Stewardship of Relationships, 10/13/2025
A Sermon by Lelanda Lee, Member of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Longmont, Colorado
Scripture readings today included: Psalm 90:12-17; Hebrews 4:12-16; and Mark 10:17-31

INTRODUCTION

Jo-Sun, Good Morning. “Jo-Sun” is Good Morning in Cantonese, my first language, because that is the language my immigrant mother from China spoke. I say “Good Morning,” in English, which is my second and now dominant language. I greet you in this way from the lessons I have learned from my Native American friends, because in every ethnic community, it is important to know, and to share for others to know, who we are in terms of our family’s heritage, especially when we are leading a presentation. 

I do not know many of you here at St. Stephen’s these days, and many of you may not know me, because I have been largely absent from this sanctuary due to my own life-threatening illness and subsequent disability, followed by caretaking for my husband who died 18 months ago, and in-home hospice care for my mother who died three months ago. I’ve been a member of St. Stephen’s since August 2000 and have served as a lay person in many ministries, from Christian Formation and Stewardship, to Worship and Preaching, to cooking and feeding the congregation, to leadership roles in the wider church. I have also served as the publisher of St. Stephen’s online newsletters in recent years. 

I think the best part of becoming an Episcopalian is the life-giving emphasis on the roles of the lay ministers in our church. We love and appreciate the faithful leadership of our ordained deacons, priests, and bishops. We love AND RELY ON our lay ministers in each congregation to work in partnership with our clergy to carry out the missional work of reconciling all people to God through Jesus. 

STEWARDSHIP OF RELATIONSHIPS: FOLLOWING JESUS

I want to share with you some thoughts about the Stewardship of Relationships and Following Jesus. The scripture readings today speak to what I’m going to share with you, and I will refer to them.

When the Church talks about Stewardship, the tendency is to talk about Time, Talent, and Treasure. However, the greatest Treasure of all is our Relationships—our Relationships with God, with Jesus specifically, and with each other. I told my children that the single most important decision they would make is to choose whom to love, from choosing God to choosing a life partner. If we pay attention to our relationships, guided by our gratitude and love for God, we will be following Jesus as Stewards of Our Relationships. We will likely have deeper respect, appreciation, and love for our partners, family, as well as friends, strangers, foreigners, and all the creatures of God’s Creation.

Both Mother Michelle Danson, who preached two weeks ago, and Janet Strickler, who preached last Sunday, spoke about the beauty and bounty of the natural world—the flowers, the trees, the food crops, the waters, and the lands that sustain our bodies and nurture our souls. We are called to Steward our relationships with all of the natural world through our respect, care, and protection of all living things and of the earth and waters under our feet, our homes, and our floating homes away from home. The phrase “Mother Earth” speaks to how Mother Earth continually blesses humankind and all living beings.

BAPTISM

I am thrilled that today we will be participating in the Baptism of Adeline, whose Mom and Dad are both “cradle Episcopalians.” Psalm 90 appointed for today says: “Show your servants your works and your splendor to their children.” In our Holy Communion service today, we are sharing the splendor of our praise, worship, and great thanksgiving to God, and we are setting an example to inspire our children, each other, and our newcomers. 

When we are baptized, we are baptized with water and the words “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When we are baptized, we enter into the Body of Christ, represented by Christ’s Holy and Catholic Church. (Holy means “set apart for God” and capital “C” for Catholic means the Universal Church of Christ’s followers.)

Later, when we recite the baptismal vows together with Adeline’s parents and family, we are recommitting, with them, that we will support her and the growth of all of us in the Christian faith in our prayers and deeds. Adeline’s Baptism is a corporate act of the Stewardship of Relationships by all of us present today in person and by Zoom. We worshipers are supporting our parish church and its ministers—that is, supporting each of us—to preach the Word and Works of God by our presence, by our prayers, and by our contributions of Time, Talent, and Treasure in today’s Baptism service. 

It is often said: “Preach. Use words, if necessary.” We are all preachers in the sense that we preach—and teach by example—our love of God and God’s Creation through how we share our faith through words and through our behavior towards each other and all of God’s Creation.

JESUS’ NEW COMMANDMENT

Please turn with me to page 324 in the Book of Common Prayer in your pew. Please share with a neighbor. Let us read together the words that begin the Holy Eucharist Rite One traditional language communion service at the top of the page:

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

So, in other words, to be known as one of the followers of Jesus Christ, we are told in this two-part New Commandment given by Jesus himself to: 1) love God and 2) love our neighbors as ourselves. Following Jesus and Jesus’ example are the emphasis of this New Commandment. This is our guide for living our earthly lives.

