother had an obligation to marry his widow and produce children on behalf of the dead brother; if there was no brother, that obligation passed on to other near male kinsmen. Now, in practice, men were often unwilling to take on these duties towards a widow and a dead brother or cousin. After all, the children you produced weren’t yours, they belonged to the dead man; but you were the one who had to support the widow and her family.

Perhaps anticipating that Boaz might be reluctant to take on a widow, Naomi decides to try to push the issue a little. She has Ruth bathe and anoint herself, and dress up in her nicest clothes; then she tells Ruth to sneak up to Boaz as he is sleeping at night, out in the fields where the workers are processing the grain. It’s the end of the harvest season so Boaz and the workers are feasting and drinking in the evenings; Naomi assumes Boaz will have had a few. She tells Ruth, When he lies down, go to him; uncover his “feet”, and do whatever he tells you to do. Ruth says, Okay, I’ll do as you say.

If all this sounds a little sketchy to you, it should. The implication seems to be that Naomi and Ruth hoped to lure Boaz into a sexual relationship before he had a chance to consider all the implications of marrying a widow, and perhaps decide against it. Maybe Naomi assumes that Boaz’ basic decency means that, having gotten some milk for free, he will nonetheless go on to buy the cow and marry Ruth. It’s not Naomi’s best moment, for sure; but we have to remember just how completely without power or resources these two women were. Ruth’s youth and attractiveness may have felt like their only asset.

But Boaz—as we’ve already seen—was a good man, and it didn’t happen quite that way, as today’s portion of the Book of Ruth tells us.  Ruth went down to the threshing-floor in the evening, all gussied up. When Boaz had eaten and drunk, and was in a contented mood, he went to lie down and sleep near the pile of grain. Ruth came quietly and uncovered his feet and lay down. Suddenly he woke up startled, and found a woman lying beside him. He said, “Who are you?!” She answered, “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over me, sir, for you are my husband’s next-of-kin.” Boaz said, “Bless you, my child, for your loyalty in this is even greater than your loyalty to Naomi. You have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. Do not be afraid; I will do what you ask and take you as my wife, for everyone knows that you are a worthy woman.” The text hints that Boaz is older, and perhaps on the homely side. There’s no hint that he’s been married before. He seems genuinely touched that this young woman is willing to be his bride – not only to do the right thing for her mother-in-law, but to bring some happiness and fulfillment into his life, too.

So Boaz tells Ruth that he will take her as his wife. but not right away, not until he can do it properly. He will not take advantage of her desperation and vulnerability. First, as he explains, he has to check with another man who is a nearer kinsman to Elimelech, and thus has a greater right to Ruth.  Boaz tells Ruth, Go to sleep. We’ll sort this out tomorrow. In the morning he wakes Ruth early, gives her some extra food, and protects her honor by sending her home “before people could recognize one another” in the morning light. And as soon as the sun is up, he goes to seek out the man— the book doesn’t name him; let’s call him Joe— who has greater right to Ruth and to the rest of Elimelech’s estate, including some land.

Now it’s Boaz’s turn to be a little crafty. He tells Joe that Naomi is selling off Elimelech’s land, and that Joe has the right to buy it, if he wants it. Joe thinks sure, he could use some more land. Then Boaz adds, Oh, by the way, if you take the land, you also have to take Elimelech’s son’s widow Ruth, and “raise up a family for the dead man on [Elimelech’s land].” That scares Joe; he’s afraid that might be a drain on his own resources. So Joe refuses his rights of redemption over the land and the woman, passing them on to Boaz. Without wasting any time, Boaz announces that he will take Ruth the Moabitess as his wife, and will raise up a family in the name of her dead husband.

And everyone lives happily ever after, more or less. Ruth and Boaz are married. Ruth bears a son, and names him Obed. Naomi, of course, is delighted; she is so close to her daughter-in-law and grandson that she even helps to nurse him. The women of Bethlehem praise God for his restoration of the family, and remind Naomi of Ruth’s faithful love: “[She is] the daughter-in-law who loves you [and] is worth more to you than seven sons!”— strong words in a culture which generally valued sons over daughters!

So ends Ruth’s story— but attentive readers will notice her name again, in the genealogies at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. Little Obed becomes Jesse’s father, and the grandfather of King David, and the great-great-great-some grandfather of Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus. So Ruth the Moabitess becomes part of that holy lineage.

