Psalm 46, Joel 2:23-32, Luke 18:9-14
How much difference a year makes!
Today is the anniversary of the beginning of my journey to Northern Virginia. One year ago on this Sunday, I gave my final sermon serving First Congregational UCC in Saint Joseph, MI, reminding the congregation there of the joys of our three years together, asking forgiveness for any sorrows that we may have shared. We spent the day giving thanks to God for the time we shared on life’s journey in faith and community.
We were in the middle of the annual giving campaign. My sermon was titled, The Greatest Among Us, focusing on the passage from Mark, where Christ says, “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” I reminded the congregation that it is one of the church’s main purposees, their mission, to continue to be a place where children and youth were fed, spiritually nourished, where adults could grow in faith and mission, where all of God’s family could gather in celebration. While our paths were diverging, the promises that were made to the congregation were still there to be fulfilled.
As I prepared for today’s sermon, I reflected on that day with Christina. She calmly took my hand, looked into my eyes, and said, “I have heard you preach Stewardship sermons for six years. I just I have to say this to you. If I hear your ‘the children are the future’ sermon on Sunday, I’m walking out!”
I was challenged to preach a different face of the Gospel, to find a different face of Stewardship, to this our new family in faith.
I can tell you, there is no harder sermon to give, than the first Stewardship sermon to a new congregation. At times, I have felt the Stewardship sermon to feel like a yearly penance for serving the church, an annual trip to the dentist who tells you that you’re not flossing enough.
Why is money such a disagreeable subject in churches? For many of us, it’s fraught with anxiety and guilt, and definitely, it’s not something to talk about in public. We all know that the church needs money to continue. Our ministry grows, costs rise, and that means another dime (or dollar) in the plate.
But do I really have to talk about it? Don’t we come to church to hear about more "spiritual" subjects?
In a word, yes. Yes, we do need to talk about it. How we give, and what we give are deeply spiritual subjects.
Why? Why is giving part of our Christian journey in faith? What makes it so essential in our walk with God?
Not for the reasons that a balance sheet might give us. Nor for a sense of obligation that we may have heard in the past. No, this idea of “stewardship” is a spiritual subject, a response to the Good News. It begins with a simple commitment, and grows as we encounter the living word of God, a different gospel, that nourishes us, that grows us. We might have been part of a congregation since we were infants. We might have come into a faith community when we were children. Maybe we came by invitation when we were in our teen years, or as an adult. At some point, we said “yes” to sharing in a faith community, and joining into the covenants and sharing in the promises of God. Whether through baptism, or through friends, or though our own moment of revelation, we are part of these covenant promises, and we receive the promises that God has made in return.
The more we embrace the promise of this encounter, the covenants that we make, the more this idea of “stewardship” becomes less about copier leases, curriculum cost, salaries, or the utility bills. When we find ourselves reflecting on the depth of our relationship with God, there we will find our Stewardship.
Can we find this gospel, a new way of thinking about the promises that have come to us? How can we interpret, or re-interpret these moments of covenant, of unity in purpose, as we seek to see where God is leading us? What does it take to find that our stewardship is not about the church’s financial needs, but our own personal, individual, spiritual needs?
I believe, with all my heart, that it begins when we come together to be one body, one congregation. It comes in the promises we take on in Baptism, and receive in return. With the promises that we have each made today, we start, we continue, we renew our journey of spiritual discovery—our journey of faith.
Promises, promises. It takes a long time, sometimes, to understand the depth of the promises we make. If there is one promise I make that suffers it is this: Each year, I set aside a certain amount for my professional library. Each year, I increase the amount, promising myself I can stay within my budgeted amount. And, yes, each year I overspend. But I renew that promise every year, setting aside a little more than I did the year before.
This year, one of my purchases came home because of its cover, and the page to which I happened to open when I picked it up. It is called The Christian Handbook for Pastors. It is part of a series, a tongue-in-cheek parody of the Worst-Case Survival books that came out a couple of years ago. One example of the articles in the books is titled, “Possession: How to determine if someone is possessed, and what to do about it if it’s not Linda Blair.”
