Sermon for July 3rd (Giving)

Last week I talked about how we might cultivate generosity in our lives by following God’s plans for His money. It’s a lot easier to be generous giving someone else’s money and all we have is God’s. In one of our readings from the book of Proverbs last week, we heard, “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” But while generosity is one way that God talks about giving, it’s not the only way. God also talks about another very important aspect of giving our money called tithing.

A tithe is just a fancy word for a tenth. In the book of Leviticus, God told his people to bring, “A tithe (a tenth) of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.” God’s people were supposed to keep 9/10ths of their blessings to support their families and that type of thing while the other tenth was used for God’s purposes. In the time of the temple, these tithes were used to feed the Levites (otherwise known as the priests) and to keep up the temple for use by God’s people. While there are some people who question whether Christians ought to follow this law or not, it seems pretty clear that Jesus considered tithing a continuing expectation still in his day. He said, “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Jesus wants both justice AND tithing to be done.

Tithing is different than generosity. Generosity is a state of the heart created by God’s great gift of love, mercy and abundant blessings. Tithing, on the other hand, is simply a command that we are expected to obey. Generosity blooms from the seeds of faith. Tithing is just about obedience. Nothing more. Nothing less. But, without being obedient to God’s command for tithing, the concept of generosity just kinda doesn’t make much sense.

As some of you may know, I was preparing to be a professional musician for many years before I went to seminary to become a pastor. I played the double bass, the stringed instrument bigger than a cello, and wanted to play in a symphony one day. This involved a lot of practicing. Now, I bet that many of you had to learn an instrument like piano. Do you remember those first lessons? First, you had to practice your hand position and play each note one at a time. (pentatonic scale) Then, one or two lessons later, you learned to play with both hands. (two handed pentatonic scale) But do you ever remember turning the pages of your book and looking at the really hard songs at the back? Did you ever try to play them and get totally baffled by how hard it was?

When I went to college, I was a pretty awful double bass player. My teacher, however, was a good teacher and saw that I had the determination, musicianship and talent to become a lot better pretty quickly. But I’ll never forget my first lesson in college. Do you know what I played? Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. How embarrassing. What was more embarrassing was that he kept showing me how badly I played it. My notes were always a little out of tune. My rhythm was just right on. My bow grip was off. My dynamics were poor. My tone wasn’t solid. He explained that in order to play harder songs I’d need to be able to play this easy song well.

But I still tried every once in awhile. You see, I heard all these great orchestral excerpts and I wanted to play them, even though I could barely play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star well. So, I’d try to play the beginning of the third movement of Beethoven’s 5th symphony (excerpt). And I would crash and burn. Or, I’d try to play this lick from Richard Struass’s Ein Heldeinleben (excerpt) This was really hard stuff. I wanted to have fun—be this extraordinary bass virtuoso—but before I could do that I just had to do what my teacher said and play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Some of you are trying your hand at this generosity stuff, and that’s really good, but you haven’t ever learned the basic principle of tithing which must look kinda silly from God’s perspective. Last week, I used an example of an average income of $40,000 and said if you’re only putting in a twenty on a regular basis then that’s not a tithe. Maybe you got really excited about that and thought, man am I gonna show that Pastor Broers this week! I’m really gonna get on a roll! I’m bringing $40 dollars! Twice as much! Hah! Now isn’t THAT generous! Well, is it? 10% of 40,000 is 4,000 a year. Divided by 52 Sundays equals just under $77 a week. And, here’s the point. Is $77 a week generous? No. From God’s perspective that’s NOT generosity . . . That’s TITHING! It’s obeying God’s command. Tithing is about obedience. Tithing is a minimum expectation.

That’s where today’s story comes in. You see, how we act with our money shows that we are so confused as God’s people about the difference between faith and obedience. They are different. Jesus starts by talking about forgiveness. He says, “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent forgiven them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent’ you must forgive them.” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”

Do you hear what Jesus is saying here? He’s kinda being sarcastic honestly. He says, you want me to give you more faith to forgive your brother or sister? Well, honestly, if you had just a teensy weensy tiny little bit of faith you could move an entire mountain ok . . . but I’m not asking you for faith here just obedience! I’m not asking you to make a major leap of faith here. It doesn’t demand a whole lot of trust to be forgiven. You don’t need to understand it, or agree with it, or anything like that—just do it. Forgive them. Every time you are asked for forgiveness you MUST forgive. This isn’t about faith. It’s about obedience. Tithing isn’t about faith—it’s about obedience.

