Stewardship sermons

"Stewardship of Money as a Discipline of Hope"

Genesis 1:27-2:3, II Corinthians 8:1-5  
                         
Introduction: I bring you greetings today from your brother and sister Disciples across the United States and Canada—some three quarters of a million of them! Disciples located in some 3500 congregations—3500 and counting, that is! Do you realize that when we set our goal five years ago to welcome 1000 congregations into our midst by the year 2020, most people thought we would never do it? But after only 5 years out of the 20, we have over 400 hundred new congregations! That is nearly half the way to our goal in one fourth of the time. Hallelujah!

Of course new congregations are not our only goal—we also aim to see 1000 revitalized congregations by 2020 and enough new leadership for all these new and renewed congregations. And we are committed to the struggle against the sin of racism that still exists in our society and still curls up unsuspected within our own church. We are making progress on all these fronts.

All these four goals are in service of our common mission—to be and to share the good news of Jesus Christ from our doorsteps to the ends of the earth. Being and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ is our mission, our purpose, our measuring stick for all that we do as Disciples of Christ.

I thank you for all you do to share the good news and especially for what you do through Disciples Mission Fund. As a result of your dollars in that offering plate, pastors and missionaries in India and Thailand can rebuild after the Tsunami (had you almost forgotten about the Tsunami?) Through Disciples Mission Fund, we were there before that wave struck and we are still there today. Because of DMF, mission hospitals around the world have medicine, schools have teachers, ministers are trained. Because of Disciples Mission Fund you have staff in your regional office.
Thank you. I give thanks to God for you.

As a local pastor, I have been in a lot of stewardship committee meetings. Many of them not so pleasant. But every once in awhile there is a moment that you savor forever.

My favorite moment ever in a local church stewardship committee meeting took place in my first church out of seminary. We were meeting that evening to struggle with a budget that just wouldn't stretch far enough to cover everything we wanted it to.

I was pretty much prepared to take my normal ministerial role—defending our outreach giving. I was also secretly hoping that someone was preparing to defend my salary!

We started with prayer, of course. And then an elder—a conservative elder (well, in that church they were all conservative) spoke right up. And I thought, "OK, here we go."

And then the most amazing thing. That elder said, "Well, one thing is for sure—we can't cut—outreach."

We can't cut outreach.

That got the committee's attention.

He explained. "Those ministries and missions are depending on us. If we let them down, they'll have nowhere to turn."

And then came, what in my mind was the zinger. "Around here, money will always show up to keep the lights on."

That elder believed in a God of abundance. A God of more than enough. "The money will always show up to keep the lights on."

When I was an economics major in college, all the econ professors agreed on one thing. The problem of society is scarcity, they said. The job of economics is to determine how to parcel out too few goods to too many people.

That was economics.

The Bible shows us a different reality. The Bible shows us a world created by a God of abundance, a God of more than enough. The problem of the Bible is not to figure who goes without. The problem of the Bible is how to help all God's children share in the abundance that God has made.
In Genesis 1, the very first story of the Bible, the story that sets the tone for everything that is to come, we see God at work, making the world. For six whirlwind days, God created—light, dark, land, vegetation, animals and humans. But after six days of hard work, on the seventh day, God did what?

God rested.

In those six days, God had made more than enough! As Rick Lowery (Professor of Hebrew Bible, Phillips Theological Seminary) would say, God had created seven days of wealth in six days of work. God is a God of abundance. A God of more than enough. Abundance is woven into the very fabric of creation itself.

This is the same God who would eventually provide manna and quail for hungry wanderers in the wilderness, and water from a rock to quench their thirst. This is the same God who through Jesus Christ would make five loaves and two fishes be enough food for thousands, who through Jesus would make the nets of faithful fishermen break under an abundance of fish. God is a God of abundance.

The very same God who would help struggling Disciples of Christ in the first years of the 21st century welcome 400 new churches—and counting—into our midst!

Now—God's abundance is not always apparent to us. Sometimes it seems that the econ professors are right. Sometimes God's abundance is a matter of trust.

Years ago, I spent a couple of years in Congo as a short-term missionary. One Sunday I was in a town called Bolenge. You may have heard of it. We have a hospital and school there. Have for years. Our Disciples Mission Fund giving still supports the ministry there.

One Sunday I was worshiping in Bolenge. And it came time for offering.
Now in some of our churches, well, let me say it straight, in some of our Anglo churches, the offering embarrasses us a little bit. We keep it subtle and reserved. We take care that no one knows how much anyone gives—or whether anyone gives.

But not in Bolenge. There it was during the offering that worship really got cranking. Instead of passing the trays quietly down the rows, a deacon stood up front with a bag on the end of stick. The bag was fastened to the stick in such a way that the mouth of the bag was wide open when the deacon held it out there. "The better to put your offering in, my dear."

