offering – Salvaged Faith

Taste and See God’s Purpose

Posted on June 28, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 5:1-13

In his translation of the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, Eugene Peterson concludes the Beatitudes with these words:

“Let me tell you why you are here…”

You see, this sermon from Jesus is full of instructions for the people of God.

It reminds us of the attitudes we are supposed to carry with us into the world.

Jesus tells us what to do and how to live and how we can serve his Kingdom and what our purpose is for being.

“Let me tell you why you are here…” he begins. “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth.”

I must admit, when I dove into studying salt into the scripture, I thought that I would just find these passages from the New Testament about being salt and light in the world.

But salt is woven throughout the Bible as God forms a relationship with the Hebrew people!

In the Ancient Near East, salt was often a part of covenants between two parties – as they broke bread, and signed deals, they also ate salt, as part of their promises to fulfill their responsibilities.

So when God makes a covenant with the people, they were also salt covenants.

In Leviticus 2, Numbers 18, and 2 Chronicles 13:5, we find this language of the salt covenant.

As Margaret Feinberg writes, “In each instance, God is asking the people, priests, and kings to enter into a permanent commitment to his purposes.” (Taste and See Bible Study, page 83)

This covenant was remembered through the regular grain offerings, but even in the post-temple Jewish faith, during the Sabbath meal, bread is dipped into salt and then eaten. It remains a symbol of God’s covenant.

What is that covenant?

Well, there are quite a few covenants in the scriptures, but all of them have to do with our purpose.

In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood, renewing the blessings of creation and reaffirming that all people are made in God’s image. God promises to preserve humanity – an expression of love and mercy. Our purpose is to bear God’s image and be God’s caretakers for this world.

Just a few chapters, but many years later, we read about the covenant God made with Abraham. It is the promise of land, descendants, and blessing, and through this family, God’s blessings would extend to all the earth. Our purpose is to be a blessing for all the world.

In the book of Exodus, the story of God’s people continues with liberation from oppression in the land of Egypt. God rescues his people and establishes a covenant through Moses, saying “I’ll take you as my people, and I’ll be your God” (Exodus 6). Part of what it means to be God’s people, holy and set-apart, is to live a certain way. God promises blessings if we obey his commands, and consequences if we don’t. Our purpose is to commit ourselves to God’s ways because they are the ways of life!

There is also a covenant with David, a promise that God would lift up a descendent that would make the promises of Abraham and Moses a reality – a never-ending kingdom dedicated to God. Our purpose is walk in the way of the Lord.

And then, we have the new covenant. Spoken of in scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, God sees all of the ways that we have failed to hold up our end of the deal. But rather than give up, God promises to write these commands on our hearts, forgive our sins, give us the Spirit that will finally allow us to be God’s people, and renew the heavens and the earth. Our purpose is to accept the gift of God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that will allow us to do all of the other things that we had promised to do and to be a witness to all the earth.

These covenants, whether officially “salt covenants” or not, all remind us of our salty purpose.

Our job is to point to the hidden work of God in this world and bring it out.

We are supposed to help the world taste and see and feel and experience the blessings of God.

We are God’s people.

We are the salt of the earth.

I must confess that I have watched more than my fair share of cooking shows.

And one of the things that I notice is that salt is vital for good food.

Whenever a dish is being judged, whether or not it has enough salt seems to be essential for its success.

When you sprinkle salt on watermelon or tomatoes, the flavor of those fruits become sweeter and more crisp.

When you add salt to soup, it becomes rich and deep.

When added to roasted vegetables or French fries… let me tell you – you almost can’t have enough salt on French fries.

Salt takes what is there and brings out the flavors.

And that is our job.

We are called to be out in the world and point to all of the ways that God is moving among us.

Our purpose is to bring out the “god-flavors” of the earth and to help others get a taste of heaven.

But what God is doing in this world is about more than just some spicy good deeds and blessings.

It is about salvation, healing, and abundant life, too.

Which seems a bit ironic, since too much salt can destroy land and turn it into a barren waste.

We talk about rubbing salt into a wound as if it is a bad thing.

But salt is an agent of healing, preservation, an anti-septic, and is essential for life.

