October 18, 2026 · Rev. Dr. James Olson · 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22
Rev. Dr. James Olson reads Jesus's answer about Caesar's coin as a call to give God what is God's, and widens stewardship beyond writing the check to the time and talent that keep five old buildings and a busy church life going. Remembering the rummage sales of a childhood church, Rev. Olson asks who the church's neighbors in Rockport really are today and urges the congregation to invite their friends.
Transcript
I was supposed to have preached a stewardship sermon last week, but it became important for me to address what I talked about last week. As it turns out, it's lucky that this is the week that I'm going to talk about stewardship because we're talking about the money.
The Pharisees were truly trying to trip Jesus up. They really wanted him to give an answer that they could then charge him with insurrection and arrest him. Jesus realizing this and having no patience with them for it, says to them, take a, take a coin out of your pocket and the Roman coins of the day. Much like British currency or currency from other countries, had an image of the current emperor on it. British currency does the same thing today. They're minting new coins with King Charles on it. And it is a difference between countries that do that and say, the United States, where we do not put living people on our coinage. We put people from history, important Americans, to honor them.
Jesus was making the point that. And the objection that the that the Pharisees had was really that they were being taxed by the Romans, and that they were paying tax to a foreign government that worshiped a foreign god and were basically paying for their own, their own oppression. Remember, Jerusalem at this time was under occupation by the Roman people. They were paying the Roman taxes, which went right into the pockets of the soldiers that were stomping people in the streets. This was not good.
Jesus says to them, there are two worlds. There's the world we live in. So pay your taxes. Don't give the Romans a reason to come and stomp on you. It's nothing. It's. It's a piece of metal. It has no meaning. The things that we are given from God, however. Our intellect, our spirits, our wisdom, our experience, those are the things that then we give to God. And Jesus meant the life of the temple. Religious life study.
Our world is a different place. We're not currently under oppression. The government still currently works mostly, and the money does not represent the ruler. The money has George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, FDR. Susan B Anthony. Although I haven't seen one of those in a long time. People that represent to us the best of who we can be, the ideal to which we should aim for.
When we talk about stewardship in the church. It's often about the money. We have five really big old buildings that require a lot of work, a lot of maintenance. The trustees lie awake at night worrying about the roof, the heat, the lights, the bills, the oil, the paint, the right. There is a lot to take care of here, and it's a responsibility that our forbearers gave us. This room. This beautiful room is where we live. Some of our faith, but not all. And although this particular building has been here since eighteen oh four, and then remodeled and remodeled and remodeled and remodeled, it is where many most locate your spiritual lives. You come on Sunday and we sing and we pray and we baptize and we say goodbye and we get married and all of those things. The space is important. It is. And we have been given both a gift and a responsibility. To keep it up as best we can.
And in our twenty first century economy, that takes not just money, but it does also take our time and our talent as well. And so when we think about stewardship, it is not just writing a check, please write the checks. But we also have to frame all of this as it being an inheritance that we are given the responsibility to take care of, to use our skills and our gifts. Right? Some are teachers, some are preachers, some are really good on the board of trustees. Some are really good grant writers, some write. Each of us has a gift, has a something that we can do. Some are really good at setting up and organizing fairs and rummage sales and coffee hours and all, all of the things that it takes to have a church life that looks like what church life looks like here at the beginning of the twenty first century.
And being new in this community, I will tell you that you all really do that very well, folks show up. The building is never really empty. Someone is always here doing something for the benefit of the church. Whether it's just coming in and checking and making sure the heat is on. Whether it's spending an entire week setting up the rummage sale to raise money. Whether it's coming in and enjoying the challenge of the Great Purge. Keep going. We're doing really, really well. But there's more to be done.
And so as we are asking you in this time to think about your financial support of the church. So that we can continue to have a place and a staff. To make sure that there is a continuation of a religious life that looks like what we want a religious life to look like here in the twenty first century. I want you all to reflect on that larger question of what stewardship means. What it means to be a community of faith in this time, in this place, right now in Rockport. How we are connected to our larger community. How we are connected to Cape Ann. How we are connected to the Northeast Association of the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ. I had to think through all of that because it used to be the Essex Association of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. It has changed. And it all changed while I was away. They didn't ask me.