The Wednesday afternoon community group is currently reading together the book When in Doubt, Sing about prayer in daily life, by Jane Redmont, a lay church leader and author. In the book, Redmont says: “I believe in God’s incarnation [that is, God’s earthly presence]: literally, in God’s flesh in the world. Again and again, I meet God in the faces, voices, and actions of others.” Following Jesus is about recognizing the Presence of God in our lives and in each other. Following Jesus is about turning our face to the capital L Light in each other. We are called to reflect the Light of Christ, and we are called to be the Light in the world.

In the New Testament reading from Hebrews today we heard:

“The word of God is living and active . . . able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before [God] no creature is hidden . . . Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness and find grace to help in time of need.” 

Jesus is the Word of God that Hebrews speaks of, who is also known as the capital W Word of God. Think about this scripture: we are called to Be Bold in following Jesus, to Be Bold in finding grace and giving grace, to be helpful in our relationships.

GOSPEL OF MARK

In the Gospel of Mark we hear the story: 

“[The man said to Jesus], “Teacher, I have kept all these [commandments] since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When [the man] heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

It was not the fact that the man had many possessions that caused him to be shocked and to go away grieving. It was the fact that he couldn’t conceive of letting go of his possessions and couldn’t put “following Jesus” ahead of his possessions. The man was unable to put his relationship with Jesus ahead of his possessions. God does not condemn us for what we have. God loves us and blesses us with gifts beyond our merit out of God’s great love for all of God’s Creation. But we fall short of following Jesus when we love our possessions more than we love God and more than we love our neighbors of all kinds, from near and far, than we love ourselves.

Another way to look at this Gospel message is to ask ourselves, when we are reflecting on our own behavior, especially at crucial inflection points, such as when I am arguing with my brother who lives with me, or parenting my son, who is going through a second puberty as a trans non-binary person: “Do my attitude and my behavior towards my brother and my son reflect my beliefs and my values?” Let me repeat that question: “Do my attitude and my behavior towards this person reflect my beliefs and my values?” In other words, “How is God calling me to moderate my attitude and my behavior?”

BEING AN EPISCOPALIAN

One of my favorite things about being an Episcopalian is that we believe that our faith is supported by what we depict as a three-legged stool. The three legs are Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Scripture refers to the Bible and other historical religious texts. Tradition refers to both church tradition as well as cultural traditions within our community contexts. And Reason refers to the fact that God gave us brains, and God expects us to use our brains. The Episcopal-Anglican tradition teaches us to think about the Church’s teachings, to reflect on them within our own family and community contexts, and not to accept anything strictly by rote or in deference to “the authorities.” We acknowledge that we are each, individually, called into a personal relationship with God. We are called into the Stewardship of our personal relationship with God—to build, deepen, and share our relationship with God with each other and with all of Creation. God gives us the Good News of Jesus; why wouldn’t we want to share the Good News as excitedly as we share the news of a new restaurant or the latest movie? 

Bringing Stewardship—which is really a shortcut way of saying Sharing God’s Love—into all our relationships will yield a personal philosophy of gratitude, positivity, possibilities, and generosity. Our public square and public news, and our mass communication and mass marketing make us focus on scarcity, worry, and fear. Try saying “I am blessed” instead of “I’m fine.” Try counting your blessings, instead of counting your troubles. For example, “I am blessed by my mobility handicaps because I have learned lessons about compassion and humility that I didn’t learn when I was able-bodied and athletic.” In Facebook, and in life, try saying “I am sad” instead of saying “I am angry.” If I’m sad about the causes of the things that make me feel angry, I can then address and work to eliminate those causes. I can stop being angry, which is a self-inflicted cancer that harms our spirits.

COURAGE IS

I want to close with a poem that I wrote a while ago, titled “Courage Is.” I was thinking about what courage really is, and I had the opportunity to lead a retreat on the subject of Courage at an Episcopal Church Women’s Retreat in Ohio several years ago. Be Bold is an important aspect of Courage. The last verse of the poem reads:

Courage is 
communion 
most sacred 
When open 
to all
naked of
rubrics
most powerful 
Courage is
the communion 
that lifts
the hidden thread 
in the body politic 
to be warp
and woof
of a people
of a community 
of a nation
of the world 
Courage is
the secret self 
reaching for
its family

“Courage is the secret self reaching for its family.” If we think about all of humankind as our family, then when a firefighter rescues a person in danger, a soldier carries a wounded comrade to safety, a teacher listens to a student’s story of abuse at home, or a friend sits with you during your grief at the death of a beloved—those are all examples of what Courage Is in its truest sense. Courage is the secret self, the core of our being, God’s divine spark within us, that reaches out to its family to comfort, to care for, to forgive, to seek justice, and to be present with all of Creation that God loves without limit. 

