Sunday, June 2, 2024 – Fr. Matt Dampier

Morning Christchurch Church. Morning.

Did you catch the joke in our gospel

reading just then? Jesus said he already had

in mind what he was gonna do but

then he asks the disciples. How are you

gonna feed them? How are you gonna do

something? He's got in his mind what he's

gonna do then he invites

participation from

the disciples is to partner with him and

see this great miracle that he is going

to do.

Sometimes I wanna know what story am I

living in.

I know what story I'm in. Stories, they

they tell the shape of the world, they

tell me what's worth fighting for, what's worth

sacrificing for. Tell me who my heroes are.

Who the the people that get the rewards

are based on what story I'm living, And

I heard a story the other day, about

the first day you work at a John

Deere,

for... You work for John Deere, you know,

the tractor company.

First day working for John Deere, you come

in, and your workspace is already set up,

there for you. And as it set, there's

balloons and

congratulations all spread about the workspace.

There's a John Deere tractor. 1 of these

green die cast tractor sitting right there on

the,

on your workspace. And you boot up the

computer and there's a message from the Ceo

speaking directly to you. And the Ceo says

something like this

says, the backbone of America are the farmers.

From They feed our families supply the schools

keep us moving in industry, they're the silent

heroes running the country. And do you know

how the food gets from the farm?

To the table.

It's with a John Deere tractor.

Welcome to the team.

This this beautiful story. I hear that, and

I'm, like, sign me up. I'm in.

I wanna work for john... That is a

story that compels me that makes me think

that is worth sacrificing Fort Worth giving my

life to, and it's working for John Deere.

I believe the church has a story more

compelling more grand than that. I think we

have a story that encompasses all of life,

all of the world, has a picture for

what's gone wrong in the world and how

God is actually going to make it right

again.

We have the story of

The God himself who has stepped down into

this world, the world trapped in despair

and sin in self

isolation,

and his come at great cost to himself

to start his kingdom. You know, Jesus whole

message.

Was that the kingdom of God is here.

It's beginning now. It is near you. You're

a part of it. You can enter into

it. And the way he begins his kingdom

of his rule his reign, the way God

begins to make the world right again is

not with a a conquering sword or with

weapons of but actually by allowing himself to

be conquered on the cross.

It's through his

crucifixion through his resurrection and through the sending

of the spirit.

That Jesus is now making all things right,

and we belong to his kingdom. This kingdom

that is

rem making the world. Kingdom that is worth

sacrifice for. This kingdom that is worth seeing

new way of living always

beginning.

And The story of the kingdom is a

story of a god who won't leave us

humans alone, a god who pursues. A god

who wants to see everything evil come untrue.

Here's what life in this kingdom feels like.

And many of you know this feeling. It

feels like freedom,

freedom from addictions.

Freedom from having to to lie and keep

an image of yourself always going always spinning.

Feels like abundance, not scarcity,

Remember Jesus said, the thief comes only to

steal kill and destroy. I've come that they

would have life have it to the fullest

an abundance in this kingdom.

There's a basic courage

that any suffering that you go through any

tragedy that you're in, you're not alone, and

it's not the end of your story.

She have courage to go through it.

A trust that though the world seems out

of control and wars.

There's a basic goodness that God is writing.

He has begun to write the ship and

he will write the ship.

This is a story that we're living. And

it's a story. As compelling as the John

Deere story is, this is a more compelling

story a story that invites our participation and

the way we participate, the ways we primarily

respond

are through acts of generosity.

So our our... Responsiveness back to God is

generosity. And then as he receives our offerings,

he bless and expands his kingdom. So today,

I wanna talk about 2 words,

generosity

and gene.

And generosity and gene deal with living in

the story of this kingdom.

There's a biblical pattern of living responsibly to

this story, and

I've got these words appear. Generosity. Here's how

I define it. It's the whole self. Being

offered up to God.

Responsive gift to god's goodness, a sacrifice of

love, sacrifice of self, a willingness not to

choose your own path,

I think of generosity is is, like taking

the best of your life. Your gifts, your

talents, your resources, your time, your attention,

all the things that you feel uniquely gifted

at and saying God, these are all yours,

not mine.

You... The the a spiritual director recently challenged

me and said, why don't you take a

list of everything good in your life? Just

write it out on a piece of paper

took me about 3 days to do.