An interesting thing about the Book of Ruth is that God is just barely a character in it. God is mentioned often; it’s a story about people of faith who turn to God for guidance and protection, and honor God as the source of blessings.  But God works in this story the way I believe God works in our world, our lives, a lot of the time.

God acts in this story through coincidences that advance God’s plot – Ruth just happens to go gleaning in Boaz’ field; Boaz just happens to spot Joe first thing that morning.

And God acts in this story through human hearts and human relationships at their best – Naomi’s affection and determination;  Ruth’s loyalty; Boaz’ kindness and decency; the open-heartedness of the people of Bethlehem, who accept and celebrate Ruth even though she is an outsider.

Where you go, I will go; where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. It’s a beautiful text, and if you used it at your wedding, that’s cool! However, I believe that the trend to appropriate this text into the realm of romance reveals something important about our impoverished imagination for human relationships. We look at these words about intimacy, trust, and commitment, and we think, Oh, this is about romantic love, because that’s where we expect to find intimacy, trust, and commitment.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not down on marriage. I am married to an extraordinary human being, for whom I am grateful on a daily basis. But alongside my spouse, there’s a whole circle of people who sustain and ground and support and challenge me, and I hope that’s true for most of you, too.

My friend Jonathan, the chaplain of the UW Episcopal Campus Ministry – for whom a few Dunstanites are making dinner tonight – talks often about holy friendship.  It’s an idea he’s exploring with the chaplaincy community – how are the friendships formed there different from everyday friendships? More intentional – less conditional – deeper – more fruitful? He wrote about it a few months ago on his blog: 

“The first step toward loving one another is to let yourselves be friends: friends who care for each other, reach out to each other, inside and outside of the hours we share in this place; friends who remember and show interest in one another’s lives; friends who eat together, pray together, laugh together, sometimes cry together…. To be friends is to see one another as gifts of God.

“The second step toward loving one another is to let Christ live in your friendships. Realizing that this second step runs the risk of sounding pious, I think what I mean is that I hope you share with one another the parts of your lives that matter most: the true parts, the God-at-work-in-you parts. I hope you will talk about … what you are seeing of God’s movement in this world and in your life. I hope you will ask questions of your friends here that let others tell you what they see.

“I hope, at some point, you will experience the great gift of being prayed for by a friend, and praying for a friend who needs a prayer especially from you. I hope you will become friends who struggle through the hard parts of Scripture together, and the best parts of Scripture together. I hope you will never forget the gift it is when you show up for each other, and that you also remember how, at times, you have teamed up together, to reach goals you could not have accomplished alone….”

I believe that holy friendship, as Jonathan describes it, is a pretty good description of the bond between Ruth and Naomi. Romance is a very particular kind of relationship that some people spend a lifetime seeking. But holy friendship can unfold all over our lives, in many forms and seasons. Think about the holy friendships you already have, and the blessings they have borne in your life. Think about the friendships or even acquaintanceships that have that potential, with some care and cultivation.

I try not to preach on my children; it’s hard enough to be the pastor’s kid without also being a sermon illustration. But they are some of my best teachers, so now and then, I have to share something. One night this week I asked my kids whether they had done anything lately that they were especially proud of. My daughter said, “Not especially.” So I said, “Well, I’m really impressed with the way you’re getting along with your classmate B. Just a week ago, you guys were fighting a lot.” And my daughter looked at me sternly, paused for a moment, and said, “God is in all of us.”

God is in all of us. And one of the most important, life-giving, fruitful ways God is in us is in our capacity for relationship. Our capacity to reconcile. To connect. To listen, share, support, encourage, collaborate. To establish and live into holy friendships. That’s how God shows up in the story of Ruth. That’s how God shows up for us, much of the time. And that’s a hopes I have for this Christian fellowship: That the bonds of holy friendship will become the strongest threads of the fabric of our common life here.

Jonathan’s blog entry in full: http://thepatienceoftrees.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-flock-of-holy-friendships-our-good.html

Announcements

Announcements, November 5

SUNDAY….

