The Practice of Stewardship

This week I am away again... Chautauqua Institute to meditate, reflect, learn a little from Jim Wallis about economics and faith, plan some sermons... anyway... here is a sermon I preached at a friends church on the topic of stewardship and tithing. If you do read this and are sick of money sermons... this is the last for a while anyway...

Today we have to talk about stewardship… we have to talk about the deep things of our faith, cruciform living and resurrection faith… we have to lift up some ideas that are meant not for the Peter’s who follow Jesus back in the shadows, but instead for the Martha’s and Mary’s who will stand with Christ no matter where he goes, even to the cross….

today is not meant for dabbling in faith… today is for full hearted devotion to the life of Christ…and full-throated testimony of our faith… specifically… this is a time for us to have a discussion about how our devotion to Christ seeps into our finances, influences our spending and saving habits, and directs the way we both acquire and then put to use our economic resources.
That is not a discussion for the curious or the faint of heart

I remember being challenged at my very first church to talk more about the tithe and stewardship… I didn’t teach and challenge enough about those topics (so they thought ) and the church largely lived on the principle of its endowment. So I started to do more sermons and bible studies on tithing and giving and stewardship and Christmas came. I always got an envelope on Christmas Eve with a little something extra. It wasn’t always a lot and that was fine, but usually a few extra dollars as a Christmas gift. But this Christmas nothing. Later the explanation… you are talking about money too much. So we don’t necessarily like to talk about these topics, we find them challenging and perhaps frightening.

Scene 1:
To talk about finances and money and investment and stewardship… we need to talk about resurrection. That is why I had us listen to a portion of an Easter Risen Christ story from Luke this morning… because we aren’t really talking about money… we are talking about resurrection here today…

But before we can talk resurrection we need to talk…

Crucifixion & the Cruciform Life:
The bewilderment and bafflement that we heard about in Luke this morning came after the crucifixion… a violent act of oppression and terrorism that the Roman Empire used to punish any of those occupied peoples who dared to assert their humanity or independence. The disciples are astonished and amazed because Peter saw Jesus arrested, scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed hand and foot and hung high to slowly suffocate...
I was taught to see that act of Jesus… that selfless… giving act… sacrificial act… to see that as a response to the sins of the world.
On that Cross Jesus bore, carried, was wrapped in the sins of the world… perhaps you were taught the same thing? Yes?
But today I want to suggest another way of looking at this scene. I’m not saying that this previous understanding of the cross is wrong by the way… I like to think of this other way of viewing the cross as just another facet of it… on the cross, Jesus bore, carried, was wrapped in the poverty and suffering… first of his own people under Rome and then of all humanity. So that when we look to the cross we are not only meant to see our sins… but also to see poverty and suffering.
Just think for a moment about those whom Jesus came in contact with. Those with leprousy, those whose dignity was diminished to the point of begging, those with disease. There it is right in front of us when we open the gospels to read, Jesus spoke to the poor and suffering, walked among the poor and suffering, touched and was touched by the poor and diseased, yet we rarely consider closely the harsh realities of the crowds whom Jesus surrounded himself with and what their life was like, how different it was from our own.
For instance… why did the leper have leprousy? He got sick… why? Poor nutrition. Why? He couldn’t afford to buy food. Why? He was taxed heavily by Rome (and by the Temple). He was in so much debt he was thrown off his own farm and had no way to provide food for himself or his family. Jesus
The opening of the earth-shattering Sermon on the Mount in Matthew ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ sounds very similar in Luke’s version the Sermon on the Plain… ‘Blessed are the poor’
We are taught in the Lord’s prayer…give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts…We tend to pray right over these things…. But if you lived in 1st Cent Roman Palestine… getting a loaf of bread to eat and being somehow fortunate enough to have a creditor who would forgive your debt… well… these would be incontrovertible evidence of ‘Our Father in heaven… whose kingdom has come….
Jesus told parables about the poor and the wealthy… the rich man and Lazarus… do you remember that one? The story of a wealthy man who dressed in fine clothes and has so much food he just tosses out the left-overs ( I know that doesn’t sound all that egregious, but in a time and place when so many were dying of malnutrition, to throw away food was just an incredibly callous thing to do).
Anyway… both the wealthy man and Lazarus die…

Where does Lazarus go after he dies...? What about the wealthy man…? Why?
That is the shocking part of the story for there is no clear explanation of why he lands in hell accept that he was woefully ignorant of the plight of the poor right outside his own gate
And his conversations were often challenges to the wealthy… To the young man who came to seek eternal life, he said ‘go sell everything and give to the poor…’ and when he went to visit Zacchaeus…he hardly said a word, but his presence caused Zacchaeus to offer to give half his wealth to the poor.
It is for these reasons that when Jesus hangs on the cross…. I see poverty and oppression and hunger and disease hanging there…

Of course… it doesn’t just stop there…
Are Ye Able said the master… to be crucified with me… with me… have you ever sung that hymn… Have you ever stopped to think that maybe it isn’t just a metaphor? That we are meant to give up something in order to follow Christ?