And then next to it,

say God, this is yours.

This talent that I have, this,

personality disposition that I have, this resource, this

access, this network that I have. It's not

mine.

It's yours.

All the earth is yours, and my participation

in it is yours.

Generosity is the recognition, the offering up of

everything to yours to God.

And then gen is this, Gene is god

taking the offerings that we offer up

and sending down his blessing.

Sending down his fire

multiplying is only God can. You think of

the little boy that day with the the

the 2 fish and the 5 loaves of

bread, saying here's just my lunch. Jesus, can

you do something with my lunch and watching

this offering this meager offering of lunch costly

to him his lunch.

Being multiplied by Jesus

far beyond anything that he ever could have

imagined. The generosity is the offering up to

gene is God blessing,

beyond anything that any of us could ever

have done.

This is a pattern we see all throughout

scripture to power, it's a a pattern in

the the story of the kingdom, and we

saw it in our old testament reading. No

now a look at that reading in Genesis

for just a minute. Genesis 22.

It's a major touchstone stone moment in the

life of Abraham, Abraham has received this promise

to be the father of many nations.

He's had this

expectation that somehow through him and through his

family line. God is going to bring his

kingdom into the world.

He's have many years of waiting many years

of childless.

And if you've ever expected like you've you've

had a promise from God, but there's just

been delay after delay after delay. You start

to wonder God. Do you really care? Do

you really know

After all that time, he finally has this

promised

child, Isaac is born. And then 1 day

he receives this strange command. To take his

son Isaac up on a mountain and to

offer him up to the Lord.

This sounds strange to us

In fact, in our first reading this morning

as soon as I heard it, it it

just felt strange. It felt I felt inner

discomfort as I heard it read.

But imagine living in a society where this

was common where the Gods asked for human

sacrifices.

Abraham might be wondering who is this God?

That commands just like the other gods.

And despite the painful cost and the confusion

of the command, Abraham is willing is obedient

to offer up even his son.

And into the act of this, the act

of offering up even his son, he's going

to discover this God is not like the

other gods.

You, this is Genesis 22. It's worth going

back to re reread later today, and just

to kind of the say, put yourself in

the situation, what would it feel like?

To imagine being the the thing most precious

to you, the promise of god being asked

to offer that up to the Lord.

You know, a number of people have made

the connection that there are so many similarities

between this moment of Abraham isaac this offering

up this generosity

and between Jesus himself.

Similarities between Isaac being offered up and Jesus.

First of all, both of the their births

or miracle births, Isaac

born to Abraham and Sarah and her old

age and

Jesus born by the virgin Mary.

Both are called the only son whom you

love. That language is explicit there in Genesis

22.

They both take a 3 day trip into

the wilderness,

Abraham and Isaac go off for 3 days

into the wilderness.

Jesus, of course is,

for 3 days in the tomb.

Notice the the similarity of the Mountains Mount

Mori mariah for Isaac Calvary, Mount Calvary for

Jesus,

Isaac carried the wood. If you see that

in the store, he's carrying

would he'll be sacrificed upon Jesus carrying the

cross.

Isaac and Jesus both bound, both willingly

submitting to the sacrifice.

And as a wood is piled around Isaac,

and as Abraham raises his hand at that

moment,

an Angel of the Lord intervene, and there's

a substitute.

A ram, something else to be offered instead

of Isaac. So here's the pattern that we

see in the life of Abraham,

Trusting

Trusting God, he offers up something dear

costly to himself. Even when he doesn't fully

understand the reason he trust God with a

generous

costly offering.

And then gene,

God does something new. God sends down and

provides something totally

unexpected.

The author of Hebrews says that here Abraham

was believing that god would actually raise Isaac

from the dead.

Here's something even better.

The Ram, the substitute offering not your son.

God is not like the other gods who

demands your son from you.

He's a different sort of god. 1 who

provides a substitute. So that your son doesn't

have to die.

Abraham, your family line is intact.

The promised child remains

And from this promised child, many more years

later, a great descendant another child would come.

On another mount,

this new child would offer himself generously

on the cross.

God would receive this offering and bless it

with the generosity of blessing for the whole

world to be open the whole world to

begin to know who this God is.

