Stewardship

I've been thinking lately about the reasons why we do stewardship. King of Kings, where I'm serving on internship, is (like many churches) gearing up for a fall stewardship campaign. They are excited and energized about bringing in new and creative approaches to stewardship. Watching and listening to the dialogue here has gotten me thinking more about stewardship in general.

First, a word about the word itself: stewardship. It seems to have two basic meanings, at least in church conversations. On the one hand, "stewardship" is the process of being a steward, of caring for something that belongs to another. In a theological context, the "owner" is usually God; we are stewards of God's creation, God's resources, God's gifts of life and abilities. On the other hand, "stewardship" means the fundraising of the church. Hence there are stewardship committees and stewardship drives, aimed at getting members to pledge (and then, hopefully, give) money.

So I've been thinking about why we do stewardship, mostly in the latter sense of the term. Why do we ask people to pledge money to the church? The question seems pertinent. If we cannot articulate a reason for giving, then how can we expect anyone to give? For those suffering economically, giving to a church may be too great a burden. For those who have money to give, why would they give to a church instead of a charity? I think charities do a much better job than most churches at answering the why question. I'll give an example: I frequently give money to Heifer International. In response, Heifer sends me mailings that describe specific projects they are doing around the world, even naming specific families that have been helped. That makes me feel like my money is doing something worthwhile, and I'll go back to Heifer next time I have money to give.

What about churches? Why do churches do stewardship? I've thought of four reasons; perhaps you can think of others. First, a church does stewardship to fund its budget. That seems to be the most frequently cited reason for stewardship. Here at King of Kings, as I experienced at my home congregation, a member of the stewardship team has stood up and said, "Here's our budget, and here is the shortfall we're experiencing, so please give what you pledged so we can keep paying the bills." I want to be clear: there is nothing wrong with this reason in and of itself. Churches need to pay the bills. My mother served as the church treasurer at my home congregation for many years, and faced the unenviable and unpopular task of telling the council when the bills were in danger of not being payed. If the church doesn't have a budget, the church building is not going to be lit or heated or cooled, the staff is not going to be paid, and the church as an institution will not be able to function. All of that being said, I think it is quite valid to be concerned if this reason is the only reason for doing stewardship, or the primary reason for doing stewardship. It's certainly not going to inspire or motivate people to be involved. They have their own bills to pay; paying the church's bills is not a very meaningful goal.

Second, a church does stewardship to support its ministries. Now the focus is not on the church building or the church institution, but on the meaningful work the church is doing. Perhaps the church has a food pantry, or supports one in the community. Perhaps the church has a ministry to the homeless. Perhaps the church has a preschool. This reason focuses on the ministry of the church, the church as the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.

The third reason is similar to the second: a church does stewardship to support the ministries of the wider church. In the ELCA, a portion of the money each congregation receives goes to the synod. A portion of the synod's money, in turn, goes to the churchwide organization. The money coming from congregations helps to support organizations like Lutheran World Relief, or the ELCA World Hunger Appeal. These ministries have a far wider reach than that of an individual congregation. After the earthquake in Haiti, I read about how Lutheran World Relief was able to be on the ground providing aid very quickly - because they already had the organization and resources in place before the disaster happened. They didn't have to start from scratch in order to help the people affected by the disaster.

The fourth reason is one that I have been considering in the context of the Luke 14 text I'm studying for my next sermon (see my other posts for more on that). I think we do stewardship also for a personal reason. Stewardship in this sense is a spiritual practice, a way of deepening faith and becoming better disciples of Christ. It's not something we do to earn God's love or acceptance. But it is a way of reflecting on the blessings we have received from God, some of them concrete and economic. It is a way of considering the needs of others in relation to ourselves. It is a way of placing trust in God - as my stewardship professor pointed out, the whole point of giving "first fruits" is that you have no guarantee you will get "second fruits." It forces us to step beyond the instinctive drive for self-preservation, of holding on to what we can get because the future is uncertain.

So far at King of Kings, I have heard a lot of the first three reasons, but not very much of the fourth. As I mentioned, they are concerned (like most churches) with the budget; at the same time, they have a strong mission focus and understand their relationship to the ministry of the wider church. However, that personal component of stewardship, what I'm viewing as a spiritual practice, does not seem to be part of the dialogue (judging only from what I've heard and seen so far). I hope to lift it up in this sermon I'm preaching on September 5. Perhaps it will help to deepen the understanding of what "stewardship" means.

