"God has given us great things. We can do great things with them. It is entirely up to us."

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Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, November 16, 2014

“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
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God has given us great things.
And we can do great things with them.
It is entirely up to us.

We know the story well. Three people are given great gifts. Two of them take what they are given, risk it boldly and turn it into even more. One fearfully buries his gift in the ground where it produces nothing, and in the end the gift is taken away.

We know the story well. God doesn’t give us gifts to bury in the ground. God gives us gifts to risk boldly for the glory of God. God yearns for us to trust in God’s goodness and love for us so deeply that we love one another and the world just as faithfully, just as deeply, just as boldly as God does.

We marvel at Jesus’ words: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” They seem strange and counterintuitive and yet they are true.

Jesus is saying: “Use it or lose it. Love with it or leave it. “

Jesus is saying God has given us great things.
And we can do great things with them.
It is entirely up to us.

This is my sixth year here at Christ Church Cathedral. Six years of finance committee meetings. Six years of chapter meetings. Six years of some version of the same conversation.

How are we going to make it work? How are we going to get by?

Make no mistake, we are not poor. Not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. But it takes huge resources to sustain and grow this cathedral. And every year, the same thing. We look at the projected income, and we ask how are we going to make it work? How are we going to get by? How are we going to keep the doors open and the lights and the heat on?

It is a conversation that is had by faithful people who year after year bear the burden of it, and it is a conversation that is absolutely not worthy of us. And I have led that conversation for six years.

Six years of having ministries and programs that far extend the reasonable capacity of staff. Six years despite all our talk of compassion and justice of not paying our building maintenance and security ministers even what is considered a living wage in the city of St. Louis. Six years of eating the seed corn of our building endowment just to keep these glorious old buildings from falling apart.

Of course, it’s been more than that. It’s been six years of getting healthier as a congregation and growing in deeper relationship with God and each other in Jesus Christ. Six years of reaching out in mission and ministry to St. Louis and bringing this city inside our walls. Six years of being the body of Christ outside these walls, showing downtown, St. Louis and the region that Christ Church Cathedral is an indispensible part of bringing us all together for the common good.

And yet this past Thursday at finance committee, we prepared to frame the same conversation for Chapter again. How are we going to make it work? How are we going to get by?

That conversation needs to end. That conversation needs to end right here, right now.

Right here, right now we need to hear the words of the Gospel.

We need to recognize that God has given us great things.

We need to trust that we can do great things with them.

And we need to own that individually and together, it is entirely up to us.

This is a moment of opportunity for us as Christ Church Cathedral. And when moments of opportunity are gone, they are gone. Jesus is calling us and our city is looking to us. And they are looking to us to lead. They're looking to us to gather the people of this region, in all our diversity, to work together for the common good.

Downtown is looking to us to help bring people together to transform the lives of people struggling with homelessness.

St. Louis is looking to us as a place that can be common ground where all can gather to bridge the chasms of race and class between us.

This region is looking to us to continue the role we have taken fighting for marriage equality and creating a place of healing for women who have survived sexual abuse and prostitution. Looking for us to not just flap our gums about the healing love of Jesus but to show ‘em what it’s all about.

Whether they use our language or not, in a time where people’s opinions of churches are at their lowest in our nation’s history, this whole region is looking to us as Christ Church Cathedral to be and to bear Christ to St. Louis by leading movements of transformation.

This is nothing new for us. In every generation for nearly 200 years, Christ Church has risen to and met this call. And God is richly equipping us for this today. But whether we will answer that call in this generation is entirely up to us. So what are we going to do? Who are we going to be? When the history of this extraordinary moment in time is written, will we as Christ Church Cathedral be a central player, showing people the love of Christ and helping birth a new St. Louis where all are treated as beloved children of God? Or will we be a mere footnote, one more church, one more people that buried its gifts in the ground and was more thermometer than thermostat, more timid spectator to events than bold shaper of the future.

Make no mistake, this is a moment of decision for you, for each one of us and all of us together as a Cathedral. And Jesus frames it for us perfectly this morning.

Will we be the servant who shrinks back in fear, who believes in an angry God that will punish us if we make a mistake? Will we be the servant who keeps our head down and stays safe and quiet and lets the moment go past?

Or will we be the servant who believes God equips us for great things and truly lives what we say in our mission statement, that at Christ Church Cathedral we proclaim the Gospel boldly. Not just with our words but with our actions, with our money, with our very lives.

Are we going to be a great Cathedral? We answer that question not by mere words. Not by just saying yes or no. We answer that question by what we do with what we have been given.