Abraham shows us this pattern of generosity, the

offering up, gene,

the blessing down,

offering up Isaac,

the son of promise,

the blessing of the ram, the substitute the

new trust in God, and Paul reflects on

this pattern in the new testament.

These very famous words. We just heard read

from second Corinthians.

Or he says for you know the grace

of our Lord Jesus Christ, though he was

rich yet, for your sake he became poor

There's the generosity.

The offering up of self

so that you through his poverty might become

rich, the gene.

You know, I said that

this is the pattern for living in the

story of the kingdom.

And I can always tell when I'm out

of step with God based on how I

feel about generosity.

It's 1 of the ways of of noticing

am I living in gods and kingdom where

I feel safe, protected, cared for,

or do I feel like I'm responsible for

protecting myself securing myself, kingdom making sure that

I'm in control. Mind... Am I so in

charge of my health, my appearance, my resources

that I don't have

space to be generous.

Where generosity begins to feel like,

a bit of a sting or I withholding.

I don't wanna offer something up because

Maybe this isn't the story I'm living into,

it always feels like a calibration point

for me. When I notice that generosity feels

tight in my heart.

Anytime that happens, come back,

come back and remember Jesus himself

and his generosity for you.

Jesus himself who willingly

carries across for you

so that you don't have to be sacrificed.

Jesus who willingly takes your sin upon himself.

Jesus who willingly goes to the cross on

your behalf. There is, if you look at

all the different philosophies of the world,

Every other philosophy, every other religion will say

what you need to do is continue to

try harder. Make more image management, get yourself

and control, pull yourself up, Do whatever needs

to happen to make you feel secure and

right, and here in Christianity, Jesus says you

cannot.

Let me do for you what you cannot

do for yourself. Let the gen of God

bless you.

Receive the blessing.

Offer up your heart and receive

his blessing over you. Anytime I feel

a lack of generosity in my heart, it

is a reminder,

recalibrate myself.

Remember this story. This is the real story

that I'm living in. The story of the

God who sacrifices

himself for me. And feel the fresh sea

air

of his spirit blowing through you.

That's the story of

scripture, it's a story. We live in it's

a story of the world. It's what's setting

the world right right now. The story of

the generous god.

Bringing his kingdom, freeing us of our sins,

allowing us to live freely even now to

follow him,

that's where we see it in the Bible,

I wanted to turn and talk a little

bit about how we see it in this

church

because for a number of years as it...

Church community, we have been living out this

story of generosity,

this offering up and generosity

receiving the blessing of God. So this is

gonna be a little bit of, like, some

timeline history for about the past 20 years.

If you were here a couple of weeks

ago when we had that goodbye evening for

father cliff and Christine,

we told the story of the church over

the past 18 years, and I'm gonna re

hit some of those points

reminding us you Christ church. Are a church

of generosity

and generosity.

Let's have this first timeline picture up here.

This this is from a timeline we had

that night And

in 2004,

father Billy Dish. He'd been the rec here

for about 12 years. He retired from... Holy

Trinity. Holy Trinity that was Christ Church.

And it took several years from his retirement

to find a new rec, and the church

had gone from around a hundred or a

hundred and 20 people down to about 50

people.

At that time during the offering times, the

treasurer at the moment So our the the

current treasurer John Cha. He would be getting

up and he would hold the electric bill

for the church or the water bill, the

utility bill and says an offering today with

someone to pay this. You're laughing because some

of you remember these moments. Right? You remember

these things happening.

Father Cliff and the warner were called in

2006. Here's this story of generosity, the sac

generosity, the church at that time took all

the resources that we had and laid it

out and said that we've got resources to

pay a rec,

with 4 young kids

for about 6 months.

So as you move to Austin and just

let's give it a go together, this kind

of generous

sac superficial offering. Let's make a go of

it together.

And there was never,

like, just windfall growth. There was instead steady

incremental,

continuing growth that happened. This steady gen of

the lord through the year, so that the

bills were always paid,

So the church continue together people continue to

come meeting the Lord being baptized,

courageous generosity of faithful to God's generosity.

In 2008,

Holy Trinity left the epi church. There had

been theological drift,

not just with matters of,

sexuality, but also around theological issues, especially of

even bishop in the epi church at that

time, denying

their bodily resurrection of Jesus.

