Treasure: 6th Sunday of Easter Season

Listen to the homily.

Notes:

I have preached about stewardship—time, talent and treasure

·      I like what St. Luke wrote in Acts: “The apostles and elders, in agreement with the whole church…”

·      We must help our whole Church

o   Our churches, our school, our Diocese, the poor and the sick

Next weekend I will have a bulletin article about this

Koochiching is in a difficult time

·      Less families, less kids, less jobs, tough economy

·      This weekend I want to speak about treasure

I want to share the treasure I try

·      I do not have a wife or children

·      I do not pay for my house or my groceries

·      I was in college and seminary with many gifts to me (without paid)

o   And now it is awesome to give that back to people

But I only want to share how me, as a priest, in treasure

·      A priest taught us in the seminary (now a Bishop Andrew Cozzens) to have a second check for gifts to others

o   I put about 5% to this check…could you do that?

o   About 5% I divides my payment to the Church, School and UCA

§  How are you doing in this?

·      One time, a priest was in town for a weekend and I bought dinner

o   He said, “Why are you paying this dinner?  Your Church should.”

o   I said, “No.”  Many people here cannot buy such meals, and nor should our Church

·      Have I bought any alcohol from your plate?

o   No

·      I must simple my own life because it is difficult up here

o   No cable for your plate ($1,000) without cable…could you try that?

o   No garbage business…I’ll bring them to our Church’s garbage dump

Today I would like you to think about two other ideas

·      I’m not thinking numbers, but what you can give treasure

o   UCA second collection today

§  We will begin our 2016 in a couple of weeks

§  We have about $9,000 from 2015…can you do it? 

o   Operation Rice Bowl

§  I am having fun keeping this up in my truck

§  Could you do this?  Get a roll of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters from the bank?  Or more dollars?  When you leave your house?  Get in your car?

§  This can help the poor and the sick

Stewardship is time, talent and treasure

·      The best we can be to our family is to use what you can give

I’m not talking about the numbers because we can each give some treasure

·      The poor Widow at the Temple gave two pennies

·      And Jesus said that she gave the most

“The apostles and elders, in agreement with the whole church…”