Church is the community of the people who love and care for one another even when we disagree, eat different foods, and raise our children in ways we’ve never heard of. The church community of loving, caring people respect the dignity of every human being, and as a community, together, we strive for justice and peace among all people. Familiar words, aren’t they? These are the final words of the Baptismal vows that were said at our baptisms and that we will repeat soon as Adeline is welcomed into the Body of Christ as Christ’s own.

My Friends, Courage and Boldness are the essence of Stewardship of Relationships. Stewardship is God’s Love in action by us. Amen.

opened its doors in a way unique to each of us. I tell you that so when you ask another “what brought you to Saint Stephen’s?” the reply you hear may be brief, but the choice is not one of convenience, or easily distilled into several sentences; but instead a response to a call, a profound statement of faith and a conviction of shared values, a true belief in the shared love we have for God and for each other.

My own experience with God up until recently was very limited. For much of my life, I felt God was a passive observer at best. And yet, I always felt an undercurrent of disquiet, a feeling of searching for spirituality that I did not recognize as such. If God called to me – and He always is calling to us – it fell on deaf ears as I failed to listen. But God is quietly persistent, and for the truly stubborn amongst us, we simply have to be ready to listen. For me, it was the abrupt failure of a marriage that saw each of us discard individual passions and friends one-by-one in a bid to keep things going. A slow, quiet death over years, but still a sudden break at the end. In the moment when I thought I had lost everything, and with no place to go, I asked the Lord for help, and God calmly reminded me that we are never truly alone; that though we may neglect our relationships with our friends they will still be there for us in times of need. My best friend and his wife, though pressed with their own immensely busy lives and a toddler underfoot, graciously put me up for a couple of days and gave me the blessed space to find a new place to live.

Weeks later, after a settling-in of sorts, that spiritual void was still present. As we heard today, in the Epistle of James it is written “You do not have, because you do not ask.” I realized I had never recognized my unkindled desire for an expression of faith and a community to be a part of, or asked where I could go to fulfill those. When I did, Google kindly informed me Saint Stephen’s was the answer. I approached – cautiously – and not knowing a thing about Episcopalian traditions, but was sold when I heard Mother Melissa say “All are welcome at God’s table.” It was such a departure from the messaging I had heard my entire life. My conviction that Saint Stephen’s was what I had been unknowingly looking for was confirmed over months of attending services and hearing the repeated affirmation that we are all God’s children, and loved as we are. I still remember Maggie Benton’s wonderful humor at the food drive almost two years ago – just the joy of helping, of sharing good works with others. Her, and Mother Melissa, Dave Stanger, and the rest of the congregation extending a quiet invitation – exactly what a wary introvert like me needed, when I needed it.

This place – not simply the Episcopal Church, with a capital “C”, but Saint Stephen’s – welcomes all, but especially those who are lost and alone, those who search in the dark for that door behind which lies community and spiritual fulfillment. And that is why the Stewardship of Saint Stephen’s – be it time, talent, or treasure – is so dear to me. It is not just because I am thankful for what I have received, but for the next person who comes through those doors seeking belonging, seeking community, seeking friends, and seeking God... and not knowing quite how to ask.

So the next time you ask someone what brought them here to Saint Stephen’s, maybe ask a few more questions, or share your own story. Those questions and stories open doors, and the more we learn about each other, the more we invite others in.

All four gospels recount the feeding of the 5,000. It must have been pivotal to the early church. I find meaning to my life in a sentence found in Matthew 14:16, Mark 6:37, and Luke 9:13. When the disciples asked Jesus, “How are you going to feed all these people,” Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.”

Jesus realized He would not always be with us in bodily form here on Earth. To
fulfill God’s promises, we would have to carry the load. So, a boy with five loaves and two fish, along with the disciples and the sharing of the crowd, all with Jesus’ blessing, fed the 5,000 with plenty left over. More than enough!

I thank a parishioner at Holy Comforter for putting into focus what St. Stephen’s means to me. St. Stephen’s is a place where I feel at home. Where I can connect to something bigger than myself. Not being able to worship in community during Covid really brought that home to me. I suspect many of you feel the same way, and need this place as much as I do. That is why I support St. Stephen’s.

Homes require attention, time, care and upkeep, and our home at St. Stephen’s is no different. St. Stephen’s needs you just as much as you need it.

In Christ,

Chuck Cooprider

What “More Than Enough” Means to Me