"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit."

Luke 6:43

But I grant that this reaction is understandable. Most of us think of Stewardship season as that time when a long line of church leaders - the preacher, the chair of the budget and finance committee, the most respected member of the congregation - all take turns standing up here asking for money in support of the church's ministries and programs.

And it's no more fun to hear that in church, to have our regular programming interrupted, if you will, than it is when NPR interrupts their regular programming to make those insistent appeals for your hard-earned cash.

So, why bother? Well, perhaps because we're supposed to. If you read the Gospels, it doesn't take long to realize that the concept of, the principles and practices of, the Reign of God dominate Jesus' teaching.

But after that, after the Reign of God, Jesus talked about money more than anything else. Five times more than he talked about prayer, in fact.

So there is good biblical precedent for talking about money in church. But the problem is that we make a terrible mistake when we restrict our sermons and conversation s during stewardship season to the topic of money.

For properly understood, fully understood, stewardship is about riches that go far beyond what's in your pocket or your bank account. As this text indicates today, biblical stewardship is ultimately about the riches inside your very heart.

What could those riches be, you ask. Let me begin with a poem that speaks to that question.

The poem is by May Sarton, but I found it in Parker Palmer's book, Let Your Life Speak.

Now I become myself.

It's taken time, many years and places.

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces . . .

The dictionary defines stewardship as the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care.

What if that something is not just your money or your time? Instead, what if that something is you? Is your very self.

If that is true, then the process of becoming ourselves, of becoming who God made us and created us to be, is the ultimate act of stewardship. The ultimate expression of a faithful life.

And what a long time it can take! As Parker Palmer notes, most of us spend the first half of our lives, or even more, surviving other people's attempts to create us in their image.

Your parents want you to become a doctor, perhaps, and to make a lot of money. Your Sunday school teacher wants you to believe that you were born a sinner and to feel guilty for that. Your mom wants you to take music lessons and join the school band; your dad wants you to play football and join the army. Your guidance counselor wants you to take physics and calculus.

All the while you know in your heart none of that is true for you. You want to be creative and to make art, not money, or to teach school, not go to medical school - unless that is your calling.

You believe that God created you good, and to love yourself, not hate yourself. You want to join a rock and roll band, not the school band. And if you're a WW student, you'd rather play hacky sack than football any day.

But those early voices are strong, and as a young person you have no filters to screen out the things that do not belong to you, and so you begin to internalize them, to believe what other people say about you.

But then you wake up one day and you realize that you are not living your own life. For many of us, the real journey of our lives begins in that moment.

So we cast off the dry husk of that false person other people want us to be and we begin to cultivate the living seed that was planted inside of ourselves at birth, the seed of who we are. The seed of ourselves.

So, if stewardship is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care, it makes this season a lot more interesting, doesn't it, if that something is you.

And that something is us, too, collectively. What is true of individuals is also true of congregations. Our journey, our calling, is to become ourselves, to be the community God created us and called us to be.

And as it often is in our personal lives, the answer to that question is not fixed; it's never settled.

The Warren Wilson Church has a long and distinguished history. As for the church building, many of you remember the old Williams Chapel. And others of you were present when this sanctuary was built in the early 60s. A building that was built with hearts and hands, with stones from local quarries, and timber from the land.

But a church is much more than the building in which we gather for worship. From its earliest days right through to the present day the life of this congregation has been made with love and casseroles, with honest disagreements and heartfelt joys.

So we have a rich heritage, which we rightly celebrate. But the longer I am here the more I believe that we are at a tipping point in our history. We can either keep our eyes and our hearts fixed on our past, or we can turn our eyes and our hearts and our vision to the future, to how things will be in the next era of our life together.

I believe you all have already voted to do just that. With your strong support for the capital campaign that we've just done, with your willingness to insulate this roof and install new lighting and new bathrooms, to make this building, including this chancel handicapped accessible, you've cast your vote for the future. And you are to be commended for that.

But all of that raises the question of what will that future look like? Five years from now, what will our congregation look like? Twenty five years from now, what then?

I am sometimes asked that. I'm asked what my vision is for our congregation, for our future together.

In thinking about that, I am reminded of something Sandy Pfeiffer said recently about Warren Wilson College. Someone asked him where he sees the college going? Where does he plan to take it in the next five years?

His answer resonated deeply with me. He said, in effect, that he loves who and what this college is. He doesn't want to change it much, just help it be more of who it already is, and to become even better at what it already does well - better classes, better environmental stewardship, a richer work program.

That's how I feel about this church. I love who we are. I just want us to become even better at being us. I want us to continue bearing more and richer fruit in the areas of worship and mission, education and outreach, peacemaking and the practice of justice. And of course I do want us to continuing growing, and to attract new members of all kinds, black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, you and old, and everything in between.

But that's just me and my vision, and it only counts so much. I heard someone say recently that a good leader is someone who takes people where they want to go, while a great leader takes them where they can go.

That sounds inspirational but when it comes to congregational life, I believe it's also misguided.

In church life a great leader does not take people where they can go, not if he or she wants them to follow. Not if he wants their life together to be their life, and not his.

In church life a great leader helps the people themselves realize where they can go and she helps them get there.

I believe that is the challenge before us this stewardship season. Deciding who you want to be, who we want to be, and then joining together to make that happen.

Of course that process will require your ongoing financial support of our life together. I will not dwell much on our budget today, except to say one or two brief things. At our congregational meeting a few weeks ago, you identified three broad priorities: increase our mission and outreach; increase our ministry to the campus, and increase our membership.

We have tried to structure next year's budget to be responsive to your stated priorities.

And we trust that you will support that budget with your pledges and your regular giving.

But as our text for today reminds us, the true treasure is inside of you. And the proof of that is in what you do, the fruit you bear with your life.

So we hope that you will also consider increasing your giving to this church in terms of your time and talent. If your experience here at the WWPCCC is mainly confined to attending worship on Sunday mornings, perhaps you will consider volunteering to usher, or to host our coffee hour just two times next year?

If you volunteer for 10 things outside the church, and I happen to know that some of you do, then perhaps volunteer to do one thing inside the church, or to serve on one of our committees - the Outreach Committee, or the Christian Education or Worship or Communications Committee.

If you want us to increase and improve our ministry and outreach to the campus and students of WW, then sign up to prepare a meal for the Emmaus group. It's easy to do. And it's fun. We welcome you to stay and enjoy the meal you've prepared, and to get to know the students.

Or come and sing with us in December when have cookies and sing Christmas carols just before Finals week.

Friends, the true treasure is inside of us. The call of Christ, the call of stewardship, is to make that treasure real, and to bear the fruit we were created to bear.