All things come from Thee, O Lord

The word "Debts" is typed in black onto a sheet of white paper.
A pencil is eraser, above right has been erasing the word, leaving it visible,
but fading.

“All things come from Thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given Thee.”

These are the traditional words said by the priest when receiving and giving thanks for the Sunday offering. We do not use them at St. Martin's, but they echo in my head every time the gifts of the assembly come forward.

At worship.together, the children pass small wicker bread baskets for the collection. The stuffed baskets come up to our little altar and every Sunday I experiment with what to say. Inevitably, what I say is a version of “All things come from Thee, O Lord….” because it is the most essential truth, and that is what we share with children and adults.

For me, it is very simple. What do I owe to God? I owe everything to God. There is no me without God. There are no gifts in life without God. There is no opportunity to serve and to offer and join in life-saving, life-giving mission without God. So I owe God everything.

In abundant divine mercy and generosity, God only asks for a tenth of all I have. Imagine being presented with a bill for 100% of your net worth and then having the debt collector scratch out 90% of what you owe, indicating that 10% will cover the whole debt. Imagine the relief and gratitude and joy. Our generous and generative God gives us all we are and all we have and only asks for a tribute of 10% to further God’s work in return.

As much as we might strain to make an alternative algorithm for our response to God’s abundance, the math only works in one way. I might assert that, I deserve, I am owed, I am entitled, I have earned, I have achieved, but when all is gift and all is God’s we stop calculating and start giving back with gratitude and freedom secured by God’s promises.

Now, many who are addressed by God’s grace and love discern a calling to give even more back to God. Some give their whole life. They are the saints, martyrs, missionaries, monks and nuns, and lay-religious who express their dedication to God in total devotion of life to God’s purposes. We need to keep them in mind. Do we imagine our life as one of growth in commitment and dedication in response to God’s generosity?

Stewardship is a moment for self-examination. To whom is our life oriented? Have we grown in grace this past year? Have we de-centered our life-focus from ego to love for God and neighbor? Are we growing in the love that values the good of all others on the same level as our own good and that of our families?

I wish you a rich and rewarding and happy self-examination. May it be inspired by God’s generosity and return to God that same abundance.

Blessings,

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Exhausting Our Lord

Text in graphic: This Week in the Rector's Note: Exhausting our Lord. 10.3.2019.
Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Episcopal
"Jesus must find me exhausting."
Graphic: Photograph of a statue of a woman, possibly Mary the Mother of God,
with her head down and resting on her left hand, with fingers curled under.
The stone statue appears to be attached to a stone building - there are bare tree
branches in the distance in the top right of the image. the stone is considerably
covered with moss on the top of the veiled head and the hand.

Jesus must find me exhausting.
This thought occurred to me while at prayer during my vacation. Here I was listing off all my needs, sharing my sorrows and hurts, praying for my long list of friends and family in need, and begging for guidance, serenity, wisdom, courage, and every other virtue I lack, when I suddenly had tremendous sympathy for Jesus! What would it be like to be bombarded by this catalogue of woes daily by millions of people?

My instant reflex was to mutter an apology to Jesus for bothering him so much. Recognizing my neurotic guilt, I had a good laugh at myself and my stinking thinking and then - by God’s grace - I returned to awe and admiration for Jesus. How much love does it take to have enough love for everyone? I struggle to be adequately loving day in and day out to my little family of four. We are talking about a whole other scale of love here.

That is a huge relief for me and, I hope, for you. While I want always to grow in love as God’s grace nurtures me into “the full stature of Christ,” I need to admit that the world is too big and too demanding for even the highest capacity my loving will ever reach. What the world needs is the love of Jesus direct from him. The best I can do is to hopefully give folks a glimpse of that surpassing, all encompassing love in fragmentary form.
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” sang Burt Bacharach and he was so right. What we realize as we age and grow in wisdom through the crucible of marriage, parenting, family life, community life, friendship, and work is that we need a source of love beyond ourselves if we are going to do our part of that loving.

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector