Homily - Stewardship

5:30PM – 7 November, 2010

With what can I repay you, God, for all your kindness to me? A cup of gratitude I lift up, crying your name out in praise, upholding my vows to you in sight of all your people.” (Psalm 116:12-14, The Complete Psalms, Pamela Greenberg)

Good evening! My name is Richard and this is my story.

When Sue and I walked into St. Philip’s for First Sunday Music 3 May 1998, little did we know how much it would change our lives. The sanctuary was full and the music was a Dixie Land Jazz Mass....

But I am getting ahead of my story!

From the time I was a junior in High School I believed that I knew exactly what God wanted me to do for the rest of my life. When Sue and I got married 54 years ago, I knew I was going to pastor in the Brethren Church and Sue would be the Pastor’s wife. Thus I was ordained an Elder in the Brethren Church in July 1961. Two years later, Sue and I served together to build a house church in Herndon, VA.

We moved to Hartford, CT with our 2 year old son in 1970 and I matriculated to the Hartford Seminary Foundation. I was certain God’s plan for me was to teach at my alma mater. But it never happened! Oh, I did get the phone call and the offer was extended, but in that moment of time I realized something else was going on in my life I could not fully explain. I said, “No!” Afterward I thought, “Could that be right?” I was confused and very unhappy.

But God works in ways that one can only discern from the distance of time.

When Sue and I walked through the doors at St. Philip’s that May Sunday, we had been unchurched for 28 years. We occasionally attended churches in CT. Either the choir was awful or the preaching was so dogmatic you just knew you couldn’t survive – unless, of course, you wanted to live a double life, one for Sunday and one for the rest of your life. We visited one church where everything seemed picture perfect – the choir, the sermon and the building. But we were invisible! I doubt if they ever knew we worshipped with them that day.

So we just quit! Either church people don’t care about “outsiders” or the church offered nothing that mattered to us. I don’t mean we gave up our faith, it was just that the church seemed irrelevant to our lives.

But God had a surprise waiting for me!

While our “church hunt” was going on - and abandoned - I received a call from the Sr. Rabbi at Temple Beth Israel – a Reformed synagogue in West Hartford, Ct. He invited me to teach a Sunday morning biblical archaeology class for high school youth. I accepted the invitation and found to my total surprise that I was fully accepted into their community as their own. Some of you here may have heard me say, there are only two spiritual homes where I have felt fully embraced for who I am – Temple Beth Israel and St. Philip’s In The Hills Episcopal Church.

Latter that year, I was asked to teach biblical archaeology and the honors seminar on the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hartford regional Jewish High School – Midrasha. I often joked with them that I was their token Gentile! But once again, I was made to feel welcome and completely accepted.

Who would guess that God’s hospitality could be so welcoming and generous while I was in their midst? Now I raise my cup of gratitude and say:

L’Chayim – To Life - Thanks Be To God!

I left the seminary about that time and joined Sue working at Ct. General Life Insurance, known now as CIGNA. By this time I thought I had completely lost that teen-aged dream of ministry and would settle into a corporate job and finally make some money. But there was another God surprise in store for me. I worked in Human Resources and God taught me a fundamental lesson about doing God’s work in those years at CIGNA.

Ministry happens wherever you are if you are open to the challenge and the ever moving dance of the Spirit of the Living God.

I often found myself invited to lunch in the cafeteria or to a quiet conversation at the close of the work day to talk about the fear and pain of working in a corporate world that looks upon you as a human resource cipher, easily disposable. While at CIGNA, several of us helped organize an after work conversation group where we dialogued about spirituality in the workplace. Doing God’s work in a corporate structure – who knew?

