Text: Luke 4:16-30

S. Epiphany 3.10 (“Stewardship Sunday”) “Stewardship” Neh. 8, Luke 4:16-30

I’ve been asked by our stewardship committee to focus this morning on stewardship. It is probably no secret that preaching about money or “giving” is not something that I particularly enjoy or think central to the church’s life and purpose. I can say all I think needs to be said about “giving” in a few sentences: God loves a cheerful giver. You have been freed by Christ to give to His church as you are happy and moved to give. We don’t want offerings that are given out of a sense of guilt, or coercion, or obligation. Keep those to yourself, please! We are happy only to receive offerings that are given freely, joyfully, and out of delight in seeing the Lord’s house built up with the treasures He lets slip through our hands. Here ends the sermon on “giving”. I hope you enjoyed it.

Hey, that wasn’t so bad was it? Maybe we should have these little talks more often?

Well, we’ve got a few minutes left, I see, and a couple of wonderful texts before us in the Old Testament and Gospel readings. Maybe it was just my assignment, but the more I considered these texts, the more it appears to me they address the theme of “stewardship” beautifully. Here’s why…

The book of Nehemiah has long been a favorite. If you don’t know the story, you really should read the whole thing. It’s not long, but it is packed with drama, intrigue, mystery, excitement, and some thought-provoking theology. Nehemiah was an exiled Jew who rose to become a high placed government official in the court of the Persian King Artaxerxes who began his reign around 465 BC. Around 445, Nehemiah received a report that things were going badly for the remnant who’d returned to Jerusalem. The city was in ruins and their enemies had all but overcome them.

Nehemiah was grieved and risked his life asking the king to help, to let him go and rebuild the walls and buildings of Jerusalem. It was risky because it could have looked like rebellion or sedition to Artaxerxes. But Artaxerxes let him go back and in just 52 days, with sword in one hand and tools in the other, the harried and harassed Jews rebuilt the wall and separated themselves from the pagans who hated them and their God. (By the way, it was not the goal of Nehemiah or Ezra, the faithful leaders of the ancient church, to make the church “permeable” to pagans, but rather their hope was in making a strong boundary that would separate Israel from those who hated the Word of Christ—this contrary to the vision some high placed officials have for our church today. Nehemiah built a wall, literally and metaphorically, around the people of God that was permeable to the faithful, but impenetrable to the haters of the Gospel. A neat trick, I think, and a compelling vision for mission today).

Working with Ezra (the priest and scribe), Nehemiah dedicated himself to restoring the worship life of Israel after separating them from their pagan neighbors (the Greek and Hebrew words for “holy” literally mean “separate”—a fun fact to contemplate when we think about the church’s mission today). Together, they aimed at worship as the goal and purpose of God’s people, worship centered on the Word and rituals passed down to them by the faithful prophets of old.

At this point, I suppose someone might be thinking: “I thought he said he was going to talk about stewardship?” I am, okay? We’re getting there, I promise!

In our Old Testament reading, we see how Ezra and Nehemiah together went about the renewal of Israel. They gathered all the people of the city together in the square before the newly rebuilt Water Gate. Ezra brought the Book of the Torah of Moses and read it out, from morning to noon, in the presence of all the people of Judah gathered in the Holy City. It was read with reverence. It was read with the old rituals and high ceremony. When he opened the book, Ezra used the ancient liturgical words of blessing of the Lord, and the people responded in the prescribed ritual manner, and worship broke out that engaged all the people and had them bowing down with their faces to the ground. Their liturgy involved head, heart, hands, knees, the whole person in the ceremonial gestures that stretched back ages and united them to the God of Abraham.

In this liturgical, sacramental reading, the people were taught by Ezra and the other priests the sense of the story, hearing it not as ancient history, but as their own story, the story of how God makes us His people, makes His story our story in the Christ, by Word and Sacrament.

It was a moving reading. When the people saw how far their lives had moved from the life God gave them through Moses in the Word, the people wept and mourned and wailed. But Nehemiah, Ezra, the priests and Levites and scribes said “Don’t weep! Our God is the One who forgives. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet wine of the Lord’s table and share portions with those who have nothing, for this is the Lord’s Day, and this is His great feast He bids all His people to attend. And do not be grieved: for the joy of the Lord is your strength…”

That’s stewardship; indeed, the best stewardship sermon you’ll ever hear. Do you see what Ezra and Nehemiah are? Stewards! A steward in the ancient world was a caretaker. He took care in guarding, keeping the Master’s treasure that had been entrusted to him, in sharing the treasure with his fellow servants so all are cared for as the Master’s own children.

Ezra and Nehemiah are model stewards because they see the treasure of God is not first a thing. The treasure of God is not our money, our stocks, bonds, our houses, cars, clothing, and food. It is not the buildings we build, not even the sanctuary we have built for His house, the place we gather to worship. No, the treasure of God is His Word given by the prophets and incarnate in Christ Jesus for our forgiveness, life, and salvation. Christ puts Himself, the Treasure, in our hands and moves us to hold Him fast in worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, which makes stewards of us all.

As stewards of the mysteries, Ezra and Nehemiah led the people in the worship of the Word, the Christ, by ancient liturgy and hearing of the Gospel; this Word first tore down the old walls of the people, suffering and dying with the Christ, in order to take their old possessions and exchange them for His life, His treasures, through faith in Christ alone.

It was and is this Word and faith that rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls, literally and metaphorical. In losing the old city, our cherished possessions and attachments, God was killing in order to make alive, giving us a new life, a new love in a new City—Zion. It is the Word of the cross that takes our old lives and loves and radically re-orders them, gives us new concerns. We are faithful stewards, care-takers like Ezra and Nehemiah, when we care, above all, for the Word and worship of Christ, like Ezra and Nehemiah. Then we are the Church, a city whose walls can never be toppled, whose light shines forever. And our delight will be in the communion of saints, the worship and reception of Christ with all His friends.

Which is what Jesus came with—this Word, this Promise fulfilled in our hearing. He takes our old possessions off our hands; gives in exchange His Treasure—revealing our whole life is simply the stewardship of the Word: not what we do for Him, but the care, the love of Christ for us, His Holy Church. And the joy of the Lord will be our strength. Always, in the Name of Jesus. Amen. 

Pastor Kevin Martin