Budget & Finances Listening Session, 9am: Do you have questions or ideas about our parish’s finances or our Draft 2016 Budget? Come meet with the Rector, Treasurer, and other church leaders between services. All are welcome.

 Sunday School, 10am: Today, our 3-5 year old class will learn about the building of the first Temple in Jerusalem, while the 6-10 year old class will explore the story of the generous widow.

Annual Meeting of the St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church Women, after the 10am Liturgy: St. Dunstan’s has a very loosely organized Episcopal Church Women group (“ECW”) which has an official 20 minute meeting once a year to plan a couple events. The agenda is quite simple: 1. Decide where to go for the annual “Day Away” for the women of the parish, involving lunch and a little shopping at a destination not far from the church. 2. Decide where to have the Epiphany Lunch – usually on a Saturday close to January 6th. 3. Decide whether and how to use the ECW’s funds.

Spirituality of Parenting Lunch, 11:45am: All who seek meaning in the journey of parenthood (at any age or stage) are welcome to come for food and conversation. Child care and a simple meal provided.

Kids’ Ornament Sale: Christmas ornaments made by the children of St. Dunstan’s are available in the Gathering Area, for a suggested donation of $1 each, as the kids’ contribution to our fundraising this fall. Buy a couple to hang on your tree or tuck into Christmas boxes!

Remembrance Station: Our Remembrance Station hangs in our nave for the month of November. Consider bringing in a copy of a photo, note, or other token of one of those whom you remember with love, as an extension of our All Saints commemorations. On Sunday, November 22, we will commend these faithful departed to Christ our King.

THE WEEKS AHEAD….

Needed – Ushers for the 2nd Sunday and 5th Sunday in November: If you are able to help out with ushering on this Sunday or on November 29, please call the office at (608) 238-2781. We are also looking for help on the 2nd Sundays from December through May (Dec. 13, Jan. 10, Feb. 14, Mar. 13, Apr 10 and May 8). If you can usher one or more of those Sundays, let us know. Thanks!

Military and College Student Care Packages: The Youth Group is collecting donations during November to be included in care packages for military personnel and college students. There is a list of suggested items by the donation box. If you have a college student or service member who you would a care package sent to, please provide name and address to the church office at . The youth will be assembling and mailing the care packages the first week of December. Thank you for your support!

Wednesday morning women’s book group, every Wednesday, 9:30 – 11am: This group always welcomes new members! Starting this Wednesday, October 28, the group is starting a new book, recommended by Father David Couper, called “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Come and read along, enjoy snacks and lively conversation, that is sometimes even about the book!

 Madison-Area Julian Gathering, Wednesday, November 11, 7:15-9pm: You are welcome to attend our November Julian Gathering to learn why Julian is the ‘hottest’ saint of our time. We are living in a crisis-driven era, and it’s not so easy to believe that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” as Julian wrote. How could she have been so positive? Come and find out.

Liturgy and Music Meeting, Thursday, November 12, 7pm: At this meeting we’ll check in with our core liturgical ministries, discuss our Advent and Christmas liturgies, and reflect together on how to deepen our shared life of prayer as a parish. All interested people are welcome.

 A Spirituality of Gratitude: Anne Lamott’s “Thanks”, Sunday, November 15, 9am: All are welcome to a conversation about how to cultivate a spirit of gratitude even in hard times.

 Sunday School, Sunday, November 15, 10am: Next week, our 3-5 year old class will learn about the people of Israel’s journey of Exile and Return, while the 6-10 year old class hears about Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Christian Formation Meeting, Sunday, November 15, 12pm: We will firm up our Advent Christian Formation plans and begin planning for our special Lent programs. All interested folk are welcome!

 Evening Eucharist, Sunday, November 15, 6pm: Join us for a simple service before the week begins.

Younger Adults Meet-up at the Vintage, Sunday, November 15, 7pm: The younger adults of St. Dunstan’s are invited to join us for conversation and the beverage of your choice, at the Vintage Brewpub on South Whitney Way. Friends and partners welcome too.

Piece Be with You! Please join us between services at 9:00am on November 22nd for a festive, all-parish brunch celebrating the ingathering of our prayers, hopes, and financial pledges for our parish life in the coming year. We will enjoy fellowship, delicious pies, quiches and other offerings. Please sign up to bring your favorite pie or quiche. Pre-cut pies with labeled pie servers would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Thanksgiving Service, Wednesday, November 25, 7pm: There will be a simple Eucharist service on Wednesday evening. All are welcome.

