God, help us love our neighbor, or at least help us to act like we do, and let acting those acts of love continue to transform and sustain us. Amen.
If pulpit pitches were a competitive sport, no entirely sane person would agree to follow Karen King and Carolyn Roosevelt. Not unless they were willing to do a swan dive off the pulpit as a finale, to up the game. Fortunately for me and for you and any EMT’s here today, this is not competitive. We are in this together, in lock-step, to call on you to commit what you can to support Emmanuel’s continued well-being, its mission of radical hospitality, and its acts of Love.
A Tibetan proverb found on Emmanuel’s Mission webpage reminds us, “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We are all called on in life and at Emmanuel to go together and to practice stewardship: to commit our time, talent, and treasure to support what we value and hold in trust for others. Emmanuel’s stewardship theme this year is “Love your neighbor”. If you missed Karen’s and Carolyn’s stewardship pitches live, you can find them our website under Stewardship Reflections or in previous weeks’ This Week at Emmanuel emails (sign up here). I hope to build on their words, to ask you to give, and to tell you why, in a world of increasingly great need everywhere, Marianne and I pledge to Emmanuel.
Karen and Carolyn reflected on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The parable urges us toward acts of compassion and generosity toward everyone, whether they are like us or not. Jesus uses it to explain to us that being a neighbor is not about where you live; it’s about how you live. Karen and Carolyn both observe that acts of compassion and generosity, like those of the Samaritan, can transform relationships and transform us.
So, with need everywhere, why do we choose to give to Emmanuel? At times, by the grace of God, we have the opportunity and the wherewithal to be the Samaritan. At other times, we are the traveler in need, the passerby, or the innkeeper. Emmanuel, its building, programs, and staff, welcome and support everyone who comes through its doors in any of those roles. To sustain this takes stewardship in the form of talent and time, to be sure; but it also takes treasure: money. Our leadership needs a predictable, reliable stream of income to make sure there is always room at the inn: to keep the doors open, the programs running, the staff paid, the lights on, the “All are Welcome” mat out, and the hospitality flowing.
Emmanuel reaches far more people than Marianne and I could ever hope to reach on our own. We pledge to Emmanuel because it’s efficient. We try to make it a little sacrificial. Mostly we don’t miss the money, and when we do miss it, that feels right, too. As Marianne says, “It‘s only money.” Somehow, when we give that “only money” to Emmanuel, it is transformed to acts of hospitality and Love.
Remember, “To go far, go together.” Please, join us in solidarity with our greater neighborhood, in making your best possible financial commitment to Emmanuel. Thank you.
–Mary Blocher, 10/23/22