Wealth, Works, and Wisdom

Guest Preacher Rick Ochocki

• Audio Transcript

  [00:00:00]
  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Please be seated.

  
  If you are following along in your program, you can see that I am not the Rector Mother Paige Blair Hubert. Hopefully she is tuning in and that she and Josie are on the road to recovery. We're praying for you and hope to see you again very soon. I am the Junior Warden Rick Ochocki. And I have been asked to fill in to provide a few words about today's lessons.

  
  I'm going to start with the letter to the Thessalonians. "Therefore, encourage one another, and build up each other, as indeed you are doing." To me, that is a great and apt description of the community that we have here at St. Peter's. The way all of us [00:01:00] contribute something special to the shared work. And I want to say thank you to Wendy, to Mary, to Pete, and to Dan.

  
  Over the last few weeks as we have been prayerfully reflecting on the call to stewardship, they have each shared with us a reflection about their own experience with St. Peter's and why it matters to them. And I'm grateful for that. But, as someone involved with stewardship, I'm also grateful that they all ended it asking you to pledge.
  I want to say thank you to all of you who are active in our church work. In 51 ministries in the church. In your bulletin, there's a trifold that lists all the different ministries. And one of the ways that we make God's work, God's hands, uh, touch people in the world is by doing work that we're called to do.
  This is part of it, and I'm so grateful for all of you that make that happen. I'm grateful to all the [00:02:00] people who came before us, who contributed works, and wisdom, and wealth, that helped sustain this church, so that it is still strong, vibrant, and sharing the word of God, here and now. And I don't want to scoop the vestry announcement too much, but I want to say thank you to all of you who have already pledged during this year's stewardship campaign.

  
  Your vestry and your leaders take very seriously the responsibility to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us, to make the mission and ministry work. And when you pledge, you help us do that better.
  So if you're called to pinch hit a stewardship sermon, what a gospel, right? It is very easy and tempting to think of this as a story where God is giving gifts to us and then we are called to invest those gifts and make them turn into something, and then we're rewarded richly for doing [00:03:00] that. But I have to say, as I was reading a little preparation or some reflections on this, there was a caution against Making God the master in this story, it's a parable, it's an illustration.

  
  It's something God, Jesus is using to try to tell an aspect of the kingdom of God. It isn't an exact representation of how God is with us. In fact, for me, the end of the story where the master condemns the wicked and lazy slave and throws him out and there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, that makes me very uncomfortable.
  There was also a caution about putting myself in the story at any place. The good slave, the wicked slave, the master. So what I thought about most when I thought about this gospel is how many times I've heard this in the course of my life and heard it as a reminder to me that I have been richly blessed, through no merit of [00:04:00] my own, it has been given freely to me. And I am called to give from what has already been given to me expansively.

  
  In fact, a parable about talents that I actually like a little bit better than this one is found in a book called What Color is Your Parachute? Some of you may have heard of it. Many of you may know that the writer of that, Richard Nelson Bowles, is actually an ordained Episcopal priest. And at the end of the book, he has a short chapter called How to Find Your Mission in Life.
  And he shares this parable, which is that when we were all in heaven, before all things came into being, and God was creating the earth, he had work for all of us to do, missions for us. And he said, I need this thing done. And one of us heard that, and specifically speaking to our [00:05:00] heart, Put our hand up and said, "God, send me, I'll do that."

  
  But in the process of being born and coming to Earth, we forgot what that was supposed to be. And so we spend the rest of our life trying to recall what was our mission. And Dick, in his book, talks about that we really have three missions and what I really like is when he says the third mission in life.

  
  Our third mission in life... is to use that talent that I particularly came to Earth to use, the greatest gift that I most delight to use, in the places or settings that God most needs, I'm sorry, in the places or settings that God causes to appeal to my heart the most, for the purpose that God most needs to have done in the world.

  
  One of the reasons why I like that so much is because it says that God is calling us to do things that we like [00:06:00] to do. If you hate public speaking, I don't think God is calling you to be a preacher. But that we in fact, our mission is already inside of us and we know what it is.

  
  So where that relates to St. Peter's is, there is work that needs to be done. And we need you to do it. If God is calling your heart, touching your heart, to use a talent, a gift, an ability that you love in a new way, please do so. It could be by participating in a new way in the 51 ministries that we already have here. Or it could be in starting a new ministry that doesn't yet exist.
  God needs you, and we need you to do work here at St. Peter's, in Delmar, in the [00:07:00] Episcopal Diocese, in the Anglican Communion, and in the world.

  
  So when we were, when I was reflecting on this, these readings briefly, uh, talking to Mother Paige this weekend, one of the things that she shared with me was a, podcast about that last part of the Gospel reading that makes me so uncomfortable. She said the podcaster shared that it might be a warning for the church.
  Because when the church gets lazy, it's the people who most need mercy that suffer. We all need to contribute something, and so I ask you to prayerfully consider what you might contribute in the coming year. In your pledging, please, I hope, [00:08:00] in your works, and in your wisdom.
  One other thing Mother Page shared with me, she said she was looking forward to this sermon opportunity because she was going to say that having been given a cost of living adjustment for this year, she was going to increase her pledge with a cost of living adjustment.

  
  And so she was going to invite... those of us who are here who may have gotten a raise or cost of living adjustment to consider that for our pledge. I said I'll ask that for you. So please consider that. But know that whatever you contribute of your wealth, of your wisdom, of your works, we appreciate it. It makes a difference.
  In fact, it is a way for you to follow the injunction to encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. Thank you for your time and attention today. [00:09:00] Thank you for listening.

  I'll conclude with the, from the letter of Paul to the Galatians. "While there is still time, let us do good, and especially to the household of faith." Amen.