Text: Matthew 6:25-33 & Mark 4:37-41Title: “Simple Stewardship: Simply Believe”
I read a blog pretty frequently called “Naked Pastor.” I don’t believe the pastor, David Hayward, is, in fact, naked. It’s more of a metaphor for a pastor bearing his soul. But this pastor doesn’t bare his soul in lengthy posts about what food he ate on a particular day or how awesome worship is. He actually draws cartoons. And every Friday, he gives one away.
I won one just a few weeks ago. (Picture at right.) It’s a sketch of a giant hand reaching down from the heavens to a character on the earth below. The hand holds a giant daisy and the daisy just has one petal left. And the voice from heaven says, “Start with he loves me.”
You know, there is a whole lot we can discuss theologically. We can discuss how it is that the death of Christ on a cross offers us “atonement” or “At-One-Ment” in this life. We can argue about whether sinners really are welcome in the church and what sins we should really keep out. We can discuss at length what it means to have a Trinitarian God and we can wonder how in the world one can equal three and vice versa.
There is a whole lot that we can discuss Biblically. When it says that all of Scripture is “inspired by God” in 2 Timothy 3:16, does that mean that all of Scripture is infallible? Should we lean in our interpretation of Revelation to a more metaphorical understanding? How important for us New Testament folk are all of the Old Testament references that Jesus makes?
And we can, some more than others, go on and on about how this all comes together in the life of the church…ordination, mission projects, struggling to get Sunday School teachers, mission and ministry, and, indeed, stewardship.
But, you know, if I could just break it down to the simplest form I could, I’d start with something like that cartoon. “God loves you.” That’s where it all begins. That’s where it all ends. From the creation in Genesis to the triumphal return of Christ in Revelation, it’s all about the all-encompassing love of our God for us…for you. That’s a lesson that’s at the heart of it all. It actually encompasses the message of the whole of Scripture pretty well and shapes how it is that we’re supposed to act in this life. God loves us. There’s nothing we can do about it that will change it. But we can respond in kind.
We’re starting on a three-week journey into Stewardship. I might throw some charts your way. I might try to get you informed about our building project and our lack of funds. It’s tight around here. And I’ll probably send you home with a commitment card when all is said and done—so you can make a commitment to God and to the church.
But you know, sometimes we have a tendency to make this all more difficult than it is. I know, in the day when Stewardship might be mentioned just once a year, I always felt like the people in the pews wished they could be anywhere else than in church that day.
I used to tell jokes just to make the congregation and me feel more comfortable, as if it was a joking matter. My favorite was the following....
A Baptist Minister, a Presbyterian Minister, and a United Methodist Minister were all talking about how they divided up the offering each week.
The Baptist said, he'd used the same method for a lot of years. After everyone was gone he would draw a line on the floor and throw the offering up in the air. What landed on one side was God's. What landed on the other was his to keep for himself.
The Presbyterian said he was surprised, but his system was similar. He drew a circle on the floor and threw the offering up in the air. What landed in the circle was his to keep and what landed outside belonged to God.
The Methodist said his was just about the same. He threw the the offering up and he figured whatever God wanted, he'd keep. (Ha Ha Ha)
Other times, I’ve heard clergy say, and mean it, that their stewardship sermon was just for the members within the church on that particular day and not for everyone there--like the visitors. But, you know, if the visitors listened a little bit they might gain some knowledge they could take home with them. The message was that this is complicated stuff for members only.
However, friends, stewardship isn’t -- as my son might say--stewardship isn’t “rocket surgery.” It’s basic. It’s relevant. It’s simple.
And as we look at our Simple Stewardship over the next few weeks, I’m going to tell you that I think, if we take stewardship down to its simplest form, it’s rooted in three simple steps…SIMPLY BELIEVE, SIMPLY SERVE, SIMPLY GIVE.
But, it all spring from the very fact that our God loves us and, through his providence, cares for us.
And, while you may not think so, at times this can be very difficult to believe in.
First, sometimes, like the idea that cartoon was describing, we question whether or not we really can be loved by our God. We may feel like we’ve sinned way too much or too badly for us ever to be loved by our God. And, there’s some good hidden under that emotion. The good is the recognition that you’re a sinner. You are. However, says, 1Timothy 1:15, Peterson’s The Message version, “Here's a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” I don’t want to pretend that your revelation that you’re a sinner is no big deal. I just want to say that the bigger deal is you're just the person Christ came to save.