Black Friday Craft-In, Friday, November 27, 1 – 4pm, St. Dunstan’s Church: Tired of the mall? Make stuff. Give it away. This year we’ll host our second annual Black Friday Craft-In, a free public crafting event. If you’ll be in town and would like to volunteer to help out, please sign up in the Gathering Area or email the office at office@stdunstans.com . We can use all kinds of volunteers – whether your skill is sewing, woodworking, stamping, paper crafting, smiling at people and saying “Welcome!” setting up tables, or putting cookies on plates.

Announcements

Announcements, October 29

SUNDAY….

All Saints’ Day, 10am: We celebrate this holy day by remembering the faithful departed; renewing of our baptismal vows; and, at our 10am All-Ages Worship, with kids dressed as famous saints.

 “Holy Dying: Advance Planning from a Christian Perspective,” 9am: All are welcome to a conversation about end-of-life preparation from a spiritual and practical perspective.

Remembrance Station: Our Remembrance Station hangs in our nave for the month of November. Consider bringing in a copy of a photo, note, or other token of one of those whom you remember with love, as an extension of our All Saints commemorations. On Sunday, November 22, we will commend these faithful departed to Christ our King.

 Kids’ Pledge Drive: This Sunday, the kids of St. Dunstan’s are asked to make their pledges to the church – a pledge to participate, learn, wonder, make friends, help out, and grow as God’s people. We will also have Christmas ornaments made by the children of St. Dunstan’s available, for a suggested donation of $1 each, as the kids’ contribution to our fundraising this fall.

Healing Prayer, Birthday and Anniversary Blessings: As is our custom on the first Sunday of the month, one of our ministers will offer healing prayers for those who wish to receive prayers for themselves or on behalf of others. Also, birthdays and anniversaries will be honored. Come forward after the Announcements to receive a blessing and the community’s prayers.

MOM Special Offering: This Sunday, half the cash in our offering plate and any designated checks will be given to Middleton Outreach Ministry’s food pantry. Groceries are welcome gifts too. MOM is always in need of quality used bedding items and towels. Thank you for all your support!

Backpack Snack Prep, 11:30am: The people of St. Dunstan’s are invited to help prepare “Backpack Snack Packs” to help local school children from low-income households to have nutritious snacks available over the weekend, following the 10am service.

Webcast of the Installation of the Rt. Rev. Michael B. Curry as the 27th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Sunday, Nov. 1, following the 10am service: We plan to turn on the livestream of the service in our Meeting Room, as soon as our own liturgy concludes.

The Rev. Sybil Robinson is a much-beloved elder of our parish, an Episcopal deacon, and a retired professor of theater and drama. Sybil has proclaimed the Gospel faithfully for us for many years, even at the age of ninety. However, shortness of breath and other difficulties sometimes make the longer Gospel passages a challenge for Sybil. Starting this month, Sybil will proclaim the Gospel when the text is relatively short, and Rev. Miranda will fill in on other occasions. Please thank Sybil for the blessing of her beautiful and well-trained voice, all these years!

Evening Eucharist, 6pm: Join us for a simple service before the week begins.

HELP WANTED…

Help Feed the Students, Sunday, November 8: St. Dunstan’s is providing dinner for the St. Francis House community, our Episcopal chaplaincy, on Sunday the 8th. Sign up in the Gathering Area to help out! We are asked to provide food for up to 15 people, and we’re invited to attend worship with the students at 5pm. Rev. Miranda will be in touch to work out whether you want to drop off your food Sunday morning, or deliver it yourself. The students thank you!

Needed – Ushers for the 2nd Sunday and 5th Sunday in November: If you are able to help out with ushering on the 2nd or 5th Sunday this month, please let Pamela in the office know at (608) 238-2781. We are also looking for help on the 2nd Sundays from December through May (Dec. 13, Jan. 10, Feb. 14, Mar. 13, Apr 10 and May 8). If you can usher one or more of those Sundays, let us know. Thanks!

