My daughter Elizabeth is currently in rehearsals for her high school’s production of “The Wizard of Oz.”  Somehow my beautiful, red-haired, fair-skinned, sweet, lovely, adorable little girl has been cast in the role of the Wicked Witch of the West – go figure!

 

“The Wizard of Oz” was my favorite movie growing up – despite the terrifying tornado, the creepy flying monkeys, and the frightening witch with her malevolent cackle.  And the story remains a classic, I think, because of the message that is at its core.

 

Each one of the main characters is missing something from their lives that is keeping them from being full and whole beings.  The Scarecrow wants a brain, the Tin Man a heart, the Cowardly Lion some courage, and all Dorothy wants is to get back home to Kansas.  Like many of us, each of these characters feels incomplete, and the story reflects the yearning for wholeness that many of us have, for it is only in wholeness that we are at home with ourselves and with God.

 

And, in this morning’s scripture lesson, it is with our whole beings that Jesus tells us we are to love God.  Throughout the Gospel of Mark, the scribes and Pharisees have been baiting Jesus with questions, trying to trap him into making a verbal misstep which will show that he is not the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah.  Now one of the scribes approaches Jesus the question.  “Which commandment is the first of all?”

 

And, using words from the book of Deuteronomy [6:5] in the Torah – the fundamental teachings of his faith – Jesus gives us the Greatest Commandment, explaining that we are to love God with everything we have.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

 

Both the Torah and the Gospel make it clear; we are to love God with the totality of ourselves, with our full beings.  And Jesus is the perfect model of one who loved God with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength.  With his loving heart, Jesus cared for the wounded and hurting people who flocked to him.  With his keen mind, he was able to outsmart the wily questions of the scribes, the Pharisees, even Satan.  With his strength, he withstood hostility, indifference, and ridicule and faced death on the cross.  And with his soul, he experienced the wholeness of life in God, and in his soul, he found his home with God.

 

Similarly, God wants us to love God with all of our heart, our mind, soul, and strength – with the sum total of who and what we are – for it is only then that we will find wholeness and find our home in God.

 

There are many ways to show our love for God.  As the second half of the Greatest Commandment states, we show our love for God by loving our neighbor as ourselves.  We also show our love for God by loving God’s magnificent creation.  We show it by loving God’s Son, Jesus the Christ. 

 

And we show our love for God by loving and supporting Christ’s church.  We can do that in many ways – by worshiping God and being part of a faith community, such as this; by volunteering as a Sunday School teacher, or by being part of our Friendly Service or Prayer Shawl ministries.  We can show our love for God by helping out with activities such as a Harvest Fair, or by serving on a board or committee, or by delivering altar flowers, or by sharing God’s love through a visit or a card.

 

And we can also show our love for Christ’s Church by supporting it financially.  Today is the third Sunday of our annual Stewardship Campaign, and yes, I’m talking about money.  Jesus talked about money, too – a lot.  In fact, he spoke more about money and issues surrounding it than any other subject – more than prayer, more than love, more even than God in heaven.  Jesus talked about how we use money and it uses us; how it can be used for selfless or selfish purposes; how it can serve God or take the place of God.

 

Jesus wasn’t against wealth and possessions; he simply believed that we need to reflect upon the things for which we are willing to sacrifice and spend our money – because that speaks more about what we truly love than our words ever could.  At the heart of today’s scripture lesson is that true joy and wholeness come from being in right relationship with God and from loving God – and showing that love – with everything we are and everything we have.

 

I hear so many of you say, “This is my spiritual home, my church family.”  This is the place, and these are the people, to whom you can come, no matter what.  We sit here together in worship each week, a sanctuary full of souls quieting heart and mind, listening for the holy.  Together we pray our deepest hopes and yearnings; this is where we can get back in touch with whom we are and whose we are, it is where we can connect with one another and with the sacred. 

 

But the fact of the matter is we cannot maintain our spiritual home without your financial support.  I’m talking to you straight.  Despite last year’s successful Stewardship Campaign, we still have a $60,000 deficit in our budget which must be made up by taking interest AND principle out of our investment fund.  We have been taking too much principal from our endowment for too many years, and if we have to continue doing it for much longer, before we know it, that savings will be gone forever. 

 

Supporting our church financially is part of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.  The amount you pledge is a personal symbol of your willingness to grow your relationship with God, because stewardship has very little to do with paying a bill to the church.  Stewardship is about how we view our personal relationship with God and neighbor, and our decisions about money and possessions are, at their core, spiritual decisions because they affect our relationship with God and our neighbor. 

 

On this All Saints Sunday, we celebrate people who loved God and who served as God’s instruments here on earth – ordinary people through whom God was able to do extraordinary things.  But All Saints Day is not just about commemorating those who began and built the Christian community we call the Church; it is also about being a Christian community here on earth today.

 

There is a saying – “We find Jesus in the faces – of the people – in the places – where we go to give our hearts away.”  That’s the church.  It’s a place where we can come and experience the presence of the Christ, a place where we can see Jesus in the faces of the people here.  It’s the place where we can come and give our hearts away and have others extend their hearts to us.  Being a Christian means following Christ’s commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor.  And being part of a Christian community includes supporting that community not just with your worship and attendance, not just with your time and talent; but also with your money.

 

I pray that you will follow Christ’s commandment to love God with the totality of your being, with everything you have.  I pray that you will consider how much this faith community means to you.  And I pray that your stewardship commitment will reflect your loving and grateful response to a loving and gracious God who abundantly blesses us.  Amen.