I’m imagining the disciples taking in the size and grandeur of the Temple in Jerusalem and I can only equate it with my experience of the National Cathedral in Washington DC. Towering ceilings. Flying buttresses. Breathtaking stained glass and mosaics. Beautiful stone carvings of saints inside, and gargoyles outside everywhere.
It took 83 years to build the Temple in Jerusalem, and it was under construction during Jesus’ lifetime. The stones were HUGE. 35’ x 18’ x 12’ All cut and placed by human power alone. It’s mind boggling. A visible testament to the cruelty and oppression of people who worked and died to bring that grand human vision to reality.
As Mark, our gospel writer, foreshadows, less than 10 years after its completion, the people of Judea revolt against Roman occupation, and the Temple is destroyed in the violent quelling of the uprising.
Here in the 13th chapter of Mark, Jesus foreshadows his own violent end as he begins his final teaching to his disciples. The events leading to his death begin in the very next chapter. Jesus counsels his followers to remain focused on his message of God’s abundant healing and love for all people, even as the world around them turns chaotic. In the midst of what seems like destruction and wars, God continues creating and birthing the kingdom Jesus has been prophesying. Breaking apart false idols and human folly. Making room for love to grow and thrive.
Six weeks ago, we started talking about Walk in Love, the theme of our fall pledge campaign. We began by identifying “walk” and “love” as verbs. Action words in which we are doers. When we walk, it is a choice to exercise, to move our bodies and minds, to get stronger, to be curious. When we love, it is a choice to be in a relationship, to care about the well-being of other people and creation, and make some self-sacrifice so that others may live and thrive.
Walking in love is a lens for how we learn and grow and express our faith and love for God. We begin by observing what God is doing in the world and our lives. Which turns out to be AMAZING!! Kindness and generosity, honesty and beauty, peace and hope and healing. They all happen all the time, all around us. Walking in love includes pausing to notice and give thanks for God’s abundance in our lives.
Knowing that God loves us, blesses us, and wants to be in relationship with us, we honor God by doing our best on any given day to walk in love, living lives that reflect God’s vision for the world. It’s hard. We fail. Daily. That’s where God’s grace and generosity and forgiveness come in. Reassuring us that it’s never too late to start again, to find small things to celebrate, to reach out in the darkness and find the hand of someone else who feels lost and alone. Community and companionship for the journey are vital parts of walking in love.
Our Walk in Love campaign has included spending time together in conversation and learning, and reflecting on Trinity’s blessings in our lives. Today we bring the campaign to a close with an explicit invitation to engage more deeply with Trinity by making a pledge to Walk in Love with our wisdom, wealth, and works.
Pledging is a way we adjust our focus from feeling fear and scarcity to the abundance of God’s love for us.
Take a moment to think about the blessings of your life. Maybe jot a few on your phone or the corner of your bulletin.
Add the blessings you experience by walking in love with our Trinity community.
God is good.
Now, think about AMAZING YOU! What unique skills or gifts do you have?
Are you a good people organizer? Do you love to meet people and find out about them? Do you secretly want to learn how to arrange flowers or polish shiny things or light all the candles in church? Are you a warm welcomer? A baker or cook? Someone with infectious curiosity? Do you delight in working alone and organizing things? Are you good with numbers or contracts or fixing things?
These, and many other skills, are necessary ingredients for Trinity to grow and thrive. We are a community, which means we make a living sacrifice of time to grow our common life. Walking in love WITH one another, sharing our gifts, we will change the world more together than any one of us can accomplish alone.
How much time would you commit to strengthening Trinity’s care for one another, our worship life, and/or impact with our neighbors?
Greeting or reading or helping with the livestream take about 2 hours.
Choir takes about 4 hours/week.
Vestry takes about 5 hours/month.
Hosting coffee hour takes a couple of hours.
If you have felt like you couldn’t possibly do ‘that’ thing, whatever it is, hear me now: I am inviting you to do Holy Things. All the things that make our life together work are Holy Things. I invite you to be brave and curious to try something new, to offer your special gifts, to the glory of God and help create a small slice of heaven right here and now.
How do you hope to grow in your spiritual life this coming year?
Like any relationship, walking in love with God takes a commitment to show up, to learn, to reflect on our part in it and be willing to be stretched.
Pledging our wisdom, our works, and our wealth to Walk in Love with God and Trinity are important for practical reasons (like heat and lights and staff). More basically, we are knit together into a body that cannot grow and thrive if any part of us isn’t doing that thing we are specially designed to do. Stewardship of our lives is our gift of believing in God’s AMAZING dream, and offering our whole lives to it.
Making a promise to commit our time, our talents, and our money to support something changes us. It refocuses our gaze away from the chaos and fear that churns in our world, and draws us in. Gives us hope, something to do to counteract the world’s apocalyptic language, ways to connect with kindness and generosity. Pledging our lives to God changes us, and deepens our relationship with God.
I invite you to put your money and time and energy where our heart and mind are focused - on grace, wisdom, knowledge. And trust in the light and power of Jesus to lead us through these painful birth pangs and into creating God’s kingdom.
Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation, in the church, and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.
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