1 Chronicles 29:1-20
November 10, 2013
First and Harmony Presbyterian Churches
The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry
Surrounding
Nelson’s Column at Trafalgar Square in London there are four giant
plinths. A plinth is nothing but a
platform built of stone or concrete on which a column or a statue rests. On three of the plinths in Trafalgar Square
there stand great bronze statues memorializing the likeness and accomplishments
of past leaders. The fourth plinth,
originally built to hold a statue of William IV on his horse, remains
empty. For more than a century and a
half the grate plinth stood vacant as funds were perpetually unavailable to
build a suitable monument.
About 15 years ago, the city of London began to commission
artists to install temporary art that reflected the times. One artist invited 2400 people to stand on
top of the plinth one at a time for an hour each. Another built a giant rocking horse. The current installation is a 12 foot tall
blue rooster. I’m sure it has some deeper meaning but it escapes me.
Unlike its fellows in the square with their unmovable
bronze monuments to moments in time, the fourth plinth reflects a particular
vision of a particular time.
Stewardship sermons are much like the plinths around
Trafalgar Square. There are four basic
stewardship sermons- three that never really change. They are like those bronze statues. The
fourth, like the art on that fourth plinth, changes with each preacher and each
congregation.
The first stewardship sermon has been preached since the
first time the church needed someone’s money.
It is the fear sermon.
Give, or else.
Give, or God will punish you.
Give, or burn.
I can’t preach that one.
I can’t preach it because I don’t believe it.
The second stewardship sermon is almost as old. It is the promise sermon.
Give and God will give back.
Give and you will be blessed.
Give and God will love you.
This is the sermon of the television preacher. I can’t preach this one either because I
don’t believe this theology either.
Plus, I don’t have the hair for television preaching!
The third stewardship sermon is the guilt sermon.
I suppose we could just cut Sunday School.
There are plenty of other churches who can help the
hungry.
Give, because after all God gave you so much and you
don’t want to seem selfish, right? Can’t
you give just a little back to God?
This one I cannot preach because I have too much respect
for you, for myself and more importantly for the gospel.
So that leaves us with the fourth stewardship sermon. Like the fourth plinth around the square, the
fourth basic stewardship sermon changes based on who is preaching and who is
listening. Lacking the crutch of fear,
guilt or promises of riches, the preacher who preaches this sermon has only two
homiletical tools in his or her toolbox; the truth of the biblical witness and
the trust of the community of faith.
This morning, I am going to try to preach from the fourth
plinth; I am going to try to rely on the truth of the biblical witness and the
trust we share as a community of faith to share with you some thoughts on
biblical stewardship and its place in our congregation.
A first principle of biblical stewardship is this: we are
all in this together even beyond the generations.
When the time comes for David to turn over leadership of
the nation to his son Solomon, David addresses the leaders and the people and
invites them to join him in building the Lord’s house. “Who else,” he says, “will volunteer,
dedicating themselves to the LORD today?”
What is being built is a physical structure and David
could probably have afforded to build it himself from his own treasury. And to be sure, he gives generously toward
the project. By inviting the people to
join him in giving, David is not trying to save some money. He is inviting the people to join him in
dedicating part of their lives- wealth, time, energy, talent- to the building
of God’s house.
Giving to God was understood in the
ancient near east as an opportunity for faithfulness not an obligation. By inviting the people to join him in giving,
David is inviting them to join him in faithful living.
When we talk about stewardship here
in this place- this church- we are talking about a shared investment in God’s
house. Over the last couple of years,
this congregation has invested emotional, spiritual and, yes, financial
resources in moving the church toward a joyous and hopeful future.
We are all in this together. Generations built this building and gave us a
strong heritage on which to stand, and now it is our turn. We are all invited to share from our lives as
we are able in wealth, time, energy and talent to the building of God’s
house.
A second principle of biblical
stewardship is motives matter.
When he prays in thanksgiving to God
for the generosity of the people, David says:
“Since I know, my God, that you
examine the mind and take delight in honesty, I have freely given all these
things with the highest motives. And
now, I’ve been delighted to see your people here offering so willingly to you.”
Stewardship is not coercive. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Stewardship is meant to be a reflection of
our faith and how can a faith defined by grace and promise and hope be embodied
in a stewardship of fear and coercion?
What David realized is that giving
toward the work of the community of God is necessarily an act of
faithfulness.
John Calvin defined faith as a “firm
and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us.” Faith is not belief in a doctrine, a
statement, a confession or even a particular definition of God. It is faith in God’s faithfulness; it is
faith that no matter what God loves us and abides with us; that no matter how
far we may go, God is our everlasting companion.
