Stewardship: Vision

Genesis 37:1-9

Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Everyone dreams. Depending on your sleep cycles, you might have as many as nine dreams per night. We don’t remember all our dreams and frequently what we do remember when we wake up is bits and pieces of several dreams which, when reassembled by our awake brain, can be silly or possibly frightening. Dreams are a way for the brain to process and file things that happened during the day.

If you had an accident, a fight or an embarrassing moment, some people relive that in their dreams, sometimes for several nights. Sometimes traumatic events resurface in dreams several months or years after the event because of some other trigger. This leaves us confused about why such things are bothering us or, why they resurface when they have been forgotten for so long. Sometimes the same thing happens in real life; something seems to be forgotten then something triggers a memory and the old feelings are brought to the surface.

Sometimes our dreams are laughable. Like that time I woke up and told Cindy I dreamed I was having problems getting a cow into the milking parlor. She told me “That explains why you were pushing me and telling me to move!” I had dreams as a child that seemed so real I ended up sleeping on the cedar chest in my parent’s room. One of my brothers would wake up screaming, shaking and drenched in sweat from night terrors and remember nothing about it the next day.

Dreams can spark energy and creativity. Read further in Genesis and see how Joseph uses the power of his dreams to shape the future of Egypt. Read and see how God makes Joseph’s dreams reality.

Dreams are powerful. Remember how Joseph, as in Joseph betrothed to Mary Joseph, is told in a dream that it is all right for him to marry Mary when she is carrying the Christ Child? Remember how he wanted to quietly dismiss her? You can read about it in Matthew 1:20. How about the Wise Men being told to go back to their homelands by a different route in a dream? That happens in Matthew 2:12. Then in Matthew 2:13 Joseph is again warned in a dream to take Mary and the baby to Egypt because Herod was plotting the slaughter of the innocents.

Sharing our dreams with others is not an easy thing to do; it makes us vulnerable. Look at the reaction of Joseph’s family when he tells them of his dreams. No one wants to be laughed at, especially if your dream seems so real. For that reason many of us keep our dreams to ourselves.

I believe that our dreams, our visions, are important to our journey of faith and to our stewardship. The Bible is full of people receiving visions that inform them of places they should go or things they should do. I have dreams like that. Dreams that make me more aware of what is going on around me. Dreams that inform me of situations that I am going to find myself in, they don’t give me the right words to say or the right things to do. Yet, when I get to those situations I get this odd feeling that I have been in that place before; it is a feeling as if I am on Holy Ground.

I become more in tune with the situation because I know the presence of God is with me in that place and I must savor the moment and learn from whatever it is that God has to say to me in that space and time.

I am going to do some visioning for you today. I am going to share with you some thoughts and dreams that I have about this faith community. Some of those things you might laugh at.

Other things you will scoff at. What I hope is that these things I say will spark some interest and creativity in you.

Last week Nancy Breen asked us to think about if we would be here, in this place, in 50 years. What would you say if I said I hope not?

What would you say if I told you my dream is to outgrow this place, purchase the property at the top of the hill and build a facility ten times as big as this one? What if I told you about the buildings and activities I dream about for that place? Cold storage for the veggies that we grow in our garden and orchard, an OB/Gyn, doctor dentist and social worker on our PAID staff, a homeless shelter, and the list goes on. Some of you are laughing at me. Just as you were a few months ago when I shared a vision about a train that could transport people, equipment and supplies for VIM workers.

A train that could pull into a community or come close to a community with people, tools and supplies to respond to the needs from a disaster such as Sandy. A train could be an efficient way of providing for the needs of the volunteers without stressing the fragile infrastructure of a disaster stressed area. If you remember that vision, how foolish does it seem now as we look back at the events of the past week? Just imagine the people who could be experiencing the love of Christ from the people known as Methodist’s if we had that train today. Just imagine the impact we could have on making Disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world.

The dream of a new place of worship, the dream that led to this church being built, began in 1943. That dream led to a donation of land with the hope of a new building. That dream led to this land being purchased and this building being built here. There was vision in that; this was where the growth was happening, the vision made sense.

Today I have heard some of you bemoan where we are in the community. We are so far away that working with the poor or others in need downtown is sometimes unrealistic. Folks, we are right where God wants and needs us to be. The problem is that we are like the deer standing outside the fence to the garden behind the church. We are so focused on what is beyond our reach that we can’t see what is under and between our own two feet.

Maybe our mission is not to be in direct contact with the people we think we should be. Perhaps our dream is not the dream God has for us. If we were downtown, would we be able to have the van, the trailer and the garden? I don’t think so. I think God wants us to bloom in this spot where we are planted.

My dreams about a new church campus and a train may be far fetched. Yet I know there are some more practical ways we can bloom in this place where we are planted. Consider the opportunities for ministry within a one mile or twenty minute walk of our church:

To many doctor offices to name, a nursing home, an elementary school, the high school, a day care center, three residential homes for people with disabilities, and the hospital. What are we doing in those places to make Disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world?