In fact, many fertilizers incorporate sodium or potassium chloride as ingredients and salt is needed even in manure placed on crops because it breaks it down so that plants can absorb the nutrients.

If you head to the hospital, one of the first things they will often do is hook you up to a saline drip, because salt is critical to the functioning of our cells, enables our nerves to transmit impulses and stimulates our muscle fibers (Taste and See 103).

My husband and I will often watch the History channel show, Alone, in which ten contestants are dropped off in the wilderness to survive on their own for as long as they can. They can choose to bring with them only ten survival items and for the first time in nine seasons, a contestant has chosen to bring a block of salt. So often, that salt deficiency has played havoc with the health of contestants who are pulled before there are ready to quit.

Feinberg recounts in her book about how the Romans saw salt as vital to the expansion of their empire. As the armies were sent great distances to conquer new lands, salt deprivation was impacting their efficiency – causing “confusion, seizures, even brain damage.” So the Romans, “began including salt, sal in Latin, in their soldier’s pay. This is where we derive the word ‘salary’.” (Taste and See, p. 103-104).

We find this in our scriptures as well.

Elisha tosses salt into a cursed spring in order to purify the waters.

Ezekiel describes how newborn babies are rubbed with salt after they are born – a cleansing practice as salt serves as both an exfoliant and disinfectant.

In the incense for worship at the tabernacle and temple, salt was an essential component and the scent played a role in reminding people of their relationship with God.

But, therapies related to salt inhalation have also been used since the 1800s, and is seen as beneficial for breathing, stress, and your immune system… so I do wonder what positive impacts such practice might have had for the people.

And the very root of salvation, is that same Latin base word, sal.

Salvare means to save.

To preserve.

To rescue.

When Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth, he reminds us of our purpose.

“Let me tell you why you are here…”

Jesus is asking us to be his hands and feet in this world.

To be his people.

To serve his Kingdom.

And what God is doing through us is bringing life, healing, blessings, renewal, and salvation to this world.

Feinberg shares in her book some wisdom from the Talmud that says:

“if someone is suffering and in need, and you can take away 1/60 of their pain, then that is goodness, and the call to help us from God…. Your one little grain of salt can help with something someone else’s grain can’t. And when all [our] grains get mixed and sprinkled together, preserving and flavoring and helping others flourish occurs everywhere.” (Taste and See p. 114).

Friends, I know that this country is starkly divided about a lot of things.

There are major conversations happening as we speak about rights related to abortion, guns, and human sexuality.

In some of cases we are expanding those rights and in so many places, laws and work is being done to curtail them.

And I keep thinking about the role of salt.

Too much can be deadly and it can destroy a land.

But a healthy dose is necessary for life.

I keep thinking about my sisters who have had to have procedures that in some places would be illegal in order to preserve their lives or to care for their bodies in the wake of a miscarriage or even delivery.

You have to pay attention to what someone or something needs and be able to respond with the right kind of care to provide for healing, blessing, renewal, and salvation.

My colleague, Elizabeth Brick, shared some words yesterday that I wanted to borrow and adapt to share with you.

As your pastor, but also as a fellow Christian on the road with you, “I will drive you to your medical procedure, no matter what it is, and I will care for you afterward if you need, because that is what love looks like.”

I will support you as you seek the opportunities that bring you life… whether it is playing sports or getting married or simply holding down a job… no matter your gender or gender identity, because you are a child of God.

And in all of our decision-making, I promise to hold you accountable and set before us all the vision of responsibility and care that God has invited us to practice towards one another.

“I will be there for you, as you have been here for me, as together we will be there for others, because this is what a healthy community looks like.

This is how we continue to create, grow, and nurture a world of mutuality, compassion, and joy, not just for ourselves, but for those who follow behind us.”

God is working through us to bring life, healing, blessings, renewal, and salvation to this world.

We are called to preserve the teachings of Christ and carry them forward.

We are called to reach out and point to the sweetness, hope, and joy of a life with God.

We are called to influence others, bring out new life, and offer mercy and compassion and love.

But we don’t do it alone.

It is God working through us.

It is us pointing to God already busy and active in the world.

