Sermon: Sunday October 5, 2008 Proper 22 year A Matthew 21:33-46
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
I recently visited a website, www.pennyearned.com.” Perhaps this was a giving in to two days of stock market collapse and the media focus on such. I could not escape the reality of giving in to the temptation of focus on MONEY! “Money makes the world go ‘round” is one of the oldest of sayings, and right now there seems to be a whole lot of uncertainty about how well the world may be going ‘round, particularly if one approaches the world with such a view that money is the primary thing that makes the world go ‘round. So, I visited such websites and found there are 15 top songs of all time written on the subject of money. I share the top 5:
Take the Money and Run, Steve Miller Band
Why don’t you get a Job, Offspring
Can’t tell me nothing, Kanye West
Money for Nothing, Dire Straits
Money, Pink Floyd
In each of these “masterpieces” of music, various world views about money are shared! Everything from the reality that to make your way in the world with security you need money, to the abuse and ill effects of having too much money, to the sometimes seeming absurdity of who gets money for seemingly trivial acts, to the fantasy of landing more money than we ever dreamed or imagined as a goal in life, and finally one song even raises the possibility of the interplay between God, our money, and responsibility. (“Can’t tell me nothing” by Kanye West.) One thing can be said for sure, as a people we do actually need some money to make our way, and to another extreme we often are invited into a world view that money actually can bring us happiness, security, well-being and utopia.
We are entering the season of our annual stewardship program! This you will hear much about in the coming weeks! For some, this season invites us inevitably into a conversation about money, for after all, an unavoidable reality of such a program is asking us to look once more at money! For some, one approach to such a conversation can be “cut and dried.” Money makes the church’s mission go! It is true we need money to make the church’s life go! To some this is a seemingly easy conversation with some difficult money realities. Here at the Cathedral, for example, the treasurer reports to us that as per our last year’s budget, we allocated $954,000 to carry out our mission, pay our salaries, fund our programs, pay our utilities, maintain our buildings, and take our part in diocesan and national church life and missions. Where did this money come from? From the faithful and generous response of parishioners, $634,000 came through pledges, direct contributions and open offerings! This, by the way, is an amazing increase of 20% since 2005, when this same number was $532,000. Thank you and thanks be to God! Where else does this money come from? Because of generous and thoughtful stewards, $216,000 comes to us through estate and planned gifts that generate income from interest on reasonable endowment monies that can be used to help carry out our mission. Another $104,000 comes from principal of endowment monies, which of course is a mixed blessing. This figure does not account for other withdrawals to meet unplanned emergency maintenance items. The blessing of this $104,000 being many churches do not have such funds to draw from. The challenge is the more you take the quicker that money is exhausted, the lower the principal, and the less interest income generated that you are relying upon for other parts of the “pie” to make up the total budget.
Money! If the first part of that conversation is “cut and dried,” then in terms of the conversation for some rests reasonably in a world view that to rely on principal means that “we do not have enough” money long term to do things the way we are doing them, or “we do have enough” money to do what we are doing, but not without long term consequences. From a “money” standpoint then, as we take seriously the challenge of proclaiming God’s Kingdom, our challenge is to figure out how to fund our cause and/or cut our costs and do so in such a way that we do not find ourselves having “stopped being the Church” Jesus calls us to be! It is just that “clear cut.”
NOW, if Stewardship were just about money, this lengthy sermon would be over! If I believed for a second the “cut” really is that “clear,” I would move on, no literally move on. But lest I fail you as a priest and we fail one another as sojourners on a spiritual path, let us remind one another about what the scriptures reveal to us about money and the Stewardship of our resources! Stewardship is about spirituality! It is about our relationships, our relationships with an abundantly generous God, and our relationships with one another! The practice of our stewardship is our opportunity to walk a holy walk where our spirit is lifted because we are walking a path that draws us closer to God and to one another! If we do not hold out that spiritual truth, we are missing the point of God’s dream for his creation. If we do not lift this spiritual truth up for one another, we are missing an opportunity to lift one another up!
The parable of the landowner who carefully invests in establishing a superb vineyard with heavy investment in the finest of soil, most solid fence to protect it from corruption, a state of the art winepress to ensure fine quality, and a watchtower to secure it long term, reminds the listeners of the day of the great investment God has made to the keepers of his promises. The investment is sincere, of great quality, and is created in the hope of the finest of fruit being produced. The responsibility then becomes those who are entrusted to work with the promise, the struggle for the listeners of the day would be Jesus clear reading that those entrusted with the promise had lost sight of the gracious investment. So blinded had they become that they themselves could not even see clearly enough to recognize the owner’s son in their very midst! They had lost sight of the sound investment! Instead of responding to the investment with taking care and part in producing the finest of fruit, they instead produced violence and prejudiced. How then do we respond to the fine investment entrusted to us that is God’s graceful dream for us and for the world?
The Bible states a specific obligation to “tithe” — that is, to give back to God one-tenth of what we have received from God. One–tenth! Ten percent! The Bible sets the bar very high — maybe too high for most of us to think about at first. This is an Old Testament standard that reminded an agrarian people that the first fruits (that is the best of their harvest) were to be given in thanksgiving to God for, after all, that which they reaped were gifts from God, that which we reap are gifts from God. This spiritual practice is a life practice, and one that we can step toward and maybe even beyond.
Jesus’ engagement with the young rich man serves as an invitation to further examine our hearts. The rich man is smart enough to see in Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom a taste of wholeness for himself in heart, body, and soul. He wants to be, desires to be a follower who can give his heart to the cause of God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ challenge for him to divorce his heart from his possessions is too much for him, he at the last cannot let go, his things are HIS things. Jesus is empathetic, his heart literally breaks because he knows the young man seems to have a foretaste of the rewards of participating in God’s Kingdom of abundance, but cannot tear himself away from his possessions! Jesus, it seems, wants his followers to understand that all of it, every last thing we have, is gifted to us by God. Maybe the rich young man didn’t think Jesus’ promise of God’s abundance was enough for him to be able to let go of the security of what he thought was enough. When we believe it is ours alone, our hearts are torn! Perhaps you feel this way sometimes; I know I do.
When my son Dillon was a toddler and being introduced to the practice and experience of receiving communion, he once approached the altar area to receive. Peeking into the chalice as it was coming near he noticed the chalice was almost empty. I am certain his young mind jumped to an obvious and concerning conclusion as he expressed loudly, “There’s none left, it’s empty!” His fear, of course, was that there wouldn’t be enough for him! As the acolyte filled the chalice in front of us, I was so grateful to know in my heart and to be able to whisper to him, “See Dillon, there’s more, and there’s more where that came from!” God’s love is like that.
As you enter this time of stewardship for our annual giving program, may I suggest we cannot ignore the realities of money, but more importantly such times are ripe with opportunities to ponder God’s abundance of grace experienced in our personal lives! Time and time again, Jesus reminds his disciples of the magnanimity of God’s abundant grace! We are reminded time and time again that just when we think we’ve got God figured out, we quickly realize the box we’ve sought to put him in just may be a bit small! It’s never a worry in God’s Kingdom that there will never be enough, enough grace, enough forgiveness, enough love, enough! You see, there’s more where that came from! God is like that.
