Pastor’s Message – August 27, 2019

SIMPLIFY: A Worship Series on Keeping Stewardship
Sacred and Simple

Back in the early 2000s, there was a reality TV show that I never watched but whose title intrigued me. The Simple Life followed two wealthy, young women as they lived and worked in places far different from the life that was their privileged “norm.” There were a number of problems with the show, but it was a “success” in TV ratings at the time. One problem was the way they defined “simple.”

Simplicity often gets a bad rap in media and a consumerist culture. As in the reality show, simplicity gets caricatured and stereotyped. In a world that constantly tells us we need more apps on our phones and a greater variety of activities on our calendars and a larger amount of money in the bank, it can be difficult to simplify our lives. Yet as followers of Jesus Christ, we believe in a gospel message that is quite simple: love God and neighbor as Christ first, sacrificially loved us.

Stewardship is the living out of that love. Jesus set an example for us on a dark night long ago when he took up a towel, knelt, and washed his disciples’ feet. Being his stewards is a sacred and simple life that revolves not around our privileged norms but around his humble power.

Every fall we devote some time to talking about how to live that love out financially in our church. While we will still engage in some of these traditions around stewardship, our worship services leading up to Commitment Sunday on November 17 will invite us to consider the simplicity and sacredness of being Jesus’ stewards.

May we also open our eyes to ways in which we can simplify our own lives with our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Life is complex, but Christ offers us a simple command to help us navigate those complexities: follow me. Let us follow him these next few months onto our knees, hands plunged in buckets, hearts washed clean by his blood.

all good things to each of you,
Pastor Darian

Lectionary Texts for September 1, 2019
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

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