A Fourth Church Sermon by Dana Ferguson

October 8, 2006 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Making It Matter

Dana Ferguson
Executive Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 127
Mark 12:38–44

“For all of them have contributed out of their abundance;
but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had,
everything she had to live on.”

Mark 12:44 (NRSV)

You are asked in the time that you have to use wisely
what you have been given for the kingdom of God.
That means you must consider not only how you spend your time
but how you spend your money, and how you use your talent as well.
The gifts that you have do not belong to you;
they are not yours to possess but rather they are yours to improve. . . .
If you give serious consideration to this use of your talent,
your time, and your treasure, then neither your church
nor the whole church of Jesus Christ need ever fear,
and for that let the whole church say Amen.

Peter Gomes
Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living

As you may well know, normally we preach from the Revised Common Lectionary here at Fourth Church. The lectionary is a set of prescribed readings for each week based on the church year and covers a good portion of the Bible over the course of three years. According to the lectionary, I had a few prime choices of texts for the day. I could have gone with the story of Job, all of his trials and tribulations. Or I could have turned to the New Testament and struggled with a passage on divorce. Not the first choice for a preacher, particularly one who doesn’t get a chance to get it right next week. So I did the good and faithful thing. I punted. I punted those texts and went to the ones that our denomination assigns for Stewardship Sunday. It isn’t actually our big dedication Sunday. As you heard earlier, we’re at the beginning of the Stewardship season. But I got the first shot, so I took it. If John Buchanan turns up in a few weeks and preaches the same text, look alive. Look interested.

One of the first things that I do in preparing for a sermon is go to a book simply titled, Texts for Preaching. The three volumes were written by a handful of well-respected seminary professors, including Walter Brueggemann, who visited here with us last spring. It never fails that they set the arena for me in an accurate and inviting way that challenges the preacher to deal honestly with the text. They warn the preacher that because this text is used for stewardship purposes, “the sermon often tends to overlook the rich people mentioned in the text, since stewardship season is not a time to offend the wealthier members. A treatment of the story at a different time in the church’s life might yield a less sentimental and more prophetic reading” (Texts for Preaching, 1993).

Sentimentalizing the text or wrestling with a more prophetic reading? Both have their upsides and downsides. Risking offending wealthy members may not indeed be the best way to start the Stewardship season or for me to obtain job security. All the same, sentimentality can surely be an easier road than the challenge of prophecy. And yet, wrestling with scripture is certainly not about making ourselves more comfortable or less offended. So the journey begins, first with a warning about the scribes, followed by a story of givers—first the rich ones who put in large sums, then the poor widow who gave small coins, the widow’s mite as many of you will know it.

There are a number of ways to read this story. You could argue that it’s a story of false piety—that of the scribes verses real authenticity, that of the widow. The scribes are described as ones who travel around in long robes, signals of social standing in those days, who had the best seats in the synagogue and prayed long prayers—all, it is said, for pretense. It is a warning against touting a faithfulness to achieve status.

Some say it’s a story about exposing greed and lifting up giving without reservation. The greed is that of the rich who give a portion of their wealth that they wouldn’t even notice was gone in order to be recognized by onlookers. The giving that is lifted up is that of the widow who gives wholeheartedly of what she has.

Some argue that this is an attack on a religious system that takes advantage of widows and the destitute in the community. You see, the widow doesn’t just give two small coins, coins insignificant to the wealthy who devise the system. These aren’t just two coins. These are the widow’s last two coins. Some would say giving that was demanded and argue that the real lesson is about making demands of the poor in our midst.

Whatever you choose, none of it seems to be a bad lesson at all. Not only does it not seem to be a bad lesson, it seems not to really be too offensive to any of us. We don’t believe in a God that demands the last of what anyone has. Therefore, our church or no other church should. We do worship a God that is faithful to us all our life long and therefore to whom we are called to be responsive without reservation with joy and thanksgiving and hope. Our giving isn’t expected to leave us destitute, but it is to reflect a real portion of who we are, claiming the reality that all we are is God’s. And our giving is indeed meant to support and uplift, particularly and certainly never to take advantage of our members or community.