The crucifixion wasn’t just an event in history but somehow it is meant to be a practice kept current by the disciples after Jesus death and resurrection down through the ages right up to today, a practice that you and I together observe.

Luke 9:23-25
Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?

Luke 14:27
And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Ro 6:3-4
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Crucifixion as in a violent act of oppression wasn’t meant to be practiced… but crucifixion as a loving act of sacrifice on behalf of others to incarnate… make flesh…make real… the love of God…. Well that was meant to become a regular practice for Christians…
Made in God's image, we are to grow into that reality by doing what God does: love the world (McFague; Life Abundant , pg. 13)

'Faith in god does not consist in asserting god's existence, but rather in acting on [God's] behalf.' Henri Nouwen quoted in McFague pg34 Life Abundant.

Those who call themselves Christians, Christ-followers then, are meant to show the sacrificial love of God to those who suffer…. Those who hang on the cross… we are not allowed to turn our heads… to avert our gaze from the suffering of the world around us. We can turn Sally Fields commercials off… change the channel… but those of us who are baptized are baptized into his suffering and death… and we cannot ignore the fact that…
According to UNICEF, between 26-30,000 children die each day due to poverty

Half the world – nearly three billion people – live on less than two dollars a day

Estimated cost of clean water and sanitation for the world 9 billion US dollars
Americans spend 8 billion on cosmetics
US and Europe spends 12 billion on perfume
17 billion on pet food

The world spends 780 billion dollars in military expenditures

I know you love statistics…
1 in 10 of our RI neighbors are living in poverty….
40, 468 children, live below poverty in RI
17, 805 children live in extreme poverty… extreme poverty would be me trying to provide for my wife and two children on 11,000 dollars a year. Almost 18, 000 kids in our own state are living in those circumstances.


Resurrection Faith
This is where our resurrection story, which is meant simply to remind you of all of those resurrection stories, comes in. In all of these stories we meet baffled, confused, doubting disciples. We meet Mary who looks and Jesus and thinks he is the gardener… and Cleopas who walks with Jesus to Emmaus and listens to him speak but still can’t recognize him. All of these stories… Mark’s original ending perhaps the most maddening of all… for it ends with Mary and the other women running away from the empty tomb so frightened of this empty tomb that Mark says ‘they say nothing to no one.’ I know that isn’t good grammar, but that is the greek. They say nothing… Resurrection staring them straight in the eye… a tomb empty and an angel telling them to go to Galilee to see Jesus and they scream and run!!!
How can it be!
But here we are brothers and sisters, just as baffled, just as confused…
Here we are… we have heard the words of Jesus, blessed are the poor, forgive us our debts as we forgive…. Here we are with the stories of the rich man and Lazarus and that odd saying about rich men getting into heaven and camels fitting through needle eyes… 9 billion dollars would buy clean water and sanitation for the world (don’t forget why the leper was a leper, malnutrition and lack of sanitation) and we are spending 17 billion on pet food.

Currently, American's spend $8 billion annually on cosmetics and Europeans $11 billion on ice cream, a total more than it would cost to provide basic education ($6 billion) or water and sanitation ($9 billion) to the more than two billion people worldwide who do not have schools or toilets. (New York Times 'Most Consuming More, and the Rich Much More,' Sept 13, 1998


I believe Christian discipleship for twenty-first century North American Christians means 'cruciform living,' an alternative notion of the abundant life, which will involve a philosopy of 'enoughness'… for us priviledged Christians a 'cross-shaped' life will not be primarily what Christ does for us, but what we can do for others. (McFague; Life Abundant, pg. 14)