So courageous boldly sac

left the epi church, including leaving a property,

leaving behind

bank accounts and just started over.

Saying, Lord, here's the generous offering to be

faced, to follow you,

would you bless us gene.

You send the blessing, something new, initiates something

new that we can't do on our own,

but here's the offering, well of wanting to

stay aligned with you.

To go to the second timeline picture there.

The second timeline picture shows in 2012,

we sent funds with father Steve Pope right

here.

And,

father Steve Pope and Father, Billy Dish to

plant it church in Sun city, which would

eventually become light of Christ Georgetown. The church

is still flourishing up there. Generously,

some initiative on their behalf I think Father

Steve, you've joked the oldest church planter in

the An Church. Right?

But this generosity to risk to step out

to send funds to commission

to plant a church there in 2016,

the church generously raised funds amongst ourselves.

To do 2 things.

Generously offering is a congregation, and then the

gen of the Lord to purchase this property

where we are now, and to send out

the associate director at the time, Peter Ko

and about a hundred other key members and

volunteers of the church, a generous

sac superficial sending

blessing moment

in the life of this church. Lord, we

offer up these offerings, we offer up church

of the cross. We offer up this building,

and we pray for your gene

that you would do something

beyond our abilities,

you would bring people to you. You would

expand your kingdom that we would see people

all over Austin,

seeking healing, seeking your face. It's 2016.

In 20 21, we'll go to this next

slide here. We leave our timeline a little

bit, and this is all Saint Waco. Some

of you know about Saint Waco.

Dea Aaron Mon who's preached here before, she

was our, Paris retreat speaker. She preach up

here sometimes. If you y'all ever see Aaron

Preach.

Notice what it's on her feet. She preach

barefoot. And some of you seen that before

And she just kind of this recognition that

she's standing in the presence of God even

in the communicating the word.

I'm a little more self conscious in my

feet, so I'll keep my shoes on.

God We began a mentoring relationship with all

Saints Waco and Christchurch Church without

in in just a beautiful way. We generously

sent funds and resources to help a church

plant in,

in Waco,

very similar style to our style of following

Christ.

And

and in the An church.

And gene,

people are coming to know Jesus in all

Saint Waco.

People are be... Kids are being baptized. You

see that you see, father Michael right there

disc cycling teaching the kids. This generosity

offering up gene.

Sending out. Go to this next slide. Every

year,

we support around 23 different missionaries and mission

agencies

in this church, both local and global as

part of our budget, we set aside. So

if all the ties and offerings that are

given in We set aside 10 percent for

world mission to see the kingdom come all

over the world. Jesus, we offer up,

these blessings and would you generate,

bless,

send your blessing, send your fire down all

over the world.

This has been your story, Christ Church, this

constant theme of generosity,

offering up to god, gene,

fire from heaven. Ig the gift.

And in this theme of generosity and gene,

I wanna share with you some staff transitions

that are coming up, some of which might

be expected

others which might come as a surprise all

of these staff transitions I'm about to share,

fit this pattern of generosity and generosity.

Let's go to this next slide.

We got 4 staff who are going through

some key transitions in their life and

All of them as I sit in the

middle right now, watching what's going on. I

just get a sense of the spirit's hand

at work,

generosity.

Being offered up gene. Let me tell you

about each of these

father herb, an angel there in the bottom

left and herb, you're with us right here,

It's been here for 2 years is our

evangelist in residence. And for he and Angel,

this has been a healing

community

for him and for them.

Healing community where he has been able to

learn to be a priest you ordained just

months before came down here.

Been a healing community to belong to a

church community like this and to serve among

where he's not the the head leader where

he had been at a previous profit or

organization, there's space to just kind of be

friend and grow with while also teaching and

leading us deeper into evan,

helping us to love those on the margins

Herb has been offered the role as the

canon for mission and outreach

in the D of the Gulf Atlantic. It's

in Florida.

And, a canon is something kinda like an

overseer, and

it's herb such a perfect fit for you.

And as you and I have talked about

this and dialogue,

this puts him closer to his family closer

to Angel family even as they've gone through

some big changes

this past year.

And

it lets him use his gifts of evan

and encouragement within the church in an amazing

way.