All sounds well and good from afar—from the vantage point that the scribes and the rich are “the other,” folks other than ourselves. Well, when you look a little closer, I don’t know about you, but I’m a little offended. As a matter of fact, I do often prance around in long robes, have great seats in worship, and even sometimes pray a little too long. And more importantly and where the rubber hits the road, where most any of us can have our toes stepped on, is when we consider if we have really given wholeheartedly to God. We can’t read this scripture honestly and not ask, “Does our giving affect our lives even a portion of the way that God’s giving to us has affected our lives?” Is our giving really selfless and responsive to the overflowing of God’s mercy and grace and love? In our less honest moments, it’s easy to point fingers at the rich who give from their abundance. In our more honest moments, it’s not always easy to sit between the rich leaders and the poor widow and decide we measure up just right, that what we have given is an adequate reflection of our thankfulness.

So where exactly is that sweet spot, that spot between doing what this passage appears to frown upon—giving from our riches in a way that we are left unaffected—and giving our very last dollar. That, my friends, is up to you. It’s why stewardship is personal. It’s not financial. It isn’t about what the church needs or how much you should give to get the right tax break or achieve a certain status. It’s about your relationship with God. It’s about God’s faithfulness and your trust in God to care for your life. And then it’s about your response to that love. It’s about responding to a love in your life that matters, that matters more than any other love in the world, and it’s about responding in a way that matters.

There are many moments, day in and day out, of faithfulness that happen in this church and this community. One of my favorite annual ones is the day that we commission new Sunday School teachers. The teachers, along with their students, process down the center aisle and fill the chancel. What amazing gifts they bring—the gift of their precious time, the gift of their love for children, and, most of all, their gift to the commitment of God’s love and sharing it. Is there anything more important that a child can hear and learn than the fact that God loves them? As those teachers processed down the aisle just a few weeks ago, I found myself thinking of the many in my life who had taught me that I was precious in God’s sight and loved as God’s very own. What a gift. What a gift that these men and women in our midst bring to these little ones, to this community, to the body of Christ at work in the world and to the future of Christianity.

It is a unique gift, the ability to teach, and especially to teach little ones. Not all of us have it. Thank God some of us have it and not only have it, but share it week in and week out. That is a faithful response to God, and that is some of the best stewardship I know. But it’s not the only stewardship I know. Many are the ways that we respond to the love of God at work in our lives and in this world.

In a church I previously served, the senior pastor approached me after church one morning and sent me to open his top desk drawer. What I found there was a gift from a church member in the amount of his yearly bonus. It was over and above the pledge that member and his wife had made and was given to support the outreach programs we were at the time working to establish. The donor said this, “We believe the gifts that we have aren’t just for our family but also for this church and world.” He and his wife were thrilled to be a part of launching new ministries to serve critical needs of that city. Instead of being excited about a luxurious vacation or new pool or fancy sports car, they were excited about who God was in their lives and about rejoicing in it and making it matter in the lives of others.

Now having said all I’ve said about stewardship being primarily about our relationship with God, I’m still aware that few of us are immune to wanting to know that our money is being used wisely and for good causes. There’s joy in knowing that our dollars are doing God’s work. So let’s talk practicalities of what exactly your dollars.

First, there’s a notion out there that is totally erroneous but that we seem to not be able to shake. It’s this—that Fourth Church doesn’t need your dollars or anyone else’s, that we have plenty. First, in response: This is a place of abundance. We have an abundance of passion and commitment to serving God and God’s kingdom. We have an abundance of talent in those of you who sit in the pews and those of us who sit in offices. And we do have monetary resources. None of that means that we don’t need your dollars and furthermore that you don’t need to give.

