Community Church Sermons

Year C

September 15, 2013

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Everything I Really Needed to Know About Stewardship…

1 Timothy 6:3-10; 17-19

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Senior Pastor

Everything I really needed to know about Stewardship…I learned…from my mother!

I was just a boy and my parents decided it was time for me to get an allowance. 25-cents a week. But it came with conditions. I had to give some of it to God’s work. I had to save some of it. And the rest of it I could spend as I wanted.

I asked my mother how much I should give to God.

She said, “A tithe.”

“What’s a tithe?”

“Ten percent.”

“How much would that be?” I asked, since I was at an age where basic addition and subtraction was enough of a challenge – let alone figuring out percentages.

“Five cents,” she said.

Now I know today that 10% of 25-cents is not a nickel! It’s 2.5-cents. But my mother was rounding it up, and I guess I was probably the only one in our whole church family back then that was actually giving a DOUBLE-tithe!

That year, I filled out a pledge card at church! FIVE CENTS A WEEK I wrote on it. And on Loyalty Sunday, when all the people marched down the aisle and placed their pledge cards in the little model church at the front, I was SO PROUD! I was giving to God! I was helping support Priscilla – the woman in our church who was training to be a Wycliffe Bible Translator. I was helping provide food to the hungry people our church fed. I was helping God spread his great big amazing love, and I was so PROUD and filled with JOY!

Fast-forward with me now. Fifty or more years have passed. My mother is near 80 – a widow. My dad had died at age 50. They had no real savings when he died. No retirement funds. There was a small insurance policy that did not last long. And that was about it. My mother worked at some small jobs after that, often walking four or five miles in the snow to get to work because she didn’t drive. When she could no longer do that because of advancing age, she retired and lived in a little apartment in an elderly high-rise. Her only income was her Social Security.

$10000 a year.

I remember a time Sandy and I were visiting with my mother. I went into the kitchenette to get something when I saw it.

It was lying on the kitchen table.

It was a pledge card.

From her church.

And written on it - in her squiggily handwriting – was the pledge she was making for the next year.

One thousand dollars.

I picked up the card in disbelief. “Ma, what’s THIS?”

“It’s my pledge to the church.”

“I know, but a THOUSAND dollars?”

“That’s my tithe,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How can you afford to do that?”

“I make adjustments,” she said.

“Ma, I don’t think God asks you to make a tithe. You can’t afford it.”

“Show me that in the Bible, Mr. Preacher-man.”

“But Ma…”

She started quoting Bible verses about how the first fruits of all we earn belongs to God and we are free to do what we want with the rest – the 90% of it left over after the tithe. She reminded me about passages where people used the first fruits for their own benefit and were accused of stealing from God. My mother knew her Bible, and even more than that, my mother knew her own heart. She did not HAVE to give a tithe. She WANTED to give a tithe. It gave her tremendous joy to help spread the love of God to others through her church.

And then she looked at me with that kind of look that only your mother can throw your way when she’s clearly disappointed in you. And without her speaking a word, I got the message:

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you!”

To be honest with you, I guess I HAD forgotten. I’d forgotten the joy I once felt when my mother first taught me about giving to God. I’d forgotten how proud I was walking in that procession to the altar on Loyalty Sunday to give my nickel-a-week pledge to God’s work. I’d forgotten how blessed I felt knowing that I was helping to send Priscilla into the mission field, and food into the inner city, and God’s love to people I’d never even meet. I’d forgotten the “godly” part of stewardship and turned into an accounting program instead – how much can I afford, how much can I deduct, how much more should I give to make up for inflation, how much should I cut it because we had to buy a new car, pay student loans, and build a new house?

I’d forgotten the Bible’s simple, time-tested, testified-to-by-millions of faithful followers across the ages answer. “Give your first fruits to God’s work. Bring in your tithe. Put God first and you will be blessed. It’s as simple as that. You don’t even need Turbo-Tax to figure it out. As Jesus put it:

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

I’d forgotten. And most especially, I’d forgotten how God HAD blessed me when I followed his way of Stewardship. I’d forgotten the joy I found in being a faithful steward of God’s gifts to me. And I’d forgotten that my mother never missed a bill payment and never was in want despite making the gift she made to God.

How can we rediscover the joy of Stewardship?

Well, first of all, we have to rediscover the miraculous in life. By miraculous, I mean the things God has created for our joy and well-being!

I’m sure you all know the rap singer Jay Z. Well, maybe not. He’s pretty famous with the younger crowd but perhaps you know him best for his famous wife - Beyonce. Well, some time ago Jay Z was invited by Bono of U2 to go with him on a tour of fresh water projects in Africa. Bono is a very devoted Christian and lives out his faith by using his wealth and influence helping people all over the world.

