Sermon
prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA
By
Gregory S. Kaurin, Pastor
11/21/04
– all services
I’m preaching on a sensitive topic this morning:
giving, and what the Bible says about it.
I know it’s a sensitive topic, and personal; I can tell by all the
conflicting messages we get as pastors and preachers throughout the year. We’ll sit down with the council, or some
committee and several times every year someone will say, “What we need is a
solid stewardship sermon. Our pastors
don’t talk enough about it.”
But I’ve also found that as soon as we do spend
time—even touching on the topic, almost immediately it gets back to us, “Those
pastors, all they do is talk about money, money, money.”
Money and generosity… that is a tough thing for all
of us. And that is exactly why, if you
really pay attention, just about every page of the Bible deals with some aspect
of money or poverty or wealth.
Did you know that over 40% of what Jesus taught, in
some way was connected to wealth and poverty, or the use or misuse of wealth,
over 40% of his teachings! That should
tell us something. It tells us that God
and Jesus know that this is a very difficult thing for us; and that we need a
lot of guidance.
So, I want to look through all these passages in
your bulletin, and make four points about Biblical giving, and after each
point, we will sing one stanza of November’s theme-song, “O Sing Jubilee to the
Lord” which is printed in your bulletin, [or if you want the music, hymn #256
in the green LBW hymnal.]
Our first lesson took place long before Moses, long
before God gave them the Ten Commandments, and long before he gave them the
specific commandment to give a tithe, which literally meant 10%. Our first lesson takes place just after
Jacob woke up from an incredible dream in the wilderness. He saw angels ascending and descending on a
ladder, Jacob’s ladder, and he heard the voice of God assuring him that he
would be okay, that God would bless Jacob and his descendants.
Jacob woke up and said, “Wow! Surely God is in this
place, even out here in the middle of the wilderness and until now I never
realized it. God is here!” So Jacob took the small rock that he had
used as his pillow that night, and he made that vow. Listen to it again, carefully, (and remember, this is before
Moses and before God gave any specific commandments about tithing). Listen to the heart and intention of
Jacob.
He said, “Since God says he will be with me and keep
me in this way and wherever I go, and will give me bread and clothing and
protection, then truly I claim God as my God, and this stone will be the pillar
of his house, …and God, of all that you give to me I will from now on give
one-tenth right back to you.”
Jacob wasn’t giving that 10% because God or the
Bible commanded him to it. There wasn’t
any command. Jacob did it of his own
free will… in response, out of gratitude, as a symbol of his heart and
devotion, and his trust in God. And not
because he hoped to get something even more back from God, but because Jacob
simply needed to do it, to give it, to feel like he had something to contribute
to this relationship that God had just made with him.
And then, many years later, we move to the second
lesson, to the tithing commandment which God gave to the Israelites while they
were following Moses on the Exodus.
First God simply told them to give the tithe, 10% of all they receive,
in money, cattle, inheritance, whatever, and give it to God through the
Levites, the priests. And it didn’t
matter, God said, how well or poorly the people felt the priests used their
tithes. That was the priests’
responsibility, and God would judge them as to how they used the peoples’
money.
That’s where our second lesson picks up. The priests would then take all the peoples’
tithes and separate out one-tenth of the best of it, a tithe of the tithes, and
that would be split up to be sacrificed to God, to support the high priest and
other work in the Tent of Meeting, which was later replaced by the Temple. The other 90% was for the priests and their
families to live off of. The book of
Numbers goes on to tell us that every third year especially from the grain
tithes, the 90% that was left for the priests was also divided among the poor,
and the aliens, the non-Israelites of the land.
But in spite of the tithe command and how those
tithes were used, we should never lose sight of the original intention and
spirit behind the offering when Jacob first established it. That 10% wasn’t
just an amount. It was given to
God. It represented their heart and
soul and strength. It represented
everything else and everything that God had given them. It represented their dedication to God. It wasn’t just a kind of religious tax or
payment for services rendered; it wasn’t just charity; it was, in the truest
sense a major part of their worship.
That is the heart and soul behind every gift of time
or money, regardless of amounts, regardless of where it all finally ends
up. It is our gift to God. We aren’t just paying bills. We aren’t just paying for the pastors’
sermons, or the church secretaries’ salaries.