Black Friday Craft-In, Friday, November 28, 1 – 4pm, St. Dunstan’s Church: This year we’ll host our second annual Black Friday Craft-In, a free public crafting event. If you’ll be in town and would like to volunteer to help out, please sign up in the Gathering Area or email Rev. Miranda at office@stdunstans.com . We can use all kinds of volunteers – whether your skill is sewing, stamping, paper crafting, saying “Welcome!”, setting up tables, or putting cookies on plates.

THE WEEKS AHEAD….

Budget & Finances Listening Session, Sunday, November 8, 9am: Do you have questions or ideas about our parish’s finances or our Draft 2016 Budget? Come meet with the Rector, Treasurer, and other church leaders between services. All are welcome.

 Sunday School, Sunday, November 8, 10am: Next week, our 3-5 year old class will learn about the building of the first Temple, while the older class will explore the story of the generous widow.

Spirituality of Parenting Lunch, Sunday, November 8, 11:45am: All who seek meaning in the journey of parenthood (at any age or stage) are welcome to come for food and conversation. Child care and a simple meal provided.

Wednesday morning women’s book group, every Wednesday, 9:30 – 11am: Starting this Wednesday, October 28th, the group is starting a new book, recommended by Father David Couper, called “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. If you need a book, please contact the office at (608) 238-2781. Come and read along, enjoy snacks and lively conversation, that is sometimes even about the book!

 Annual Meeting of the St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church Women, Sunday, November 8: St. Dunstan’s has a very loosely organized Episcopal Church Women group (“ECW”) which has an official 20 minute meeting once a year to plan a couple events. The agenda is quite simple – 1. Decide where to go for the annual “Day Away” for the women of the parish, involving lunch and a little shopping at a destination not far from the church. 2. Decide where to have the Epiphany Lunch, usually is on a Saturday close to January 6th. 3. Decide whether and how to use the ECW’s funds. Join us in the chapel after the service on Nov. 8th.

Piece Be with You! Please join us between services at 9:00am on November 22nd for a festive, all-parish brunch celebrating the ingathering of our prayers, hopes, and financial pledges for our parish life in the coming year. We will enjoy fellowship, delicious pies, quiches and other offerings. Please sign up to bring your favorite pie or quiche. Pre-cut pies with labeled pie servers would be much appreciated.  Thank you!

 

Sermons, Stewardship

Sermon, Oct. 25

Alternate Epistle for the day: Hebrews 3:1 – 6

We are Christ’s house if we hold firm to the confidence and the pride that our hope gives us. (Hebrews 3:6)

In the name of God, who creates, befriends, and inspires. Amen.

I’m not performing in today’s talent show, so I thought I’d start my sermon with a joke. Like most religious jokes, this one is built on stereotypes, so apologies in advance if any are needed.

So: Word has just come down from NASA that a giant meteor is about to hit the earth. No escape is possible and few, if any, survivors are expected. It’s Friday and the meteor will strike on Monday.

In one town, there’s an ecumenical group of three clergy – Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian – which has been meeting for years for Friday lunch. They decide to meet as usual. And they get talking about what they plan to preach about on Sunday, given the oncoming end of life on Earth as we know it.

The Baptist says, Well, I’m going to preach that it’s never too late to come to Jesus. Even in the last moment, even as the meteor hurtles to earth and your life flashes before your eyes, if you just turn to Jesus in your heart and repent of your sins and accept Him as your Savior and Lord, you will be safe in His arms. Though your body may die, you will have nothing to fear. That will be my message. What about you?

The Roman Catholic says, Well, I’m going to preach on the Sacraments and remind my people that, having been baptized into our Holy Mother Church and having faithfully received the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Mass, and having confessed their sins and been absolved, they are assured of everlasting life in God and have nothing to fear from the meteor. What about you?

And the Episcopalian says, Well, I’ll probably just preach on whatever is in the lectionary.

I’m leading with that joke today because it’s true – we Episcopalians tend to be lectionary people. The lectionary is our three-year cycle of readings from the Bible for every Sunday. And for most Episcopal priests and preachers I know, it tends to be our starting point, even if we then turn to current events or theological quandaries. Usually what we read and reflect on together on Sunday is what the lectionary offers us.  Sometimes we only read two or three of the texts, instead of all four – Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel. Sometimes I shorten a text, to help us focus. Sometimes I lengthen a text, to give us more to sink our teeth into.

