I have a confession to make to you this morning—I like money and, I think, for good reason. Money pays our monthly mortgage payment, giving us a place to live. Money puts food on our table, giving us physical nourishment. Money has paid for our children’s educations (and is still paying for our children’s educations). Money buys airline tickets for us to visit our children and other family on the other side of the country. Money makes opportunities for learning and growth available to me. Money provides us with some small sense of security in the midst of an insecure world. Money provides for our physical needs adequately enough and even some of our desires. Money isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, I hate to think of trying to live with out it. In truth, though, money or wealth is neither inherently good nor inherently evil. It is morally neutral. What makes the difference is what you and I do with the wealth in our keeping, and that’s the issue that Jesus addresses in the parable we read from Luke’s gospel this morning. Jesus tells the story of a steward or manager who has been charged with mishandling his employer’s financial assets. Whether through ineptitude or thievery we are not told and it really is not important to the story. Unaccustomed to physical labor, too proud to beg, and facing certain financial ruin, the manager puts his employer’s money to work for him by making friends among those who are in his debt. Calling in each debtor, he works one deal after another. “You owe 100 jugs of olive oil? We’ll call it even at 80. You owe 75 containers of wheat? Let’s make it an easy 50.” I would like to think that times were hard and this steward was showing compassion to the debtors by reducing his commission and thus enabling them to escape the bondage of their debt. His employer received all that was due him and his debtors were relieved of the burden of debt because the steward sacrificed his own wellbeing for them both. But that is making more of the parable than the one who first told it. The point, said, Jesus is to “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal home.” And that means what? That God rewards shrewd or clever or even dishonest financial management? No. The best we can do, I think, is to draw a general principle from this teaching and that is how we use our money is both a financial and spiritual matter. We don’t usually think of wealth as having any spiritual significance. In fact, very often we draw a rather clear distinction between the spiritual and material realms and live as if one has no bearing upon the other. But the world cannot be so neatly divided and the Bible certainly does not carefully segregate the two. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, stood by and defended the oppressed. He speaks of true religion in terms of feeding the hungry, befriending the friendless, clothing the poor, caring for the widowed and the orphaned The truth is that the Bible, especially the New Testament, has more to say, far more to say, about money and possessions than it does about any other topic, sex and power included. (I wonder sometimes if our exhaustive and exhausting debate over the many dimensions of human sexuality is a way of avoiding the much more personally threatening questions surrounding economic morality.) Sixteen of Jesus’ approximate thirty-eight parables deal with money or possessions. One out of every seven verses in the first three gospels deals with wealth in one form or another. Maybe the reason for that is that Jesus understood that of all the idols that vie for our loyalty and love, money is perhaps the most pervasive and persuasive. Martin Luther once said that Christians undergo three conversions in the journey of faith. First, there is the conversion of the heart. Then comes the conversion of the mind, and finally the conversion of the wallet. This last one, for many of us, is the most difficult of all. Giving your heart to God is one thing; giving your mind is yet another; but giving your money over to God, well, that is challenging and counter cultural. The Gospel tell us that we are first of all children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ; our culture tell us that we are first of all what we have. Our very value as human beings is measured in terms of our possessions. Net worth and self-worth are intimately intertwined in the American world-view. The hell of it, and it is a kind of hell, is that you can never have enough. The cup can be brimming full, running over, but the thirst for more is never fully assuaged. William Willimon writes “a consumeristic economy tells us that our worth derives from what we can accumulate, and since we can never accumulate enough, never can be sure that we have the newest and most improved model of everything, we are kept in (a state of) perpetual anxiety. Perpetual anxiety produces exhaustion, and exhaustion produces paralysis. And there is never birth” (p. 31, Familiar Speech). For Christians money is never an end in itself but always a means to an end and that end is shaped by the will and purpose of God. The parable of the clever steward tells us that even with all the potential spiritual dangers in the possession of wealth it is possible to manage it in ways appropriate to those who belong to the Kingdom of God. How might that be? The first thing is the recognition that we are stewards and not owners of the gift of life and the resources that fill our lives. My life is not mine to do with as I please. My money is not mine to do with as I please. It is God who has given me the gift of life; it is God who has endowed me with skills to cultivate and to use in the making a living; it is God who has redeemed my life in Jesus Christ and who is at work by the power of the Holy Spirit to renew the gift of life within me. My life is not mine to do with as I please but to do with as it pleases God. In the first meeting of this year’s stewardship team someone remarked, “you know, ultimately wealth is a burden.” I have to admit that my first thought was “Lord, increase my burden,” but when I considered it further I realized that what my friend was saying is that with wealth comes the burden of responsibility. We are responsible not only to ourselves and to those who depend upon us, but we are responsible to God for how we use the wealth put into our care. But, you say, “I am not a wealthy person. I have two kids in college. I still live from paycheck to paycheck. The bottom fell out of my portfolio in the last several years.” But Jesus says “whoever is faithful in a very little, is also faithful in much.” It’s not how much you have, but what you do with what you have that matters. So then, what does God expect of us? How much are we to keep for our sustenance and enjoyment and how much are we to give away for the benefit of others and the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth? I was awed the other night as I listened to the four members of our stewardship team chat about their own experience as tithers. “Giving to God begins not by looking at a spread sheet or meeting with your financial advisor. It’s a matter between you and God.” “Giving to God comes first. Through tithing we put God at the center of our lives.” “The more you give away, the more God showers upon you. You are not cast adrift when you put God first.” Their comments were joy-filled, not duty-filled. They spoke of grace-filled experiences. And, as they spoke, I realized that though we were talking in terms of the church’s stewardship program the language they used was not “giving to the church’s budget” or even “giving to the church,” but “giving to God.” I was, however, also a little troubled. In part because Presbyterians are not, for the most part, accustomed to talking about tithing. It has been estimated that Presbyterians across the country give, on the average, around three percent of their annual income to God through the church. Our own First Church goal for members has been a modest five percent. Will feathers be ruffled? Will people be offended if we talk about tithing this year? I was troubled too because it made me, once again, reflect upon my own faithfulness in giving to God especially in the last several years which have been extremely difficult and demanding in a variety of aspects including financial. Over the years I have heard people say that we ought to “give till it hurts,” but what may be more in keeping with the Christian gospel is that we “give till it feels good.” Do you feel good about what you are giving to God? Ultimately it is not a question of five percent or ten percent or twenty-five percent, but one hundred percent. All that we are and all that we have belong to God in Jesus Christ. As Isaac Watts wrote: “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” That’s the first gift—our love, our life, our all, given over to the lordship of Jesus Christ. How much then we give back to God goes beyond cerebral consideration to a response of the heart. How much will you commit to give to God when that opportunity is given you on the second Sunday in November? Only you can make that decision. Remember that as a disciple of Jesus Christ it is more than a financial decision it is a spiritual decision of significant importance. J. Dudley Weaver |