So we're gonna have more to share in

the coming weeks, but, Father herb will be

leaving us here on the middle of the

summer. We'll get opportunities to celebrate, and I'll

explain more, But I wanna speak about some

of these other transitions as well.

By the way, herb, we feel

the generous release of you.

And we're excited for the generosity

of what god's gonna do in you and

through you in this new church role.

Cast Smith,

Kessler has been our small groups pastor for

about the last year and a half, almost

2 years now. And before taking this role,

he's been a church planter.

And has been very upfront that church planting

is still just in his bones in his

Dna.

He's been going through the coordination process and

is on the cusp of becoming a dea

And and he's been talking with our bishop,

and there's an opportunity for him to begin

a church plant

very soon in Lockhart heart. You might wonder

why Lockhart and as Kessler and Rachel had

put a list together of where they thought

the lord was calling them to plant. Lockhart

heart was at the top of the list.

It was a number 1

consideration because of preexisting existing relationships they already

have down there. Both with believers and non

believers. And so an opportunity to go in

implant a church that is

relational oriented to invite people in,

to the church.

He's been talking about this with our bishop.

There's just this mutual sense of

We think the Lord is doing something here

and Ke needs to begin

a process of fundraising and developing a team.

We're gonna commission him generously

with financial resources for the generative work that

God will be starting in Lockhart hard. And

again, we'll be talking about this more in

the coming weeks. The

expectation for Testers is, he'll be with us

through towards the end of the summer then

he'll need to transition more to lockhart and

the work he's doing.

Danielle Pruitt,

down there in the... And the third box

and right here, Danielle, you're here today. With

baby number 2.

Towns is over there as well. Danielle has

worked faithfully as office administrative for over 3

years, and she did it as a generous

act of service both for her family and

for love of the church. Danielle has a

master's degree in theological studies. She so sharp

theological and has it calling on her life

towards more vocational ministry.

She's done this work generously,

But if you've ever worked for an organization

where it doesn't exactly line up with your

call, but you do it as sacrifice. That's

where she's been for 3 years.

So if she is ending maternity leave right

now, she's been given an opportunity to work

with Hill house on Ut campus. 1 of

our... On campus

partnerships that's doing amazing work in terms of

reaching students. And Danielle is gonna get to

work there using her gifts her pastor work,

her pastor heart, her teaching her counseling,

and we're excited and get to bless and

honor and send you for the new generative

work. That the Lord's gonna do through you.

This this offering of generosity, this blessing of

gene.

And then Christy Hart will, Christy

has given herself generously to Christchurch These last

3 years by commuting to Austin multiple times

a week from San Antonio.

She's worked to serve cliff directly. And now

is he's left and moved on, she is

discern that for the sake of loving her

family.

Watching her youngest child finished high school that

being rooted in San Antonio is a better

fit.

She's boldly stepping forward in gen and risk.

To fully plant herself in San Antonio.

Again, you see for her this life over

3 years of generously sacrificing

And now we're commissioning and saying Lord, for

what she desires, the love of her family

would you generative

bless her.

For Herb and Kessler, we're gonna hear a

little bit more in the coming weeks for

Danielle, and for Christie, we honor your work.

Thankful and grateful. And would you join me

in honoring Danielle and Christie, especially in now?

This is the story of the kingdom.

And the story of the kingdom,

no work. Is ever wasted.

Ever.

Nothing you offer up. Nothing of yourself you

offer up is ever

wasted or left side.

He uses all of it. He bless all

of it.

It's a story of the kingdom generously offering

up our best self

If we were to live according to the

story of the world's economy, then leaders like

these

quality, good, culture,

fit leaders must be retained.

Never release. We must hold on to them

at all costs.

Moments like this feels scary. And as I

said in my on Friday change always feels

scary because it removes the mask of control.

But living in the story of the kingdom,

we can ex Friday experience the grief of

these endings and there is a grief that

we acknowledge,

but we hold a deeper trust,

practicing generosity as a community.

Commissioning the leasing, sending these leaders

and waiting and expecting

for the gen

the blessing that the Lord will send.

While we're talking about staff, I also wanna

note that we will be expanding our staff,

with a position called a curate. And I'll

have more to share on that also in

the coming weeks, but a curate is basically...

