2003 Stewardship Homily by Mary Ann McLane

“O Lord, you are the center of my life. I will always praise you, I will always serve you, I will always keep you in my sight.” What a wonderful, beautiful and appropriate psalm for us to have sung today!

My brothers and sisters, I am Mary Ann McLane, a minister of music and a steward on our parish council. Some of my other hats I wear are the Executive Officer for parish council and the Co-Missioner of Stewardship. Sounds like I’m a “joiner”, doesn’t it? and in a way I guess that’s true. Sharing my gifts and talents brings me great joy. But I must admit that there have been moments in this past whirlwind of a month that I’ve questioned the role that my gifts and talents could play. It is truly by God’s grace that I am here, and I guess I’ve taken that as my personal theme for “stewardship as a way of life” this year: recommitment, in capital letters, as in RECOMMITMENT. I was reminded by those who have been members of this parish longer than I that two occasions of huge growth came for this community: building the original church, and then building the addition. Each moment, as difficult as it was at the time, came with a recommitment to what we are about: neither buildings nor things but God’s people in Pike Creek, making day-to-day, minute-to-minute choices to work for God’s kingdom here, to keep God in the center of all we do. Commitments tend to become routine and second nature if they are not nurtured and renewed at least periodically. Publicly proclaiming our recommitment to God and to each other in this parish, through time, talent and treasure, is a good and needed thing. This stewardship invitation is just a way of making a very public, very pointed re-commitment to all we hold so dear…our connectedness as a parish community, our promise to be servants to each other…in whatever way our gifts, our God-given gifts of time/talent/treasure allow… the “public” part makes it close to being a sacrament…an action set apart, made sacred…


I’m sure you’ve seen the commercial where the two people are talking, and the duck comes up and provides a very clear answer to their question: AFLACK. It’s always amazed me that they don’t hear the duck or even notice its presence, and yet it is completely understanding their situation, and providing the answer, if only the people would listen. Not to call our God a duck, but I see parallels between that commercial and us. Jesus has promised that “where two or more of you are gathered together, there I am in your midst”. Jesus is here in our midst, and in every situation of our lives, no matter how wonderful or messy it happens to be. Jesus, through his own life and death, has shown us the way…love as service, without expecting anything back. How will each of us be “the way” this year? All year? Stewardship as a “way” of life… This week, I ask you to discern what our God is saying to you about your sharing of gifts which, as the song goes, “we are given to share”. Discern how you will re-commit to nurture this community this year, and grow closer to your God by the doing, and on November 1^st and 2^nd, come prepared to write down your re-commitment to time/talent and treasure . May our discerning, and our God, be blessed. Amen.