A sermon preached by Bishop Bill Burrill as part of the St. Andrew's centenary celebration in 1990

Living the Good News

Stewardship

I would take the occasion, I'm sure on behalf of Kay as well, to thank you all for your wonderful hospitality these three days. It doesn't take long before you feel like you are a part of this group so it seems to me that you should be doing very well with evangelism. We had a wonderful day today, we had lunch up on campus with a group of folks who mostly work there, some others from off campus, and then had a time with Canterbury. Eucharist at 5.30 and then - as I said to Kay as we left I think we'll have spaghetti for supper - and we did and they claimed that's the first time this year they had it. When I was a college chaplain we had spaghetti much more regularly than they may have it here. So its been a very wonderful time for us.

For those who may not have been here for the three parts we have been working under the title "Living the Good News" looking at it in terms of mission, evangelism, and stewardship. Good News being of course the good news of God in Christ that God is love and that love triumphs over all things. That nothing in the heavens above, the earth beneath, the waters, the deep, height nor depth, life, principalities, powers, nothing, nothing can separate us from that love of God in Christ and that is incredibly good news to an alienated world. So we looked at the mission God has given us to proclaim that Good News and we looked last night at how in particular do we bear that news by the way we speak and by the way we live.

Tonight in a sense we come down to OK we have seen what this good news is and we have seen that we have the responsibility to proclaim that and we looked at some of the particulars about evangelism. Tonight really is the key. Stewardship is where theology really touches real life or as the ad goes it's where the rubber hits the road. I think what you will discover about all human beings is we act out in the world who we think we are and the real question is who do we think we are ? That's really what we have been wrestling with all week. Moody asked me on Sunday whether I was going to tell the joke and I will tell you the joke now. Those of you who were at the special convention heard it.

As some of you know I am a golfer. I did have the fun on Monday morning of playing nine holes at the University course here - went out, met a nice gentlemen and played nine holes on a beautiful morning. The story goes that Moses and Jesus were playing golf one day at Pebble Beach. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the West Coast Pebble Beach is one of those spectacular golf courses on the Monterey Peninsula. Beautiful, beautiful place and a very difficult golf course. They had gotten out to a place on the course where you can cut across an inlet of water but of course the more you cut off the more difficult it is. Moses was teeing off first and he realized it was a good distance so he took a four wood. Non-golfers that is 200 yards more or less - depending on your ability. He hit it a very fine blow and it went and just cleared the water and landed on the fairway on the other side. Moses felt very good about himself and stepped back and invited Jesus to step up to the tee. Jesus had watched all this, went over, thought for a minute took a six iron out of the golf bag and said "Jack Nicklaus uses a six iron here". A six iron for non-golfers doesn't go nearly as far as the four wood. So he stood there and he gave it a fine swing but a six iron goes higher, that's why it doesn't go as far, and the wind got it and dropped it into the water. Jesus walked down the bank and walked out on the water, reached down through the water, picked up the golf ball kind of muttering to himself and came back up the bank. Moses said "you know the wind is blowing in, I think it's at least a four wood. Jesus went over to the golf bag, stood there for a minute, looked at the wind, thought about it, grabbed the six iron again and said "Jack Nicklaus uses a six iron here". So this time, of course, he got everything he could into it and he hit the most incredible powerful blow he could. That sent it even higher of course, the wind got it and dropped it back in the water. Highly irritated now Jesus stomped down the bank, walked out on the water and picked up the ball, muttering to himself. As he was coming back a golfer from the other fairway who had witnessed this whole thing and stood there dumbfounded by what he had seen went over to Moses and said "I can't believe my eyes. I just watched this man go down there and back. Who does he think he is - Jesus ?" Moses said "interesting you should say that : that is Jesus, the trouble is he thinks he is Jack Nicklaus."

