November 20, 2011

Rev. Dr. Steve Poos-Benson

The Extravagant Path

Our Scripture passage comes to us from the Book of Ephesians, the first chapter, verses 15-19. This is the passage I’ve chosen for our stewardship message today. The author writes this: “That’s why when I heard of the solid trust that you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all of the followers of Jesus, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you. Every time I prayed, I think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask. I ask the God of our Master Jesus Christ, the God of Glory, to make you intelligent and discerning and knowing in him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is that he is calling you to do. Grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers. Oh, the utter extravagance of this work in us who trust him.”

Endless energy. Boundless strength. I love that. The utter extravagance of this work in us who trust him.” The extravagant Path. Before I get down to it. It is stewardship Sunday and a lot of people are kind of hesitant about stewardship Sunday. Because in some ways, this should be the easiest Sunday of the year because the message is so clear that you love this church. I love this church. We love the ministry that is happening here. The only way that this ministry happens is if people give. We’ve been talking about this the past four weeks, that you give your time. That you give of your talent. We need your touch. We need your loving care and we need your treasure. Those four Ts. We need your treasure. At some point, we need you to open up your checkbooks and make a pledge to the life of the church. And it’s very simple. Here’s what we’re doing this year. I want to make it crystal clear to you. We’re asking everybody who pledges to the church, to increase your pledge by $5.00 a week. Just increase your pledge. We need you to increase your pledge by $5.00 a week. Now get this. $5.00 a week is just this. It’s a Frappuccino, double shot with caramel on the top. If everybody would just give one Frappuccino, we could do amazing things with our programs.

Here’s a couple of things for you to think about. Five percent of the congregation is 50% of the budget. Five percent of the congregation is 50% of the budget. Forty % of the congregation is 90% of the budget. Half the congregation doesn’t give. I’m not saying this to bring about any sense of guilt, because there should never be any guilt in stewardship. It should be a time of thankfulness. And people kind of wrestle – they feel like their gift is too small. There’s no such thing as a small gift. Nor is there such a thing as too large a gift. I don’t want this to be a conflict in your life or conflict in your family. It should be something you feel great about. But if you’re wondering about what to do and where to start – I always call this the sermon on the amount – the sermon on the amount. [laughter] – that’s pretty good, huh Joe? Think about $5.00. $5.00 a week. A Starbucks. Okay, that’s where I’m going to end. I’m going to take you – I’m going to tell you why this is important to me.

For those of you who don’t know, I have just come back from a 14 day trip in Israel. There were 20 of us from the congregation who went with Barb Rudolf and her company and she did an amazing job of putting this trip together. We went through Israel, we went through Jordan and saw some amazing things. I’m going to share with you a few of my pictures. I’m not a photographer. I just had my Iphone, but here’s a picture standing across looking at the dome of the rock and the City of Jerusalem before us. And it was incredible. It was so incredible that I really have been transformed. It was transformative in my life and my faith and it’s to the point that I really believe that everybody, at some point, should make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land because these stories that we read and we preach on – when you’re there, they become alive. And you begin to realize they’re not just stories from a book, but things that actually happened, and it was so huge for me. I’m going to be sharing some of these things with you today and in the weeks to come. But I want to give a huge thanks for Justin, Joe and Mitch for making the past three weeks move smoothly, so thank you guys.

But I want you to think about extravagance. Where are you extravagant in your life? Where are you extravagant? Where is it that you give yourself a little bit of permission to kind of go a little extra. Is it with your toys? Your skis? Your bikes? Is it with your clothing? Just a little bit of extra on that blouse, that tie, that shirt, that dress, the boots that you’ve been wanting? Are you extravagant with your travel? Are you extravagant with your food? Really extravagant? Do you give yourself permission to be a little extravagant?

Who are you extravagant with? Who is it in your life that has you wrapped around their pinky? That when you think about giving them a gift you don’t mind shelling out a little bit more money? Because you just want to show them how much you love and care about them? Who is it that you want to go a little bit extra with to show them that they know how special they are to you? Spouse? A partner? Children, grandchildren. Nephew, niece, neighbor. Pet? Extravagant.

How are you extravagant in your spirituality? We often don’t use those words of extravagance to talk about our relationship with God. We think about – humble, quiet. You know extravagance is this kind of big and over the top energy. But you know what, when we understand what it means to be extravagance and what it means to be in a relationship with God, that notion of extravagance is the perfect term to describe who you are as a child of God and how you express that extravagance. And in the Scripture passage, the author talks about God’s extravagant love working in your life. And it’s my hope that you will wake up to this extravagance and heal us and live it out.