September 5 Sermon - Part Three

In this post, I'll be checking out the commentaries on my text, Luke 14:25-33.

I'll start with the post over on Working Preacher. I really appreciated Dr. Brown's approach to the text. She begins, "We live in a market driven society, so it is not surprising that we feel the urge to 'sell' Christianity in the marketplace of competing ideas and ways of life. Yet, when Christian mission is shaped toward the 'sell' mentality, it more often than not becomes a 'low-cost' and 'low-risk' commodity. How else will we persuade others to receive the faith, if not by coming in with a lower or better offer? But is the Christian faith really a low-cost, low-risk endeavor? The lectionary text for this week, Luke 14:25-33, offers a challenge to a market driven approach to Christian mission." Wow - talk about economic and spiritual implications!

She goes on to address the troubling demand of "hating" one's family and one's own life, lifting up the hyperbolic and perhaps idiomatic language. Then she analyzes the parables of the tower and the king, concluding that "Jesus extols a commitment to finishing the discipleship journey once begun or not beginning it at all. Following Jesus is an all or nothing proposition." Rather than quote the entire commentary to you, I'll let you check it out yourself (click on the link above, then click the tab labeled "Gospel").

I also read Joseph Fitzmyer's Anchor Bible commentary. Fitzmyer compares Luke's version to Matthew's, as well as to similar sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. He makes an analysis of sources and form. He notes that "Verse 33 . . . is a conclusion to this passage, which has been composed by Luke, in order to add a further condition of discipleship, his favorite idea of disposing of material possessions." He also identifies two other specific conditions of discipleship: the willingness to leave family ties and the willingness to face radical self-denial. "In addition, [Luke] casts these conditions of discipleship in a demand for serious consideration . . . The engagement is not to be undertaken lightly." With regard to the giving up of possessions, Fitzmyer writes, "In these parables Jesus counsels the disciple to consider seriously what forces and resources the would-be disciple has. But the added condition in v. 33 counsels renunciation of all the material possessions that one has. Note the contrast: what one has in the former sense is infinitely more important than what one has in the latter."

Meanwhile, over in Joel Green's commentary (part of the New International Commentary on the New Testament), Green links this pericope to what has come before. He writes, "Particularly in Jesus' story of the great banquet (vv 15-24), he had introduced the possibility that one's ties to possessions and family might disqualify one from enjoying the feast. As Jesus turns to address the crowds traveling with him, he lists allegiance to one's family network and the shackles that constitute one's possessions as impediments to authentic discipleship." I appreciate his emphasis on transformation: "The conversion that characterizes genuine discipleship is itself generative, giving rise to new forms of behavior."

On the subject of "hating" one's family and one's life/soul, Green has this to say: "[Followers of Jesus] are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves from the high cultural value placed on their family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke. That is, in this context, 'hate' is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one's kin. . . Again, 'hating' one's self should not be taken as a reference to affective self-abhorrence, but as a call to set aside the relationships, the extended family of origin and inner circle of friends, by which one has previously made up one's identity."

Green also has a slightly different take on the second part of the pericope, the parables. He sees the point of the parables not to be the need for preparation but the unavoidable inadequacy of resources: "The interpretive crux does not lie in 'counting the cost.' The point is that, no matter what calculus one uses, no matter what resources one believes one can bring to bear, those assets will be insufficient to secure one's status before God." The landowner does not have the resources to build a tower, and so is mocked; the king does not have the resources to win the war, and so is forced to surrender. "By extrapolation, then, Jesus insists that such assets as one's network of kin, so important in Greco-Roman antiquity, are an insufficient foundation for assuring one's status before God." Green sees verse 33 not as a third condition added to the conditions in vv 25-27 (as per Fitzmyer), but as the summary of all the conditions.

Labels!

Hey, I decided to start adding labels to my posts. I'll go back a tag a few of my old posts, and try to add labels for new posts from here on out. That way, there will be at least a bit of order to the chaos around here.

September 5 Sermon - Part Two

Here's my translation of the gospel text, Luke 14:25-33:

25 But many crowds were going with him, and he, turning, said to them, 26 "If someone comes to me and he does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own soul, he is not able to be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me is not able to be my disciple. 28 Indeed, who of you all, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit to count the cost, [to see] if he has [enough] to finish? 29 So that, lest he puts down a foundation and is not able to finish, all those seeing [it] might begin to mock him, 30 saying that this is the person who began to build and was not able to finish. 31 Or what king, going to another king to meet for war, does not first sit to take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one coming to him with twenty thousand. 32 But if not, surely [when] he is still far away, he will send an ambassador to ask him for peace. 33 So therefore, all of you who do not say goodbye to all his own possessions is not able to be my disciple.

