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

A Peek into the March Vestry Retreat

On Saturday, March 16 your vestry gathered for our annual vestry retreat. The focus of the retreat was advancing our Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework through reflection, conversation, clarification, and delegation. By following this link you can view the full notes generated at the retreat in a format that follows the major headings of the Becoming Beloved Community strategic framework:
1. Institution: Leadership and Practice

• Training/orienting parish leaders with lens of racial healing
• Process for recruiting, hiring, and retaining persons of color to senior staff positions

2. Education: Many Points of Entry

• BBC conversation starter
• BBC basic workshop in fall 2019

3. Public Witness: Rapid, appropriate response informed by and in partnership with people of color.

• Community Engagement creates racial justice/witness process
• Add rapid response/witness to ongoing work with POWER

In the morning, we worked with a wonderful consultant named Anthony Moore who helped our leadership reflect on the meaning of diversity of inclusion for St. Martin’s. We emerged from that session with a strong sense that difference enriches our community and requires a commitment to education and growth to allow differences to feel welcomed and to flourish in the church.

A repeated theme was that we need to welcome, respect, and attend to the experience of each person simply because that experience or perspective is their own. We also need to encourage an atmosphere of mutual support and learning so we can try, fail, and succeed together and endure in community through the inevitable mistakes that come with growth. As Barb Ballenger often reminds me, having set off on the path of racial healing we will be all the more accountable and more acutely aware when we fall short. Prayer, mutual support, forgiveness, and endurance will be crucial to the path forward.
In the afternoon, our agenda focused on points 1 and 3 of the strategic framework. First we established clear definitions of racism, bigotry, and implicit bias. Then we created a list of qualities and skills to guide a future training program for parish leaders. We brainstormed factors we should consider in designing a process to recruit, hire, and retain people of color in senior staff positions at the church. We reflected deeply on authority and trust and how racism disrupts and distorts relationships by spreading distrust and diminishing authority. I reflected on how much unearned authority and trust I receive simply because I am white, straight, and male and how different it would be for a person of color in my position.

We finished a very productive day by delegating work on point three, public witness, to the community engagement committee. The vestry laid down broad-brush recommendations and the committee will design a public witness policy and procedure to present to the vestry at a later date. This work will dovetail nicely with the work we did in parish forum last Sunday. We will bring the results of this committee work to the parish for conversation and endorsement, hopefully by annual meeting on Sunday, June 9.

I could not be more proud of our vestry for such sincere, brave, and open engagement with a challenging and promising agenda that will shape the future of this parish. The vestry and all of our members have the power to shape the environment of this place toward the flourishing of each member in his or her blessed uniqueness! St. Martin’s has made an intentional choice to face our legacy of racism and to turn toward God’s path of racial justice, cultural humility, and racial healing. May God bless us on this journey.

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Blessings,
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Rector

Here's that link again for our retreat full minutes.