This week's sermon was part of the fall series with the focus on stewardship, which also introduced or fall stewardship campaign. I am finding each week that the church plays an important role in challenging its members and modeling for its members some of what it means to be disciples of Christ. Each week, I have a growing awareness of the importance of the church's work.
“What I Need from My church: Stewardship” SAPC, Denton; October 17, 2021; Fall, 2021 series
matthew 25: “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents,[f] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Introduction: We continue in our preaching series on what we need from our church to grow in our discipleship.
I suspect if I ha given you a list of all the topics we would cover under the category thins we need from our church, you might answer, “Are you sure we need that stewardship stuff?”
Move 1: You already know the church teaches stewardship.
a. when you heard the Scripture readings this morning, you probably were going, “Oh yeah, here comes stewardship.”
1. If I asked you to pick a Bible text for a stewardship sermon, many of you would pick one of these.
2. No surprise to any of us who hang out around St. Andrew in the fall that the church teaches about stewardship.
b. Why does the church take on this role?
1. In part, because the church has found that giving needs to be taught.
1. In fact, Robert Bohl reminds us that “The New Testament church leaders discovered that stewardship did not come naturally; it was a learned discipline. “ (The ‘S’ Word Stewardship is a spiritual matter, not a code word for raising money, Robert Bohl, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/stewardship/)
2. The passage we read this morning from paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is part of Paul’s teaching to the early church about what it means to follow the risen Christ.
3. the early church had pushed away from the religious practices of the Temple and the Jewish authorities because the early church proclaimed Jesus was the Son of God and had been resurrected from the dead.
4. Paul is busy visiting and writing to early church communities about what it means to be a Christian.
5. Part of being a Christian meant giving back to God and giving to care for others.
6. So Paul had to teach the early church about giving.
c. Robert Wuthnow. A sociologist who taught at Princeton University has studied stewardship in churches for many years.
1. One of his insights has been about the impact of consumerism on Americans.
2. He suggests that as “Americans grow more and more wealthy, money becomes a kind of narcotic. The more we have, the more we need.
3. He argues that this narcotic of consumerism, “claims our focus to such a degree that we become immune to how much prosperity we really have and immune to the poverty in the world around us. (As quoted by - Walter Brueggemann, "The Liturgy of Abundance, The Myth of Scarcity," in the Christian Century, March 24-31, l999.)
4. this might not be much of a challenge if all that mattered was our own interests.
5. But as followers of Christ, we are called to look beyond ourselves, to care for others, to return back to God rom what God has given to us.
6. In order to do those things, we have to be taught about giving, which is why one of the things we need from our church is stewardship.
Move 2: Part of effective teaching is giving people concrete examples and opportunities to put what they are taught into action.
a. That is what Jesus does in the his story about the talents.
1. He describes three different ways of responding to being given money.
2. He invites those listening, he invites us who hear the story now to put ourselves in the place of each of those three and try on how we might respond.
3. We can imagine we are the one who takes the money and risks it.
What can ask ourselves would it be like to take the gifts we have from God and use them to take risks on behalf of the gospel.
4. Or, we can imagine what it might be like to take the middle road, not as risky, but still putting the gifts to use.
5. Or we can imagine what it might be like to take the safe route and just hold on to the gift from God and not risk it at all.
6. jesus takes teaching about giving and gives a concrete illustration that any of us can imagine — if we dare!
b. stewardship campaign gives us an opportunity to take an action.
1. Several years ago our fellow church in Grace Presbytery, FPC, Ft. Worth, initiated plan to help become tithers, that is people who give 10% of their income back to God.
2. As good Presbyterians, they created a task force to figure out the best way to implement the plan.
3. They discovered early on that they need to find concrete actions for the members to make as they moved toward increasing their financial giving.
4. One member of the task force said, “We have discovered it is far easier for Christians to act their way into a new way of thinking than it is to think their way into a new way of acting.” (“The ‘S’ Word
Stewardship is a spiritual matter, not a code word for raising money,” Robert Bohl, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/stewardship/)
5. The concrete action leads to new understanding.
6. When I read the article, I was reminded of when I first was out of college and working. I joined Westminster Presbyterian Church in Corsicana, TX.
7. I joined the church, and they gave me a box of offering envelopes (some of you still like to use envelopes!).
8. I would set the envelopes out on a table and each week would use one. If I did not make it to church, the envelope waited until I did go. If I missed several weeks, I had several envelopes to fill and take to church.
9 Of course, there was a huge temptation to just throw away the envelopes and start over if the pile of unused envelopes grew too high.
10. My wife and I now make our offering through our bank’s billpay, but the memory of those envelopes continues to inform my giving.
c. Discipleship and stewardship is not just about the giving of money.
1. Time and effort.
2. habitat for Humanity
3. A concrete expression of how to care for those who need shelter.
4. In fact, that task force at FPC, Ft. Worth learned that giving people opportunities to give of their time helped make the invitation to give of their financial resources easier to articulate.
5. Why? Because the learning to give by actually giving of our time, or money, or effort leads to increased understanding of the importance and value of giving in all ways.
d. One fo the challenges of the pandemic continue to be how to we engage people for whom gathering on the livestream is the primary way they connect to St. Andrew.
1. how do we teach giving to those who are not part of our local community?
2. We do not have the perfect answer, but part of the answer is we teach about giving, we give concrete examples of how to give, and we invite people in our area and outside our area to prayerfully consider how they can give fo their time with groups like habitat for humanity, or offer their financial giving to return back to God a portion of the resources God has given to them.
Conclusion: in other words, we continue the tradition of Paul and teach about the “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:
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