The post-resurrection stories of the New Testament – especially in Acts - tell us many of the details about how the Holy Spirit’s presence helped the early church emerge. We know enough of the story to recognize that there were many challenges to the early believers and many reasons for doubt… John tells us how even one of the original disciples – one who had spent considerable time with Jesus over the course of his three year ministry - was filled with doubt and uncertainty in the days following that first Easter… I am so glad that the canon includes this story of Thomas since there are times in all of our faith journeys when we feel like Thomas, when we have our doubts and when we struggle with what we believe… There’s a bit of Thomas is all of us, isn’t there?
Today is a Sunday when we consider both what we do believe and also what we have our doubts about… Today is also a day when we are invited to make the connection between our faith and our financial commitment to this church, for this Sunday is Pledge Sunday here at Rocky Hill Congregational Church, United Church of Christ…
It is clear from the reading from Acts this morning that even the earliest followers of Jesus had to talk about and deal with matters of money!! We don’t know whether they were as sensitive about talking about money matters as we New England folk are! What we do know from the text is that as the early church was formed in the middle of the first century that the folks shared their material wealth… Sharing financial gifts, material possessions, and their mutual talents together was part of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ - even in the 1st century! Most of us who gather here understand that sharing our material wealth continues to be a part of what it means to be a covenanted member of the church of Jesus Christ…
Now many of you hardly know me at all… I am still a stranger among you, still within my first month of service as your interim pastor… You don’t know me from Adam, as they say!!
So I have decided that if I’m going to talk about money from this pulpit today I’d better be prepared to be pretty honest and not preach “at you” but share “with you” some of my own journey around my pledging habits and tradition…
I was raised in a New England household, in Concord, New Hampshire, as the middle child with two brothers on either side of me - where frankly there seemed to be very little conversation about money and how we spent it… I simply remember that we were not wealthy and we were not poverty struck…What I do remember, however, is that each Sunday as we prepared to go to church as a family my mother would pull out the family checkbook and each week she would write out a check and put it in her pledge envelope to be deposited in the offering plates every week like clockwork! So… I had the opportunity to see my parents demonstrate for me that part of what we did as a family and as a member of a local church was to give to that church…
Now I don’t remember that pastors preached about tithing… It was really only after I studied in my seminary years that I learned about the idea that Biblical texts invite us to give away 10 % of what we make… And thru the years I have gradually increased the amount of my giving so that I do now tithe every year… I do give 10 - 15% away of whatever I make each year – not all of it goes to church – but a large percentage does indeed go towards the work of the church… I have my church membership with Spring Glen Congregational Church, United Church of Christ – my “home” church in Hamden, CT. (As an itinerant pastor I keep my clergy “standing” in the Association in which I reside.) What I want you to know about me this morning is that I also pledge to whatever church I am serving as an Interim Pastor…You will see me come forward this morning with a pledge card for this church’s Pledge Campaign… I will contribute a $1000 to this church for its use – for both local church programs and wider missions…
And you might wonder why I would give money back to the church where I am serving as the interim pastor… Even though I am still quite new and just getting to know you all I am very committed to the work of this church… and that means I not only serve you, I also give to you from the means that you provide for me in my salary… I consider myself a part of you while I am with you… And even though I will not become an official “member” here I do consider myself a person of faith who comes among you to share together in this family of faith…
And I am excited about serving among you here! As I learn more and more about this church with each new week I come to understand the strengths and the blessings that this congregation shares… You are a congregation that shares both the joys and the sorrows of life together… You, like so many other church families, struggle with how to be people of faith and how to be witnessing followers of Christ… Together we are a church family that tries to figure out what it means to be Christ’s body in this world – a body that functions both here in this building and out beyond these walls - into the wider community of Rocky Hill and beyond the boundaries of state and country to around the world… I had the privilege this past Monday to go on an Immersion Trip into Hartford with some members of this congregation. We were lead thru Hartford by The Rev. Ed Ayala (a UCC Hispanic pastor who serves a growing church that meets weekly at Hartford’s Immanuel Congregational chapel.) Ed also serves as the Associate Director of the Christian Activities Council, an organization that works in partnership with sponsoring urban and suburban congregations to foster the development of empowering resources for those in need. Christian Activities Council also works toward the reform of social structures by providing concrete demonstrable models of Christian engagement in the core city and the metropolitan region. I have learned that this congregation is connected to Christian Activities Council in a number of ways.
