Why Do I Give?

Reflection by Stewards and Care-Takers

Daily Lenten Meditations

Personal sharing from people of St. Paul’s

Meditations for Lent 2012-- # 3

A gift from your Stewardship Team

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Minnetonka

A Message from the Stewardship Team

Holistic stewardship was identified at our annual

congregational meeting as our ministry focus of the year for

2012. Your stewardship team (Eric Campbell, Vince

Jacobson, Tom Larson, Mike Mikulay, Pastor Louise Mollick,

Howard Rand, and Eric Reishus) will be working throughout

the year to give voice to our stewardship ministry and to lift

up all of the facets of stewardship.

Our intention is to help the congregation live out our

stewardship ministry by encouraging people connected to this

community of Faith to offer generously their time, talent, and

financial resources in support of the work of the Church and to

provide the means through which that support can be given,

including:

Annual pledge program Education about where offerings are used Gifts identification Expectations of those who make up this community of

Faith Special giving opportunities Time and Talent surveys Ministry support opportunities

These devotions, the first initiative from the stewardship

team, are testimonials and stories shared by people

connected to this community of Faith who were invited to

answer the question, “Why do I give to the church?” They

are offered to the congregation for daily devotions during

the 2012 Lenten season.

Foreword – by Howard Rand

In the church year, Lent has traditionally been a time for

personal reflection. We discover again the wondrous gift of

grace. We draw back. We look for spiritual renewal. We ask

deep personal questions: “Why do I give? Why am I involved

in our church’s life and mission? How might I express my

convictions to others?”

In his spiritual classic Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen

comments, “Questions about the ‘why’ of love, marriage,

giving, any basic life decision, may lead to stuttering and

shaking of shoulders. The questions are important. But the

answers are too deep, too close to our innermost being, to

be caught in human words.”

Yet we need to try, with our words. That is why, in behalf of

our new Stewardship Task Force, I offer a profound thanks

for those who share these meditations. We would hope that

these beginnings might arouse others in this spiritual Family

to express their own feelings within an added set of

meditations later in Lent.

The reflections in this resource are interspersed with brief

quotations from others across the ages. Note the theme of

gratitude throughout the quotes.

Day 1 – My Bush Burned

My bush burned this morning, burned and was not consumed, as I gathered with sisters and brothers in the faith for the ultimate act of defiance, a Christian burial service. My heart soared and sang as I joined in the demonstration and hurled the name of Jesus into the face of the enemy, Death. Never have I sensed so deeply the heaven-sent boldness of comforting one another "with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" and taking to the streets again with other comforted ones under the defiant benediction. The bush still burns. by Gerhard Emmanuel Frost, 1985

Day 2 – 13th Century Stewardship

"All gifts of nature and of grace have been given us on loan. Their ownership is not ours but God's. God never gave personal property to anyone--not even to his Mother or to any other person or to any creature in any way. Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership--whether body or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honors, friends or relations, house or hall, everything. For if I want to possess the property I have instead of receive it on loan, then I want to be a master." Loving God "Some people, I swear, want to love God in the same way as they love a cow. They love it for its milk and cheese and the profit they will derive from it. Those who love God for the sake of outward riches or for the sake of inward consolation operate on the same principle. They are not loving God correctly; they are merely loving their own advantage." Openness "Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ways. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive."

by Meister Eckhart (1260-1329)

Day 3 – The Miracle of the Ordinary

I cherish an old article entitled “The miracle of the ordinary.” Dr. Alvin Rogness begins, “What makes it easier to see God when the unpredictable cannot be fitted into the ordinary? No one who takes God seriously will limit him to the ordinary. But we are robbed of the sheer wonder in God’s work if we see God only in the rather puzzling events that we tend to call miracles.” “Every 24 hours there is a dawn; every 12 months there is a harvest. Thousands of plants and flowers, the myriad of insect life, vast varieties of fish and animals--all living together in a breath-taking balance--are not these miraculous? If I get cancer and recover, is recovered health more miraculous than the health I had from the start? What a wonder it is that my brain contains concepts I transmit with sound waves to your eardrums and on to the brain!” Dr. Rogness hints at an over-arching mystery. The mystery is in the repeated refrain about Creation: “Behold, it is very good.” God’s Shalom design permeates all of Holy Scripture. This harmony intention of God underlies the whole Bible, right into the dramas of restoration in John’s Revelation. by Dr. Alvin Rogness, 1960 Shared by Howard Rand

Day 4 – Religion

Religion consists of God's question … and our answer. The trouble is that religion has become "religion"--institution, dogma, ritual. It is no longer an event. We define self-reliance and call it faith, shrewdness and call it wisdom, anthropology and call it ethics, literature and call it Bible, inner security and call it religion. Yet nothing counterfeit can endure forever. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed. worship by discipline; when the evil of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. The human side of religion, its creeds, rituals and instructions is a way rather than a goal. The goal is "to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." When the human side of religion becomes the goal, injustice becomes a way."

from "I Asked For Wonder (A Spiritual Anthology)" by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Shared by Howard Rand

Day 5 – OUR GIFTS ARE GIFTS OF HOPE

Our yearning after God, our hope for a better way creates infinite possibilities to touch the lives of the untouched to reach the hearts of the unreached to heal the wounds of the unhealed to feed the bodies of the unfed to accept the personhood of the unaccepted to love the being of the unloved Our gifts are gifts of hope; O God, touch reach heal feed accept and love us that we might love one another.

by Ann Weems

Shared by Pastor Louise

Day 6 – Faith and Choices

My faith helps me to make wise choices for my family and me. It helps me live a handmade counterculture life that has purpose and joy. Gloria Dei is one of two churches that I attend. I call Gloria Dei my "father" church because it challenges me to take risks, and to do more. At Gloria Dei, I see God as an action verb. Prayer: I offer myself to Thee. To build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I will be able to do Thy will. Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always. Amen.

Quotation from the meditation booklet: "TESTAMENTS OF FAITH... Written from the heart by Members of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church" in St. Paul, MN, by Rhonda Wellner-Chiodo

Day 7 – Home

"Because of work and leisure, I travel away from home about fifty days a year. It is thrilling to see new places, but there's nothing quite like the sight of home coming into view. I sense that on a plane approaching the airport, in a taxi, headed into St. Anthony Park, and most of all, whenever I turn into my own drive. Gloria Dei is part of my home in this world. It is my community of faith. Whether I know you personally or not, you help me make sense of my life. I belong to Gloria Dei 24/7. My relationship with you--and to Christ who has called us all into faith-sustains me day in and day out. I grew up in a family in which church attendance was simply part of the deep fabric of our lives. The Lull children were not perfectly behaved in those pews. We wiggled and squirmed. We talked too much. We poked each other and passed notes. But we also learned to sing the great hymns of our faith, to know the vast and complex story of scripture, and to draw hope and direction from the preaching of the Word. I'm grown up now and blessed with a vocation that places daily challenges before me. But belonging to the People of God remains a way of life-my joy in life. The Word and the sacraments feed me each Sunday, but you dear sister or brother, give me joy and encouragement all through the week. Quotation from the meditation booklet: "TESTAMENTS OF FAITH... Written from the heart by Members of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church" in St. Paul, MN, by Pastor Patricia Lull