The sermon went much like I hoped it would. It got off to a rough start when no one laughed at my opening joke at the end of the introduction. Maybe people were not ready to laugh as they were contemplating stewardship. It was quite a shift from the energy and excitement of the special Fall Festival of Faith worship service we had the previous Sunday. I tried to address that in the beginning of the sermon.
I thought the story about the doctor from my internship year and the couple with the mistake on their pledge were particularly effective stories.
“Stewardship Questions: How Much Should I Give?; Mark 12: 41-44 October 29, 2023; SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp
Mark 12: 41-44: 41He [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Introduction: quite a shift from last week’s glorious, music-driven worship service to a sermon on stewardship.
although last week’s worship emphasized baptism and today we gather around the waters of baptism and each as Isabel enters the waters of baptism.
also, last week’s concert and worship service were part of the annual Fall Festival of Faith, which continues to be funded by the Ruth I Anderson fund - a wonderful stewardship illustration of how our giving can impact the generations to come.
This morning, our final stewardship sermon before bringing out pledge cards back next week (you’ll get them in the mail this week), or making our pledge online, or however you do it.
Our final stewardship question: “How much should i give?”
You perhaps remember the story of the man who answered that question by taking his money and throwing it into the air and yelling,” Keep what you want God, and send me back the the rest.” Then, he quickly gathered up all the money God apparently had returned to him!
A few thoughts on determining “how much should I give?”
Move 1: One approach we might call the mathematical approach.
a. Math seems easy enough.
1. biblical model of tithe (10%).
2. Multiply that 10% by the how much money we make
or how much allowance we are given
or how much our investments grow each year.
3. This approach also allows us to analyze how we are doing and what goals we might have.
this year, I’m only doing 5%, but I will increase it by 1% each year until I get to 10%.
or, I am in a position to give more than a tithe, so I am going to do 12% this year.
makes it easy to determine the amount, adjust the amount to reflect changing circumstances, and makes it easy to tell if we met our goal.
b. When I was on internship my first year and the Christmas holidays rolled around, I knew I had to work Christmas Eve, but I wondered about New Year’s Eve.
So I asked if we took New Year’s Eve off.
“no.” my supervisor told me.
“How late do we work on New Year" Eve?”
“Until Dr. Harrison [not his real name} comes in.
Apparently, the doctor would have his accountant figure out the profit his practice had made for the year, and then he would come in and give 10%, a tithe of that profit.
The office stayed open every year until he arrived with his tithe!
Fast forward a couple of months and Leslie, my wife, and I are having dinner with the doctor and his wife. They are reminiscing about the days when he was in medical school and she worked at a low-paying job. She sort of rolled her eyes at one point and said, “Even when we barely had enough food to feed ourselves, he wrote those checks to the church for our tithe.”
The doctor didn’t say much (he wasn’t a man of many words), but I learned a lot about giving in that moment
c. Challenge to keep giving from becoming a rule
1. We set the mathematical formula, and it becomes all about the formula.
that becomes our basis of analysis every year;
it becomes our point of pride, perhaps.
2. It is easy to lose the connection between our giving and the God who has given so much to us;
to lose sight of the commitment to give back to God.
Move 2: there is also what i would call the spontaneous giving approach
a. Moved by the moment, or the cause
1. Ice Bucket Challenge was a great example of this.
Do you remember it? In 2014, the challenge was started by a couple of guys who wanted to raise money and awareness for ALS.
They recorded the person sitting there getting an ice bucket of water poured on their head. the person then challenged someone else to take the ice bucket challenge.
Each person made a contribution to ALS as part of the process, or you could get out of taking the challenge by making a donation to ALS.
The ice bucket challenge went viral. People were doing it in all sorts of ways and places. Celebrities got involved.
A spontaneous commitment to take the ice bucket challenge raised $115 million dollars that year.
(See www.forbbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/08/29/the-als-ice-bucket-challenge-has-raised-100m-but-its-finally-cooling-off/)
2. The next year, it raised $500,000. the ice bucket craze had come and gone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_Challenge
b. Spontaneity or being moved in the moment may work better with one-time gifts than making pledges or a series of gifts, but I have heard stories from members of this congregation or other congregations.
1. Someone heard the Moment for Mission and was so moved by the person’s commitment, that they were moved to increase their commitment.
2. Or, someone was reminded of how much they loved a particular ministry, so at that moment decided to increase their giving.
3. I have even had on a couple of occasions people leave church with their pledge cards and tell me they are going to bring it back later because they were moved in the worship to reconsider and increase their giving.
Move 3: there’s also what I would call the Oops plan for giving.
a. couple that got confused about their pledge card
1. they had discussed several times what they would pledge for the upcoming year.
2. they thought they agreed.
3. turned out they had never clarified whether they were talking about once/month gift or once a payroll period gift.
4. the one who turned in the pledge card picked the payroll period.
Or something like that - I never quite figured out who the mistake was made, just that they thought they had agreed, but it turned out the one who turned in the pledge turned in a much bigger pledge than the other expected. almost twice as much as I recall.
5. when they started telling me their story, I figured they were coming to tell me they wanted to reduce their pledge.
But, to my surprise, they told me that had decided to try to keep the mistaken pledge.
As one spouse put it, “Well, maybe it’s what we need to push us in our giving.”
b. maybe we all could use an oops moment every now and then.
Move 4: A final approach to consider: being a revelation giver
a. A revelation giver is not necessarily a reasoned giver as in the math dictates the commitment.
a revelation giver is not just giving in a spontaneous manner
a revelation giver is not mistakenly making a commitment
A revelation giver prayerfully considers what gift can be given that reveals for the giver their commitment to being a disciple of Christ
and reveals to others the ongoing work of God in the world
b. Perhaps you have heard the story of Hattie Mae Wiatt. In 1886, she was a child in a small congregation in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.
The congregation was growing and Hattie showed up one Sunday for Sunday school and the building was full, so she couldn’t go in. As she stood outside crying, the minister came up to her and when he heard the story promised her that one day the church would be big enough for all the people.
Hattie went home and told her parents she was going to save her money and help Dr. Conwell, the minister, build a church.
Unfortunately, Hattie May became sick with tuberculosis and died before any progress could be made on the new church building. at the funeral, Hattie’s parents gave the money Hattie had been saving for the new church to the minister - 57 cents.
Rev. Conwell turned the change into 57 pennies, told the story of Hattie May to the leadership of the congregation, and auctioned off the pennies for $250.
the $250 was used to buy a house nearby to house the bigger Sunday school. the leaders created the Hattie May Wiatt Mite Society for the future growth of the church.
Eventually, the house became Temple College, which is now Temple University, and the Wiatt Mite Society raised funds to build the Good Samaritan Hospital, which became Temple University Hospital.
https://www.thirdsectoronline.com/14240; https://www.gbbconline.com/57-cents-that-made-history/)
Hattie was a revelation giver.
Conclusion: Finish with the image of the widow whom Jesus watched at the Temple.
we do not know if she had figured out some formula to determine how much she would give that day.
we do not know if she had been moved by something and it was a spontaneous gift.
We do not know, although we can make a pretty good guess that it was not an oops type of gift.
But we do know that her giving revealed her commitment to God.
We do know that Jesus told the story, and we still tell the story, because it reveals the God who is still at work in the world, who calls us to join in that work.
“How much should I give?”
Enough to be a revelation giver.
Amen.
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