We are known in these places; we need to take the next step and be purposeful in our ministry in those places. One of the houses we are committed to helping maintain a garden for. I go to plant flowers or pull weeds, and rarely do I see anyone. I also know the state of many in that house. I can only hope that what I do from my heart makes a difference in the lives of those there. What might happen if I take the next step and actually talk with staff and family there? Is there someone just aching to make contact for a prayer or for spiritual support? They need to know we are there for them. What is the next step in our ministry beyond the once every six weeks that I do a service at the ECF? What kind of follow-up care could we give to families that I meet with when I am on call for people experiencing grief at the hospital? What if we trained people to be emotional and spiritual support for people when they hear good or bad news at their doctor appointment?

People, this is where God planted us and God knows what he is doing. What could we do in our schools? Do you know that there are nights you can’s find a parking place in our parking lot because of sports activities? What if we committed ourselves to going to just one game of whatever sport our young people are involved in?

What difference would it make if we showed up to a concert or drama or musical and there were thirty or forty of us that all had on St. Paul’s tee shirts or lapel pins or some other identifier that told people we were from this neighborhood and we supported the activities of our young people?

If you want the next generation here in church we have to model the love of Christ to them and that mean in action as well as words. What if we encouraged our young people to hold a see you at the pole event and we gathered as a group of adults on the old railroad bed and prayed for and with them when they did that?

What if we started an after school program to provide a nutritional snack and homework help? What if we teamed up with the Daycare center and offered to feed breakfast sandwiches to the runners on the day of their race, just as a community service to another family oriented business in the neighborhood?

So, with all these opportunities that surround us, let’s make some plans that will impact our stewardship. Commit yourselves to a ministry opportunity. I will covenant with you to be ever vigilant about communicating to you the places that I know we can serve.

Commit yourself to one a month; help with some ministry through the church at least once a month, something beyond coming to worship, something that will require you to give of your time, talent and treasure.

We have always boasted of our passion for mission. Yet we have not sent a mission team out to a VIM site other than Red Bird in two years and, in the five years I have been here, there has been only one person who went on an international mission team.

Let’s get passionate about mission again. We should support one international team this year, two domestic teams this year, and a local mission team each month. Think about the things we already do when I say this; this month the men’s group will be delivering a ton of potatoes. Next month we have Karing Kitchen, there are always mission activities around the holidays, think about the concession stand, it’s not as far a stretch to do these things as you might be thinking it is.

Stewardship is a trust issue. The question that you need to be asking is how much do I trust God in this vision. Do not get thinking about the how; God will reveal that to us with each step of trust that we take. We have to take the first step, trust God. And while we are talking about trust and stewardship we need to talk about Shared Ministry. Shared Ministry is the new old name for what used to be called apportionments, now it’s called Ministry Shares. The money we are asked to pass on to conference for ministry in the conference, jurisdiction, and denomination. In the past five years we have not paid more than 32% of our shared ministry. I would like to see us work towards paying100% of our shared ministry in four years. You have told me you wonder what our money is used for when we give into the connection of the church. It is part of our stewardship; it is an issue of trust. Take the first step and give.

Here is a vision of what I know will happen: If you make the commitment to give 100% of your shared ministry you will know how the connection uses the money. Right now you are not very involved in the connection. There is no lay member to conference, only one lay person serves on a conference board from our church, we have no current up to date lay speakers and, we are one of the five largest worshiping communities in the Mohawk District. I know from experience that if you make the commitment to pay the Ministry Shares for St. Paul’s each of these things will change. I know it because Scripture tells me it is true. Where your treasure is there you heart will be also. You start placing your treasure with Christ and your heart will be with Christ. I also know how good and how committed the United Methodist Church is to using your money effectively. You have cut off the Spirit from speaking to you about your connection because you do not trust your treasure to the connection. Therefore your heart is not in the connection.

 The scripture that I read for you today states that those who are entrusted with much, of them much is required. God has entrusted us with a great deal. Tools for mission work, passion for action in our community and beyond our community, knowledge to manage the resources well. It is part of our stewardship to manage these things well. At it’s most basic level stewardship is being a caretaker of the things God has trusted us with.

I want to finish well and hear God tell me well done and, I want you hear God tell that to you too. God has given me visions of how we can bloom where we are planted. I am excited about the possibility of making Disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world in this place where I am called to serve. All of us are called to ministry; I can’t make the visions reality on my own. I need your help.

What actually comes to be in the ministry of this place maybe very different than the vision that I have explained to you; just as Joseph’s dreams were different from the reality he experienced. The dreams of Joseph’s in the scripture from Genesis 37 come true some twenty years after Joseph has the dreams. His brothers come in search of food during a famine. Joseph has dared to trust God through the visions God has given Joseph. Pharaoh trusted in Joseph and the visions and made him manager over the stores of food. Therefore Joseph provided for his family, even through some very difficult and trying times. Joseph trusted God and good things happened. Joseph was a good steward and good things happened.

Look at our faith story as I told it to you through our history as a community of faith. It took eighteen years to make the vision of a new worship space a reality. Further more the realize that the end product of the vision is very different than what was first envisioned; this space was not built on the land donated for the purpose of a new worship space and, this worship space is different than the original vision.

Good things happen when we trust in the vision God gives us.

We need to be good stewards and good things will happen.

But it is up to us to take the first step.