I was sitting in the rummage sale yesterday morning, quietly watching the crowds and watching all of you who were working yesterday morning doing the things that need to get done in order to have a successful rummage sale. And I was having childhood flashbacks because I grew up in a very similar church to this one, a church founded in seventeen twenty one. In a fellowship hall. As a child, where I'm not sure, my earliest memories were that I could see over the tables. And being surrounded by bags and boxes of clothes and things that people had donated. And watching my mother and father and my grandmother take things out of bags and giving it the sniff test, and making sure that it was okay to put out and folding it and just an entire fellowship hall of sheets and towels and jeans and sweaters and shirts and. And I was thinking that, yeah, I learned a lot of stuff in seminary, but I learned how to be a church member by helping out at the fair and singing in the choir and helping out with the rummage sale and watching my dad go up in entirely too tall ladder to fix a light bulb. It took us a couple of years to convince him not to do that anymore.
And what I learned about stewardship was not from watching my father write the check every Sunday morning and put it in the envelope, and then put it in the collection plate. Please keep doing that. But it was more that their entire lives were oriented towards the life of the community, towards the life of the church, towards keeping a proper perspective on what was Caesar's and what was the church's. My parents. Raised us well. Like many of your families, I'm the one of the only ones still involved in a church life and I'm not sure where that disconnect happened. I just happened to keep going and became a pastor, and I'm not sure what happened to my compatriots, my classmates, my confirmation classmates.
During this year of interim transition for Christians, who have we been? Who are we now? Where are we going and who is our neighbor? That is the most important question for us. If we look at it through the lens of stewardship, who is our neighbor? Who are we called to serve in this community?
The Rockport school system has eight hundred and twenty two children this year. That is a third of what it was twenty five years ago. Rockport is expensive, has gotten expensive, is getting more expensive as time goes by. And it is very hard, if not impossible, for young families to move into the community as they once could have their children in the school system and bring them to church. We have an amazing faith formation program. We have an amazing faith formation program director. But we have fifteen children. They are our neighbors. They are not just the future of the church. They are the church now. But if we're thinking larger about stewardship, if we make the assumption that that generation is the one that is going to be the future of the church, we will close. If that's who we are only reaching out to.
So the question of stewardship becomes, then who is actually our neighbor who lives here in Rockport? And they look an awful lot like you. Older, financially settled, maybe still working, maybe retired. We certainly should not not be making an invitation to young families and children and. But we also need to be clear that that is not what is going to keep this church open. It's you folks and those like you. And we need to be clear and honest about our evangelism. I know that makes that word that word makes Congregationalists cringe.
Who have you invited to come with you? You've got this crazy interim pastor that's doing all these things. Why don't you come and see? We've got this great choir and a chime choir. And we need help with the rummage sale. The greatest stewardship, besides writing the checks that you can do is to reach out around you here in Rockport and just invite your friends.
The welcoming committee is working on putting together a postcard that's going to have all of Advent and Christmas on it. And we're going to send it to every postal address in Rockport. We need to spend a little bit of money to do it. And I need to we need to just check and make sure where that money is going to come from. Hopefully you will see them last week of November ish.
Four Sundays of Advent. A blue Christmas service on Sunday evening, December twentieth, where we come and recognize that the Advent Christmas season is not the maniacally joyous season that corporate capitalist America would want us all to believe. I have already seen my first Christmas ad. It's a tough season for folks. Let's give an opportunity to the community. Let's use this beautiful space for folks to come for a minute and just rest. We'll have our family friendly Christmas Eve service at four o'clock. Don't quote these times. That Katie and Christina are putting together. We'll have our Christmas Eve candlelight service. And then on the Sunday following Christmas, Phil and I are putting together a Lessons and Carols service. Where we will invite all of Rockport, all of Cape Ann to come and see what we are doing here.
Your role is to not keep that light under a bushel basket. Your role is to not quietly come to church and quietly leave and not say anything to anybody about it. If you are happy and proud to be a member of First Congregational Church in Rockport, invite your friends. Write the check. Put your shoulder to the wheel when asked. And that is how we will exercise good stewardship. And we will make sure that when every last one of us is gone, there will still be a First Congregational Church in Rockport. Amen.