And just like with salt added to a meal, even a little bit makes a difference.

Love before Knowledge

Posted on February 8, 2015Leave a comment

There are two things I have come to hope for on Communion Sundays:

Welch’s grape juice in the cup, and Hawaiian Sweet Bread on the table.

And that’s for a couple of reasons:

First, they both taste better than most other options available.

Second, the Hawaiian Sweet Bread is the perfect combination of soft and easy to tear and yet not crumble into pieces all over the place – which is a good thing when you are the one breaking bread every time.

And third, the Welch’s are Methodist.

In fact, the birth of Welch’s grape juice came out of our desire to stop using fermented wine during the temperance movement. Thomas Welch was a dentist and a communion steward at his local Methodist Church. He heard about how Louis Pasteur had begun to pasteurize milk, so he decided to try and apply the process to grape juice in 1869.

His son, Charles, marketed the pasteurized grape juice to these temperance-minded churches. In fact, he quit his job as a dentist to do so and created the Welch’s Grape Juice brand in 1893. (from Welchs.com/about-us/our-story/our-history and http://www.gbod.org/resources/changing-wine-into-grape-juice-thomas-and-charles-welch-and-the-transition-)

While the roots of our “unfermented juice of the grape” go back to the late 19^th century, we have continued to emphasize using grape juice, even long after prohibition was repealed.

Our 1964 Book of Worship included this phrase which we have continued to use until today: that while the “historic and ecumenical practice has been the use of wine, the use of the unfermented grape juice by The United Methodist Church and its predecessors is an expression of pastoral concern for recovering alcoholics, enables the participation of children and youth, and supports the church’s witness of abstinence.” (BOW p 28)

I share the brief history lesson, because I think it relates to our lesson from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians this morning.

As this community struggled with what it meant to be unified, they realized that a lot of different types of folks were part of their church.

Some of them were life-long Jews who had followed the way of Jesus. They had only ever worshipped one God. Yet some of the new believers in the faith were pagans. They had spent their entire lives worshipping at the temples of various Roman deities like Apollo and Poseidon.

So how were these people all supposed to share one roof? They had different histories of practice and different understandings of what it meant to worship.

One particular place where their practices conflicted was around the practice of eating meat. In the ancient world, almost all of the meat consumed was done so at a temple. That lamb or beef or whatever was the result of an offering given to the local god.

And here is where the conflict came.

Those who had been followers of Christ of a while, many from the Jewish background, KNEW that there was only one God. Intellectually, there was no worship of these various gods because they simply didn’t exist. So who cared if they partook of a little steak at the local temple?

Well, for those who had recently converted away from that temple worship, it was a big deal. The new converts were working hard to keep on the way, to follow Jesus, and all that alluring smell of roasted meat was making it awfully difficult. And when they peeked in the doors of Apollo’s temple and saw the elders of their new church eating – well, they got pretty confused. Was Apollo real or not? And if Apollo wasn’t real, why were those Christians worshipping him?

So Paul lifted up a practical solution for the faithful long-time Christians: just stop eating meat. It is the loving thing to do. And even though you know it isn’t idol worship, you have the ability to choose to act a different way in order to help your brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the same way, we lift up grape juice when we break bread together, so that all might be welcomed at this table. It doesn’t mean wine is bad. It doesn’t mean that some of us don’t drink. But choosing to consume grape juice together means that everyone has a place here.

There is a line in Paul’s letter that I think is key for us to remember this morning: You sin against Christ if you sin against your brothers and sisters and hurt their weak consciences this way.

Now, here Paul doesn’t mean they are weak as in bad… he simply means they are new to the faith. They still have a lot to learn. They are growing into what it means to be a Christian. And so they need to have as few barriers to their faith as possible.

Do you remember, with the children, when we talked about evil spirits? When we talked about those things in our lives that keep other people from knowing Jesus?

Knowledge is sometimes like that. We can flaunt it and it can puff us up and keep us from really and truly showing love to another person.

Love is what is important. Not rules or knowledge or what we eat or drink. Love binds us together. If we remember that we sin against Christ if we sin against our brothers and sisters and hurt them, then love leads us to ask the difficult question of how our actions keep others from Jesus. Is there something about what we are doing that is harming the body of Christ?

