Aug. 5, 2007  (David Hyers)

Colossians 3:1-11

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things--anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

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Camps and conferences are now over. It has been a long, wet, and fantastic summer.

For those of us who are more chronologically experienced, the interns and the adult sponsors, we are tired and sore. Yet we were blessed to see the youth being Church in that intense, intentional way that Youth can minister to us and with us.

The Junior High Jubilee gave me such great joy, seeing our youth come together as a group. They risked new things from climbing a wall to asking a girl to dance. And yes boys, we have photos.

It was a week of being reminded again of the best of what Mo Ranch can be. To see our youth together grows that lump of gratitude in your throat; you know ministry is happening.

At TLC, The Leadership Conference, our youth reaffirmed those values modeled so well in this congregation. Our youth are capable of leading with real depth and authority as much as other more chronologically experienced Children of God.

 To worship with them, to watch them leading and teaching would make you thankful to call them friends and brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Senior High Youth Convocation, otherwise known as SHYC, gave me a lot of good laughs and some new humility. There is an unfortunate video of our boys dancing that can now be found on the Internet. But seeing their energy and their joy might move even the more rhythmically challenged to dance, even your associate pastor. Their joy will leave you holding your stomach in laughter with the newness of the moment.
SYW and Triennium were both successes.

Our just completed youth mission trip to Dallas shows again that great heart of faith that is ours to share and grow with on another. To serve with our youth brings one into that mysterious presence of Christ among us.
It was another summer in which we were blessed to see the church being the church in that peculiar way that the youth give us eyes to see. All in all, it was a summer where our youth modeled that good stewardship of their lives. A stewardship we are called to bend our faith and our lives to follow.

Luke and Paul this morning in the scripture deal in their own unique ways with our stewardship.

Stewardship is more than grain, possessions, money, or morality. It is a stewardship that in Christ’s words asks questions of us as if our very lives are being demanded of us. We must trust the best and trust the spirit to hear beyond the surface of these words.

For some it is too easy to hear these words and play that same old damnation card and miss the real thrust of the text. Their reading stokes the coals of fear and guilt, and it is an easy sell.

We, however, hope never to market fear or fluff. We hold to a way that builds love for a god who is good to us. Ours is not a faith that requires us to be good towards God in order to be loved.

Setting aside the rhetoric of wrath, these texts are finally not so much words of prohibition as stories on invitation. They invite us to turn from those things that draw us away from God and keep us from our best and first selves as children of God.

Beneath the harsh sound of the texts are the songs of Christ, inviting us to turn away from the road that races towards that living death and turn toward the road of grace and fullness of life. Such turns are hard to make. Such turns are not made only once. Such turns are only made in the grace of a god who walks and turns with us.

We have no reason to think that the complexities of life are not reflected in the complexities of faith. The seemingly simple parable is more subtle, more profound. The rich man is not chastised for his success, but ridiculed for his enslavement to its bounty.

The story is about more than stewardship of money or even about the relationship we have with our possessions, and our relations with our own selves.

The epistle text, too, is about a kind of stewardship, but it is not a prescriptive guilt trip or a fear-fill reaction disengaging from life. It is a stewardship of our whole lives that is invitational, transforming and life affirming. Paul issues a challenge and a charge to see ourselves to order our lives as beloved children of God.

These words should be heard at their core not words of wrath and guilt, but a gospel of hope and an invitation to life.

Each night on youth trips we share about what transpired during the day -- the “Happys” and “the not Happys.” I will share with you one of my “Happys.”

Each day on our mission trip to Dallas, we served lunch to between 500 and 600 folks, one ministry feeding almost 10 percent of that city’s homeless. It was more than numbers I remember, however.

On most days, one man shared with us his gift of music, playing jazz and old standards nonstop for 60 minutes while the others ate, only taking food for himself after all had been served.

Yet it’s not the music I remember most. We basically stayed behind the counter serving food as fast as we could, trying when we had a pause to greet the folks going through the line.

The moment I remember most is the day one of the youth asked to stand in front of the line and hand trays to our guests. As he handed tray upon tray, familiar words began to pop into my head:

“This is the bread of life, given for you… The cup of salvation for you…”
In the youth’s simple yet brave decision to go out from behind the lunch counter, he took all of us with him. The counter was transformed in my mind into a table. A simple meal became a feast. Each tray handed out was a tangible reminder of that meal we celebrate here in this sanctuary. The deep memory of the Eucharist is found in a cold hot dog and a gooey slice of government cheese.

That simple act of stewardship, of stepping out on our behalf, helped me know Christ was at work in our midst. And the music of a routine meal became the hymns of a sacred feast.

I was amazed this summer to see our youth engaging in the stewardship of their lives in the body of Christ. It was a stewardship of their joy and friendship they shared with each other and with those from all over the region.

There was the stewardship of their talents as they created and lead worship, taught games, lead small group and especially as they extended in worship and play the grace of God.

There was the stewardship of their time and possessions as they turned a bread line into a celebration of the Eucharist. They turned an evening of play into an opportunity for healing hope.

Stewardship is very much a concern of Christ and of the Christian. It is a deeper kind of stewardship than cleaning up your room or watching your swear words. It is a stewardship that asks us to do more than reflect upon what we do with our time, blessings and talents. It asks us as if our very lives, our very beings are being demanded, being called.

It is that kind of awareness of life to which today’s texts call us.
It’s a stewardship we learn from our youth, from each other and from Christ.

We learn that our very lives are being called.