The point of that story - it makes a big difference who you think you are. If I go out on a golf course thinking I'm Jack Nicklaus I'm going to put balls in the water, I'm going to be in all sorts of trouble. I'm not Jack Nicklaus. You have to know who you are. We live in a culture that subtly and not so subtly, from the time you are born, tells you that you are what you own and what you consume. That's what the culture tells you. All the TV ads. When they advertise cars they don't tell you the thing will run or last any length of time - they tell you how people will think about you when you drive up in that baby. Everyone goes "oooh important person, look at the kind of car he or she drives." Nothing to do with the performance of the car. Its gotten to be so ridiculous that sneakers, as we used to call them, gym shoes now or whatever they are, athletic shoes can cost $125-150 and a murder even took place not too long ago when some youth attacked another youth to get his gym shoes.

We can say well that's ridiculous but I have a sneaking suspicion those of us sitting in this room are equally caught up with labels and consumer identity - owning the right thing. Look at America, the price of housing is a classic example of an idol gone crazy because housing now costs an exorbitant amount because, you know, our house is our castle. In fact, now we spend tons of money defending the place. All sorts of systems. I noticed on TV-7 that they were telling us today you can get one of these systems that when somebody breaks into your house bells will go off in all sorts of interesting places.

Our world tells us that we are what we own and what we consume. If you don't believe it watch the teenagers - they know the labels, they don't ever wear out clothes anymore - the labels go out of style and they have to get the new labels. Now our teenagers didn't invent that, they learnt that from us. The temple of our culture is the shopping mall. You go hang out at the mall. Shop till you drop. The whole understanding is built into us and it's in all levels and all ages, men and women alike. You are what you own and what you consume. Well, Christianity says no you are not. It says quite bluntly that you will take nothing into this world and you will take nothing out. You never have owned anything and you never will. That's a radical thought. You don't own anything and you never will. You are a steward.

A steward is a person who has been given a gift, you have been entrusted with its use but it is not yours. So we heard from the very beginning of Genesis tonight that God has created this incredible thing called creation and given life to us and entrusted us with the dominion over it, with the care of it. But you don't own it and your identity does not depend upon how much of this or that you pile up. Listen to the parables of Jesus. It is the fool who tries to build bigger barns, move into a better neighbourhood. Jesus says oh you fool, that's not who you are. So stewardship really is wrestling with who are we ? What we are here tonight to celebrate is that we are stewards, we are baptized stewards, we are stewards with a particular understanding of what life is about. My definition of stewardship, and this is Bill Burrill's and it has been updated slightly since two years ago when I spoke here in this diocese : Christian stewardship is the thankful, conscious response to and participation in creation.

Now let me unpackage that. Christian stewardship. Each of us are baptized stewards. To be a baptized steward is to be a person who is rooted in thanksgiving and consciously - because in a sense everybody is a steward, the birds are unconsciously stewards, they drop seeds around, and animals, its built into the animal kingdom, are stewards. We have a choice, we can create or destroy, we don't function just on instinct so Christian stewardship is a conscious thing rooted in thanksgiving and it expresses itself by the way it responds to the gift and to the giver, God, and how it participates in the gift.

Let me start with that. The response to creation. Some of those hymns tonight are so wonderful in that they are all such positive, joyful responses. We should, I think, respond to creation with awe and wonder. The mysteries of God tonight are referred to in the epistle. Life is such an amazing thing, as the kids say it's awesome. And awesome by the way kids comes out of the Old Testament, it was not invented recently. Awesome is used over and over again in the Old Testament as a word to describe God and the gift of creation. So stewardship is rooted in that sense of awe and wonder. I became very conscious when I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast seven years ago that, not just people in Rochester, but we in this country, and maybe it is worldwide, don't accept the gift with a response of awe and wonder. We basically bitch and complain.

That is the way we deal with life and the example I have used over and over again, and yet it is so good I can't avoid it, is weather. Tonight we sang "Oh ye snows, o ye sleets, bless the Lord". Next time it snows and sleets watch how you do it. You will not bless the Lord, you will grumble and complain and whine and ruin your whole day. I discovered in Rochester - you see out in California we never had the beauty of frost. Frost only occurs on windows when it is below zero because you have to get cold enough outside to make up for the difference of the warmth of the house. So frost can only be seen when it's really bitterly cold and when it's bitterly cold everybody is so complaining that they never see the frost. Listen to the TV. They decided that since we like to complain they will give us all sorts of ways so they have invented wind chill factor. Now wind chill factor is a bit of pseudo-scientific nonsense that means, when it's cold and the wind is blowing, it feels colder. So, nowadays when it is cold people no longer say it's 26 degrees, they says it's a wind chill factor of -6. That way you can feel worse you see. You build up this (?) whining response to the gift of life and that has been such a success that just this last year the meteorologists invented heat index. So they can do it to you year round. So now when it is hot and humid you can say "well it may be 93 but it feels like 106" and you can all go around saying "oh dear, dear, terrible, terrible".