I am tempted to keep this a surface level conversation about grape juice on the communion table, but the truth is, there are all sorts of really tough and difficult things that threaten to break apart our churches. There are all sorts of things we do and say as Christians that hurt our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters and neighbors.

And perhaps the one that is on many of our minds in recent weeks has been same-sex marriage. Perhaps you have read in the newspaper, or seen on television, how a retired pastor in our conference, Rev. Larry Sonner, officiated the wedding of a same-sex couple and then turned himself in to the Bishop. In our Book of Discipline, our tradition and teaching does not support same-sex marriage, even though our state laws do, and so a process was begun seeking a just resolution.

What is amazing is that we have a process of just resolution at all. According to our Discipline, “a just resolution is on that focuses on repairing any harm to people and communities, achieving real accountability by making things right in so far as possible and bringing healing to all the parties.” (¶363.1).

It is a powerful witness to the love and grace and mercy of God in a world that is so focused on punishment and retribution. In his article on the Des Moines Register, columnist Daniel Finney wrote:

“It’s especially admirable considering how poor our public dialogues are relating to just about any issue today. Here you’ve got a veteran pastor questioning the laws of a church he has dedicated his life to serving and not a voice was raised, not a fist was shaken. Instead, there was thoughtful discussion, prayer and resolution.

Regardless of how one feels about the specific issue, there’s a powerful lesson for peaceful negotiation in this story.”

This is how we act in a church when love and not knowledge is our guide. And this is the witness we have to offer to the world… a witness of finding a way forward in spite of our differences. A witness of acknowledging the harm we do by our actions and inactions. A witness of seeking the good for our brothers and sisters.

So today, I want to share with you portions of a pastoral letter that our Bishop, Bishop Julius Trimble sent to all churches last week:

Grace and peace to you as we journey in Christian discipleship in 2015.

One of the early prayers and initial responses to the formal complaint was that we would be “perfected in Christ love” and engage, rather than ignore, the difficulties the current conflict between what is prohibited in our Book of Discipline and what is legal and celebrated in Iowa.

The reactions to same-gender marriages and relationships and the serious subject of covenant accountability to church polity remind me of a Nigerian proverb: “Children of the same mother do not always agree!”

Questions and conflict regarding our future as a Church require much prayer, graceful conversations and decisions that may spell a different future for the Church…

When I was consecrated Bishop, I promised to work to uphold the unity of the Church. I believe that unity has, as its foundation, our love of God and neighbor. I also believe we can have unity of heart and not necessarily all be of one mind. While this Just Resolution is a response to a specific complaint, it recognizes the division of our church on the issue of human sexuality. This Just Resolution is an attempt to honor our disciplinary process, maintain accountability, and seek a deeper, more prayerful, listening to each other and, most of all, to God.

As your Bishop I invite you to join with me in a time of intentional listening to God and each other, remembering that as the Body of Christ, the Spirit can speak through each of us.

Be Encouraged, Bishop Julius Calvin Trimble

We don’t have time in worship to spend time listening or really go over the content of the just resolution, but I want to extend to you that invitation for a time of intentional listening to God and to one another. And I want to let you know that I am always available for conversation about this and any other topic that affects our life as a congregation and your lives as individuals.

We won’t all agree. We come at the conversation from various perspectives. We read the scripture through the lenses of our own experience. But above all, we are a people of love, service, and prayer. And together we can put love at the forefront of our conversations and we, too, can seek a prayerful way forward.

And that way forward starts at the table. The table of love and grace and mercy. A table, set with grape juice. Amen and Amen.

Defined by Generosity

Posted on November 9, 2014Leave a comment

Our scriptures this morning show us what it means to be generous. They describe to us people and communities who went the extra mile, who dug a little bit deeper, who gave more than what was necessary or expected.

They gave more than what was necessary or expected.

To be completely honest, those words did not describe my life for a very long time. It took until I was about thirty years old before I ever thought about what it meant to be defined by generosity, before I thought about what it meant to be a generous giver.

When I was a teenager and had only part time jobs, I might have stuck a dollar or two in the offering plate at church. It was the last of my money… not the best.

