Scripture: Micah 6:1-8; Amos 5:21-24; 2Corinthians 8:8-17.
I committed myself a couple of months ago to talking today about stewardship. I did that because I knew I had a few things I wanted to say about stewardship, and because I wanted to find out what I would say about stewardship if I committed myself to the topic. Back in August, November seemed like as good a time as any to talk about stewardship.
This is something I have not always done though. In fact, I have to admit it is something I have most often not done. I am one of those ministers who tends to avoid talking about stewardship, especially the aspect of stewardship that has to do with money. Of course I do recognize that our relationship to money—the role it plays in our lives, how we feel about it and think about it, how we use it, and so forth—all of these things are very much spiritual issues and really shouldn’t be avoided. And I recognize that probably the single issue that Jesus talked most about was money, and so to ignore the subject is to ignore much of what Jesus had to say.
For these and other reasons, I have been able to overcome my reluctance and talk occasionally about money, and fairly often about stewardship in a larger philosophical sense, but usually not in November. Usually I specifically try to avoid November as a time to preach about stewardship so as not to get what I am saying confused in my own mind or in other people’s minds with the church’s efforts to raise money. I confess that I have been historically one of those ministers who pretends not to notice when it comes time for stewardship campaigns in the church.
I have been told I shouldn’t do this. I have heard all the reasons I shouldn’t do this. And although I can agree, at least theoretically, with at least some of those reasons, I also have some things to say in defense of myself and my sister and brother clergy who have an apparent aversion to stewardship sermons and such things.
Let me say this as plainly as I know how. We all probably ought to be uncomfortable and reluctant in asking for money for the church. And not just because most of us find it sort of an unpleasant task, not because it’s sensitive and personal and tricky, but because the church as such, the church as an organization, the church as an institution does not really have a legitimate claim on our money, or our time, or our allegiance.
That’s not what I’m supposed to be saying this morning, is it? At least not if you assume, as is often assumed in church circles, that stewardship is about making a pitch on behalf of the church: why you should feel good about giving money to this organization, the good things the church does, what the needs are, and why therefore we should be stretching ourselves to increase our giving to the church and give as much as we can possibly see our way clear to give. We value the church, we recognize its needs as an organization, and we decide accordingly how much we are going to give. That’s one way of looking at all this, and it’s not a wrong way. But there is another way.
It’s a little like the optical illusions where there is some kind of drawing and when you first look at it you see one thing but if you blink real hard or squint in a certain way you see something entirely different. So here is this picture of the church, Sojourners United Church of Christ, a fine, worthwhile religious organization that is still in the early stages of its life, and it has certain things it wants to do, has bills to pay, and it’s appealing for support. But what if we blink and see a whole different picture, still of Sojourners U.C.C. but an entirely different picture.
What if the church in this other picture has no legitimate claim to make on behalf of itself?
What if the purpose of the church is not to try to put itself in a good, solid financial position or make itself a healthy, thriving organization?
What if the church at every point tried to communicate the notion that we who are in and of the church are not called to make commitments to the church?
What if the heart of the church’s message were that the church is not very important, that what’s important are other things, like doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God?
The church as such does not really have a claim to make on us. None of us really is claimed by the church. We are, I hope, claimed by something, but it is not the church. It is something else: a still small voice, a certain kind of pull on our lives, a call, a calling. We might say, almost too casually, that we are not claimed by the church but by God. Or, we might not be able so easily to give a name either to our calling or the One who calls. Most likely we are all still seeking ways to understand our life project, but even to be engaged in that seeking means in some way already to have experienced a call.
We may be here to join hands with others and to encourage each other in our seeking.
We may be here hoping for some further revelations along the way.
We may be here to explore a deeper relationship with the One who claims us.
We may be here, as our last hymn suggests, to try to give life to words such as awe and care and grace and thanks and peace.
We may be here because we need to find others who are claimed by God in a way similar to the way we are.
We may be here…we all may have our own particular ways of giving words to why we are here. But at root it is not because we want to make a church.
None of this is new or radical stuff. Micah:
With what shall I come before the Lord? Shall I come with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord, be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? God has told you, O mortals, what is good. And what does the Lord require but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.
And Amos:
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them…Take away from me the noise of your songs: I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
I don’t know if there is anything too ambiguous about what Micah and Amos are saying, or what they hear God saying, but let me paraphrase. I don’t care, God says, about any of these offerings, don’t care what they are or how impressive they are if they are just going to strengthen some institution. I couldn’t care less about churches. And all the offerings people bring that are devoted to churches are worthless, or worse than worthless. What I care about is people. What I care about is justice, mercy. I’m looking for people who will take away whatever is in the way, so that justice can flow down like waters, and sometimes what is in the way is the church.
This is not a matter of great theological insight and it doesn’t require any original or very deep thinking from us. At their best churches are just vehicles, not ends in themselves. At their worst, they offer themselves as false gods, asking a kind of loyalty they do not deserve. And always, whether it is at its worst or at its best, the church, any church, all churches run the danger of domesticating the spirit of God, trying to put it into a creed, make it into a program, take up a collection, assign it to a committee.
It is no wonder that ministers are uncomfortable and reluctant about stewardship. Stewardship campaigns tend to be about church and church is not what Christians are supposed to be about, ministers or anyone else.
This is not so much an optical illusion as it is a paradox. Here is a church. Looked at in one way, it is extremely important. Squint, look at it another way, it is not important at all. How do you try to be an organization, which tries not to be an organization? Then again it’s not easy for us sometimes to try to be individuals who do not put our individual-ness, our selves, at the center of our consciousness. What Jesus said about our being as persons certainly applies to churches as well: that those who are willing to lose their lives will find them, and those who focus on gaining their lives will lose them, will eventually lose sight of what it is they are trying to gain.
Given all that, how do we think about stewardship?
For me, the financial part of stewardship, and I’ll have to save the non-financial part till next week, is a matter of trying to keep my giving in context and perspective. Yes, there is this institution that I do care about that needs my support and I try to respond. There is always that basic reality. But I’m not sure that reality is enough for any of us. My reality, in any case, is larger and fuzzier and more complicated.
My reality has to do with the nature of giving itself and the role that plays in my life. My stewardship reality brings me face to face with questions about who I am and who I want to be, and my motivation for giving comes, if it’s going to come at all only partly from the needs of the church but also from my need to give and to understand my giving as a spiritual practice that is rooted in my spiritual life. I may be convinced that I should respond to the needs of the church and if I do I will likely do so out of a sense of duty or responsibility. If I give proportionately as a spiritual practice, as an expression of my spiritual life, I am more likely to do so willingly, and even joyfully.
And as far as the needs of the church go, for me they are secondary to the hopes, the dreams I have for the church. I will be pledging myself, my money, not so much to meet the needs of the church—though I recognize that reality—but what will motivate me to give joyously is if I see myself as pledging not so much to meet the needs of the church but to a vision of the church. And I will pledge joyously to a church that has a vision of itself as trying not to be a church, if you understand what I mean by that, and why I say that.
None of this, you understand, I hope, is meant to be a way of trying to tell anyone what they should give, or even how they should decide. But what I have found as I have thought and talked about this is that among the things that are important to me about all this is the idea that this should be a joyful undertaking we are involved in here—this whole undertaking we call Sojourners, I am concerned that it be a joyful one. And specifically this undertaking of stewardship, I am concerned that it too be a joyful undertaking. And I will be bringing that prayer with me when I bring my pledge in a couple of weeks, a prayer that this may be a community that is filled with hope, and with joy. Amen.
Jim Bundy
November 5, 2000