I have discovered that if you say to somebody what a gorgeous day it has been or how wonderful it has been the last few weeks most human beings will respond "yes, but they are predicting a really terrible winter". Do you see that is a spiritual illness ? It's a spiritual illness that makes it impossible to respond with awe and wonderment. Maybe that is what Jesus means when he says one must become like a child. One of the great gifts of having a grandchild is that we are getting to see what it means to be a child again. Our grandchild and all small children greet life wide-eyed with awe and wonder and curiousity. Most of us adults lose it - we lose it around junior high. Ever notice ? Junior high kids suddenly - grade schools are just full of bouncy, little people who never walk, they always skip or run. That's the way grade school is. You hit junior high and they all stop. Junior high starts to walk like this -its known as being cool. You know what cool means ? Cool means nothing will impress me. You say something to a junior high or high school kid "did you see ?" and they say "so".

Now why do think junior high kids do that ? Because, when you hit junior high it becomes crucial to be seen as an adult. Junior high kids are imitating us. That's what that cool stuff is. Being an adult is being bored. That is how we are seen and there is nothing more important to a junior or senior high kid than being mistaken for an adult. That's why they change their IDs and all that it, it isn't just to buy booze - anybody can get that. You love to be mistaken for an adult. How sad that adults, who basically go through life complaining and looking bored, are seen as what it means to be human.

One of the great things about Desmond Tutu, if any of you have ever had the privilege of being in his presence. Desmond Tutu is the most childlike adult I've ever met. Kay and I were with him a few days after he came back after the Nobel Peace Prize thing. Everybody wanted to talk to Desmond about the Nobel Peace Prize. He didn't want to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize, he wanted to talk about the Concorde. He had flown over on the Concorde. He said "you can't believe that airplane" - like a little teeny child just full of awe and wonder. You can't be a Christian steward if you aren't rooted in that sense of awe and wonder and amazement. Every time we gather together what do we do ? We give thanks. We say to be a Christian steward means to be rooted in thanksgiving. Matthew Fox, the Roman Catholic theologian, has said and he is taking this actually from Meister Eckhart I have discovered, 12th century mystic and theologian. If you never utter any other prayer but "thank you" that will suffice. That is the deepest possible prayer you can ever utter to God "thank you". It says the daily wow response to the gift of life.

To wake up in the morning and to help yourselves, because you see if you have lost it, and most of us adults have lost it - we really have - we wake up and we feel our arthritis and we think, Oh my God, I have got to go to work. I don't want to get up wash my hair. You know we have a list of complaints the moment we open our eyes. You need a spiritual discipline to combat that - I decided some years ago the only way I could begin to combat that. When I wake up, the moment I become conscious, I try and say the Venite "Oh come let us sing unto the Lord, let us heartily rejoice". To get me straight, put me on the right path.

So, response is the beginning of stewardship. Christian stewardship is the thankful, conscious response to, and participation in creation. That creation that we heard affirmed as being good right in Genesis tonight. How do we participate in creation ? Well we participate in many ways. One of the amazing things is the fact that God has given us the freedom to create or destroy. I think quite often we like to avoid that. We'll say, well I can't change - I am the way I am, my mother raised me this way. We love to hang it on mother for whatever reason. That's not true. That's an escape from freedom. Remember in West Side Story the juvenile delinquent had the song Officer Krumpky (sp?) in which he said I'm a juvenile delinquent and I can't be anything else because my parents were both a mess. In other words, I give up all responsibilities.

