18th Sunday after Pentecost                

1 Samuel 3:10-21

Now, God came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And, Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Then, God said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of God’s house. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.

But, Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.”

[Samuel] said, “Here I am.”

Eli said, “What was it that God told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that God told you.”

So, Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him.

Then [Eli] said, “It is God; let God do what seems good to God.”

As Samuel grew up, God was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And, all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of God. God continued to appear at Shiloh, for God revealed God’s-self to Samuel at Shiloh by their word.

Stewardship

I learned about an extraordinary man named Harold Wilke, last week at our Conference Annual Meeting. Harold Wilke was born without arms, and had to learn how to do things with his feet. He wasn’t allowed to go to the local elementary school, because the teachers thought he would be a distraction for the other students, so he went to a nearby country school, instead. He did very well there, went to high school, and then went on to the University of Missouri. While he was there, the administrators wouldn’t let him eat in the campus dining room, because he had to hold his fork with his toes. So, he ate in the kitchen, until so many of his friends insisted on eating there with him that the administrators finally allowed him to eat in the main room with everyone else.

After the University of Missouri, he went to Union Theological Seminary, and then went on to get a Master in Theology at Andover Newton, and a PhD at the University of Chicago. But, when Harold tried to get ordained, the church refused, stating that a person without arms could not perform the two sacraments of the church: baptism and communion. But, he persisted, and demonstrated that he could conduct the rites just as well as a someone who did not have a disability, and he was ordained in 1939.

During his ministry, he ordained the first woman in his denomination, and instead of speaking to advocate for those with disabilities at the first Vatican conference on disability in 1991, as he had planned, he instead urged Pope John Paul II and the cardinals that it was time for the Catholic Church to start ordaining women into the priesthood.

Wilke taught himself how to drive with his left foot on the steering wheel, and gave seminars about including those with disabilities in the life and ministry of the church. Harold passed away in 2003, leaving behind a legacy of advocacy, reminding everyone around him that abilities are more important that disabilities.

Like Samuel, Wilke was called by God to serve the people of God. They each had their own barriers, Samuel didn’t know who was talking to him, and Wilke was discriminated against all of his life because of his lack of arms. But, Samuel and Harold Wilke had gifts meant for the benefit of the people of the world. God finally got through to Samuel, and Samuel became a great leader for the Israelite people. And, Wilke was finally able to get ordained, and helped to move the church towards more acceptance and inclusion for people with disabilities.

We all have God-given gifts that we are meant to share with the world. Maybe you’re a great organizer or administrator. Maybe you’re good at quilting or cooking or singing. Or maybe you’re a great teacher, or doctor, or police officer. Each of us has gifts and talents that we can use for the betterment of the world, to make people’s lives better, and to make things more fun and beautiful and interesting. We just have to figure out how God wants us to use these gifts.

One of the things that God calls us to do is give of our material gifts. It’s just one way that we can participate in the grand workings of God in our world. As we move through this season of stewardship, I invite you to really think about the ritual of offering. Why do we do it? Why do you do it? We often hear language about need and responsibility and duty, but these are not the reasons that we should give. Yes, the church needs pledges and donations in order to survive, and there’s validity to the idea that belonging to a community means taking responsibility for it and having a sense of duty towards it, but the offering is supposed to be a joyful experience. Giving an offering is giving a gift to God, in much the same way that God is always giving gifts to us. When we give gifts to other people, we shouldn’t do it so that we will receive gifts in return. We shouldn’t do it because we feel obligated to. Gift-giving is about love and appreciation. It’s about building relationships. When we give to God, it should be an expression of love and joy, an expression of our desire to be in relationship with the person who knows us best in this world, the person who loves us the most, the person who made us and breathed life into us.

There’s a reason that our season of stewardship happens during the season of Thanksgiving. Stewardship is how we give thanks. We give thanks for the people who built this church over 60 years ago, the people who made Plymouth a part of the wider community. And, we are so thankful right now for everyone who keeps the church running today, all of the people on the board and the committees, all of the people who represent us through all of the mission projects that we’re involved with. We are thankful for the people who help clean the church every week, for the people who bring us music every Sunday for worship, for all of the people who have so generously given their time to print worship guides and maintain our financial records, for the ushers and our technical support, for the money counters and the people who feed us. I am so incredibly grateful for the loving community that gathers here every Sunday, and throughout the week, for the joy that we find with each other, and the support that is always there when we need it. We give thanks for God, and for everything that God gives to us and does for us.

This is why when we pass the offering plate here, that we invite those who give of their time and talent, and those who give of their treasure outside of our time of worship, to press their thumbs into the bowl of the offering plate as a symbol of their gift to the church. This way, everyone who gives, in all of the different ways that you give, gets to participate together in this integral part of the worship experience. The ritual of offering is part of the worship service. It’s part of what we do as the family of God, and it’s important that everyone who wants to participate in it, gets to participate.

That’s why we always need to think about those who are not being included. People with disabilities, like Harold Wilke are so often being overlooked. A lot of times, all people can see are the missing arms, or the missing legs…the speech impediment or the lack of vision…the limp, the facial tick, the inability to concentrate, or the depression. Nobody’s perfect, but it often seems like in our society that if you don’t reach at least a certain level of perfection, it means your participation needs to be limited in some way. Maybe you’re not allowed to go to school or eat with the other kids. Maybe you can’t be ordained because you don’t have arms and can’t celebrate communion.

Who are the people that are being left out, today? The queer community is always under attack, it seems now more than ever, especially trans people. Immigrants are the big group that’s being ostracized, right now. I can’t even imagine how scary it must be to be an undocumented person in our country, in this time of ICE raids and racial profiling, though it seems that even citizenship isn’t enough to keep you safe anymore.

Some people like to say that racism no longer exists in this country, but we all know that it still does. And, women still aren’t allowed to be part the priesthood of the Catholic Church, among all of the other inequalities that women still face today, along with the fear that the rights that they currently have could be taken away.

Everyone has the right to be included in God’s family, and everyone has the right to participate in the ritual of offering. It’s part of what connects us to each other and with God. We don’t give out of obligation, responsibility, or guilt. We give to joyfully show our love for our church community, the wider community, and for God. That might sound grandiose or even naïve, but it is the simple truth. Our motives matter, and we have to love each other. We have to love all people. That’s the only way that any of this works. Give and allow others to give. Love and allow others to love. We must create pathways for people to be part of our community and know that they are part of God’s family, not stand in the way. We must care for, support, lift up, and encourage, because that is what real stewardship is all about.

Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei