October 19, 2003
Stewardship
Mark 10:17-27
Today is the beginning of this church’s
stewardship campaign and many of you may want to avoid the subject
altogether. Money, and the church have been throughout time, in a
delicate balance. The church is dependent of the generous giving of her
members and without the support of you through your gifts of time, of
talents, and money, this church would shut down. On the other hand, the
scripture teaches us that money can be a hazard to a healthy spiritual
life, as witnesses in the story of the young rich ruler and Jesus from
our scripture reading for today. Money can not buy us what we really
desire in life, our heart’s true desire, articulated by the young
man, “What must I do to inherit life?” That is, what must I
do to discover the meaning of my life not only in this life, but in the
life to come.
As children, we often wrestle with this question,
and we are encouraged to choose a profession, and then do what we need
to do to obtain that goal. Fortunately, we all do not settle on those
dreams of childhood, or else we might live in a world filled with
astronauts, fireman and policeman. But that desire , to make a
difference, to serve others, to find our hearts desire, is a burning
passion within us, because it has been put there by God. The young rich
ruler, may have all the success in the world he lives in. Power,
prestige, money, youth, but even then he seeks out Jesus because he
knows something is missing, something deeper, something that is burning
inside, a fire that has not been quenched by the riches of this world.
Just in case we think this is an ancient quest, if
we turn our attention to our college age citizens, we might find
statistics that reveal that the search is as vital today as it was
100’s of years ago. According to the American Medical Association
and the National Association of State Boards of Education, “Never
before has one generation of American teenagers been less healthy, less
cared for, or less prepared for life than their parents were at the
same age.” More than half of the students attending junior or
senior high schools drink alcoholic beverages, and almost half a
million go on a drinking spree every week. Many are already alcoholics.
The situation is even worse in Eastern Europe and in many former Soviet
Republics. The rate of violent crimes by youth in the U.S. rose by 25 %
in the 1980’s. The teenage suicide rate has tripled over the past
three decades. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among
fifteen to nineteen year olds. (The Search for Meaning, Thomas H.
Naylor, William H. Willimon, Magdalena R. Naylor, Abingdon Press,
Nashville, 1994, p. 9).
Amazing statistics, and all we have to do is watch
the evening news, or pick up a newspaper and we can see the startling
events that result when a person, or a country or a religion has lost
their way. Mother Teresa is being honored by our brothers and sisters
in the Roman Catholic Church said, “The biggest disease today is
not leprosy, or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted,
uncared for and deserted by everybody”( Alive Now, Nov-Dec. 1991,
Upper Room, p. 7).
When the young man comes to Jesus searching
for the meaning of his life, what does Jesus do? First Jesus reminds
the young man of the source of goodness. “No one is good but God
alone”. When we or others are lost, and searching it is important
to remind ourselves of the source of good, the source of blessings.
Otherwise, we might find ourselves thinking in the face of loneliness
that we are alone, we might think we have nothing to live for, we might
think that our lives do not matter, and that the universe would never
miss us. These thoughts are enough for our children, for our elderly,
for all in between to find themselves thinking about ending their life,
or to stop trying to make changes, they become the walking dead.
Stewardship means more than deciding how much you
will give to a church, this church. It means in the words of John
Wesley, “Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In
all the ways you can, in all places you can, at all the times you can,
to all the people you can, as long as ever you can”.
It means never, never, never give up on the source
of goodness, the source of blessing. God gives us steadfast love, and
you can take it to the bank! The key that unlocks the meaning of life
is ... trust. There is no other way, the is no other true happiness,
but to trust and obey. The young man has only to let go of trust of in
his own power, in his own status, in his money, to lose all that up to
this point in his life has given him happiness, however insufficient,
and start all over with nothing of this world, but with everything of
the eternal world.
Remember how I said the relationship between money
and the church has been a delicate balance? Now some have interpreted
Jesus’s answer to mean that the true way to have meaning and
purpose for your life is to give up all that you have, and live in
poverty. On the other end of the spectrum, other religions cater to the
rich and offer those with material wealth the promise that they will
inherit the eternal life. So who is right, where do we stand?
The key is what will bring us eternal goodness,
meaning, purpose in our lives. And Jesus reminds us that the source of
all these things is not our homes or our families, not our new cars, or
our vacation condos, rather the source of our Goodness is God our
creator. Our material goods, the power and prestige we have, the money
we have are all a means to an end, to bring the message of goodness to
the world, a world that is lonely, a world that has lost its way.
We give so others might discover what we have
already found, that trusting in God will bring us showers of blessings
for our lives.
Last weekend Linda and I stood on one of the stone
bridges at Yosemite National Park, about 10:00 pm. We were looking up
at the bright full moon, amazed at the beauty of its light, and as the
moonlight pierced the darkness, the marvelous rock formations, like El
Capiton, Half-dome, the Cathedral all lit up. It was for us a moment of
connection to the source of all life. It was what Howard Thurman, the
former dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University School of Theology,
refers to in his book, The Inner Journey, (Harper Brothers, 1961. P.19)
as “Radical Amazement”. Radical amazement is “the
experiencing of encountering that which is direct, overwhelming and
ineffable. It is what remains when all externals are stripped away and
the individual has a naked exposure at his deepest level to something
that envelops him and stands him at attention”.
Yosemite is a sacred place to Linda and I because
it is a place of radical amazement, but that is not the only place.
Radical Amazement is present each and every day, we only have to look
for it, trust in it, soak it in as the blessing it is meant to be.
If you were paying close attention to the reading
of the scripture, you heard the one thing that Jesus does, that is not
recorded anywhere else in the scripture this way. Jesus does first tell
the young man the source of goodness, and he eventually tells the man
what he must do to inherit eternal life, but in between Jesus does
something that is not as flashy as a miracle, not as challenging as
telling a story with a moral, not as public as preaching about the word
of God. No the scripture tells us that Jesus “looking at him,
loved him...” (vs. 21). If the sickness of loneliness, and
feeling uncared for, and feeling deserted is the plage that is
infecting our society, than the cure is love, the love that is showered
upon us by God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the love that makes
all things possible.
This stewardship campaign is all about celebrating
our blessings, and at the end of each service each person is invited to
take a blessing from the blessing bowl. These are designed to be
reminders of the blessing that are in our lives, that we may of forgot,
we may need to discover, or those blessings we can bring to others. The
finance and stewardship committee of our church has a job to do, it
needs to raise the funds necessary to carry out the ministry to this
community and support the work of God in the four corners of the world.
They need you to seriously consider all that you can do to make this
ministry possible. But, before you decide what to give, remember why
you are giving, because it is not just to pay bills although paying
bills is important, it is not just to make repairs, although repairs
are important, it is not just to pay the staff, although we do need an
income, it is not to support a pastor, or the treasure, or the finance
and stewardship chair, as important as all these positions are in the
life of the church. Rather consider giving out of the gratitude you
have for the blessings you have received, for the moments of radical
amazement, for the blessings of relationships, and freedoms you have,
for the trust you have in God to use your gifts for the good of all our
brothers and sisters around the world.
Do not be fooled that your giving does not make a
difference, do not be discouraged by how little your gift may seem in
light of the enormous need, because a mighty river is nothing without
all the drops of water coming together.
The young rich ruler walked away grieving, because
his trust was not in God, it was in his many possessions, possessions
he could not live without. However, it was his choice. Now is the time
to consider your choice, and what you decide to do with the blessings
you have received, may whatever choice you make be one of loving
gratitude to the source of all our goodness, of all our blessings.
Amen.
