"A Spiritual Dream"
Mark
There are a lot of things I am not very good at. For example, playing golf, singing, cooking, waiting patiently, finding something that is lost. Which brings me to a true story. I lost my Bible after confirmation class last Saturday. I could not find it any where. It isn't just any Bible, it is one my Mom gave to me. Ike and I both looked over at WATR three different times and never saw it. Nanci offered to go over to WATR to search for it but we said no, we went through everything and it wasn't there. Nanci then mentioned to Jill, the custodian, that I had lost my Bible and Jill immediately responded, there is one on the speaker over at WATR. Then my loving wife came in the office a few minutes later and said, "I meant to tell you that I saw your Bible last night during the circle meeting at WATR." Which brings us to Jean's new joke. How many Presbyterian male preachers does it take to find a Bible? We don't know, it has never been done. To which I responded, "I never want to hear about the Bible again!"
Another one of those things on my list of things I am not very good at is preaching stewardship sermons. It is right up there with mother's day sermons. I know what you are thinking, don't stop there. What about the Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving sermons? At least I like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. I have never been real fond of Stewardship Season. I think it goes back to when I grew up in the church, there were always four Sundays designated for Stewardship sermons. By the third one my parents were complaining after church about how the minister talked about money all of the time.
Stewardship is important, no question about that. But it is more than something we do in the fall and it involves more than money. It is year round, it involves how we use our time and talents, all the good gifts that God has given to us. It is not about keeping the church going, it is about proclaiming the good news of salvation, it is about healing broken lives. Is this space, is our money, is our time being used to do that? If so, we are on the right track. If not, we need to figure out how we can, or we need to let someone else use this space.
I was going through some old files last week and came across the following quote: "It's hard to sustain a spiritual dream when so much of your time is devoted to fixing broken machinery." We had some farmers in our congregation in
They had some things in common with Bartimaeus. They didn't get much done when their machinery was broken. But when it was broken they did all they could to get it fixed so that they could get on with the plowing and the planting and the harvesting.
Bartimaeus was willing to do whatever it took to get his eyesight back. He called to Jesus but people rebuked him. They told him to be silent. But he cried out even louder. When Jesus called to him he didn't just casually walk over to Jesus. He threw off his mantle and sprang up.
When he did Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?"
And Bartimaeus responded, "Master, let me receive my sight."
Most of us would confess that we don't know what it is like to live in darkness all of the time, not physically. But the reality is that we all live in spiritual darkness, until the great high priest fills us with the light of life. There isn't one of us here who doesn't live in darkness of one form or another. It is not just the two male ministers who can't see a Bible when it is sitting right in front of them.
I wonder if being in darkness is a little like dealing with broken machinery. When the machinery is broken the farmer cannot plow, he cannot plant, there will be no harvest. When we are in spiritual darkness there is no healing, there is no sharing of the good news, there are no changed lives. A farmer can fix his broken machinery. We cannot fix our spiritual darkness. We try to. Our tendency is to try to fix the brokenness of our lives or the world or the church or our family using our own resources. Scripture lets us know that it is only the high priest who is going to make things right. He stretches out his hand and leads us in the way we should go. Before we attempt to fix that which has broken down we need to call on the Master. We need to ask him to open our eyes so that we may see, not what we want to see but what the Master wants us to see.
We can give all of our time and all of our money but if we are not on the same page as the Master it is all for nought. Stewardship begins with admitting our own blindness. It is asking Jesus to help us see. It is sharing the good news that we have a great high priest who will restore our sight. Stewardship is about good news, about healing, about opening the eyes of the spiritually blind so that they may see God.
When the women saw my Bible at WATR they didn't take it. They didn't keep it for themselves. They told us where it was. They shared the good news with the two blind men. When we hear the good news of salvation, we don't keep it to ourselves, we share it with others.
God has given us a wonderful gift, the good news of salvation. We are called to be good stewards of that gift, not just at church but also at home and in the work place. A good steward shares the gift so that all may see.