Secondly, sometimes, we act like that love of God in our lives is not enough for us, like it’s incomplete. Take for instance, our need to find belonging and care in our relationships. We can surround ourselves with friends. We can be lost when we’re not invited to the parties everyone else is going to. We can feel so hurt inside when we’ve been wronged by those we love. And we can, somehow feel less of a person while, all the time, God declares that we are, indeed, his chosen ones...that he loves us.
We can, in life, feel like we’re unloved and can try to escape this world by filling it with other things like drugs and alcohol…as if they can somehow fill us in a way we may not think we’re getting filled with God.
And, perhaps more to the point of stewardship, at least, financial stewardship, we can surround ourselves with the physical stuff of our world…our houses, our cars, our clothes, our gadgets, our retirement accounts, and find our worth here.
This latter issue, living as if worth and care were derived from material belongings is not only an American problem…but it is stereotypically an American problem. For we live in a nation of consumers and advertisers and sellers and we have difficulty saying “no” to the stuff of our economic environment. Advertisers know this. Credit card companies know this. The person who’s selling us that new house or new car or new dress or new shoes or new iPhone knows this.
If you think you’re immune to the siren calls of advertisers who repeatedly tell us that we’re only cool if we drive this or that car, or we’re only cool if we have this or that ski, or we’re only cool if we use a certain type of computer, or we’re only cool if we wear clothes that look a certain way, or we’re only cool if we drink a certain energy drink, there are millions of advertisers who will tell you that you’re not immune. They know that their ads work. They make us want more than we have now.
Just this week I saw a comic about our need to acquire that poked fun at women and their need for dresses—which, frankly, is not a need expressed by as many Alaskans as possibly persons from other areas. It was a mathematical equation-- “N = D + 1” (Where N equals the number of dresses a woman thinks she should own and D equals the number of dresses she currently has.) The dresses she needs is always the dresses she has …plus one.
But “dresses” may not be the thing for you. Perhaps you think you always need one more app for your iPod, one more thousand dollars in your retirement account, one more set of skis or one more snowboard, one more winter hat, one more fishing pole, one more house, one more vacation, one more tool, one more purse, one more gadget.
The bible says that, at heart, this need for stuff isn’t just an affront to our brothers and sisters on this planet who have less, it’s an affront to God because it implies that God is NOT sufficient…that we have need BEYOND GOD and God’s providence for us. We forget that there is no THING, no PERSON, that will (taking words from the Jerry Maguire movie) COMPLETE US. In fact, the more stuff we surround ourselves with the harder it is for us to remember that we have a need for God. The more stuff we have, it’s harder for us even to BELIEVE IN GOD.
Let’s look again at what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. We’ll look at Peterson’s version, The Message.
"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Isn’t it kind of funny that Jesus would question why we worry too much? I mean it’s almost more comfortable to hear him talk about the coming Kingdom of God or tell a nice parable or heal someone. But here he tells us that we worry too much because we’re too concerned with the stuff of this world; we’re too concerned with getting things; we’re too concerned with having the nicest stuff and the nicest food. And all of this essentially is a crisis of belief…we don’t believe in a God who is able to provide.
In our second Gospel text we have a storm overtaking the disciples because they don’t have faith…faith in God to provide…and Jesus quiets the storm that raged against them.
By living simply we can calm the storms that rage against us and trust, once again, or maybe for the first time, for God to provide for us.
One of the best illustrations I've ever seen for tithing, giving 10%, was from a tract from somewhere down in Louisiana, I think. The author of the tract said that money is sticky. It sticks to us and, more, we stick to it. Once we get a hold of it, we hold on tightly, thinking that we need it, that we can't live without it, that it is what's providing for us. And so here we are, holding on tightly to our money with two clenched fists. Tithing, is the equivalent of wrenching back one of those tightly grasping fingers, letting go, ever so slightly of our grip on money, releasing some of the stickiness, reminding us that it does not control us and, ultimately, does not provide for us. Without that reminder, we're stuck.
One of the hazards of Stewardship sermons is that people think they’re about money. They’re not. They are sermons about belief in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Mary and Martha and Jesus.
Do you believe that our God is good enough and strong enough and loving enough to provide for you if you give 10% of your income to the church?
Do you believe that simplifying the stuff of your life would free you up to trust God more and more?
Do you believe that God will take care of you, through every day, o’er all the way?
How much do you believe that God loves you and will provide?
Or, do you want to hedge your bets, making sure someone or something else provides for you, too?
Simply believe. It's the start of our "Simple Stewardship."
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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