Jay Z says it was a humbling experience. Some of his music talks about the harshness of his own life growing up in “the hood” as some call it. But that was nothing compared to the poverty and hardships of these African villages he visited. One of his most vivid memories was of little girls – maybe 10 or 11 years old – going out every morning to fetch fresh water. They hoisted big water jars up onto their heads, balancing them there as they walked the several miles to the nearest clean water well. Then they filled up the jars, put them back on their heads, and walked all the way back to their own village.

Then came the day this village got its own well. The whole town showed up. And when the first bucket of fresh clean water came up all the people fell on their knees and gave thanks to God.

Jay Z said, “In America we call those things “faucets.” But when was the last time you drew a glass of fresh clean water from a faucet and fell to your knees and gave thanks to God?”

You see, we’ve forgotten. We’ve forgotten that every single thing we have in life is a miracle – a gift of love from God! Every single thing. Your hand, mind, and body may have worked beautifully to bring about success and to gather in lots of the goodness of life – but it was GOD who gave you your hand, mind, and body! And all of the good things you have – that bless your life – came into being through the raw materials God created in the first place. It’s ALL A MIRACLE!

There is no such thing as sacred and secular. It is ALL sacred. All of life. Every person. Every thing – right down to the subatomic particles that comprise it.

God made it all – for you – and me! There are miracles of God’s all around us. Our world and our lives are God-bathed with miracles!

Doesn’t that make you happy?

Now a second thing that helps us rediscover the joy of stewardship is that God has given us all a JOB! We all have a PURPOSE that is above and beyond our careers. It’s like this: God puts us all in this world and says, “Here it is! I’m giving you ALL of it as a gift! The plants. The animals. The mountains. The streams. The rainbows. The fresh air! ALL OF IT…I’m giving it all to you, along with the one job I’m giving every human being to do.”

“Take care of it.”

This is the story of Genesis 2, you know. God creates a beautiful garden with everything in it that human beings need for life and health and joy. And God forms Adam – and brings Eve on board – and places them as the representative heads of all humankind in the beautiful garden of earth and says, “Till it, and take care of it.” That’s Genesis 2:15 in case you ever want to read your job description.

Taking care of God’s creation, tilling it, and increasing it is what Stewardship is all about.

And here’s how it works: take the first fruits (the tithe) of all that you produce and return it to God’s hands for re-planting – and then go and enjoy the rest – on ME.

That is absolutely the best deal you and I will ever be offered! Most of us are happy if the stock market returns 7 or 8%! If you write a blockbuster novel that someone publishes you might get a royalty of 15 - 20%.

Where in the world can you get a deal where the other guy makes the ENTIRE INVESTMENT and gives you 90% of the return???

God is a very poor businessman.

Thank God for that.

There is great joy to be found in knowing that you and God are working together to create a kingdom that is more beautiful than anything we can imagine. God provides all we need for that to happen. We re-invest 10% in God’s ongoing work. And we get to use the rest to our heart’s content.

Doesn’t that make you happy?

And one more thing about finding joy in faithful stewardship.

Our faith is not about this lifetime alone. Our faith is about eternity. And so is our Stewardship.

Some years ago, the Los Angeles Times had a story about an “end-times” religious group out in California that came up with a cool idea. They believed that Jesus would soon come back and take the believers (meaning THEM) back to heaven with him in what is called “the rapture.” They would wait in heaven for 7 years while a great tribulation raged on earth, and then return to earth with Jesus, repopulate it, and rule with him over the world for a thousand years.

Well, some bright entrepreneurial person came up with an idea. Working with an insurance company, they developed a “Rapture Insurance Policy” that would pay off into secret bank accounts IF and WHEN they were raptured.

And the Times reporter who wrote the story concluded by saying, “All of this goes to show you that, if you can’t take it with you…now you can at least have it waiting for you when you get back!”

Don’t laugh! Because there’s an element of biblical truth here. They missed it, but listen to our text from First Timothy. Here is what is written to people like us – who maybe have more than a lot of people do. He tells us to not be arrogant about our wealth, and certainly not to pin our hopes on it. Our hope is in God and God alone. But if you have been blessed financially and materially, God’s instructions are simple: use your wealth to DO GOOD; be rich in GOOD DEEDS; be generous AND WILLING TO SHARE. That’s First Timothy 6:17-18.

And then in verse 19 we are given a promise. “In this way, you will lay up treasures for yourself as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that you may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

That verse is reflecting something Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure us, there your heart will be also.”

No, we can’t take it with us.

But – in a manner of speaking - we CAN send it on ahead!

Every gift you offer to God and God’s work is like making a deposit into the life that is to come. It is not your salvation, because Jesus is our salvation. But God credits our “account” so to speak, with our good deeds, and when we come face-to-face with God, we’ll see the results – the difference our gifts made in the world. And it will fill us with immeasurable joy.

Doesn’t that make you happy? Think back to the time you were just a little kid dropping your nickel into the offering plate. What an amazing thing it will be to find out what a difference that nickel made!

My mother – God rest her soul – may not be the richest person who ever went to heaven – but I’ll lay you odds she’s one of the happiest!

I hope you’re happy too!