When I was in college, I did not attend a church regularly on Sundays, but worshipped on campus Wednesday nights – and no one asked for a financial contribution. No one asked me to give, much less give sacrificially.

As a seminary student and low-paid church intern, I was spending more money on school and travel than I was making and piling up debt. I gave my time to the church and occasionally I put a check in the offering plate.

And then I went to my first church. I knew that I could not ask them, in good faith, to give faithfully to the church and to God, if I was not also giving. This was the first time in my life I had a steady full time job.

Looking back, I should have immediately started at the very least tithing.

But I didn’t.

I held back.

I looked at my student loans and a bit of debt from college… I looked at how much our cable bill was going to be… I thought about how we wanted to travel a bit… I knew that taxes would take a chunk of my wages… And so I started out small.

I gave to the church – but only a small portion. Maybe not even what was necessary or expected.

And then, I became comfortable with that level of financial giving. I was giving something, and I thought that was enough.

A few years back, I was in a teaching session led by a with guy named Ken Willard and he talked about how we make disciples in our church.

And he helped us to see that we almost never talk about discipleship. We talk about membership. This morning, we welcome new people into our church as members, but even in our preparation, we barely paint a picture of what it means to be a disciple. And when we don’t speak about discipleship in a concrete way, then you and I do not have clear standards to evaluate ourselves by.

And too often, that means that wherever you were on your journey of faith when you became a member of the church is where you have stayed. Not because of anything that YOU have done, but because we, as the church, have never helped one another to grow beyond that. We have not challenged one another to become disciples. We have not provided resources and tools to help one another deepen our faith.

If generosity is defined by what we give, in our time and money, beyond what is necessary or expected, then to be generous, we have to know what is expected!

But, truth be told, I didn’t know what was expected. I had never been taught about how my stewardship of my resources was part of my discipleship. Even as a pastor! I knew how to preach and pray and how to listen to my parishoners, but not once did any church leader or professor or pastor sit down and talk with me about how giving was an expression of my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Until three years ago, when I began talking with a friend, a fellow pastor, about the things we cling to… the things we hold close and refuse to give to God.

I realized in the midst of that conversation I had never willingly yielded my money to God. I had never thought about what God was asking me to give and then prayed about if I could do that.

There had been times when I had given out of guilt.

I have given because it was what I was supposed to do.

I have given out of habit as the offering place went around and each person in the pew pulled out a few dollars and dropped them in. Sound familiar?

But never had I prayerfully thought about what God wanted me to give. Never had I asked what was expected of me. Never had I searched my heart for what was necessary and then what I was willing to joyfully give up in my life for the sake of our Lord and our church.

I knew that a tithe was 10% of our income, but I hadn’t ever sat down and really thought about what God wants from us; what God wanted from me.

Your “Enough” insert for this week… the one on the green slip of paper… is just a glimpse of the scriptures that talk about money.

1) Tithe = traditional “first fruits”. When the people of God gathered to worship, they brought the first fruits of their harvest to the temple. The first 10% of their grain or livestock they gave to the Lord. This was a gift out of gratitude for the blessings of the harvest and helped provide for the ministry of the temple itself.

One question that is raised, however, is if Christians are supposed to tithe. If we don’t follow the dietary laws of the Hebrew Scriptures and we don’t make animal sacrifices any more, is this one of those things that was part of tradition and doesn’t apply to us?

I think we find in some ways, that Jesus relaxes these expectations on us.

2) Adjusted Title = where we render unto Caesar what is Caesar and unto God what is God’s. One way of understanding this passage is that as citizens, we owe time and money to the rulers of our land. Everything that remains is God’s and we can offer a tithe of the resources we take home in our paycheck.

But as he often does, Jesus also takes those traditional expectations to give and challenges us to do even more.

3) Give Sacrificially = the widow’s offering from our scripture today. As Jesus sat in the temple and watched the people give, he saw a poor widow who put her last two copper coins into the coffers. She gave all that she had. She gave more than what was expected and necessary. And she is the one Jesus calls us to emulate. She was the one defined by generosity.

