Piercing the Clouds

Sermon: "Piercing the Clouds"
Texts: Sirach 35:12-17; Psalm 84 :1-6; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14 (Proper 25 C – Track 2)
Preached at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (Ojai, CA) on 26 October 2025

Over the next month,
St. Andrew’s will be entering a season of stewardship.

Each Sunday you’ll hear short reflections from parishioners
about their experiences of giving and receiving here --
the ways generosity has shaped their lives.

In the coming days
you’ll also receive a letter from me with a pledge card,
which we’ll gather during worship
on the last Sunday of November.

Before we talk about budgets or logistics or numbers,
we begin where all true stewardship begins --
with the spiritual foundation of giving,
which is gratitude.

Gratitude is not a fundraising strategy;
it’s a way of seeing.
It’s the inner alignment
that makes every outward act of generosity possible.

In one of our readings today, Sirach says,
“The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds.”

That image has stayed with me all week --
prayer rising straight through the cluttered sky,
cutting through noise and distraction,
and making contact with heaven.

 
It makes me wonder
whether what really pierces the clouds
is not eloquence or effort
but alignment --
the human heart turned in the same direction as God’s heart.

And the truest expression of that alignment,
Scripture suggests,
is gratitude.

In Jesus’ parable,
two men go up to the temple to pray.

One lists his virtues;
the other simply says,
“God, be merciful to me.”

The difference is not morality,
but orientation.

The Pharisee’s prayer circles around himself;
the tax collector’s opens outward.

One builds a wall;
the other opens a window.

Gratitude begins there --
in that turn outward.

It’s not a feeling we wait for;
it’s a way of perceiving.

 
When we are grateful,
we are no longer the center of the story.
We become part of a larger mercy
already moving through the world.

And that’s the movement Sirach describes:
the movement that pierces the clouds.

The psalmist gives us the emotional texture of that alignment:

“How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts;
my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.”

Gratitude always carries joy in its wake --
the joy of realizing
we already live inside God’s dwelling.

“Even the sparrow finds a home,”
the psalmist says.

When we live gratefully,
we notice that everything --
this air, this table, these people --
everything is part of that holy nesting place.

And that recognition changes the way we give.
We no longer give out of obligation
but out of belonging.

Stewardship is gratitude made visible --
the embodied response of people
who have discovered
they already live in the house of God.

When gratitude turns outward,
it becomes generosity.

Generosity isn’t primarily economic;
it’s spiritual.
It’s what happens
when our hearts beat
in rhythm with God’s own giving nature.

That’s why, as we enter this season,
we begin not with ledgers but with thanksgiving.

The church doesn’t ask for money because God needs it.
We invite one another into giving
because we need it --
to practice releasing what we cling to
so grace can circulate again.

Giving keeps us supple.
It keeps the heart from hardening around fear.
It reminds us that everything we hold
is borrowed light.

Paul, writing near the end of his life, says,

“I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith.”

Then he adds,
“The Lord stood by me and gave me strength.”

He describes a long obedience,
powered not by achievement
but by ongoing realignment.

Faithfulness, for Paul, is not perfection --
it’s staying turned in the right direction
when the road grows long.

That’s gratitude, too --
not the quick thank-you after a blessing,
but the slow practice of noticing
God’s strength arriving
again and again
when ours runs out.

To live gratefully
is to trace those quiet infusions of grace --
to say, “The Lord stood by me,”
even when we were running on empty.

When we pledge, serve,
or show up for one another,
we extend that same endurance.

We’re saying:
I want this community, this race of faith,
to keep going beyond me.

Our stewardship becomes part of the relay --
gratitude handed forward.

If pride closes the heart,
gratitude reopens it.

It turns us, gently but decisively,
back toward God --
and that turning
is salvation in miniature.

Think again of the tax collector,
head bowed, whispering his simple prayer.

He walks out of the temple, Jesus says,
“justified” -- made right, made whole.

Something in him has clicked back into alignment.
He came burdened and leaves balanced,
standing in the flow of mercy.

Every act of thanksgiving does that for us.
It re-balances the soul
and draws us back into harmony
with the life that holds us.

In our worship,
in our giving,
in our relationships --
we keep practicing that alignment
until it becomes second nature, our truest nature.

When a church lives that way --
when gratitude shapes its imagination --
something holy happens.

The community itself
begins to vibrate at a different frequency.

We stop being merely an organization to sustain
and become a body that breathes together.

The flow of generosity
becomes the oxygen of the Spirit.

That’s the deeper meaning of stewardship.
It’s not a campaign;
it’s a tuning exercise.

Each gift,
each pledge,
each act of service
is another instrument brought into key.

Together we learn
to play in tune with the great song of creation --
a song whose melody is mercy
and whose rhythm is love.

The psalm closes,

“Happy are they whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.”

Gratitude is that pilgrims’ way.
It keeps us light on our feet
and open to surprise.

It frees us from the illusion of control
and teaches us to travel with open hands.
So as we begin this season of stewardship,
may our hearts be set on that way --
the way of alignment,
the way of gratitude.

May our prayer, like Sirach’s,
pierce the clouds --
not because of eloquence
but because of sincerity.

May our giving
become a visible prayer of thanks.

And may our lives --
like Paul’s,
like the psalmist’s,
like the humble worshiper in the temple --
find their rhythm again
in God’s heartbeat,

so that when all is said and done,
when we leave this sanctuary
and step back into the world,
we too may go home justified:
humbled and heard,
lifted in love,
aligned again
with the mercy that sustains us all.

Amen.