When we volunteer, we aren’t just singing in the choir, or teaching a
class. When we give any kind of
offering, we are dedicating ourselves to God’s service. Every offering is worship.
That is what worship really means. It is a thankful dedication of our lives to
God. And we express that dedication in
a simple act of passing a plate and letting go and returning to God a
sacrificial part of all that he has given to us. And when we stand up in this hall of worship, and we bring up the
offering plates, we aren’t just giving checks and cash. In that moment and in that action, we are
giving ourselves to God. Let’s sing the
first stanza of “Sing Jubilee.”
Oh, sing Jubilee to the
Lord, every land: Glory be to God!
Oh, serve him with
gladness, as in his halls we stand;
Sing praises to God out of
Zion!
Neither Paul, nor the other letter writers in the
New Testament ever tell people to give 10%, to tithe. Instead, they talk something that is more moving and more
challenging. It is freeing because it
puts it back into your hands. It is
challenging because now you and I really need to sit down, and pray, and think
about how much of our time and money would represent our thankfulness,
generosity and values.
In the third lesson, the disciples, 1000’s of them,
knew that a famine was coming. And look
what the lesson says. It does not say
that they each set aside 10%. It says
that they determined that “according to their …ability, EACH would contribute
and send relief.” “Each and according
to ability.”
And in the fourth lesson Paul was trying to persuade
the reluctant church members to increase their giving, to finish the work of
generosity that they had started the year before. But even here, Paul doesn’t ask for a tithe. He didn’t ask them to go beyond their means,
but to give within their means to a level that matched, that represented, their
eagerness, their thanksgiving, and their desire to be a part in God’s
work. If the eagerness is there, then
any gift is good and acceptable and faithful.
When the heart and soul is behind it, when the gift expresses
thankfulness and a true desire to be invested and a part of God’s work, then
that gift of time and money, no matter how big or small, it is worth
everything.
Our gifts are physical prayers. We thank God through our gifts, we are
asking to be a part of all he does, and we are telling him to please use our
gifts for greater purposes; we physically let go, in order to let God.
We give because God has given us life and breath
because, like Jacob, God promised to stand beside us and guide us like a
shepherd through our lives. And most of
all we are freed to be generous because we believe that no matter what, the
Kingdom and eternal life are already ours forever. We can certainly afford to be generous in this life. Let’s sing the second stanza:
He made us his own and has
given us breath; Glory be to God!
The sheep of his pasture,
we need not fear our death;
Sing praises to God out of
Zion!
In the first Gospel lesson, Luke 18:11-14, you heard
one of only two times that Jesus ever mentioned the tithe. Both times, Jesus only mentioned it as
something that Pharisees used to try to justify themselves before God. “Thank God,” the Pharisee said, “I’m not
like other people, terrible sinners like this tax collector here. I fast—not just once a week—but twice; I
give a full tithe of all I make.” A
tithe, in Jesus’ book was not enough… if it did not represent true generosity,
not just to God, but to all his people, then it wasn’t enough.
For all the good that the Pharisee did, he could
have given 50 or 100%, he could have fasted 3 or 7 days a week, and it would
have been worthless. Without love he
was nothing. Without the heart and soul
of love behind it, works of generosity, time or money, are worthless. The tax collector left a much more valuable gift,
even if he didn’t leave a nickel that day.
He gave to God his heart, and that is worth everything.
Our brightest banners, our actions, shine before God
whenever we express thankfulness and joy that comes from being invited to his
feast. We come here to this Communion
table each Sunday remembering that God, through Jesus, gave us his all, even
his life. We come to this table to eat
and ingest the reality of Jesus’ death for us, and to receive his incredible forgiveness
and strength. When we take in Jesus,
and really understand all of this, we cannot help but give back. We need to give. This is how we get to express and—in fact—feel our gratefulness,
joy, and freedom. I once read a
psychologist who said we don’t truly feel our emotions until we express them or
act on them. We don’t really feel our
joy and gratitude, until we show it.
And that is why in our second gospel lesson, when
Jesus spoke to the rich young man who was trying to buy his way into heaven,
Jesus didn’t tell him to go and give 10% to the Temple. It would not have been enough. Jesus told him to liquidate all his wealth that was holding his
heart captive, and to give it to the poor, who wouldn’t be able to return him any favors, and then to come trust and
follow Jesus.
Jesus once praised a poor widow for putting two
pennies in the Temple treasury. He said
that she had put everything she had into the box. But he wasn’t just talking about the two pennies. He was talking about her heart and
intention. He was saying that she put
herself in the offering and gave herself to God.
Jesus was not saying and I am not saying that the
tithe, that 10% is not a generous gift to give or to stretch toward. It is.
My wife and I have been growing toward the tithe each year, because we
believe that doing so represents our thankfulness and values.
But I know, and by now you do too, that alone, even
a full tithe, or beyond it, will never be enough if we only do it to buy God’s
love or anyone’s respect. It will never
be enough if it’s just an obligation that we pay for membership, or to help pay
bills.
We must represent our thankfulness, our joy, and our
values, not just in time and money to the church, but through everything else:
the way we sing and pray and engage in the worship and liturgy when we’re here,
and how we treat each other in our families, at work or school, in the grocery
and department stores and restaurants, how we treat little and big creatures,
and nature.
All of these things and actions are our truest
offerings. And whenever we receive and
treat any of these people and moments as gifts from God, they become our
brightest banners. Our Sunday offerings
represent our lives and everything else.
Let’s sing the third stanza:
Oh, come to his feast with
thanksgiving and praise; Glory be to God!
Give glory to him, and your
brightest banners raise;
Sing praises to God out of
Zion!
The part that I find most heart-wrenching and
difficult when I preach and teach about money and giving is that I personally
know and love more than a few of you who are on very fixed and low
incomes. I know of members who are
carrying incredible loads of guilt and embarrassment that comes with being in
debt, in need or barely making it. To
those people who live under a heavy debt load or severely limited budget, I
know what that feels like, and I want you to hear this loud and clear, this is
the real commandment of the Bible, on Biblical giving: love God and in the same
way show love your neighbors.
If you listen and care and pray and love God and
your neighbors with your heart and actions, then you are obeying all of the law
and prophets, including the tithe. If
you take an apple pie, which you made from the apples you got at the food bank,
to your neighbor, that apple pie is a huge gift in the Kingdom of God. That kind of love and generosity in that
moment outshined the Bill Gates Foundation.
In fact, it was more than 10%, it was everything.
And to those of us, and I include Pauline and me in
this, to those of us who now have—not just enough—but enough to buy and service
two or more cars, enough clothes and shoes to fill up a walk-in closet, saying
that it’s not the amount that matters but the heart is not an excuse to be
cheap in our offerings to God.
Yes, many of us have large monthly bills and money
tied up in markets and funds, and we often find ourselves stretching to make
it, but let’s not—any one of us—kid ourselves.
We made choices. The question is
whether our choices in the way we spend or hold onto our money reflects our
Christianity, …or if it reflects something else.
Like the young man, we need to find ways to let go
of our possessions and our time… so that they do not have a hold on us. We do that when we as a congregation and as
individuals get off of ourselves and our own personal needs, and start thinking
and investing in others. When we begin
letting go and start living for others, acting on their behalf and investing in
the future church, then we have probably got it…Biblical giving
A major part of our gifts, our gifts and the way we
spend our time, need to become a prayer for our future neighbors who we want to
be standing here in this space and in future churches around the world. We must all, all of us, decrease in
ourselves so that Christ can increase… in them.
Sometimes it feels like the pastor is telling you to
die. I am telling you to die to fear,
die to self and all we do to fill the void, die to greed. Live in Christ. Let him fill you. Live
for all the generations of children and grandchildren who will be standing
beside you in the Kingdom of God, saying, “Thank you.”
There is power in generous and wise giving. It is a miraculous power. You give, and Christ fills you back up. If we give, and if we wisely act together
for sake of each other and the future, then Christ will fill this church. Let us sing the final stanza:
His mercy is ours; he is
Lord over all; Glory be to God!
May all generations find
power in his call;
Sing praises to God out of
Zion!