4) Giving what you have: At various times in our lives, our resources are limited so as to be non-existent. What is expected of us when we literally have no income? The fourth scripture listed describes a time when Peter and John are ministering and are asked to give to a person in need. They respond that they have no silver or gold, but they give of what they do have and are able to heal the person in need.

Even when it appears as if we have no financial resources, God has given us gifts of love and service and prayer and these, too, should be offered.

5) Non-Essential Tithe: Next week, when we celebrate what God has done in our lives and we offer up our commitment cards to God, we are going to be wrestling with the scripture associated with this form of tithing… God loves a cheerful giver.

And so this non-essential tithe invites you to prayerfully think about those obligations you have in your life, those places where you simply cannot sacrifice right now, those places and those bills that cause you stress and anxiety. This tithe sets you free to fulfill those essentials and then to joyfully give out of the remainder. To joyfully give out of your abundance.

There are countless other scriptures that describe our relationship with God and with money. But what I have learned in my own journey of stewardship is that taking the time to think about what you are going to give and why you are doing so are two of the most important things we can do. We need to prayerfully consider what is expected of each of us.

The people in the temple gave because they were supposed to. The amount they put in those coffers were minimal compared to what treasures they had stored up. And they probably gave the same amount, every year, at the same festival. It was a ritual. It was tradition. Nothing would change in their life based upon what they gave that day. They never thought about it.

When the widow, however, stood and gave her all, she had to think long and hard about that gift. Those two coins were everything she had left. Those coins represented food and shelter. They provided for her safety and security. Yet she gave them, freely, out of her gratitude for every breath of life she had ever recieved and every blessing that had been poured out. She thought about what she was doing.

I can’t tell you what to give.

I can tell you is what is necessary to keep the lights on and to provide the resources to do ministry here at Immanuel United Methodist Church. Each of our members should be recieving at home a giving guide that describes our current budget and it tells you very plainly what it takes to provide for our facilities and pay our staff and what resources we need to do ministry with children and youth and to support the missional work of our connectional church.

But even then, I know how much more we could do with greater resources for the Kingdom of God. I know that God is calling our church to do more in this world… to provide not just for our facility and our people but to give beyond ourselves in even bigger ways. God is calling us to be a church defined by generosity – out in the community and the world through love, service and prayer.

To think just about what is necessary to keep our church going isn’t big enough. What is necessary for this church, Immanuel United Methodist Church, to answer God’s call and move beyond these walls… to the children at Hillis Elementary and families served by CFUM, to flood ravaged neighborhoods and among people who are struck by illnesses like malaria. What is necessary to bring the Kingdom of God to our neighbors near and far?

When I actually sat down and prayed about what God was calling me to give, I began to joyfully give more. I began to increase what I put in the plate each week. In 2012, I began to give a full 10% of my income to the church.

And I decided to give that money to the church first… the money comes out of my paycheck before it ever comes home with me. I give God my first and my best, instead of the change in my pocket and whatever I might happen to have with me that day… instead of what is leftover.

It is probably not a coincidence that the same year I began to give joyfully to the Lord I was called to help others do the same through Imagine No Malaria. When I surrendered my resources to God, I also opened myself up to the moving of the Holy Spirit and was able to hear how God wanted to use me and what I had learned for the Kingdom.

In our passage from Acts this morning, we witness the results of the Holy Spirit moving among the disciples and the people of God. Filled by the Spirit, Peter gives an extraordinary sermon and three thousand people are converted on the spot.

But what is really amazing is that they don’t pray the Sinner’s Prayer and then go back to live as it was. They don’t experience the mountain top moment of a retreat and life as usual sneaks in… No – they actually commit themselves to living out the fullness of what it means to be the people of God. Their entire lives change. They become the body of Christ. They become disciples.

I believe that if we want a picture of generosity we need to look no farther than this passage from Acts. Filled with the Holy Spirit, these three thousand plus people were living out their faith in the best possible way. We are shown here a glimpse of the Kingdom of God… this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is what it means to be defined by generosity.

What does God want from your life? What does God want from this church?

And what would happen if we freely, joyfully, without hesitation, gave more than what was expected?

What could happen if we let the Holy Spirit loose in our lives?