i will walk out of the darkness

& i'll walk into the light

& i'll sing the song of ages

& the dawn will end the night

The HolyGospel according to St. John the 12th Chapter!

Today's Lenten sermon, is a stewardship sermon.

Before we get into the meat of the sermon, though, I have a story - or maybe it's a confession...

Sometimes when people ask me why I'm a pastor; sometimes I tell them it is because I am having a great game of dare with God.

Yes, a game of dare.

I say this for two reasons.

Well, three sort of... The first time I said it, was because I was exasperated. So sometimes exasperation is a reason.

Once I blurted my answer, though, I realized how true it was.

The first real reason I am fond of saying that I am playing a great game of dare with God, is because of Jesus.

Jesus apparently trusted God so much that he gave up any semblance of a normal life and spent his days traveling, eating with the poor and the outcast, and finally his life culminated in a public, humiliating and state-sanctioned execution.

For Pete's sake, if our Lord and Savior can trust God to lead that kind of life; then it seems we're called to acting daringly on God's behalf, to live in such a way that something is at stake, that something is dared.

And personally, going to seminary is a significant investment of money and time, was a bit of a dare. For a poor kid from the country, seminary seemed an unreasonable dream.

If I were going to invest so much in this calling on this side of heaven, where there are no guarantees - than all I could think of seminary as was a dare, and now I have to keep that dare going.

Okay God, go the dares. I'll do this thing, and if its all fake - well then I placed my bet on a losing hand.

I don't need to tell you all, though; ending up here, with you feels like I ended up winning the big pot, that the dare paid off, as you might say – God came through.

The second reason I say life is a great game of dare with God, is because that's how life pans out over and over again.

 

I grew up Pentecostal, as many of your know. The fear of God was put into me in an early age.

I remember middle school and high school, those years we spend testing our limits, having this strong suspicions God was just waiting to drop the other boot.

I had this strong feeling that God's wrath was just on the other side of those clouds, and at any moment that wrath could break through and consume me and this sinful world.

BUT then I ended up studying journalism at Grand View College, a university of the ELCA...

There I stumbled into Luther Memorial church and heard graceful preaching; there I met Lutherans my age, living out their faith.

I thought; yeah this grace-stuff sounds great, but there is no way it can be true. I would think; sure pastor says God loves me, but if pastor knew what kind of a person I really was, they would know better than to say God loves someone like me.

Do you know what happened, though?

What happened was the pastor wouldn't not stop saying God loved me. Over and over again, pastor would say it.

 

In the face of that repetition, I got a crazy idea: maybe it was true...

Maybe God really did love me, and if that was true...

Well if it was true that God loved me, then everything had to change.

 

So God and I had a little dare.

I say little dare, because that it is what it was. Sure the fact that God loved me might have changed everything, but I was, I am so often unwilling to change.

The little dare was that I would spend spring break with the campus ministry team in Biloxi cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina.

I figured I would just pretend to be this person pastor said I was, this God loved. I figured I would pretend and then at some point on the trip the game would all be unmasked.

God's love would have reached its extent in pretending I was some kind of disciples, and the charade would be over.

Only that isn't what happen!

What happened was I got to know those odd kids talking about Martin Luther better - I became friends with them.

What happened was I saw my pastor was a human like me, another creature of God trying to trust God and act on that trust.

That's what happened.

Now I don't know about you, but I'm a lousy “truster.”

Even after God came through so powerfully on that dare; I wasn't willing to make a bigger dare.

I figured, okay God's love goes this far, but soon I'll come to the limits of God's love.

So God and I would play little dares.

I'll spend a summer working at a Lutheran Camp, went the dare.

At camp, that experience we all know is so important; God doubled-down, so to speak, on our game of dare.

I came back daring bigger things.

Okay God, I'll join campus ministry, went the dare. At campus ministry we curated what worship would look like for other college students, it was an incredible experience.

Okay God, I'll work at the ELCA's Rural Ministry office, went the dare. I'll work at the Metro Lutheran newspaper, went another.

On and on went these dares.

Each time I was waiting for God's love to come to an end, to reach it's limit.

Only that never happened.

What happened was that God would raise the stakes; and each time God would come through.

Let us say it again, each time God came through.

Slowly this game of dare went on, and probably slower the stakes got bigger and bigger.

Each dare I figured would limit God's patience, God's grace, God's love; but that never happened.

Then there was the big dare of seminary, being called and so on.

As we noted, this game of dare with God pays off because here I am, with you wonderful people, at Trinity - I hit the jackpot.

See, slowly the stakes grew, but I will admit to you all - each time God and I dared - I did it with much fear and trepidation, fear and trembling. Each time, though, God was there.

A quick aside, God always coming through never meant there wouldn't be struggles and sorrows; what it meant is that in each dare, God has ALWAYS been there, God has never turned from me.

God has never left me to my own devices, God has continued to work on me in love.

Each time I made a dare, so fearful and trembling, I could remind myself of the past and how God's love had never failed me yet.

