Did you hear Good News in the Gospel just read? Some Sundays it's harder to hear than others. Let's begin with something I know to a certainty is Good News: Today begins our Stewardship Campaign for the 2007 budget. I love the topic of Stewardship. Stewardship means management, so focusing on stewardship calls us to think about how we are managing, taking care of, all the gifts we have been given. We may be differently situated: Some of us have jobs; some of us don't. Some of us have savings accounts; some of us don't. Some of us have a home we can return to after this service. Some of us don't. But we all share one overwhelmingly wonderful gift. It is the gift the Book of Genesis alludes to when it says that humankind was made in God's image. God instilled in us the essence of God, and do you know what that means? It means we all have a gift for making love. I'm not talking about what goes on in the bedroom. I am talking about something much more universally profound. In the prayer the priest will say at Eucharist, we say that God made us for God's self. God desired our being; God's outpouring of love brought all life from the deep. Because God made us in God's image, we can make, we can manufacture love from nothing. Science has no idea how something can come from nothing, but we can make that happen.
This week we saw a gripping example of the human capacity to make love in the news. These school slayings are paralyzing us with a combination of fright and despair over the state of our world. The one affecting a school room full of Amish girls evoked particularly deep despair. Did you read what the Amish community brought forth from those depths? Within hours of the incident, Amish neighbors were visiting the gunman's family to offer comfort to them! They made love when life offered no raw material for love. A minister of the community told reporters about a session an Amish Grandfather who lost two granddaughters in this incident had with Amish young men. His theme was this: Do not let hatred well up in you for this gunman. He was ill in the heart. He needs our forgiveness and we need to extend it.
This kind of love has the power to evoke monumental transformation. Think how different the experience of this gunman's family has been made by the extension of compassion from his victims. They don't need to cower or wonder what others think of them. They have been invited to attend the funerals. Think how different the perspectives of these young Amish men are, having been benefited by this Grandfather's love, instead of pleas for vengeance.
Now you might be saying to yourself, "I don't think I could do that." You're right. The message of today's Gospel is that we cannot get very far down the road to holiness all by ourselves. The disciples were worried that Jesus' speech wouldn't play well, and folks would say, "Hey, we can't manage these new ground rules," but that is EXACTLY how Jesus wanted them to react. He wanted us to know that we need God's help in all that we do. He commended children to us because children usually know they can't manage on their own. They instinctively know how to accept nourishment and nurture.
When that Amish grandfather was asked by a reported how he could forgive the gunman, he said it simply, "Only with God's help." With God's help, the people of this parish have been able to make transformative love in overpowering ways just recently. George Johnston made love for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, love that propelled him to travel to the coast and serve, love that propelled him to come back here and talk about it, and love that is now joined by other lovers who will make a parish trip to the coast to serve and show solidarity. Carolyn Curtis made love for couples striving to have successful marriages, and her love propelled her to seek and receive a grant that will make it possible for her training to touch countless lives. A handful of Trinity folk made love for this earth, love that propelled them to talk about it and find other parishioners with a common passion, love that propelled them to organize a showing of An Inconvenient Truth last week and ignite the interest and commitment of many for fighting to stop global warming. Countless among you have made love for homeless families this past year, love that has propelled you to volunteer for our Family Promise Hosting Weeks. I could go on, but instead I will point to the Great Hall, where today after every service you will find a Ministry Fair showing off all the ways in which members of this community make love together.
This great gift, our power to make love out of nothing, is our reason for being, but it can fall into disuse. We need God and we need the encouragement of each other to keep it active. We need this community of faith and worship and service. I could not possibly have greater glee in asking you to support this community with a generous pledge for 2007. I know it will be the best investment you can make for the year. It will pay dividends in two ways. It will help to sustain this community, which offers to sustain you in your love-making. And if you can press yourself to give just a little more than seems practical, you will receive an added dividend. You will gain a new experience that God specializes in making possible that which seems impossible to us. That can make you wild and crazy. You start to do more and more seemingly impossible things, and God will keep making them possible.
My prayer for us in the year to come is that we will all gain a deeper experience of resting comfortably in God's lap, just like those children that Jesus blessed. resting comfortably and trusting only, only in God's grace.