Resurrection Faith is all about new life…and not just a new spiritual life, but a whole new life in all its fullness. After Jesus visits with Zachaeus and Zachaeus, makes this realization that his money is not his own… let me say that again, his money is not his own… it is a gift from God for the good of the community… he offers half his wealth to the community… and what do we read in Luke… what does Jesus say? Salvation has come to this house. Salvation… is it too much of a stretch for me to suggest that salvation and resurrection do not just apply to things of the spirit, but to physical things… even financial things… Zacchaeus is saved and it reaches into his wallet and then there is a resurrection of life…not just for him, but for his community… for the poor, for those he has wronged, for those he has defrauded, for those he has ignored because he thought that his money was his own.
Since we are talking about life here… resurrection life…
Juliet Schor wrote an excellent little book called the Overspent American. You can still find it in bookstores and I would recommend it highly. Anyway Prof. Schor cites a study in this book on how American’s define ‘The Good Life’ Listen to some of this. It compares 1975 to 1991 but even though the study is dated I think it still highlights trends that are relevant and perhaps frightening…
In 1975 14% of people surveyed said a swimming pool defined the good life; by 1991 29%
In 1975 10% said a second TV defined the good life in 1991 28% said a second tv said good life
In 1975 38% said that a lot of money would give them a good life; by 1991 55% said the same
You are hearing the trend here right… material wealth, possessions, things…. Define the goodness of our lives… more and moreso…
Would you like to know what things statistically were shown to be less important to Americans for a good life: A happy marriage, children, an interesting job…
My point is that Jesus has called us to live a new life, a resurrected life… and that there is meant to be an unrestrained generosity in that new life… a belief, beyond what our eyes see and our minds tells us… that we can have an impact upon such things as poverty in RI, or even world hunger… we are called by the risen Christ to believe that we should care about the education of a girl in oh, I don’t know, Costa Rica, or Nicaraugua…

Stewardship as Creation Care
Just after this whole economic downturn hit Barbara Kingsolver, a writer of a few books, you may have heard of the Poisonwood Bible? She wrote an editorial about the lending crisis. I found what she said to be particularly striking. She basically said that we have forgotten in our nation that there is a mutual relationship between those who make loans and those who are receive those loans. It is not just the creditors who make the good life possible for their debtors, but the creditors too depend upon the business of the debtors to provide for their families… we have forgotten the relationship…
which immediately reminded me of the words of John Donne
No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Which is what we read in our Acts text for today… that the early believers held all things in common and thought nothing of selling personal possessions to provide for the safety and security of their sisters and brothers in Christ.
My sisters and brothers… we live in an age… I believe I have shown in which the relationship between you and I… the relationship between one human being and another is less valuable than relationship between me and my money or me and my possessions… how else could this mortgage/banking/economic crisis have happened?
When my connection to money and possession is valued over my connection to another human I am less human, less the image that god created me to be and this is one reason why we as Christians practice the tithe and giving offerings… it reminds us of our humanity… of the reason why were created by God… which in Genesis ch2 says to keep and till creation, but you can translate those two words… to serve and protect. We were created to share ourselves… we were pleased, Paul says in 1 Thess… to share not only the gospel, but ourselves… so tithing… planning your giving… is the practice of sharing yourself with others… so that you maintain…. No you discover and utilize and perfect the image of God that is within you.
Let me say a word about practice.
It seems quite obvious to me that Acts 2, the disciples held all things in common… was not an anomaly… It was a common practice, a standard practice in the early church. In Acts 9:36 we are introduced to a woman named Dorcas who is noteworthy because she supported the poor…
In Acts 10:1-4 we meet Cornelius who is a Roman… but he is not hated… he is known as a God-fearer… How do they know that he is a God fearer? Acts 10 says it is because of his generosity to the poor. I could go on and on… Paul mentions collections taken for the poor in churches in Romans and in Galatians… it was a standard practice… an expected resurrection lifestyle… those who joined the church joined in the practice of giving to support those in need.

More than a standard practice… dare I say it was a sacrament?
I know, as Baptists we are uncomfortable with that word… but just for a minute consider…
We practice a tithe because Christ called us to take up a cross… to live a cruciform life of sacrificial service to others and the tithe is allows us to remember and rehearse that commitment
We practice tithe to reclaim our humanity… to proclaim that we are not defined (as so many in the world are) by the possessions we own, the size of our houses or cars, the breadth and depth of our portfolio’s… we are those created by God to serve and protect… and the tithe reminds us of that humanity.
We practice tithe as a sacrament… a means of communicating God’s love to the world (specifically in my mind the poor) but still the whole world…
Finally a tithe is witness to a watching world…
This is one… very important way that we show the world that the words that we pray every Sunday morning ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done’ are not empty words… we believe in these words… we believe enough to get some skin in the game… to lay our own resources down to construct that kingdom… tithe is our witness to the watching world…
Never for a second think that this is a private act… Tithing is the most important thing for the world to see, for when we tithe… when we give of our best to the master… we say to the watching world
this is what compassion looks life… this is what love is… this is what grace is… this is what humanity is meant to be…
Are ye able said the master… to be crucified with me? Sings the old song…
In our tithe… In our gift giving… in our service to the poor and rejected and forgotten our society, in our state… we answer… Lord, we are able… Lord, we are able…