The pastor called for the men to come forward and give their gift. This was going to be a bit of a competition, he said—men against the women. The men came forward, and I noticed the bare feet, the worn clothes. And I remembered that most people there didn't make enough money to buy an aspirin for a head ache. Yet they came forward to give.

Then it was the women's turn. Four women walked up to stand near the deacon, and they started clapping out a rhythm. Within moments, every woman in the place was on her feet, singing, clapping, smiling, worshiping, rejoicing in the Lord—and coming forward—no! dancing forward—with offerings.

None of us could sit still as the women danced and gave (like the Macedonians, "their extreme poverty overflowing in a wealth of generosity). Trusting in a God of abundance.

For this congregation full of materially impoverished people, the offering had become the most joyful moment of worship.

But it was not over yet.

They asked the visitors to come forward. We did—in a more reserved manner. (I'm sure my kids would call it boring.) We put our offering in the basket.

But it was not over yet.

The pastor announced that there had been a hurricane in Central America. With much damage and loss of life. Now, said the pastor, "We must bring forward our offerings again for our brothers and sisters of Central America."

And so they did. So we did. All coming forward again. To give again. This congregation of people wearing their one extra outfit set aside for the Lord's Day. This congregation now came forward in bare feet to give an offering for brothers and sisters in need.

Trusting in a God of abundance to provide abundant life for them. Trusting in a God of abundance to provide an abundant life for others through them.

Abundance is not always a literal experience of material wealth as viewed in the eyes of the world. Abundance is a state of mind. A state of grace. A state of trust in God's promise of life abundant.

And there is where we find our hope. In God's promise of life abundant. Part of our discipline of hope, Disciples, is to focus on God's abundance. Is to dwell on stories of God's abundance in scripture. To notice the evidence of God's abundant life around us—in the joy we take in beloved family and friends; in the rotating seasons, bring life anew each year; in the mercy that God shows to us again and again.

Part of our discipline of hope is to focus our eyes on God's abundance.

Part of our discipline of hope is to be good stewards of that abundance.

One of the most hopeful disciplines I know is to tithe.

Look at what God has given us—life, family, friends, a roof over our heads, food for our bellies. Look what God has given us—the good news of Jesus Christ promising us life in abundance, calling us out in hope.

Tithing says, "I absolutely believe that in God there is more than enough."

Here's how I teach about tithing. I tell my congregations, "OK, Today we're going to take a little break from Jesus. I'm letting you off the hook today. Because if we were going to follow Jesus—well—Jesus wants it all. One hundred percent."

Like the Kenyan woman I heard about once. She was coming forward to put her offering in the plate sitting up on stand at the front of the congregation. When she got up there, she paused in front of the plate. Then she picked up the plate. Uh-oh.

She put the plate on the floor in front of her. And stepped in. Her whole self in the offering plate. Jesus would have liked that. One hundred percent!

But I'm talking about tithing today—about only 10 percent—as a part of our discipline of hope.

And I have to tell you, in my life, things go better when you tithe.
In graduate school, my husband and I decided one year, we were just poor graduate students. We weren't even living on our own money anyway, we were living on federal loans. Maybe we really didn't need to tithe. And so we didn't.

Well, that was the year that the bank made a $600 mistake against us and before we knew it we were bouncing checks all over New Haven, Conn. It took forever to straighten out.

We went back to tithing.

I always tell people: you don't have to become a tither all at once. The easiest way, of course, is to begin when you're young—because 10 percent of nothing is—nothing. But if you keep giving that 10 percent as your income grows, you'll never miss it. You'll have enough. And you'll have the satisfaction of participating in God's abundance—in sharing God's abundance—as your tithe goes to work through your local congregation, through your region, through your wider church.

If, however, it's already too late to start the easy way—start where you are. Are you giving 2 percent back to God through your church? Next year, give 3 percent. Increase by 1 percent each year and pretty soon, you, too, will be at that biblical minimum of 10 percent.

It's a discipline of the Spirit that will bring joy to your life as you act out of your faith in a God of abundance.

Give your first ten percent to God and there will be enough, because God is a God of more than enough, a God of abundance and God asks us to make that abundance known to the world through our giving.

The Macedonians in our text knew about the joys of giving. "During a severe ordeal of affliction," the Bible says, "their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part ...

They voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints, "God is a God of abundance, a God of more than enough. Abundance is knit into the very fabric of the universe as God created it. There is enough to share with the saints, enough to share with the victims of earthquakes in Central America, enough to give our tithe and have left over.

"Behold," says Jesus, "I have come that you might have life—in abundance." So we believe. So we hope. As faithful stewards of God's abundance, may we so live.

—A sermon preached for the Christian Church in the Upper Midwest by Sharon E. Watkins, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
October, 2006