I wasn't limited to my own experiences either; there were the examples of all those other saints.

I could recall about the example of all those saints before me; my pastor, Mother Theresa, St. Paul and so many others, to reassure that God was the one taking the risk, not me.

I could recall the example of others; others such as the example we have today - Mary.

Mary who sat at Jesus' feet leaving her sister to the chores, Mary who saw her brother Lazarus raised from the dead, Mary who poured a pound of perfume on Jesus' feet and washed Jesus' feet with her hair.

In today's Gospel we see Mary is miles beyond petty dares with God. Mary is all in.

This Jesus has grasped all of Mary's trust, so she takes a pound of pure nard - this incredible amount - about a year's wages is how much Judas estimates its worth.

Mary takes this perfume and in an act of extravagant devotion pours it all on Jesus' feet - all of it!

I don't know about you, but I can't think of many things I've ever spent a year's wages on, and I know if I ever did drop so much money at once, it was never on a gift for another person.

But that is exactly what Mary does.

Now, Judas, that thief from the beginning, cannot grasp this act of Mary's.

We should be slow to cast our stones upon Judas, though, because although he was a thief, he is also a tragic figure.

Judas never was able to place his trust in God, in Jesus.

 

As someone who can only bring myself to dare God in smaller quantities; I'm not that different from Judas, even on my best days - let's not even talk about the bad ones.

Judas can't imagine why Mary would do something so lavish.

It's like Mary showed up to our Lutheran service and started clapping during the hymns, started crying during communion.

There is a part of Judas that just goes "yuck," over all this outpouring of Mary's.

I know I am all too guilty of the same failure of imagination of Judas' too many times to not take Judas' example as a warning.

Like Judas I've been too unwilling to go all in, in my game of dare with God, and I've looked on perplexed by people who make great leaps, great dares like Mary.

My game of dare is not as great as it could be, as great as God would have it be, as great as Mary's game was...

In light of that truth, I look at Judas with sympathy.

And it is in light of how much I, we all, can relate to Judas - that the example of Mary is so important.

Mary shows us costly discipleship, she shows us a life that is worth living, she shows us how to witness to a God worth worshipping, she shows us that dares with God are worth whatever might be at stake.

That is why Mary's example is so important; and not just important for my life. Her example is important for all of your lives, too.

 

Our stewardship committee is so on-target because they know that stewardship isn't just about helping Trinity make the bills. They remind us that stewardship is a way to work with God, to invite God to work in our lives - in one of the most intimate parts - our wallet, our purse, our bank account.

 

When we give back to God, what already belongs to God anyway; we sort of dare God don't we?

Okay, we dare, I'll do this

So we put something down, although we may not be able to imagine how God will come through.

In one way or another, though, God does come through.

That is the example Mary shows. That is the example so many other faithful folks that sit, have sat, in these very pews show us.

Finally, this example of Mary isn't only important for our own lives; it is also significant in our life together, our life as Trinity.

 

Honestly, when I first read this story of Mary's costly discipleship; I thought of Trinity.

I feel like we're coming to a place, we're approaching a significant dare.

At Trinity we all know the time is coming for us to really go for it.

This time of putting something on the line may very well be a time of fear and trembling; but it will also be a moment of experiencing, of witnessing to God's incredible abundance.

I imagine the skeptics may look at what we're doing, and they like Judas will ask - why are you doing that, why aren't you just saving that money.

But we, oh we like Mary will have no answer except to say we can do no other.

And because Jesus is so good we won't need to defend ourselves anyway.

Jesus will weigh in on our behalf.

Let them alone, he will say; they are doing this, like Mary did so long ago, to honor my burial.

And Jesus, Jesus that one that won't be bound by the stone, Jesus that one that won't be bound by death will break on the other side of the grave and meet our dare in his resurrection.

 

Finally, that is the end of every stewardship sermon, not the fun that it is to dare God - and it is fun. I wouldn't lie to you - and look at it anyway, I get to end up here with you all - it is a lot of fun.

Finally, the end of every stewardship sermon isn't the example of saints like Mary - and sisters and brother she is an example indeed.

Finally, the end of every stewardship sermon is the one who keeps daring us to trust him where we can feel it

Finally, the end of every stewardship sermon is the one who not only defended Mary, but the one who understood and honored her love, her devotion, her discipleship.

 

The end of this sermon, every stewardship sermon, every sermon period is Jesus.

Jesus, God in the flesh. Jesus, who loves you, who loves us all, no matter what.

The end of this sermon is Jesus' promise: that God knows what we look like on the other side of resurrection, and God gives us that life now.

We have that life now because God loves us so much that God goes to the grave before any of us, and God bursts from that grave - the final dare we make with God; our very lives.

God goes even to death, our final dare, to show us that God is someone we can trust to live a daring life with. God goes to the grave and bursts from the bonds of death it to give us the good stuff, life in the face of God's abundance now.

Amen.