Opening this tome in the series, I could not deny the still-small voice that came from the page that faced me. Cracking the spine for the first time, I opened to page 133, in the section “Church Stuff,” begins a brief article called How to preach a Stewardship sermon without sounding like you’re begging for a raise.
The book had to come home with me.
The article was brief, only a few points. I share them with you, and will let you ponder them in your hearts:
and finally,
Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
A good friend of mine gives a children's sermon in which he invites a child up to the front of the church, fills her hands with rocks, and then offers her a large cookie. After struggling for a bit, the child usually gives up and drops the rocks, allowing her to take hold of the sweet treat. The moral was simple—you can't take hold of the good things of God with your hands full of rocks.
We live with such a heightened sense of what is missing. Our hands are so full of rocks, our cookie remains untouched and unshared. We are surrounded by a feeling of scarcity, of emptiness, while we live in a world of plenty, of God’s never-ending blessings. From the top to the bottom of society, we live in fear of not having enough. This goes beyond our cupboards and checkbooks to our position at work, our standing in society, and value in the eyes of others.
This week's passages form the Hebrew Scriptures offer a wonderful contrast to this economy of scarcity. Abundant forgiveness, love, and blessing will come. There will be singing and dreaming, abundant rains and overflowing food. But before this time of righteousness comes, we need to release all that enslaves us to the demon of scarcity. The weight of our “scarcity” needs to be let go, so we can embrace the sweetness of our blessings.
Fighting this demon, we hear the parable of Jesus, the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Because we are storied in the teachings of Christ, we have a hint of what is coming.
The Pharisee is too caught up in who he isn't, and in what he does, to lay who he is at God's feet. He is incapable of encountering the abundance that comes from embracing the depth of life. His focus on the incidental, the accidental, stations he has in life.
Henry Ward Beecher once quipped “Do not give, as many rich [people] do, like a hen that lays her eggs ... and then cackles.” There is something peculiarly fowl in the Pharisee’s prayer.
What are our own versions of the Pharisee's prayer? Who are we grateful not to be—bigots, racists, materialists, knee-jerk reactionaries, Pharisees? Do we live as if we have been given all that we need? What actions or positions in our lives are we unwilling to release so that we might grab hold of God's bounty? How do we set aside these rocks, and keep our focus on the good things in our lives?
With this example in our mind’s eye, we are confronted by the simple seven words of the Tax Collector, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” This one comes before God with nothing in his hands. Openly and without shame, he lays his humanness—his need to be self-centered—at the altar, and then goes home.
Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
So where does our spiritual rubber meet the road of Stewardship?
I want to take you one passage deeper in the Gospel of Luke. In a strange confluence of today’s Service of Baptism and the Lectionary, I found something interesting. In Luke, many stories are juxtaposed to keep us thinking—or to pass on a deeper message.
The parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector is immediately followed by these words:
People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it.
But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” Luke 18:15-17
Not by obligation, or by logic. Not by persuasion, or by conversion. These concepts aren’t there for a little child. These are adult ideas, heavy as boulders to our seeking spirits.
We must find the joy that comes in giving—not because we want to receive, but because we want to give! We give, because we have been given to. We give, because we know the joy in knowing that others—seen and unseen—are touched by our gifts. We give, and we love, like a little child, trusting that all the promises of God are fulfilled in us and through us.
Can you give like a little child, from that place where your heart is most touched? I think you can; I know you can! For there your heart already is!
Cornelius J. Dyck a colonel under the command of Gen. George Washington, once said, “At its best, giving is an act of worship.” Each Sunday, we renew our promises, our covenants with each other and with God.
This day, and every day, worship like a child. Set down the rocks, reach for the cookie, and share it abundantly with your firneds. In every moment, share your truest self with everyone you meet. Share the gifts God has given you—and the treasures which have been entrusted to you—for the glory of God. Give, because our Stewardship is a spiritual matter, and our giving to others an act of thanks and praise.
Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Forbid yourself not; give like a child, because you have been blessed with something to share!