You know, you graduate... If if you're a

doctor, you graduate for medical school then you

go to a residency.

A accuracy in the An churches like that.

Someone who's been through seminary been through training

has leadership skills already developed and his school

on the final step into the coordination path.

So I have more to say about accuracy

coming in a few weeks.

I wanna conclude with the very practical way

of living into the story of the kingdom,

practicing generosity.

This week, we

For many of you, you received something like

this in a mail,

pledge card and a stewardship letter from the

vest street and from me.

And, if you didn't get 1 of these...

On the back tables where the wooden coins

are, you can pick 1 of these up

or you can go online and you can

download this.

Every year, we have an intentional practice,

examining our finances, considering how we might make

a pledge, to the church in the upcoming

year with our tides and offering. It's a

it's a practical way to live into generosity.

So here's what you do next week to

This week, you'll meet together with maybe family

members or roommates whoever you live with, pray

through, how how is the lord inviting you

to live into this generosity this week, And

the next week you'll bring this pledge card

back, and there's a moment in the service

where we all take our pledge cards and

we come forward and we lay them on

the table.

And it's this visible sign of us saying

god, everything that we have is yours. If

you've ever been to a more agrarian

country often in the moments of the table

lit. People come forward with tomatoes and mango

and chickens and literally place them on the

table as this way of saying, like, here's

the first fruits of my life,

Taking these pledge cards, it's a symbolic way

of saying God, all of my life is

yours.

All of it. Have everything. This just represents

the that this represents me offering myself putting

it on your table to be cons by

a priest

offered to you.

1 of the things we do every week

as a priest. We received the ties in

the offerings, and we lift up that basket

as we lift it up, I often say

under my breath.

Everything

is yours, God,

everything.

That's where you'll will be participating in next

week, a sac way of saying, all of

it is yours. God, all of my life

is yours.

Couple more reasons why we do this, and

I'll just lift them up here quickly.

This cultivate gratitude,

a responsive heart.

You know, imagine me saying to my wife

on our anniversary,

Lexi happy anniversary. I got you these flowers

because I had to.

Happy anniversary.

Hey

Gratitude, we we come in in gratitude as

a way of saying, like, Lord, I love

you.

And this is how I responded to moment

of response to moment to practice gratitude.

Disciples.

Jesus taught that where your treasure is, their

your heart will be awesome. We often flip

it and say where your heart is, there

your... Then your treasure gonna go.

He says the other thing, where your treasure

is,

then your heart follows.

This is a moment of pushing back,

against the idol of our culture, putting pushing

back against the temptation of our own heart

to use our money our resources to protect

ourselves.

Reminds us of the story we're living in

This is a third 1. This is a

a

embodied sac

way to say this is a story we

live in. You are safe. God is in

control of your life. This grounds you in

the practice of being in his story. This

Again, when you set this on the table,

you're saying God my whole life belongs to

you. These... The resources I have, everything that

I say is mine is not really mine.

It's just been entrusted

by you to me.

Reminds us of the story we're in. Number

4, it's functional for the church. Our fiscal

year runs August through July, and this this

pledge drive helps us set a budget that

is wise and response.

Leaning in faith, but also considering the current

staffing capacity and limits we face. So we

actually use these pledge cards to help even

set the budget wisely

And then the last 1 is it roots

us in community and especially if you've come

to Christchurch shirts in the last year or

so.

Making a pledge like this.

To way of saying, I'm sinking roots in

here. I'm expecting this community is a community

where I'm giving myself where I'm ex expecting

God to generative bless where I wanna see

all of Austin

experience the healing

presence of the Lord Jesus christ. So it

roots you in community. So this week, sit

down with family roommates. However you live with?

Take some time to intentionally think through how

is the Lord inviting you to offer

your life generously

to him.

And then bring that pledge card next week

as a way of responding to his grace.

That's the story

you live in.

You live in the story of the king

who has brought his kingdom and invited you

to be a.

Let's pray together.

Or Jesus, if we're honest, many of us

live

with an edge of fear in our hearts.

It's would you remind us re mind, put

in our minds again

the cross,

the spirit,

the resurrection

the ascension, these touchstone touchdown of reality, your

kingdom has come and we are safe.

But we offer ourselves up to you this

morning again a fresh in your name. I'm

in,