When we give with both generosity of
gift and generosity of spirit, our stewardship is a response in faithfulness to
God.
We give out of faithfulness not
fear;
Compassion not coercion;
Promise not fear of punishment.
Motives matter.
A third principle of biblical
stewardship is every gift is worth celebrating.
As a community of faith, we come
from vastly different lives and circumstances.
Faithful gifts come in as many shapes and sizes as there are faithful
givers.
When the pledges have been received
and the capital campaign to build the temple is over and David prays to the
Lord, he uses the same word to describe each and every gift; abundance. No one is singled out for being a better
giver than another-not even David himself.
Rather, David celebrates each and every gift for what it is, a faithful
contribution to the community’s collective response to God’s own
faithfulness.
When we say that every gift matters,
those words are more than marketing.
They are theological. Saying that
every gift, regardless of size, matters is a theological claim that God
delights in faithful giving from each and every household.
Whether the gift is a mite or a
million, an hour or a day, proofreading a bulletin or maintaining a website,
however we give- whatever we give- it is right that we celebrate every gift as
one of abundance.
There are many more principles and
perspectives and ideas about stewardship in scripture, but for this community
in this place I think those speak to who and where we are.
In our stewardship:
we are in this together beyond the
generations;
we give out of faithfulness;
we celebrate every gift as a
reflection of God’s abundance.
What then can we say about our lives
together in light of these principles?
From a practical perspective, one of
the unhealthiest things a congregation can do is rely on one or two members to
provide the money needed to run the church.
There is a saying among preachers that many churches are one or two
strategic funerals away from insolvency.
We are not in that place. To be sure we have some very generous givers
whose lives allow them to give generously to the church and for that we can and
should all be grateful, however we are not a church that relies on one or two
families to keep the church solvent. We
really are all in this together and thanks to the generosity of past
generations and the wise decisions of the session, we have a growing endowment
that links the giving of past generations to the ministry of present ones.
Now it is our turn. As you prayerfully consider your giving for
the coming year, I hope that you will think not only about how your gift will
contribute to the work of the church today, but how it might help us build the
church for the future. We are all in
this together; the church past, present and future.
There is a saying among therapists
that God has not made the person who doesn’t need at least a little
therapy. Along those same lines, God has
not drawn together the congregation that couldn’t use a little more money. Thanks to the diligent efforts of the session
and some creative modeling of how we are going to be church together, we,
unlike many of our peer congregations, have a balanced budget and we are able
to meet most of our needs with the income available to us.
Among small churches, we have the
unusual opportunity to frame our giving not in terms of saving the church from
financial ruin but as an act of faith in the ministries we are building and the
work we are doing together.
Over the last year, we have begun to
explore new ministry opportunities and ways to reach out to families with
children, to reengage the university community and to reach beyond the walls of
the church to partner with our community in meeting the needs of our
neighbors.
Our stewardship is an opportunity to
share in that ministry; to share in the faith that God has work for us to do in
this place and at this time; work being built by this generation for coming
generations.
Pastors debate about the ethics of
knowing or not knowing how much an individual or family gives to the
church. I fall on the “don’t want to
know” side though I am not sure there really is one right or wrong answer. I don’t know how much anyone gives and I
don’t keep track of how much anyone volunteers.
Whether the gift is large or small in time or wealth or energy or
talent, I trust that it is faithfully given and worthy of our celebrating. I trust in our giving and have faith that it
is done with a spirit of generosity.
That is the comfortable part. Now for the more uncomfortable part. If you are going to squirm in your seat, now
is the time.
We do need more. As a congregation, if we are to maintain the
ministries we have and those we hope to build, we need more resources- of energy,
time, talent and, yes, money. One of the difficult parts of being a church on
the upswing is that our ministries often outpace our giving. We have reached that tipping point where
budgets and staff hours cannot absorb all the needs. We are victims of the
realization of our own efforts.
We need all hands on deck.
I would never compare myself to
David, but I will borrow a paraphrase of his words. Together we are not building anything for
ourselves, we are building God’s house.
No single one of us can build it alone.
It takes us all, giving in faithfulness and, together, celebrating the
abundance God brings into our midst. It
takes each of us examining our lives and seeing where we might find a little
more; energy, time, talent or money; a little more that we might faithfully add
to the faithfulness of our neighbors-of the generations-as we celebrate every
gift that is given to build God's house.
There you have it. That is the truth as I see it. That is the honest view from the fourth
plinth. No fear, no promises of riches
and hopefully no emotional manipulations.
Just the honest view from where your pastor stands.
May God open us each and every one
to the spirit of generosity and, above all, fill us all with the joy that comes
from joining together to build God’s house.
Because that is what real stewardship is:
Joy.
In God.
Amen.
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