When I was translating, I wondered what connection there might be between verse 26 and verse 33. Are we to understand "possessions" as being the same as the family relationships of verse 26? On the other hand, these might be separate sayings of Jesus that Luke has strung together on the general theme of loyalty to Jesus.

My plan is to take a stewardship focus for this sermon. I've been thinking lately about the reasons we might do stewardship - to balance the church budget, to support the ministry of the congregation, or to support the ministry of the wider church. Those are the reasons I've been hearing at my internship site, and there's nothing wrong with any of them. However, I haven't heard any talk about the personal reasons for stewardship. To put it another way, stewardship might be a spiritual discipline, a way of practicing and developing one's own faith. It's not something we have to do to earn God's favor - but it's something we can and should do, in the same way that we can and should pray, or read the Bible. That's the message I want to communicate in my sermon. Giving up prepares us to be disciples, or to be better disciples.

A Word to Parents

The religious landscape in this country is changing. It's been changing for decades (and probably before that, too). The so- called "golden age" of American protestantism, when "everybody" went to church, is clearly dead and gone. It is worthwhile to doubt whether it ever truly existed, or if it is just a figment of wishful hindsight. Still, it's true that organized religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is losing its cultural force. More and more people are not participating in a worship community, nor identifying with a religious group.

To be honest, I am not upset about this trend. Although my faith, and my participation in Christian community, has been a powerful and positive experience in my life, it's no offense to me if others feel differently. I certainly recognize and empathize with the disillusion many people feel towards Christianity. As an organization, the Christian church has done some atrocious things (and some merely stupid things). Although I find community with others to be important to my spirituality, I understand that others prefer to practice their spirituality in private.

However, there is one aspect of this trend that does trouble me, and which I feel moved to address. My comments are directed towards parents. What I often hear from parents is this statement, or one like it: "I don't take my kids to church because I want them to make their own decisions." Many of my friends have told me that their parents did not raise them in any kind of religious community; as a result, these friends find the very concept of faith to be a foreign and confusing (even upsetting) subject.

I'm not a parent, but I think I understand whence this attitude comes. Especially for those who grew up with a negative experience of religion, church can seem like the last place to take a growing child. If you had to memorize the catechism and recite it in front of the congregation, if you were indoctrinated, if your questions and exploration were squashed, if your voice was silenced - certainly, you wouldn't want to put your kids through that.

However, when I hear from a twenty-something that he or she really wants to believe in something, anything, but just can't seem to do it, it tugs at my heart. Faith is something I grew up with. That's not to suggest that my faith journey has always been easy or straightforward (it certainly hasn't), but I am convinced that I was greatly aided and equipped by growing up in a religious community.

Parents, you want your kids to be able to make their own decisions. You don't want to force a belief system on them. That is great. More power to you. But let me make an analogy. I assume that most parents also want their kids to decide on a career or profession. You wouldn't force your child to be a doctor or a teacher. But you still make your kids get up in the morning and go to school. Even if they don't want to. You know that, before your children can decide to be doctors or teachers or lawyers or the president of the United States, they have to get an education. They have to learn to read and write, add and subtract, engage in conversation and think critically. As their parents, you require your children to go to school; you give them, whether they want it or not, a groundwork that they will need to be able to make decisions later in life. You wouldn't let your kid sit at home for 18 years and then suddenly expect that they can get into a premed program.

I really believe that the same principles should operate in the area of faith. Your kids should be able to decide what they believe and how they practice that faith. But they won't be equipped to make those decisions unless you, as parents, provide them with a groundwork. That groundwork doesn't even necessarily have to come from a church - maybe you can read to your kids from the Bible, the Quran, and the Tripitaka. But give them something, some resource that they can draw on - or reject - in adulthood. Give them a groundwork on which they can build.

(A note here: I don't want to suggest that people who were not raised in a religious community are incapable of having faith. I don't believe that to be true. However, my conversations with friends have suggested to me that the faith journey may be much harder if you are trying to start from scratch in your twenties. That being said, there are resources out there for spiritual seekers, and I expect those could be very helpful.)

