Celebrating God’s Gifts

It was a beautiful day punctuated with a feeling of hopefulness and of communal belonging. Tables were decorated and the fine linens covered the tables. Food was prepared and set out inviting us into conversation and into growing in relationship. We were ready to celebrate our own commitments to God and to one another. 

The celebration was one that invited us to reflect even more deeply on Every Perfect Gift as we made our commitments to the parish through a symbolic gesture that has very practical implications for the parish. You see, last Sunday was not a celebration of money or of financial giving. It was a celebration of who we are as a parish and of the ways that we give ourselves as living sacrifices to God. We symbolize this in important ways in our worship: in the offering of bread and wine and in the offering of our financial treasures. We bring these forward to the eucharistic table to have them blessed and returned to us in ways that are more than we could ask or imagine. The symbols of bread, wine, and money are symbols of a much greater invitation to us: the giving of our lives back to God. After all, we are only giving back to God that which God has given to us. Many of us remember, and have it inscribed on our hearts, the tradition of raising the alms basin over the table as we proclaim, “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” 

We celebrated the perfect gifts that flow from God through us and out to the world. Our Stewardship Committee worked diligently for several months to create ways for us to hear stories from our siblings in Christ about the ways they have experienced God’s grace working in their lives and how God gifts to them all that they have. We heard from newcomers, from long time parishioners, and from our children and youth. We heard stories from our church as it is today, and we celebrated the many gifts that all of us are giving back to God through the ministry of the Church. 

Through that, we made commitments to God with financial giving of $321,422. For those who have made a promise for 2022, I am deeply grateful for your generosity. The scripture from James that informed our stewardship focus this year says it so well, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above.” Thank you for your generous acts of giving. 

It also needs to be said that our current giving number is only a portion of the parish, and you can still join up with the other households making a promise of giving for 2022. As we make our promises to God, we are committing ourselves to living into the vision we have as a parish: to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ by inviting relationship, connecting in hope, growing in faith, and serving in love. 

God is doing amazing things in our midst, and those amazing things are happening because of the ways that all of us are practicing the faithfulness of Jesus Christ according to the gifts given to us. 

In Christ,

Hunter+