No, freedom is real and you and I are responsible. We are responsible for who we are. God has given us the gift but we are in responsibility, we are stewards of this gift of life. Bill Burrill, you see, is very much under the control of Bill Burrill. College students, and here in a college town, having been a chaplain for 20 years, that becomes powerfully aware to a college group when a student commits suicide. The panic that goes through a university campus when that occurs. Why ? Quite often with the students who didn't even know the one that committed suicide. It suddenly comes crashing home to those young people, by God, I could even end my life. That's how powerful your freedom is. Obviously we could do the same to other people's lives. So freedom is (?) (?). God has chosen to give us freedom and that is an amazing thing. But you have to accept the reality of that if you are going to be a steward because, you see, a steward is a person faced with choices.

We have looked at the stewardship in the mission of the Church, the Gospel, and the stewardship of being an evangelist. Tonight I want to focus in on the stewardship of your own personal life. We can do another whole week's thing on the stewardship of the environment, and we have got to face that as a people, before we destroy this fragile Earth, our island home. Wonderful new words in the prayer book, you see. Fragile Earth - we are beginning to be aware of the power, of the freedom, that God has given us as stewards. But I am convinced that in order to be a steward of the gospel or a steward of the environment you have got to begin with being a steward of your own personal life. The person who is not a good steward of their own personal life will not be a good steward out in the world.

So, what does it mean to be a steward of yourself ? Well, notice when we come into this world we are very much like and I even say that now as a grandfather. I used to have grandparents say to me "that's not true of my grandchild" well it was with mine - I don't know about yours. When our grandchild was born there were twenty in the nursery and remember the way they keep them straight is with a bracelet. They can't tell them apart. Babies are wonderful, miraculous little things but they are all about the same shape and all kind of the same color and they are all wrapped up in those blankets and they all look the same. But look around, look around here, absolutely every one of us is different, and very different. Something has happened. What has moved us from being so much alike to being so very different ?

I suggest to you that that is what you have been doing. You have been in the process of creating a person by the grace of God. God has given you that freedom. You are creating a face. Look in the mirror. We all look in the mirror many, many times but we tend to look at the hair and the eyebrows and all those other things. Look at the face, that is what you are creating. What makes our faces different is not the amount of hair we have or don't have or the color or the eyes, its the expression. You are creating that expression. You discover that little children are very sensitive to expression. Little children are drawn to joyful, thankful expressions and they draw away from anger and bitterness when they see it on the face. It's why every now and then when you say to your child "Aunt Susie has come to visit, please kiss Aunt Susie" they say "No". They read faces very well, children are very sensitive to that.

So ask yourself what sort of a face am I creating ? Is it a face that radiates joy and thanksgiving or is it a face that is bitter and complaining. That is what you are doing. It has nothing to do - every now and then after I say something people say, well some people have harder lives than others. Haven't you noticed that some of the people who have the most difficult lives have the most joyful faces. And some people who had it easy throughout life - health and wealth - are angry and bitter. It's not what happens to us, it's how we respond that creates that face. So check that mirror regularly. What are you creating, what kind of a face ? That's a test of your stewardship. Are you taking this gift of life, this amazing thing that we don't even begin to understand and are you creating it into something positive ?

Again, using children, our four children, the first two words they ever said by their own choice were "No" and "Mine". That's where life begins with little children. Children are totally self-oriented. I'm not picking on them, that's just the way it starts and so they say "No" to anything which they are asked to do that they don't want to do and "Mine" to anything they can get their hands on. Watch them at Christmas. If they have brothers and sisters they spend all of Christmas staking out their stuff because they don't want brother and sister to get into it, so they can't even enjoy it because they are busy defending it. Of course, that sounds a lot like nations doesn't it ? Same sort of mentality.

Adults, in our world, the sad thing in the culture we live in, have the self-centeredness of a child, which is cute in a child - for a short period of time. That cute self-centeredness is manifested as what it means to be human in our country and the adult word for it is Security. Security, that's a good thing. That is the adult word for No and Mine, you see. So every bank in America has stuck security into their title in the last decade. It used to be first national bank, it's now first national security bank. Anytime any nation does anything dastardly including our own nation what do we do ? We invoke national security, it covers it over. That allows you to do the things you would never never do under any other basis.

