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2 Kings 2:1-12, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT
The Rev'd W. Lee Shaw
Two weeks ago I was in Gatlinburg, TN, for a stewardship conference. I found it very helpful and inspiring and you will be hearing more of it during the coming months. Today I want to share a story told by one of the priests there who had worked for several years as a missionary in Kenya. It is about harrambay. (I hope I am remembering how to say it correctly.) It refers to team work or working together. For example, in Kenya many rivers have a raft to get to the other side of the shore with a rope tied between the shores. The people on the raft will pull on the rope together to move across the river. As they pull they shout: harrambay, so all work as a team together.
He said the Anglican church has adopted this sense of teamwork for their fundraising. He said he dared not call it stewardship. He told of the day at the cathedral for Harrambay Sunday. He had taken a book to place in his Prayer Book because he knew the service would last 2-3 hours. The cathedral was packed, 2,000 inside and maybe another 2,000 outside to listen.
When someone made a generous donation, held up $200 (which is most generous in Kenya) the priest would shout harrambay and the congregation would echo him. Then drums would start to beat and women would dance around the man who put the money in the collection plate. Positive reinforcement for giving! When a person had a couple of dollars, the priest would go up, thank him politely and then ask for other donors to come forward. No drumming. No dancing. No harrambay.
All the while this priest is reading his book tucked away in his Prayer Book. Then there was an odd noise, a clumping sound, rhythmic and distinct. The cathedral became quiet. He looked up. Down the stone nave of the church was a woman on her hands and knees. Attached to her hands were tin cans to cover her stumps of hands lost from leprosy. On her feet were cans to cover the stumps of her feet lost to leprosy. She slowly, diligently made her clumping way down the nave to the priest with the offering plate. She had a single coin in her mouth. In the silence of the cathedral she dropped it into the plate. Silence. Then the priest finally shouted Harrambay! and the congregation took up the cry. The drums beat again.
There had been a moment of transfiguration. The tone had changed from fund raising to giving of oneself. They had moved in the space of a few painful moments from fund raising to stewardship of self. She witnessed for them the power of giving of self. Yes, the image of the story of the widow’s mite/penny comes to mind in this story as well.
Transfiguration is not just the story we heard today in St. Mark’s Gospel. Transfiguration happens anytime when we see things in a new light, literally a new light: transfigured in front of us. When you see the check or cash you put in the offering plate not as part of the fund raising of the parish, but rather your giving of your self for the work of the kingdom of God in this place, then that is transfiguration. When you see your stewardship as your gift back to God for all that you have and are, not just to meet the budget, then that is transfiguration. When you see your life shared here not as something I do because I am expected to, but rather because this is how I live into the gifts of ministry God has given me, then that is transfiguration.
St. Paul writes to the church in Corinth about how some have the message of the Gospel “veiled” and they cannot see it. When we take the veil off our giving of our time and talents and treasure as no less than giving back to God what has already been given us, then we understand the power of stewardship. In the words of the traditional offering sentence: “All things come of thee O Lord. And of thine own have we given thee.” We give out of our abundance of blessings not out of our scarcity of need or of guilt.
This woman in Kenya gave out of the abundance of her faith, the abundance of her life in Christ, her abundance of her life in that parish church. She gave all of what she had to offer.
May we be more open to the light of new openings of transfiguration in our lives. May we be more open to seeing the light of Christ in our life in new and unexpected ways. May we be open to removing the veil over our hearts and eyes to see God’s hand at work in all the world about us, especially here in St. Stephen’s Parish.