Through two events that seemed at the time unrelated and coincidental, Sue and I moved to Tucson in the spring of 1997. Two days before Christmas, 1996, CIGNA offered me a position in Tucson with fully paid relocation. On Christmas Day my 90 year Uncle (who was unaware of CIGNA’s offer) called us in CT to say Merry Christmas and pull our leg about the mild, snow free Tucson Christmas weather. Then he dropped a bombshell! “If I build you a house, would you and Sue consider moving to Tucson to be with me?” he asked. Uncle Ray’s wife of 60 years had died that August and he was a lonely man longing for family. And so we moved to Tucson! Talk about surprises!

Then it happened – one year later! God’s best surprise was still waiting! Sue and I walked into St. Philip’s that May Sunday morning and nothing in our life has been quite the same. What I had felt in my teen age heart back in that small Indiana town had come full circle. I was called to minister again, but not in ways I could have ever imagined.

God provided the joyful call to visit and pray with St. Phillipians in hospitals and rehab facilities during their time of need and healing.

God made it possible for me to share my love for teaching and Bible study with eager St. Philippians.

God gave me a special blessing to work with the open hearts and minds of St. Philip’s youth at family retreats and times of searching out together how their young personalities are gifted by God.

God blessed Sue with the special work of preparing for the Lord’s Banquet as a member of the Altar Guild and being the presence and voice of St. Philip’s as a receptionist in the Parish office.

Through our Rector, John Kitagawa, God, my Source of Strength and Hope, called me into the service of Senior Warden to work, struggle, lead and pray with so many of God’s people at St. Philip’s.

So today - at this time, in this place and in your presence - I lift my cup of gratitude and say:

Blessed are You, O Lord, Creator and Sustainer of Life, for giving me in these last years of my life the gift of service through the ministries of St. Philip’s.

As Sara Miles writes in her book Jesus Freak, “Did you ever imagine you’d wind up here?” I certainly didn’t! When you are open to God’s moving (even if you are not aware that God is moving), be ready for surprises.

Generous is God’s provision! We have God’s bread – the manna which is Christ - to satisfy our hungering spirit; God’s wine and the ever flowing springs of living water from Jesus to quench the thirst of our parched souls; and God’s people, St. Philippians and all God’s people everywhere, to embrace and love us along our life’s journey.

Our story, mine and Sue’s, is told! You have a story too! I do not know what it might be, but you do have a story. I ask you, how has God entered into your life through the ministries of St. Philip’s?

Each year at this time Sue and I reflect upon God’s provision for us. Time is easy to share – we are retired. Contributing our skills is a joy we can not measure. But we must also consider our financial investment to nurture and grow St. Philip’s ministries.

Sue and I invest in St. Philip’s – some call this a pledge. It is a spiritual discipline we learned at St. Philip’s. We sit down together each October to determine the amount of our investment and how we can enlarge our financial commitment. Then we complete the pledge form and it becomes an intentional and disciplined part of our everyday lives.

I asked you to join Sue and me by investing in St. Philip’s. Make giving a part of your life! Our ministries depend on each of us – me, you and everyone who comes to St. Philip’s. God blesses St. Philip’s with a dedicated staff; many committed and reliable volunteers; and unknown numbers of prayer supporters, but our financial support is the oil that makes it come together smoothly as a blessing to everyone.

If you have not pledged before, I suggest a basic pledge of $7.00 @ week - which equals $364 @ year. 100 new basic pledge investments would add $36,400 to our income.

If you are a current pledger, consider increasing that investment by $1.00 @ day. If all 600 of our current pledgers did that, St. Philip’s would increase our financial base by $218,400.

Think about it! Pray about it! Do it!

With what can I repay you, God, for all your kindness to me? A cup of gratitude I lift up, crying your name out in praise, upholding my vows to you in sight of all your people.” (Psalm 116:12-14, The Complete Psalms, Pamela Greenberg)

Notes:

1) The Complete Psalms: The Book of Prayer Songs in a New Translation, Pamela Greenberg, Bloomsbury, 2010, p 255

2) Jesus freak: feeding – healing – raising the dead, Sara Miles, Josey-Bass, 2010, p 101

Richard R. Kuns, revised, 6 November 2010