There is a lesson here for churches, too, lest we think that the problem lies outside of ourselves. Churches must be places where parents would want to take their children. That means very practical and important concerns with regard to safety (as the cases of clergy abuse have made all too clear). It also means that churches shouldn't be concerned with indoctrinating children. We should be open to questioning, to doubting, and to disagreement. We should allow children and especially youth to "tinker" with their faith, drawing in resources not only from our own religious tradition, but from other traditions as well. We should embrace and encourage spiritual creativity. We should break down the hierarchies that serve to silence some voices, particularly the voices of question and critique.

In short, my word to parents is this: give your children the education they need to be able to grow into their own, unique faith. And to churches: provide to both parents and children (and all spiritual seekers) resources for exploration and growth. May we all walk together on journeys of faith, wherever they lead.

Adult Christian Ed

King of Kings (where I'm serving my internship) is trying to develop a stronger program for adult Christian education. There is a lot of interest in the congregation, but not a lot has been offered. So when I sat down with the pastor and the Christian ed (slash family ministry slash youth) director to plan the fall schedule, I offered to teach a class.

My class won't be until December, but the Christian ed director, Judi, is putting together a brochure about adult education. The brochure will be handed out at Rally Day (September 12) so people know what opportunities will be available throughout the fall. Here's my blurb, tentatively, for the brochure.

A Brief History of the Bible
Have you ever wondered where the Bible came from? Do you want to know who wrote it and when? Have you ever wished you knew what "apocrypha" meant, or wanted to learn more about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Join Vicar Jennie for a three week introduction to the Bible, its history, and the books that weren't included.
Week One: What's in the Bible?
Week Two: Bible History
Week Three: Building the Bible: The Formation of the Canon

Now, doesn't that sound like a class you'd want to take?

September 5 Sermon - Part One

I preached my sermon on Sunday (slightly modified from the draft I posted here), and it went well. It's always a little hard to gauge how a sermon affects the congregation, but I received positive comments, and no one stormed out in the middle, so I'll count it as a success.

Now I'm looking ahead to the next time I'll be preaching: September 5. The readings for that day are Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 1, Philemon 1-21, and Luke 14:25-33. You can check out the readings here.

The Gospel text is about giving up possessions in order to follow Jesus. Jesus makes analogies to preparing for a building project or a battle, concluding, "So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

I am pulled a bit towards Philemon, because I think that would be a fun text on which to preach. The message there is about Christian community and the radical re-ordering of hierarchy (honor/shame) in Christ.

On the other hand, the congregation is thinking about stewardship right now, and the Luke text could preach to that subject very well.

So I'll have to make up my mind about which text I want to use. Any suggestions?

August 15 Sermon Draft

My sermon is pretty much finished. I think I'd still like to add a closing image at the very end, but on the whole I'm happy with it. Comments are welcome (as always).

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm a big fan of disaster movies. They're always terrible, but they're too much fun not to watch. The cheesy dialogue, the over-the-top special effects, the hilarious pseudo-science, the heroic character who recognizes the signs just in time to save the human race – yes, whether there's a volcano under Los Angeles or an ice age bearing down on New York, you can count me in.

But I haven't had a chance to see the most recent big-budget disaster movie, 2012. Maybe some of you saw it when it came out in the theaters (because, you know, the special effects always look best on the big screen). Even though I haven't seen 2012, I've heard plenty about it. It's hard to avoid – there seems to be a lot of talk these days about the Mayan calendar ending. And, so the argument goes, when the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, so ends the world.

The end of the world. There's something fascinating to us about the idea of the end of the world. That's why disaster movies make so much money, after all. There's something in us that loves to hear about the world coming to an end. We listen with a sort of horrified fascination to these stories.

Of course, for many people, they're not just stories. I recently stumbled across a website that eagerly proclaimed to me that the world is really and truly going to end – but not December 21, 2012. The real end of the world, according to this website, will be May 21, 2011. That gives us about 9 months to set our affairs in order. Now, they claim that they have Biblical evidence for this date, but they seemed to be a little fuzzy on the details, and I couldn't figure out how they had decided on May 21, 2011 for the end of the world.

Certainly May 21, 2011 isn't the first time the end of the world has been predicted. Back in the early 20th century, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (forerunners to the Jehovah's Witnesses) predicted the end of the world for 1914; when 1914 came and went, they revised their prediction several times. Charles Wesley, the Methodist, believed the world would end in 1794. Martin Luther, back in the 16th century, was convinced that the world would end before his death. And so on. It seems that in every generation, there are those who believe that the world is coming to an end.

