Sermon Archive

Before beginning today’s sermon, it is my joy to announce publicly a most royal two-part gift that offers to us an outstanding example of the kind of cheerful giving Paul speaks of in today’s lesson. This two-part gift will afford our community of faith, for a full century to come, the opportunity to express our love for God through a greatly enhanced beauty in our music.

Part of the design for our restored organ is the installation in the balcony of a regal trumpet stop, called trompette en chamade. And Edward Alley—an elder, former trustee and treasurer, and oft-time conductor of special musical offerings in this congregation—Ed Alley has generously pledged the full cost of that stop in honor of The Rutgers Quartet, the singing group that for decades, under the guidance of Marshall Williamson, provided leadership for the musical ministry of this congregation. The members of the quartet to be named on the dedicatory plaque are: Nancy Williams, Bronwyn Thomas, Joseph Sopher, Edmond Karlsrud, and Duncan Hartman.

Another part of the new organ design calls for the installation of an antiphonal organ in the chamber off our balcony. So the second part of the gift I’m announcing is the underwriting of half the cost of this antiphonal organ by Edward Alley and Nancy Williams. This part of the gift is dependent upon our raising the other half through contributions made above and beyond the amount that has already been pledged toward the organ. This element of the restored organ will be named in honor of our Minister of Music emeritus, Marshall Williamson. It will formally be known as the Marshall Williamson Antiphonal Organ.

We are counting on the generosity of all those who have worked and sung with Marshall Williamson and have otherwise benefited from the Christ-like beauty of his spirit over the more than three decades of his ministry in this congregation—we are counting on your added generosity to match this gift from Ed and Nancy. Also to be applied toward the matching of this gift will be all proceeds from the series of concerts to benefit the organ that we will be mounting over the course of the next year. And the first of these concerts will be held this afternoon, so every contribution you make toward today’s concert given by our very own divas Faith Esham and Sherry Zannoth—every dollar you contribute this afternoon will be applied toward matching this gift for creating the new Marshall Williamson Antiphonal Organ. So that’s yet another reason why you absolutely must come this afternoon at 4:00 pm—or why, in lieu of that, you absolutely must hand me a $20 bill as you go out the door this morning.

And now after all this thrilling news, it’s on to today’s sermon.

This is Reign of Christ Sunday, the day that concludes the current liturgical year, during which our services of worship have focused, for the most part, on the testimony to Christ borne by the Gospel of Mark.

And next week we will observe the First Sunday of Advent, which marks the beginning of our new liturgical year, when the services of worship will focus, for the most part, on the testimony to Christ borne by the Gospel of Luke.

Now, over the years, we’ve learned pretty well what Advent is all about. We’ve learned it's a penitential season, a time for reflecting on the sorry state of our weary old world and for preparing ourselves to receive once again from God the gift of renewed hope and renewed energy for a better world, the gift that comes to us from God each Christmas Eve as we hear afresh the glad tidings of Jesus’s birth.

But what is Reign of Christ Sunday all about? Well, if most of us find ourselves scratching our heads when we ponder that question, there’s a good reason. For our Protestant observance of such a Sunday is really quite a recent innovation. When throughout the 1960s we Protestants became more attuned to the observance of liturgical seasons and to seeing Advent as the beginning of a new liturgical cycle, a need was felt for some way to mark climactically the end of the old cycle.

So Reign of Christ Sunday was adopted by us Protestants in 1969 as a day for renewing our commitment to the lordship of Christ. On this day, each of us is asked to reaffirm the promise we made when we first joined a Christian church—the vow to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the pledge to put Christ first and foremost in our hearts and lives.

This is the Sunday when God asks us to recommit ourselves to making that which reigns within our hearts be Christ, to making that which sets the priorities in our lives be Christ, to making that which serves as our measure of all truth be Christ.

So today as we are poised for the lead-up to celebrating Jesus’s birth, our First Lesson flashes us back to the ending of Jesus’s ministry, to the scene of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday.

We find Jesus standing trial before the executor of Rome’s power over the Jewish people—the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate. The charge against Jesus is sedition—that he is a pretender to the title “King of the Jews,” and, thus, a subverter of the authority of the people’s rightful monarch, the Emperor, Tiberius Caesar. And to Pilate’s question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” (John 18:33) Jesus responds, “My reign is not from this world.” (18:36) Pilate retorts, “So you are a king?” and Jesus replies, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (18:37), which is to say, “everyone who belongs to the truth accepts my sovereignty.”

John tells us that Jesus was born in order to bring to humankind a gift, a royal gift, a gift from the Sovereign of the Universe—the gift of truth, the gift of the truth embodied in Jesus himself, the gift of the truth that human existence is meant to focus on love for God and neighbor rather than on desire for anyone or anything else. It is this truth that has the power to set us free from our bondage to the world, free from our alienation from God and neighbor, free from that which John calls “sin” (cf. John 8:31–36).

In Jesus, we see embodied God’s truth—God’s truth that we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us, loving one another with that same fullness of joy and gladness. (cf. John 13:34–35; 15:9–11; 17:13, 16–19)

And as the apostle Paul understood quite practically, and as he states quite pragmatically in this morning’s Second Lesson, expressing such fullness of love toward God and neighbor means that we must share our talents, our time, and our money—we must share them joyfully, gladly, cheerfully, unstintingly, to the end that others, too, may have well-being.

