This Sunday, we conclude our four week focus on stewardship (using the Stewardship in a Box resources from Church Anew) with a call to intentional giving. Jesus tells a powerful story emphasizing the importance of being prepared. When we don’t know the day or the hour of what’s to come, it’s important to remain grounded in our faith, keeping perspective and remembering that God is in charge.
Today’s Scripture readings are 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Psalm 90:1-4, 10-12; and Matthew 25:1-13. I preached portions of this message on November 8, 2020, but went a bit different direction with it this time. I found helpful Jane Lancaster Patterson’s commentary on the 1 Thessalonians 4 text at Working Preacher.
Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and sermon audio from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
Most TV I watch is on streaming services, but recently, Christin’s been watching Little House on the Prairie reruns on a channel while she pumps, and of course it has commercials. Lots of commercials.
And it’s pretty obvious we are not the target demographic. I’m not sure if they show the same commercial three times in a row or just three very similar ads, but I know now how important it is to call now about my Medicare supplement insurance.
Again, because of the demographic they think are watching Little House On the Prairie early in the morning, almost all the ads are for Medicare supplements, drugs, or life insurance and financial planning. One of my favorite ads starts out, “If you’re watching this commercial, there’s a good chance that you’re alive.” and then it goes on to point out that someday, you won’t be watching TV anymore. And to be prepared for death, they want you to buy life insurance. I don’t have a position on life insurance.
But I think they could use today’s reading to help make their case.
Psalm 90 actually puts a number on it. Verse 10. “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” I’ve never seen that verse on a Hallmark birthday card. The Psalm continues, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
There is wisdom in recognizing that life is temporary. A lot of the book of Ecclesiastes is about exactly that, pointing out the foolishness of living just for this world and ignoring the reality that death will eventually come.
None of us like thinking about that, right? Modern medicine means even eighty isn’t actually that old in today’s world, but we haven’t been able to cheat death. So—and here’s what you all came to church to hear today, right?—some day you are going to die.
Today’s reading from 1 Thessalonians wrestles with that truth. In this passage, we get to listen as Paul addresses a particular issue in the early church in Thessalonica. Specifically, they are wrestling with the reality that Jesus hasn’t come back yet.
These early Christians had seen Jesus be killed and then rise from the dead on Easter, so they knew he had defeated the power of death, they knew he’d won the victory, but now they were waiting.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, they figured they had a little time to spread the good news and build the church, and in fact, the church had been growing quickly. The book of Acts tells us about the church’s witness and how more and more people were constantly being added to their number.
Now, these early Thessalonian Christians expected Jesus to return soon in glory and get this whole kingdom of heaven thing kicked off. Jesus had said the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and they knew he was the king, so where was he?
And they waited, and they waited, and they waited. And years passed. Then a few decades. And these young, excited early Christians started to get a bit older, and some people in their congregation were even dying, which is not what they were expecting.
It’s not so much that they’re losing faith or giving up on Jesus, but they are concerned about their loved ones. What if Jesus comes back tomorrow? Will Grandma not get to be part of God’s kingdom because she died last week? For obvious reasons, this is distressing!
So in this letter, Paul gives some encouragement for their waiting, for this in-between time we’re still living in today. As he says, he doesn’t want them to be uninformed about those who have died, so that they may not grieve like those who have no hope.
I love that verse, because I can’t imagine what it’s like to grieve with no hope. I truly don’t know how people process the reality of death without having faith in some sort of afterlife, without having Christ as their cornerstone. Death and suffering are hard enough for us as Christians to cope with, and we have the promise of life beyond death. Our grief is real and it’s tough and it’s sad, but for Christians there’s always the promise of resurrection.
But these Christians, even though they believe in Jesus, they’re still wondering about their friends and family who have already died. So Paul writes to them and says, “Since we believe Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”
God will bring along those who have already died. Death isn’t an obstacle for God. We who are alive—and of course, looking back two thousand years later we know they all died too, but Paul’s point is still valid—we who are alive will by no means precede those who have died. You don’t get a head start into heaven if you’re still alive when Jesus comes back—and Jesus is going to come back.
It might be tomorrow, it might be another few years, it might be centuries or millennia, but Jesus is coming back to earth. The kingdom of heaven is coming. We know what we’re waiting for. We have hope and a promise to sustain us.
This section ends by saying, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.” It’s not a threat to get you to buy life insurance; it’s a promise of hope. As we prepare for our time on earth to end, we trust in God’s promise of resurrection.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable with a similar point. There’s a wedding celebration, but not everything goes according to plan. When the bridegroom is delayed, some of the bridesmaids run out of oil in their lamps, and when they go to buy more oil, they miss the bridegroom’s arrival and are shut out of the wedding banquet.
Other bridesmaids—the wise ones, Jesus says—are more prepared. They have brought extra oil with them, so they get to accompany the bridegroom into the feast.
The moral of the story is to “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
We don’t know when Jesus will return, or when our time on earth will come to an end. But we know for certain that those things will happen. We should be ready for either Jesus to return in our lifetimes, or to die and be raised on the last day to eternal life with him.
So the question becomes, what do we do in the meantime? How do we keep awake as we wait? What does it mean to be prepared?
That, of course, is a stewardship question. Remember, stewardship is our call to tend everything God has trusted to us. Stewardship has to do with how we spend the time we are given in this world.
In the story, the foolish bridesmaids were unprepared. They didn’t plan ahead, and so when something unexpected came up, they weren’t ready. All they can do is react.
——–If you’re a member here at Christ the King, you’re going to get a letter in the next few days—or maybe you already got it—about the 60 for 60 campaign we’re starting. We know our mortgage payment is going to rise dramatically next fall, so to get ahead of that, we’re working to raise at least $60,000 dollars to cut the mortgage balance in half. $60,000 for our 60th anniversary year.
Thanks to the generosity of one family in our church, we have a $30,000 matching gift already committed, so we’re well on the way to making that goal. You’ll hear more about it in the next few months.
——–If you’re a member here at Living Hope, you received a letter a few days ago asking you to fill out a card to plan ahead and estimate your giving for next year, so that as a church, we can be prepared and know what we have available to fund our ministry together.
There are other ways we could raise money. One of my favorite fundraising stories is a church where the pastor announced they were going to be asking for new commitments for a particular project, and would anyone willing to make a $5,000 pledge right now please stand while the pianist plays the next song. She immediately started playing The Star Spangled Banner.
Sometimes we are moved by emotional appeals for donations, and that’s ok. Sometimes the Holy Spirit moves us to spontaneous giving. I hope you’ve experienced moments when you’ve learned about a cause and been moved to respond.
But good stewardship is more than just spontaneous, emotional responses. The word steward means manager, caretaker, and good managers prepare. God entrusts us with time, talents, and treasures, and calls us to use them wisely.
We don’t know how long we have; we don’t know everything the future holds, so we are called to act here and now with intention, not overreacting to everything that comes up in the news or in our lives, not swinging back and forth without direction, but managing what we have for the long term, for eternity.
Good stewardship involves planning ahead, regularly, faithfully giving. It’s making a commitment in advance, and then sticking to it. Wise giving involves intentionality.
We prepare a budget as a congregation because it’s important to plan ahead, to make the most of what God has trusted to us. We make commitments out of joy, not out of fear.
And of course, being prepared and having a plan then allows for spontaneity. When we are wise stewards of our time and our resources, we are able to respond when needs arise, when opportunities to make a difference come up. That’s true for us as a congregation and as individuals.
Precisely because we do not know the day nor the hour, because we do not know the future, we ought to plan ahead, to be prepared. The world will never quite match our plans—we can’t plan for everything—and we’re not in control, but we are prepared because we know the One who holds the future.
We know the end of the story. We hold on to the promise that Jesus is coming back; we cling to the promise that our citizenship is in heaven and this world is not all there is. And then we use those promises as fuel to live in this world, to make a difference here and now with our time and resources.
Faith sends us out into the world, knowing our future is secure. Keep awake. Count your days. Live in hope.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen