Stewardship Sermon
Carolyn Cheney
October 22, 2006
Good Morning. I am Carolyn Cheney, this year's Stewardship Committee chair - and yes I am here to talk about your time, your talent and your treasure.
Stewardship is the regular practice of returning to God a portion of all that God has given us. It involves teaching our children and ourselves how to create a life built upon the notion that all that we have is a gift from God. This includes tithing and the concept that giving regularly of our time, talent, and money to God's work on this earth is as much a spiritual practice as prayer and worship.
Last summer when Judith asked me to serve as Stewardship chair, I started thinking about what I would say. In writing the first drafts of this talk I wrote about the church's needs, about the need for repairs to our church, about paying our utility bills, about repairs to the rectory, about needing more Sunday School space and about the needs of the community around us.
However, over the past weeks I have done some reading on stewardship, actually a lot of reading on stewardship. One of the first articles I read was an article in the Episcopal magazine entitled "Obsessed with Money" - the gist of the article was that the writer wished for a day when sermons on money were banned. This is an interesting idea, though as chair of the Stewardship Committee and a former Chair of the Finance Committee, it is an idea that frankly scares me more than a little bit.
Yes, talking about money in church may be problematical, but not talking about it does not necessarily help our spiritual growth. A casual review of Jesus' parables reveals that money was a topic that he brought up frequently. And the reason for this was that undue concentration on material things distances us from God. It was true 2,000 years ago; it is just as true today.
When looking for ways to move you as a congregation, I found an article that said that Jesus talked about money in 16 out of 38 parables; that 1 out of every 10 verses in the gospels relates to money and possessions; and that there are over 700 verses with the word love, 500 plus verses with the word prayer, less than 500 that have the word believe in them and over 2,000 verses that include some form of the word give --- give, giving, giver appears in the bible 2,162 times - more than love, prayer or believe. So when we discover that some form of the word give appears in Scripture 2,162 times -- or -- more than three times as often as "love," it is easy to see that God wants to teach us about giving, wants us to understand that learning to give, actually giving, is a gift itself!
There are more promises about giving than anything else in the Bible. Jesus talks more about giving than heaven or hell. He understands how money, or what it symbolizes - control in our lives - can short circuit our relationship with God.
This morning I would like to talk to you about your investment and your involvement in Christ Church - and yes, I am going to talk about money and about tithing.
To paraphrase Deuteronomy 14:23:
"The purpose of tithing is to teach you to put God first in your life."
Tithing, giving 10 percent of your income, is the standard set by the Hebrew Scriptures for giving. It is also the minimum standard set by the Episcopal Church.
For some of us, the idea of tithing makes us laugh: How could I ever do that?
And for some, the idea makes us mad: "Why would anyone ask me to do something like that? Why would I even consider the idea?"
For others, the reaction is one of sadness: "I'd like to tithe, but I don't know how I can, I have so many bills and I make so little money!"
Still others find themselves somewhere in the middle: "Can I grow into to it, can I learn how?"
And I know there are those of you who already know the blessings of tithing, and growing in your faith.
Whatever your reaction is this morning, I hope you will reexamine how you feel about your giving patterns. And in this examination it is important to remember that giving is at the heart of our faith.
We all have different histories of how we relate to our church. Recently I saw a campaign commercial for Congressman Harold Ford Jr., the Democrat nominee for Senate in Tennessee. The ad opens with him standing inside his home church in Tennessee saying: "I started church the old fashioned way, I was forced to by my parents and I am better for it."
His message took me back to my own childhood - My family went to church and Sunday school every Sunday. We were taught - forced -- to tithe and I am better for it. I can still remember getting my first allowance when I was 7 years old. It was 50 cents! It was given to me in change - 1 dime, 5 nickels and 15 pennies -- a huge sum to a seven year old. I got my allowance each Saturday morning. My father would tell me to take out one nickel (1/10th) for my offering for Sunday School the next morning, and he would tell me to put one nickel in my piggy bank and the rest I could spend anyway I wanted to.
That Saturday afternoon I would go to the movies - it cost a dime, lemonade, popcorn and candy were each a nickel. That would leave me with 15 cents for candy after school the following week. In those days there really was penny candy. It didn't seem like a burden or a problem to give 1/10th of my allowance to my church - it is what my father told me to do and I did it.
Although to follow that pattern over the years has gotten harder the more money I made. Nonetheless it is a lesson that still stays with me today and indeed I am better for it.
My father taught me that if I have faith in God, He would provide all my needs. In Jeremiah 17:7-8 it says: "Blessed are those who trust in the Lord." They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.
If you have children, I would encourage you over the next year to discus stewardship with your children and encourage them to tithe. Stewardship is taught. It is not something that comes naturally.
In past years I have served on the Stewardship Committee and some of our meeting time was spent talking about what and how each of us gave to the church -some said that they had been tithing for years. Some said it was a practice their parents had taught them and some said it was something they started when they got their first job - but a common theme was about gratefulness to God as a primary motivation for giving and tithing.
Gratitude comes with our faith. In fact, giving thanks is the fundamental act of worship for Christians. From birth to death, "thanks be to God" - is the most theologically sound response to life we can offer. A stewardship campaign is simply an annual gratitude alert, calling us to recommit ourselves to giving thanks in concrete ways.
Ultimately, stewardship is more than keeping the building repaired, the utilities connected and the priests paid. When stewardship is discussed, it should involve more than money. It should remind us that how we relate to God has a lot to do with how we lead our day-to-day lives. Yes, the money is useful, but what makes it useful is that it provides the resources to nurture and expand ministries both within our parish as well as in the community at large. A sermon on stewardship should move us not only to give just money, but also our time and talent, along with our treasure. And that is what our lives here are supposed to be about.
God's creative force is the foundation of our stewardship. In creating all things, God has made it possible for us to give back to God what is already God's. Stewardship is an everyday occurrence. It needs to be the lifeblood of how we see the community around us: our family, our work, our friendships, and our church.
Next week you will receive a stewardship mailing from the church. In the packet is a brochure with a story about a man who dreamed he was standing before a beautiful cornfield.
At the edge of the field a man handed him a bushel basket and told him that he could go into the field and fill the basket with all the corn he could pick.
The man selected a row and started down it - each ear of corn ahead of him seemed larger and more beautiful than the ones he had just passed. The corn only a few feet ahead was always preferable to the ones he was passing. So he picked none, always looking ahead for the best ear of corn. Then suddenly he came to the end of the row and his basket was empty.
Now what I take from this story is that there is never a perfect time to make a pledge, or to increase your pledge or to tithe. For most of us our financial burdens are great and there are always going to be unexpected doctor bills or car repair bills or something comes up that leaves us short of money.
Each day God gives us an empty basket to be filled with the spiritual joys of life: a kind word, a thoughtful deed, and a gift of time, talent or money in the service of others. We just have to reach out and take the opportunity.
Earlier this morning I suggested that you give a 1/10th of your income to God. So for those of you who thought it was funny that I would suggest such a thing and for those of you who felt anger at the audacious suggestion of tithing and for those of you who felt sad that you had too many debts or didn't make enough money to tithe and to those of you who want to grow and learn to tithe, I would encourage you to take a moment to look at the back of the Personal Guide in the stewardship packet you will receive.
Look at something called a Forward Step. First find your offering and see what a Forward Step for you would be.
As you can see, it is a small step for most of us, individually. Yet when combined with everyone else's it is a big step that helps us going forward as a church.
Paul says in Romans 12:5: In Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Each of us is an important part of this church. By simply taking a forward step, we go forward as a congregation, and more importantly, we grow individually in the grace of giving.
As you will see on the guide, the next step beyond a Forward Step is a Step of Faith. Maybe you have intended to take a big step, but it never seemed to be the right time.
The truth is there will never be a right or perfect time. So today, I just want to suggest that over the next week, we all take the time to think of our many blessings and to prayerfully ask God to lead us in our offerings and in every area of our lives.
I know we are a grateful and generous people, and I hope that we will show that generosity today and in the coming weeks by making a commitment to the ministry and mission of Christ Church + Washington Parish.
What is there left to say but "Thanks be to God?"
Click here to view the Personal Guide 2007.