Paul knows that the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem is impoverished, so he exhorts the comparatively well-off Gentile-Christian communities established by him in Greece to assemble a love-offering that he can take with him to Jerusalem in order to help relieve that community’s distress and redress the imbalance between one group’s need and another group’s abundance (cf. II Corinthians 8:13–15).

Well, in today’s world, there’s nothing quite like a trip to India first to remind a couple of American Christians like Margaret and me about other communities’ level of impoverishment relative to our own communities’ level of abundance and then to prompt within us a cheerful generosity of heart.

We found in Calcutta a seminary community of over 100 persons striving to study effectively while their health was being affected by their limited access to so basic a need as safe drinking water; we found in Bangalore five bright young girls living in a slum who had no access to free public education and whose only hope for escaping from abject poverty was somehow to earn or to receive the seemingly unattainable sum of $25 each for tuition fees; we found in Batala a Christian college so strapped for funds that it cannot see its way clear to provide from its own resources a $500 full scholarship for even one out of the thousands of “untouchable caste” Christian youths in the Punjab, a $500 scholarship that could cover the full costs for a year’s tuition, board, and room.

Paul urges us all, whenever we are confronted by such need, to recall the royal gift that has been given to us, the gift of the truth made known in Christ, the truth of God’s great love for us and of God’s manifest graciousness toward us. For as we recall God’s royal gift to us and as we give to Christ sovereignty over our hearts and lives, we will be moved to cheerful and generous giving.

Now one does not have to go so far as India to behold such need. There are plenty of examples of great need right here at home, as Mark Young made clear to us this morning in his Moment for Mission about the programs sponsored by our Board of Deacons. There is great need right here for our offering of a cheerful generosity of time and talent, both to our shelter program and to our Thursday night meal program.

The pledge that God is inviting us all to make today is nothing less than the promise to accept Jesus Christ as our Sovereign Savior, the vow to put Christ first and foremost in our hearts and lives, the promise to serve the One who founded his reign upon love, the pledge to model our lives on the life of the One who cheerfully offered the fullness of his love to both God and his every neighbor.

As I’ve recounted to you on several previous Stewardship Sundays, a Christian preacher named John Chrysostom told his congregation some 1,600 years ago, long before Stewardship Sundays had ever been invented—Chrysostom told his congregation: “Wealth is by its very nature … meant to go out from you, like a light that dispels darkness.”

Yes, the time has now come for each of us to pledge a share of the riches of talent, time, and money that Christ has entrusted to our stewardship, so that these riches may go out from us, so that their light may help dispel the deep shadows overspreading our world.

Please spend a few moments right now reflecting quietly on God’s gift to you through Christ of the embodied truth that love and compassion are what’s meant to lie at the heart of human existence. Please spend a few moments reflecting quietly on what this community of faith, its sacraments, its fellowship, and its ministries of outreach mean both to you as an individual and to our community and world at large.

I invite you during this time of silence first to pray that God’s Spirit will prompt you to make Christ the Sovereign of your life, and then to pray that God's Spirit will kindle within you the same cheerful generosity of time, talent, and money that Jesus himself possessed. For when Christ is truly made the Sovereign in our lives, it is then that we are led to share cheerfully and fully the riches of Christ’s love entrusted to our stewardship.

I invite you during these next few minutes to reflect on your income, whether that be $200 a week, or $2,000 a week. And then I invite you to pledge a fixed percentage of that amount to the work of Christ for the year 2004 through the Rutgers Church, whether that comes to $10 a week, or to $200 a week. If you cannot manage a full tithe of your gross income, that is, 10%, then please consider pledging 3 or 4 or 5% of your income. Or consider increasing your pledge for 2004 over your pledge for 2003 by at least 1% of your total income. Then fill in your pledge card and experience the joy that comes in Christ, the blessing that comes through cheerful giving.

I invite you also during these next few minutes to reflect on your available spare time, whether that be two hours per week, or forty hours per month. And then I invite you to pledge a percentage of that time to the work of Christ for the year 2004 through the Rutgers Church, whether that be volunteering in our shelter or meal program, serving on a board or committee, working in the Sunday School, or volunteering in some other capacity.

Again, I invite you during the silence to speak with God in prayer as you consider your pledge and fill in all parts of your card. Then after a time, I will call us together for a closing prayer.

Finally, during the offertory anthem, please, as a sign of your resolve and commitment, come forward from your pew to the table of Christ to place in the plates that you will find there both your regular offering for this morning and your pledge of time, talent, and money for the year 2004.

It is the custom of our brothers and sisters at the newest congregation in our presbytery, the Ghanaian Presbyterian and Reformed Church of Flatbush to dance down the aisles each and every Sunday as they come forward to the offering plate. Today, as cheerful givers, feel free, if you wish, to dance down the aisle here yourselves!

Now let us begin our period of silence and prayer as we individually pledge our stewardship of Christ’s royal gift to us of truth and love.

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Let us close with prayer: