Stewardship
and the Spirit of Gentleness

I love hymns. Last week after All Saints’ Sunday and our time together in the memorial garden, I found myself appreciating those in my family and my ancestors who carried on our faith over the years. Because my Mom, who was a Christian educator who worked nationally with Westmoreland’s own Loring Chase, died this spring at 91, I, of course, thought of all I had learned from her, all she had done for her own and so many UCC congregations. But in her youth, she had spent endless hours at the piano playing hymns and draft hymns for my grandfather, a minister and member of the Hymn Society,  a few of whose lovely Edwardian hymns are still being sung in places like Brazil in Portuguese. I get the tiny trickle of royalties -- surely not enough to meet the Trustees’ challenge budget. But I received far richer gifts – gifts of the spirit, gifts of caring and speaking and singing and the belief that what we do on this Earth, what we do, even in our modern times, trying to walk with Jesus, trying to hear, truly hear what God is still speaking, is that which matters.

And so I have been humming “For All the Saints” and Lesbia Scott’s charming Victorian sentiment that “I mean to be one too!” As we head toward Consecration Sunday and bringing forward our stewardship pledges next week, another hymn has been creeping into my consciousness. It is, of course, “What Shall I Give Him, Poor As I Am?” The answer, you will recall, from a penniless young boy, is “all that I am!” Now that is a pledge…

All that I am. As Caryn and I discussed just how much we could increase our giving to Westmoreland this year, the financial part was the easiest, even though I have shifted to part-time teaching, lecturing, and writing for royalties that rival my grandfather’s…In fact, on average, if every Westmoreland family added $20 per week to their pledge -- the price of a pizza and a class of chianti (plus tax and tip) -- we would easily surpass the Trustees simple challenge request of a 10% increase for 2008. I hope over the next week, if you haven’t already, you will sit down and explore, meditate, pray, whatever… about how much and why, even in these turbulent times, you want to increase your pledge.

But give my all? That is the hard part. I seem to always wish I had done more for the Green Group, or for Stewardship, or for the choir, or for the many causes and charities that are central to Westmoreland’s identity as a church of the open mind, warm heart, and social vision. “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian in My Heart, Inna My Heart…” but sometimes my schedule or my skepticism or self-satisfaction seem to be part of what the hymns usually call “Satan’s power.”

As I reflected in our memorial garden last week and thought and hummed hymns alone this week, I seemed to always come down to the power of the Holy Spirit. It really does move in mysterious ways and often through our churches. At my Mom’s funeral in the Garden City Community UCC Church, it was Jesus and the joy of those who knew my Mom and recounted all she had meant to them that mattered. As my sister recovered from open heart surgery just five day later, it was her ministers and her friends from church who visited, prayed, told stories, and sent simple, deeply touching notes that mattered. (Though I am sorry to report, however, that my sister is a Presbyterian…) When I saw an old friend and brilliant colleague from the national arms control community here at Westmoreland because he had turned to Rich Smith after the death of his child, I knew and felt what is truly important to our lives. Westmoreland is not simply a building to be maintained, or programs to be carried on, or music to be played, or children to teach the traditions of our faith -- though it is all of these. It is not just a place where justice and peace and caring for the poor and the many, many Samaritans who come to our country are seen as normal -- though it surely is.

Westmoreland is the place where -- in a scientific and skeptical age -- in a town that worships power and plenty -- we come to know God, where we are accepted and loved, from birth to death, for who we are, whatever we are. It is why there is such power in hymns that let us say, that let us sing, what is in our hearts. “Just As I am, O Lord, I come, I come…”

What Shall I Give Him? What Shall I Give Him? My All. My All…

Last updated Monday, November 12, 2007.

1 Westmoreland Circle
Bethesda, MD 20816
301-229-7766
Email the church office: churchinfo@westmorelanducc.org
www.westmorelanducc.org

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