When we were in Israel, we saw some of the most extravagant churches that we have ever seen. Israel is full of churches and synagogues and mosques and every place that Jesus went, they built a church. He had lunch here – big church. He had breakfast – big church. There are big churches everywhere and they commemorate the different places that Jesus went. Like this is called the Church of the Annunciation. It’s to symbolize or to celebrate where Mary was told – the angel announced to Mary that she was to give birth to Jesus. And so this church – they say this is where it happened. And the key here is to understand when you travel through Israel is that when Constantine in 327 became the emperor, and Christianity became the official religion of the empire, Constantine’s mother went to the Holy Land and she was the one who said this is where the annunciation happened. This is where the birth happened. And so they built churches. And so this is the Church of the Annunciation and the colors – you can see the stained glass – this is just one third of this huge, beautiful church. Nations throughout the world have sent these huge portraits of the Virgin Mary – beautiful church.

Another amazing place is the Church of the Transfiguration on the top of Mt. Tabor. Mt. Tabor is a mountain that kind of stands out by itself and there’s the Jesurel Valley that comes through it and it kind of rises up and there is some serious energy on the top of the Mountain of Transfiguration. Being up there, you know why Jesus took Peter, James and John up to this mountain. Because something significant happened up there. You just stand there amongst that mountain and you know that something significant happened. And so they built this church and they have these huge arches – that’s a gold mosaic of Jesus being transformed. And that’s just one picture – everybody’s taking pictures of this amazing church. The Church of Nativity in Bethlehem – how many of you have been to the Holy Land? Smattering of you – very good.

This church in Bethlehem – 35,000 people a day go to the Church of the Nativity to see the place where Jesus was born. There’s a huge, long wait – anywhere from 2 to 4 hours – we waited the 2 hours and you get there to see the place where Jesus was born. And the closer you get to the place, there’s these beautiful, ornate, icons and paintings and chandeliers and candles and carpets – it’s just so extravagant – it’s beautiful. I could go on and on – show you all these different churches that we went to, to celebrate the different places of Jesus’ life. But, as extravagant as that was, for me, and I think for a lot of us, it didn’t capture the true extravagance of being on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived and walked. The first morning that we got in – late at night – and I’m always an early riser and my brain was already on and so I was up very early, put on my running stuff and went for a run and the sun came up and the Sea of Galilee is beautiful. Crystal clear. Clean. I went right up to the edge of it and tried walking across it. [laughter] Didn’t get very far. So I swam in it. This is the Mediterranean climate. Below sea level. It was warm. I was laughing at you guys because it was snowing here. It was just gorgeous to be on the Sea of Galilee and to know this is where Jesus walked. This is where he called the disciples.

One day we took a boat ride out into the middle of the Sea of Galilee - a big beautiful lake and it was a gorgeous day with no wind. 75 degrees. We cut the motor on the engine and read the story about when Jesus walked on the water and stilled the storm. And we talked about how Christ stills the storm of our own lives. We just sat there and sang songs and it was so humbling and inspiring to be in this place where Jesus lived.

We went to the top of the Nom of the Attitudes where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. We don’t know exactly if this is where it is, but this is where they said it was. And I could believe that this could be it because it was incredible – you can kind of see right here – they have all these gardens up there – but if you take away the gardens because the Sea of Galilee is right behind it. We went to the town of Capernaum. Capernaum is the town – oh, the bougenvillas – as we were going there, I haven’t seen bougenvillas like this since I was in San Diego. Talk about extravagance. Red. Yellow. Oranges. They were just amazing. This is right outside the Town of Capernaum. There’s a picture of the coastline of Capernaum. The town literally comes to the water’s edge. From the water to the town is about 15 or 20 feet. Nazareth, where Jesus was born and raised was this beat up little town. You can just tell that as soon as Jesus could, he left. “I’m going to where it’s beautiful”, and he went to Galilee. Went to Capernaum. And you get to walk among the ruins of Capernaum, the synagogue where Jesus sat and listened and talked. Peter’s home. Their home.

I stood right here on this beach and thought “He stood right here.” And I looked out and saw this. Man. Talk about extravagant. And beautiful. And inspiring.

What happened for me, by being in Galilee, is that I fell back in love with a guy that I decided to follow when I was 18 years old. I fell back in love with this guy called the Yeshua of Galilee. Yeshua of Galilee. Yeshua is the Hebrew, Aramaic name for Jesus. And what I felt when I was in Galilee was what Jesus knew as being extravagant. Yashua of Galilee loved beautiful places. He loved to walk beside that lake. He loved to be up in those mountains. When the gospel says that he went up in the mountains by himself to pray, when you’re there, you know why. Because it was a beautiful. That was what was extravagant for him. To be in beautiful places. It was extravagant for Yeshua to be with people. It was extravagant with Yeshua to have dinner with his disciples. It was extravagant for Yeshua to be with people in the midst of their pain. It was extravagant for Yeshua to touch people and to heal people. That’s what was extravagant for Yeshua. And I came away from my trip to Israel saying to myself, I want to follow Yeshua. I want to teach you what he taught. I want to inspire you to be children of Yeshua.