A portion of our budget is funded from invested funds. But only a portion. To be more precise, about 28 percent of the annual operating budget comes from the interest on invested funds. You want to know what do those dollars do? Well, we don’t exactly build the budget that way, but if you want to think in those terms, the amount we utilize from invested funds currently is in the ballpark of what we spend to keep the doors open day in and day out. Twenty-five percent of the budget is spent heating and cooling the place, supplying staff with computers and copiers and supplies, cleaning and securing and insuring the building and generally keeping the place running. Those expenses are close to the same percentage of the income that comes from investments.

So what do your pledge dollars do? Of our expenses, the total of what we spend for programs and the staff that run them—this is a long list and includes things like children and youth programs, pastoral care, mission outreach, evangelism, and on and on, but you get the picture—the total of all of these is 75 percent of the budget. Currently, with projected pledge income based on a goal of $3 million for 2007, the percentage of the budget that is funded from pledges exceeds 40 percent. If you’re doing the math, you’ve realized that our program expenses exceed the amount we receive in pledges. We also fund the budget from dollars dropped in the offering plate each week and program fees and other various sources as well work to raise additional dollars for programs of Chicago Lights, the Counseling Center, and the Day School.

Despite all of that, there is a gap in the expense and the income. As you well know from running your own household, costs are increasing. Leadership of this church has made a decision that to be responsible and trustworthy stewards of the church’s resources, cuts must be made in the budget this year. To avoid making cuts, here’s what would need to happen: We receive 50 new pledges in the amount of $5,000 or 125 new pledges in the amount of $2,000 or a 10 percent increase in all 2006 pledges or some combination thereof.

That’s a lot of financial data for a sermon. Maybe more than you wanted. So if you’re looking for the bottom line here it is: Your giving matters. It matters to this church and to the many that we and you are able to serve because of it. And most importantly, it matters to you. It matters to you and your relationship to God that you make a commitment, that you commit to responding to God’s faithfulness in your life with joy and generosity and thankfulness.

I called a pastor friend of mine this week. I explained to him that I was preaching stewardship this week and there was a story he had once told I was hoping he’d give me permission to use and then actually tell me the story again. Before I could go any further and even describe a little of what I remembered, he said, “Oh, you mean, Ms. Penny.” Here’s his story as I remember.

He was serving a church early on in his career, some decades ago. It was a small church in the deep South farming community. A central part of their ministry to the young people, as it is in many places, was Vacation Bible School. The women of the church, mostly moms, were the ones who came together months ahead to plan. An essential tradition of VBS was the daily snacks provided by Ms. Penny. She had for years baked dozens and dozens of cookies that each day participants devoured. Ms. Penny and her husband had always been on a fixed income, but this year had brought more challenges.

The VBS organizers thought long and hard about Ms. Penny’s role. They didn’t want to overburden her, but they also didn’t want to send the message that what she gave wasn’t important. It was. But they were worried about the expense. They all agreed to contribute from what was for them, too, strained household budgets, so that Ms. Penny could be given funds to offset her baking expenses. The preacher was dispatched to ask Ms. Penny again to bake her wonderful cookies and to deliver the anonymous gift to help in doing so.

Jim called and set a time to visit Ms. Penny, which wasn’t unusual. They had a pleasant visit, and as their time was coming to an end, he said, “You know, the women are busy planning Vacation Bible School.” Before he could even launch into his request, she said, “Oh yes. I’ve been planning for months, too. Each time I go to the store, I pick up a little extra flour or sugar, sometimes leaving a couple of items off that were on my weekly meal list so I’ll be sure to have enough supplies when the time comes round.” Jim took his hand off the envelope he had in his pocket waiting to give to Ms. Penny, knowing it was no time for giving, only receiving with great respect. “Well, you know, Ms. Penny, Vacation Bible School wouldn’t be complete without those cookies and all the smiles they produce. The women will be thrilled to hear that you’re ready to bake.” Jim headed back to the church to return that offering envelope to be used for other work in the kingdom of God.

Giving that goes beyond just taking it off the top. Giving that makes the most of the best we’ve been given. Giving that speaks wholeheartedly of a loving and faithful God. Such is God’s invitation to us. Such is faithful and joyful stewardship.

All to God’s glory and honor.