So watch out. You can translate that scriptural phrase, you cannot serve God and Mammon - you cannot serve God and money - I think the modern translation is : you cannot serve God and security. You have got to be able to risk your life if you want to find it. In order to create a loving human being you have got to take risks. Because you see we Christians are convinced, that's why we have been baptized, that we have the potential of being Christ-like. Each and every person in here can be a unique individual expression of Christ. Bill Burrill can be Christ-like. What does it mean to be Christ-like ? (?) to reach out with compassion and sensitivity even when it hurts. The prayer we used on Sunday, which is Bishop Brant's (sp?) prayer, former Bishop of the diocese of Western New York, his prayer is "Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched forth your arms of love on the hard wood of the Cross". That is the opposite of No and Mine. You can only embrace when you open your arms but as soon as you open your arms you are vulnerable, you will be hurt. You not only can be hurt, you will be hurt.

But, you see, the Good News of the Gospel is that for those who are willing to go the way of Christ and take up a cross and go the way of Good Friday there is that incredible new life of love. The life of the resurrection, the new creation that St. Paul talks about. You see, as a steward of your life you are in charge of that pilgrimage, you are deciding whether you will walk in the way of Jesus Christ or whether you will walk in the way of Howard Hughes or Donald Trump or whatever you think is the symbol of total security. Nobody was ever more secure than Howard Hughes - when he went in a hotel he took the top four floors - totally safe, totally rich, and he died subhuman, remember that. Did you ever notice how a lot of us are trying to be that way. The lotteries exist on the hope that I might become like that. I today went to the 7-11 across from the motel and here were these poor people buying all these lottery tickets, maybe I could be rich. Maybe I could die to my own self-centeredness, I guess. That's the real (?) we face in our day.

Jesus said you cannot serve God and security and we are all trying. I know I am trying, I'm trying so hard to serve to God and I would like to have enough security just to be safe. How do we break out of that, how do we make the choice for life, how do we make the choice for Jesus Christ ? Well, Meister Eckhart who I quoted earlier said that you have to learn how to let go. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to let go ? How hard it is to let go of your children, or from the other side how hard it is to let go of your parents. Let go. When Kay and I moved from the West Coast to Rochester - to let go of that life and those friends. Or when a friend or a loved one dies - to be able to let go. Or to be able to someday let go of my own life. That's spiritual maturity.

How do we learn that discipline ? Well, we learn it in many ways. The disciplines of the Church, all of the disciplines of the Church, if they are valid at all exist to teach me that. To teach me how to go to (?) . From where I am in self-centeredness to Jesus Christ. The discipline of prayer, worship, study. All exist to teach me that way. Because you see I have to discipline.

Erich Fromm said noone ever fell in love. You can't fall in love. That is one of the most unfortunate phrases in our language. You can get turned on as the kids say or infatuated. That happens to all of us from age twelve till we die and the lonelier you are the harder you get infatuated. That's why for teenagers it's just a wild and crazy time because teenagers are lonely people. That's why it is equally true of people who have recently been divorced or widowed - because they are lonely. Infatuation is a very common occurrence in life. We are not talking about infatuation, we are talking about love. Love is when you are willing to give of yourself and suffer for the sake of the other - nobody ever fell into that. Even Jesus said "Lord may this cup be taken from my lips, but not my will but thine be done". By the grace of God and through discipleship we can become loving persons but it's not easy. Anyone who enters into marriage thinking it is going to be easy because we fell in love - they are up for a real disillusionment soon, real soon. That's not what marriage is. Marriage is when two people who come together for whatever reason - in many cultures they have been put together by their families - and it works just as well as our system. In fact, quite often it works better than our system because our system is built on infatuation which has about a two year lifespan at best and then you have got to start learning how to love each other.

How do you learn to love ? Well, I once came up with a phrase. The measure of love is the willingness to give. The measure of love is my willingness to give of myself and that is never easy, never. Its very easy for me to take, very difficult for me to give. Now, the key is money. The key to your spiritual pilgrimage is money. You'd rather not think so. You would rather say no, no I give my time and my talent. I work for the Church, I have heard all the answers. Why do we all do that ? Because the key is money and I'm trying to defend that place of security. I was the rector of one parish for twenty years, I knew those people better than anybody else on earth, sometimes I knew them better than their spouses did because they would come to me for counselling or confession. The one thing they would hide from me was their financial status.