During the trip, I wrestled with the whole notion of the extravagance of the church vs. the extravagance of Yeshua. And I was trying to think – who are we – what are we? Who am I? And for me, my heart goes to the extravagance of Yeshua. And here we are – stewardship Sunday. The iPath. That’s kind of our theme. The iPath. We wanted you to see the history of Columbine United Church and for people who don’t understand the significance of Columbine United Church and that you are a significant part of the story of Columbine United Church. And during stewardship we think about the future and where it is that we’re going to go. And we have to decide who we’re going to be as a united church. Are we going to be an extravagant church? We’re really not an extravagant church. We don’t have an extravagant building. We have a beautiful building, a functional building. If you want an extravagant building – there are churches within a five mile radius from here that are over the top extravagant. There’s a brand new church over on C-470 and Lucent that’s over the top. Don’t get any ideas. But you don’t come to CUC if you need a fancy-schmancy building. We don’t have that. You don’t come to CUC if you need extravagant pastors. Neither one of the three of us have been elected Pope, although Justin and I have nominated Joe for sainthood. Don’t you agree with that? St. Joe. There’s a hospital named after you here in town.

You are not extravagant. Nothing personal. But you know, none of you have won a Nobel Prize. None of you have published a Pulitzer prize-winning book. None of you are millionaires. However, if you are, why don’t I know about it? We’re just normal folks. But in the fact that we are normal folks, I believe that we have captured the extravagance of Yeshua. We have our problems. There’s not a church around that doesn’t have problems, and we have ours. Get a group of people together and Jesus said wherever two or more are gathered, there I am also – my corollary – wherever two or more are gathered, there’s bound to be a fight. Churches have conflict, but yet, in the midst of that, we believe in the extravagance of Yeshua – of coming together – of walking together – of loving together – of being together in the midst of joys and of holding each other in the midst of pain. Celebrating birth and baptisms and death and resurrections. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, holding candles and singing silent night. That’s the extravagance that we know.

For me, the profound thing that the author of Ephesians said, that the utter extravagance of God’s work – that love of Christ – of the Yeshua. The amazing thing about this church is that we think that this is just the church that we go to Sunday in and Sunday out. That there’s nothing special about us. It’s just an ordinary church. The more that I travel across the world and the more I travel across the United States and the more that I talk with different ministers, I begin to realize how unique this church is. It’s that unconditional love of God. At this church, we don’t care if you are full of faith or if you have no faith. I don’t care if you’re an atheist or agnostic. We don’t care if you’re gay or straight or somewhere in-between. We don’t care if you’re Christian, Jewish, Buddhist – we don’t care. We don’t care because I really don’t believe God cares. What God cares about is that you are a child of God and God wants you to know about that and to feel that extravagance. And that is what we want to share. That’s what, for me, is so special about stewardship. In this picture – you can see what it is that God’s calling you to do. I believe that God is calling us to take this extravagance and to share it. And this is what it comes down to. This boat is a symbol of, I think, where we are as a congregation. Last year we came to you and said we had this vision for five years of creating a Children, Youth and Family Ministry. And I came to you and said we have to up the pledges so we could get the right people on the boat. And you stepped up to that. And so we hired Justin and Carla and Joe and Josie. And suddenly now we have the right people on the ship. But what we now need is wind in the sales. Wind in the sales to drive the extravagance of God’s love. That’s where it comes down to you. Here’s our vision. The council has a vision of doing this. We want to take $10,000 and put it in to each one of these program areas. $10,000 into children, youth, adult education, music and worship. The mission budget is already taken care of by a percentage of the overall budget. But these other programs need to be expanded. They need wind in their sales to drive forward.

You have told us over the past two years that you want us to increase and improve our communication, internally and externally. We feel that we’re the best kept secret in the world and yet we don’t know how to communicate that. So, the council has decided to take $25,000 and put it towards that effort. You have told us that you wanted us to remodel the sanctuary – nothing extravagant. New paint, new carpet, new lighting. Sounds like a lot. But you know what it comes down to? Comes down to this. $5.00. If every giving member increased by $5.00 a week, we could do it. And if the 15% that are not giving, started giving, we could do all that and about $30,000 more. It comes down to, for me, what do we believe about this church? What do you believe about Yeshua? What do you believe about the utter extravagance of God?

Now I don’t want any guilt, shame or embarrassment. I want heart. And maybe you can’t give $5.00. Maybe it’s $4.00, $3.00, $2.00 or $1.00. Maybe it’s $10.00, $15.00, $30.00 or $100.00 – depending on where you are in your own life. But it’s Yeshua who changed my life. It’s Yeshua who can change your life. It’s Yeshua of Galilee who changed the world. That is why we give. That is why we follow to make it happen.