During the course of our bus tour of Hartford on Monday we traveled thru all the various neighborhoods as Ed talked with us about how this church and others provide support for projects and services that help make a real difference in the lives of people in various Hartford neighborhoods... Ed shared some wonderful stories about how people’s lives have been changed by the support this congregation provides Christian Activities Council…
Your Associate Pastor, Donna, has just come back from spending time this past week in Biloxi, Mississippi with one of our United Church of Christ mission outreach projects – Back Bay Mission – where she serves on the Board of Directors. As many of you know Back Bay Mission has been a place active in addressing issues of poverty and justice for a long time now. As a result of the hurricanes in recent years along the Gulf Coast, Back Bay Mission has continued to help cope with the rebuilding of the area, with the addressing of needs of so many, as well as helping to raise all of our awareness of the church’s role in enacting social change…
These are just a few of the examples of ways that the money that this church collects as part of its Stewardship Campaign goes out beyond these walls to help others… And we can simply look around this sanctuary today and realize that there has been much expended to keep this building in good shape and that it takes a number of staff to offer the services and support that this church provides for so many of its members and friends…
In this tough economic season we can function out of a fearful place if we choose… We can worry about how we will each “get by” if things take a turn for the worse… During times of transition in the life of this church it may be easy to worry about the future and whether Rocky Hill Congregational Church can continue to be all that it has been in the past… It is easy to be people of fear in this season… We can probably all identify with those disciples who huddled behind locked doors not knowing what might happen next… We too can lock the doors of our houses and also the doors of our hearts so that no one can break in… We can find ourselves not trusting that all will be well, not believing that times will indeed get better… We can all too easily let one fear generate other fears… I value what one person of faith writes when he says, “Thankfully, Jesus does come through the locked doors of fear, despair, and sin in our lives – but not to condemn us. He comes to give us the peace the world can’t give, the world can’t take away.” ( Timothy Warner in this week’s Disciplines – A book of Daily Devotions.)
We can picture that grieving group of followers huddled together behind a locked door and their surprise when Jesus suddenly appeared in the room with them… What a wonderful and also frightening moment that must have been! And then the risen Christ is among them and says, “Peace be with you.” …Jesus comes into our lives in the same way – he can surprise us in our times of fear and despair… He can come to us in spite of our failures and mistakes… He comes to each of us with those welcome and comforting words, “Peace be with you.”…
As your Stewardship Committee reminded you in one of its letters to you about this pledge campaign, “When you became a member of Rocky Hill Congregational Church United Church of Christ you each made a covenant with the church to accept the cost and the joy of discipleship.” To be a community of faith is to be a church family that comes together and shares what it has together so no one need feel frightened or scared or alone… As a community of faith we learn to share together and to work out of places of trust and faith rather than out of fear and helplessness… As a body of Christ we can learn what it means to be blessed by Jesus with a peace that passes all understanding…
Each year this church comes to those who are members and friends of the church and invites us to consider anew what it means to be part of this covenantal body…
You may have heard that recent statistics tell us that only 5% of American Christians tithe and the surprise is that these numbers have remained steady over many decades… If you have never been a tithing giver, consider that this year might be a time for you to consider moving in that direction… I know we all have other organizations and non-profits that seek out and ask for our money with great regularity… I’m reminded of the ads that the American Red Cross used in recent years… Those ads suggested that folks don’t give blood because no one asks them to give… Sometimes I suspect that we church people, who dislike even talking about money, much less asking people for money just might need to say: Please give to this church!... There! Consider yourself asked!
The Rev. Jonathan Lee, who served as your Senior Pastor until a few weeks ago, spoke from this pulpit on March 8th about the reality of who gives here at Rocky Hill Church. I quote now from that sermon: “Right now, with about 600 members, 10 pledgers are paying 36% of the total amount given to this church this year…” Jonathan went on to say that this church’s dependence on those few significant pledgers and the dependence on the church’s endowment to fund the budget each year is neither fair nor smart… Jonathan then mentioned that the generosity of some historic givers who made significant contribution to this church upon their death (or even prior to their death) have left this church with an illusion of economic security that it does not in fact have…
Part of the work this church will be doing in the months ahead is to continue to vision together… Even as we look back and celebrate all that this congregation has been we need to also look ahead to where God might be calling this congregation to go as it moves into the future… We need to each become even more clear about why you do hold membership in this church, why you continue your membership here, and what it is about this church that makes it your “church home”…
This church needs your generous financial support…
We are an Easter people! Along with our brothers and sisters in faith in other congregations here and around the world we are each one of us committed as Easter people to become Christ in this world – to be his eyes, his ears, his hands, his arms, and yes, even his legs…
We are each called to be Christ for one another in wonderful and mysterious ways…
We are called to be Christ in both simple and profound ways…
We are each called to be followers “on the way”, followers of the risen Christ…
We know that we can do far more together than we can possibly do alone…
Let us go forth as Easter people with the peace of Christ in our hearts!
Alleluia! Amen!