And it starts by making a commitment. It starts by making our pledge of money. For those of you who have already, thank you so much. For everyone else, the forms are on the table right over there. Because this is not an optional piece of being a part of this community. Whether you pledge five dollars or $50,000, each one of us simply just has to do it. We have to make a statement that we are putting our money where our mouth is and stepping out in faith to support what God is doing at Christ Church Cathedral.

If this thermometer stays half-full or even three quarters full, we are going to keep limping along, and that is just not acceptable. That is simply not worthy of the Cathedral God and our city is calling us to be. We have a pledge goal of 100% participation, and we must reach it. But even more than that, we have a financial goal of $427,000, and we have to reach that too. That means we have to give at a level that shows the depth of our faith and commitment. But it also means we have to go out and spread the good news of what God is doing here, and invite other people to be a part of it and to give to it, too.

On my desk are nearly 300 letters I am sending out this week. I'm not sending them out to Cathedral parishioners. I am sending them out to friends and colleagues all over this city and all over this country. I am telling them what God is doing here at Christ Church Cathedral, and many of them already know. And I am inviting them to be a part of it, because I am proud of who we are, I am excited to be a part of it, and I want to invite them to embrace the gift of being a part of it too. I'm inviting them to make a financial gift to Christ Church Cathedral, so that when we do the work of being the Body of Christ for the people of St. Louis, they know that whether they are Episcopalian or not, whether they come to worship here or not, they know they have a part in it, that they are a part of that body of Christ, too. And that they can take the same excitement and pride in it as we do.

We have to proclaim the Gospel boldly. If we are proud of who we are as Christ Church Cathedral. If we are proud of what we are doing. If we are proud of who God is calling us to be. Then we need to step up and say so and say it loudly. We need to invite people to join us here. We need to invite people to give of their money to support what is going on here.

We are at a crossroads moment in the history of St. Louis and the history of Christ Church Cathedral. A moment of decision. We are at a moment where we will either decide to live into the promises Christ is holding out for us, live into the challenge Christ is extending to us, or continue to limp along and slowly fade into oblivion.

And at this moment, we take our cue from no one less than Jesus himself. And that means we are not going to be afraid.

We are not going to be afraid to talk about money, because Jesus was certainly never afraid to talk about money. We are not going to be afraid to talk about justice, because Jesus was certainly never afraid to talk about justice. In fact, we are not going to be afraid to talk about anything, because Jesus was certainly never afraid to talk about anything.

But being a part of the conversation is not just about opening our mouths. Being a part of the conversation means having skin in the game. Being a part of the conversation means giving sacrificially to support the work of Christ in this place and our work in the community.

And yes, I know that can be uncomfortable. You may be uncomfortable talking about God. You may be uncomfortable about talking about some of the things we are doing here. You may be uncomfortable talking about money, and certainly many of us are. But nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus say, “Do this only if you are comfortable.” Jesus just says, “Do it.” Why? So we can be like him. So Jesus’ joy can be in us and our joy can be full. Jesus bids us to follow him, to love God and one another boldly and to make disciples of all nations not because it is easy, but because it is in doing what is hard and uncomfortable that changes who we are, that makes us into the greatness that is the Body of Christ.

In the parable of the talents, the servants who enter into the joy of their master are the servants who risk boldly, who step out in faith. We cannot hope to have what we do here mean anything to us or mean anything to the world, we cannot hope to enter into that joy ourselves unless we are willing to do the same.

God has drawn each and every one of us here for a reason. And that reason has nothing to do with shrinking back in fear, or taking the riches we have been given and hiding them in the ground. We have been called together at this hour in our history because Christ means to use us. And Christ has gifted us richly at this time in our history. And Christ is pleading with us to take what we have been given, to risk it boldly, and to love God and love this world with reckless abandon.

We must fill this thermometer, and we must fill this space. And unless we each individually take it on ourselves to do it, it will never happen. We must commit for ourselves and we must tell the world that it is all hands and all dollars on deck. Now is the time for all of us to gather at the foot of the cross and to lay our lives on this table. Not just a part of us, not just the part that feels safe and comfortable, but our whole selves, our souls and bodies and yes, our wallets. And doing it secure in the knowledge that God's love for us in Jesus Christ is deeper than we can possibly imagine, is more sure than we can possibly imagine, and can heal us in ways that we scarcely dare to dream. Doing it knowing this is how we enter into the joy of Christ.

For six years we have had the same conversation. How are we going to make it work? How are we going to get by?

That conversation needs to end. That conversation needs to end right here, right now.

Right here, right now, we need to hear the words of the Gospel.

God has given us great things.

And we can do great things with them.

It is entirely up to us. AMEN.