But this week, I messed with the lectionary. I swapped out the assigned text from the letter to the Hebrews, which was more of that letter’s long and detailed explanation of Jesus’ divine priesthood, for another passage from the same letter, which isn’t included in the lectionary cycle. I tweaked the lectionary because I wanted to tell you all about a word I discovered earlier this fall – or rather, a family of related words. And it starts with the word “house,” as in, “We are Christ’s house.”  The same word can be translated as “house,” “home,” or “household.” Now, we’ve been using that Greek word a little bit around here – who remembers it? …

Great! You get a prize! Yes, Oikos. Like the yoghurt. I’ve been trying out that word here – and some of you are kindly humoring me and trying it out too – as a description of our life together as a church.

Lots of churches and pastors use the phrase “church family.”  I do myself, sometimes. But I’ve heard folks make the case that “family” isn’t the best metaphor for our life together as a church, for a number of reasons. Families are hard to join, like we don’t want our church to be. Family can be a painful word for people who come from families with a lot of brokenness or conflict, or people who don’t feel like it applies to them. The “family” metaphor can also carry the implication that what we do is get together to share the occasional meal, be nice to each other, and avoid talking about sex, religion, or politics… just like Thanksgiving, right?

Oikos is an unfamiliar word. But its very unfamiliarity gives us the chance to explore and develop meaning. I talked about this word back in July. Here’s some of what I said back then:  “The first-century household, or oikos, was a lot bigger and more complex than our modern nuclear families. You’d have many generations living together, and possibly several branches of the family. You’d have servants and shirttail relations and close friends and apprentices and all sorts of folks, living an ordered and interdependent life together, day by day. This is Christian together-ness visioned as intimacy and complementarity. Living closely, sharing life’s ordinary moments and extraordinary occasions, with a motley crew of people of all sorts, some more like you and some less, some closely related and some less, some beloved and some less, but all living that shared, ordered life as a household, an oikos.”

I like “oikos” better than “family” because it’s bigger, and it’s messier, and it includes the idea that we’re all trying to function together in some way. For a lot of us, our family may be spread across the country or even the world; we only get together once or twice a year, if that.

An oikos is a bunch of people sharing a common life, a big complex unity encompassing various tasks, functions and missions, and people with various stakes and connections and roles. And I think that’s a pretty good description of a church community.

That word “oikos” is all over the New Testament, but you can’t really find a better example than the text from the letter to the Ephesians that I preached on back in July, one of my favorites:  “So then you are no longer strangers and guests in the oikos, but you are… members of the oikos of God, an oikos built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ as the capstone. In him the entire oikos, being connected together, is growing into a holy temple to God… In whom you also are being-together-home-builded – that’s the Greek verb! – into an oikos for the spirit of God.”

 

Okay. Oikos. A wonderful word and image that we’re trying on together, as a way to think about what this thing is that we constitute by gathering week by week, building relationships, sharing our resources, praying and singing and talking and eating together.

Now, there’s another word that shows up in the Greek New Testament that comes from “oikos.”  Here it comes: “oikonomia.” We have a common English word that comes directly from this word. Who can guess? Oikonomia…

Yes! YOU get a prize!  Oikonomia is the base for our English word “economy.” The root of economics, of all the ways we use our resources and reflect on using our resources – the root is the oikos. How you run your household.

In the oikonomia of your oikos, you would want to provide for the members of the household, making sure people have what they need to eat, and be decently clothed, and go about their business. You’d want to have a reserve against hard times. You’d want some funds for the poor and to contribute to civic needs. You’d want funds for the education of younger members. You’d want funds available in case any members of the household has new endeavors or projects in mind. There might be times when the household needs to expand – maybe to build a new wing, to accommodate a growing family. Those are some of the ways you’d run your oikonomia, using the income and assets of the household to meet the household’s needs.

Our church oikonomia is not really that different. We check on our resource flow, month by month, income and expenses, making sure we’re on solid ground and that our use of resources is what we expect and intend. And we plan our oikonomia every fall when we form a budget. Vestry member and retired businessman Lynn Bybee tells me that  a budget is just a kind of plan – a plan for using your resources to accomplish your goals.