So what do disaster movies and end-of-the-world predictions have to do with our readings this morning? It's right there in the gospel reading from Luke. “I came to bring fire to the earth,” cries Jesus through the writer of the gospel, “and how I wish it were already kindled!” He predicts division and conflict. He refers to the sign of the times: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

This kind of language is referred to as “apocalyptic.” Now you all will have to bear with me for a little teaching moment. “Apocalyptic” comes from “apocalypse,” the Greek word that means “revelation.” So the book of Revelation in the Bible is called “Apocalupsis” in Greek. So remember: “apocalypse” equals “revelation”. We usually think of “apocalypse” as the end of the world, but its basic meaning is revelation – specifically, God's revelation. In the centuries before Jesus, some Jews came to understand God's revelation – the apocalypse – as the catastrophic end of the world. God would appear to bring judgment, punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous. A new age would be inaugurated in which all hopes of the righteous would be fulfilled. A new world would replace this broken, irredeemable world. And all this would happen very, very soon. Apocalyptic thinking and writing is always filled with a terrible urgency, with the conviction that there is no time left.

These ideas of the apocalypse certainly persisted in Jesus' time, as well as the time of the writing of the New Testament. There are strains of apocalyptic thinking in the gospels. We find the most obvious example in the book of Revelation, whose very title is “Apocalypse” in Greek. And apocalyptic ideas have lasted beyond the Biblical period. In fact, the ongoing predictions of the end of the world show us that apocalyptic thinking has its adherents in every generation.

What are we to make of such thinking? When we look at the predictions that the world would end in 1914, they may seem comical. When we hear predictions of the end in our own time, we may dismiss them as nonsense – or we may feel a shiver of fear.

And what about the predictions of the end of the world in the gospel of Luke, in our very reading today? In our reading, Jesus says he has come to bring fire to the earth – but there's no historical record of such fire. Jesus says he brings division within households – but what generation doesn't see division in households? The text is full of the urgent sense that the end is near. So what are we to make of this text? I have to be honest with you. When I read Luke's apocalyptic language, I wonder to myself, “Was Luke wrong? Was this just another crackpot end-of-the-world prediction?”

We believe that Scripture is inspired by God, that God speaks to us – here and now – through these ancient writings. Yet reading Scripture can be a difficult task, at times frustrating and disheartening. When I read predictions of the end of the world in the Bible, I can't help but wonder if they're just plain wrong. How can God speak to us through these apocalyptic texts? What is the Holy Spirit trying to do here?

But I do believe that God has something to say in this text. I do believe that God can speak to us, even if Luke felt an impending sense of doom that didn't come to pass. The apocalypse is the revelation of God. The revelation of God. God revealed. Perhaps that revelation doesn't come to us with end-of-the-world special effects. Perhaps God chooses to reveal God's self in other ways.

Indeed, God does reveal God's self. Though it does not come with the special effects of the blockbuster disaster movies, God's revelation is both surprising and dramatic. The revelation of God is Jesus Christ. God is revealed to us, to all of humanity, through Jesus Christ. That's why we call Jesus Emmanuel – God With Us. We proclaim this revelation, this apocalypse, every time we recite the Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” We believe that we encounter Jesus here at the table, at communion. Jesus is the apocalypse, the revelation, of God. In Jesus, we find God; in Jesus, God is revealed.

The writer of our gospel text today expected the apocalypse, the dramatic end of the world and the coming of God's judgment. What actually happened was a different kind of apocalypse, the revelation of God through Jesus Christ. God has a way of surprising us, of turning our expectations upside-down. We find story after story in the Bible of God's unexpected, surprising revelation – whether at the burning bush, in the manger in Bethlehem, or in the tongues of fire that descended at Pentecost. God, it seems, loves to surprise us. God reveals God's self in the ways we least expect.

And what about you? I will venture to guess that most of you have not seen a burning bush. But I would be willing to bet that God has surprised you. Maybe God has appeared to you when you were hurting, in the face of a caring friend. Maybe God has appeared to you in the guise of a homeless person asking for help. Maybe God has appeared to you in your own heart, in a powerful emotion or sudden idea.

God does not always come to us in thunder and lightning and fire. God does not always appear in some kind of end-of-the-world disaster. On the other hand, God does not always come to us with a gentle word of comfort. Sometimes, God has a message of division, not peace. Above all, what we discover as we try to follow the living God, is the wonderful unpredictability with which God meets us.