Do you know any of your friends you can walk up to and say "how are you doing financially" ? That's too personal to ask and normally, at this point, those who have seen me know that I whip out my cheque book but I can't do it, I have a vest inside. If you want to see the best picture of Bill and Kay Burrill it's our chequebook, that's the best picture that exists of us on Earth. We don't like to show it around because it is so darned self-centered and we are ashamed of it. That's why we play all these games - because we don't want to face that reality - did you hear the Gospel when Moody read it "where your treasure is there will your heart be also". That's why I don't like you to see my chequebook because my treasure will tell you where my heart is and my heart is not yet where I want it to be - it's still hanging back here with security.

That's what the tithe is all about. The tithe is nothing more or less than a spiritual discipline. It's one tiny part of spiritual growth but a very important part. I know very well that all the people over the years of my being a parish priest have said well I'm not going to give my money but I'll give my time - don't kid yourself, that's just whistling. I need to tithe and now Kay and I need to do much more than tithe. We have got our kids educated and out of the nest and if I took all that money into us now I would just be more self-centered than ever. I have got to give much more than the tithe for my spiritual health - whether or not the parish church needs it is another whole interesting question. The parish church might be able to use it well if the parish church is really committed to mission, but if not give it to the Presiding Bishop's fund for World Relief or somewhere else, but most of all you need to give it.

That goes for college students as well. You have got to watch out for playing poor. One of the things we have all learned to do is to play poor. Now why do we play poor ? Because we have read just enough scripture to know that Jesus said "from those to whom much is given much will be expected" and we are trying desperately to lower God's expectations. I used to tease the students at the University of California because, at least whenever I saw them in the grocery store, they were buying more expensive beer than I was. There are very few poor students. So students, you have got to learn to tithe too because you need to make that spiritual discipline just as much as anyone else.

Tithing is nothing more or less than a spiritual discipline, but a crucial spiritual discipline. Then this parish will need to accept the discipline of 50-50 giving because, you see, when you have a parish that spends most of its money on itself all you have done is transfer that need for security from the individual to the corporate body, and I'll be part of a corporate body that is secure. That's not what it means to be followers of Jesus Christ. Oh I would (?) go off and say "Lord may this cup be taken from my lips" - we will because Christians are self-centered people on a pilgrimage. To be a steward in the image of Jesus Christ is to be one who is willing - baptismal language - to die to your self-centeredness so that you may share in Christ's resurrection. Remember the words of baptism. We are buried with Christ in His death and if you really want to experience the death, do it financially. That is where you will die.

I always say this and it never works, but I'll try it again. On our coins I think it's got to be the greatest joke that ever happened in this country - we print on the money "In God we trust". You see how funny that is because, don't you realize, for 99.99% of us in this country, that which we trust in is money. The fact that we print it right on there is delightful. That's the idol we have got to give up, we have got to say, no that is not the god I trust in, security is not ultimately what life is about. Love is what life is about and I've got to be able to take that risk. So stewardship training, every member came up with all those things, have one purpose - to teach, me and you, I'm still being taught, Lord knows I haven't achieved it but to teach me how to continue that goal. That dying to self-centeredness so that I can live with the risen Christ.

Final story. Did I do the Pablo Casals one on Sunday ? Well, you are going to hear it again. For those of you who weren't here then. When Pablo Casals was ninety he was visited and people discovered that he was practicing five or six hours a day. Hear that story again now with what I have just said. When they had the chance to talk with him they said, we can't understand why you are practicing five or six hours a day. You are the world's greatest and you are ninety years old - over the hill, that's the way the world looks at it - why are you doing that ? Pablo's answer was "I think I'm making progress". OK, the only question I leave with you as I go back to Rochester, you are baptized stewards, you are on a pilgrimage from self-centeredness to love and I merely leave you with the question : are you making progress ?

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.