Today you’ll receive a little packet that outlines our plans for next year’s budget, here at St. Dunstan’s, and invites you to make a commitment to supporting those plans. We’re beginning our giving campaign – a four-week period in which we are all asked to make a statement, a pledge, of the financial gifts we intend to give to St. Dunstan’s in the next calendar year, 2016.

Pledges in any amount are welcome. Truly. Pledging even a dollar a month tells us that you care, that you’re committed, that you have a stake in the flourishing of this oikos.

That said, your Rector – that’s me – and your Finance Committee and Vestry do have a financial goal this year that we’re placing before you. It involves a bit of a stretch. We would love to increase our pledged giving by 8%.

We’ve balanced our budget for two years now, after several years of steep deficits. And we’ve managed to add members, programs, and energy while living with a tight budget.

But we’ve done so, to an extent, by using funds outside our annual budget: special funds designated for particular purposes, and money from diocesan new ministry grants.  A lot of those designated funds are scraping bottom. And we can’t keep getting new ministry grants for ministries that aren’t new anymore, but have become just part of what we do.

We have the opportunity to keep growing – in membership, yes, but also in our capacity for ministry, our vitality, our spiritual depth and engagement with God’s mission. But our tight budget is becoming a constraint. We’ve outgrown it already, really.

Your leadership believes that it’s time to commit to growth by funding a budget that will sustain and expand what we’re developing here.  A budget that fully funds some of the engaging and effective things we’re already doing, like our new youth group, Sandbox Worship and our monthly young adult meetups. A budget that supports some of the new ministries we’d love to get underway, like a children’s choir and support for hungry kids in our community. And a budget that helps our lively, busy parish system run more smoothly by adding a few more hours of staff time, to develop our ministries and take some of those “somebody has to do it” type jobs off the shoulders of volunteers.

There’s an outline of that budget, that plan for using our resources to meet our goals, in the pretty little booklet in your Giving Campaign packet. It’s a new practice for us to present a draft budget to the congregation before the Giving Campaign like this. I hope you’ll take time to read and reflect on the possibilities and hopes presented there.

We are committed to responsible use of our shared resources here at St. Dunstan’s, and when we revisit these plans in December and adopt a final budget for 2016, it’ll be a sustainable budget. We won’t aim higher than we can responsibly afford.

But your leadership has been talking about this for months, and we agree, we don’t know what we can do until we tell ourselves what we could do. Our pledges and weekly offerings make up 94% of St. Dunstan’s income in 2015. So it really is up to us.

Here’s the other thing I want to say about that word oikonomia:  it’s usually translated in the New Testament as “stewardship.” That word we use in the church to remind ourselves that we are given responsibility by God to use our resources wisely and hopefully. In the first letter of Peter, the author writes, “Like good stewards of God’s diverse gifts, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” I can’t really offer a better stewardship sermon than that call to share in stewardship, to offer the diversity of our gifts to one another for the building-up of the whole and the living out of God’s call.

Speaking of building up, I want to tell you about one more word that’s related to oikos and oikonomia. A verb, oikodomo – to build.  Makes sense, right? An oikos is a building, among other things. As in English, the word is used both literally and metaphorically, to mean both building in the real-world sense, and building up, strengthening, encouraging, supporting. In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor 8:1). In addition to passages like that, the word also shows up in texts like the Ephesians passage I read you earlier, and in First Peter: “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house”  (1 Pet 2:5).

That image is used a lot in early Christian writings – of each believer as a stone in a structure that God is building. I love that picture of each of us, in our distinctness, being picked up by God and assembled together, stone by stone, to create holy and new and capacious. Today’s passage from Hebrews is alluding to that image: “We are Christ’s house – his home, his oikos – if we hold firm to the confidence and the pride that our hope gives us.”

So that’s the family of words and ideas that I wanted to set amongst us today. Oikos – household. Oikonomia – stewardship. Oikodomo – to build up one another; and to be build into something greater than ourselves.

Sisters, brothers, children and elders, uncles and aunts, servants and guests, all who stand together in this oikos today: May we know ourselves and each other as a household of God. May we serve one another, as good stewards of God’s diverse gifts. And may we, full of confidence and hope, be built together into a holy dwelling for God’s spirit, a home for Christ himself. Amen.

6205 University Ave., Madison WI

St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church