Jesus then tells this story about a servant who does his usual work and then comes into the house to fix supper for his master. I mean, he did was he was asked to do, that’s all. My job at home is to take out the trash. And I do my job, most of the time. Sometimes, when I don’t think Kristy has noticed, I tell her, “Hey, did you notice I took out the trash?” She says, “Do you want a parade?” And, you know what, I WOULD like a parade. But should I get one? No! It’s my stinkin job! Jesus says, “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say. ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” If you forgive someone seven times, do you want a parade or something to show what a great Christian you are? Well, it ain’t gonna happen. You are just obeying what God has asked you to do. If you are making $40,000 a year and are giving $77 dollars a week, you are tithing. You are obeying God’s command.

Like many Christians around the world, we spend a lot of time talking about faith. Why? Because we are saved by faith alone. But God doesn’t just call us to believe in Him but to obey him. In Deuteronomy 32 God said this, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to posess.” We often act like the word “obey” is a naughty word. But without obedience to the will of God there can never truly be a faith in God. Faith without works is dead, James says. Jesus says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, He is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love him and show myself to him. (John 14:21) If you want to strengthen your relationship with Jesus Christ, you may want to focus on obeying his word instead of simply asking him to increase your faith.

I think about football practice back in high school as a good example of this. I remember my first two years being frustrated that I wasn’t playing varsity (not that I was actually that great, but I was smart and I did my job well and I’ve always had a kind of high self image of myself). Anyway, I always had to play on the practice squad against the varsity and I thought, you know, if only the coaches would put a little faith in me I knew, I just knew, that they wouldn’t be disappointed. But later on, I remember one of my coaches saying something that made a lot of sense: there were some younger kids that they thought would be really good players, maybe even better than the ones out on the field, but the ones on the field were the ones that the coaches knew they could count on. The ones who had showed up for practice day in and day out. The ones who followed the coaches directions and would do the right thing and not embarrass the team. Our coaches weren’t blind. They were watching us every moment of every day of every year, whether we were on varsity or not, to see if we would obey them when the time came that they needed us. If you and this church are going to make a difference in this world, God’s not just after faith, he wants your obedience as well.

Some people think that money has very little to do with their relationship to God. The truth is, if you want a deeper relationship to God, money is a tool He will use to get you there. Through obedience and faith. Through tithing and generosity. Tithing isn’t going to earn you salvation. Your $77 dollars check isn’t going to get you any closer to heaven. It’s simply obeying God’s commands. But when you learn obedience to God you’ll begin to understand where your work ends and where faith begins. For it took Jesus’ great act of obedience on the cross, for us to comprehend God’s greatest act of generosity—the salvation of your souls. Amen.

Sermon for March 10th

“Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me!” Says the Lord. “But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”

The word stewardship gets thrown around a lot in church, but I don’t really think most of us understand what “stewardship” means. Let me give you an example of what a steward is. Right now, I am going to take out ten dollar bills and give it to one of you. I am going to say this, “Could you please take care of this for me.” However, I’m not going to ask for it back, even though it’s mine. In fact, I want you to use it. I also want you to remember something very important—that ten dollars is not yours. It’s mine. You are simply taking care of it for me. In biblical times, they would call a person who did this the “steward” of my money. The steward can use the money, but they do not own the money.

Because that ten dollars is mine, that I am giving to you to take care of for me, I have some directions for you on how to use it. Because it’s mine. I’d like you to take one dollar bill and place it in the offering plate in order to encourage the ministries here at Saint Peters. You can put more than that in if you’d like, but all I’m asking is to put one dollar bill in the offering plate tonight. One out of the ten. With the other nine dollars, you can do whatever you want. You can save it. You can waste it. You can spend it. You can give it away. Remember, it’s MY money. But . . . I’m letting you use it. Here we go . . . . (Money gets handed out)

Now. Here’s my question. What will happen if, after the service tonight, I don’t find one of my dollar bills in the offering plate? How do you think that I will feel about that? I’ve made it very clear that while the money I just gave away is a gift, there are directions about how to use it. How would you feel if you let someone watch over your money and they used it in a way that was not in line with how you wanted it used? I’d feel frustrated. Disappointed and, maybe, even a little angry.

The Lord spoke through the prophet Malachi saying, “Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” God has given us all a lot more than ten dollars. A lot more. And, furthermore, he has given us a lot more than simply money. He has blessed us with long lives, bodies that can work hard, minds that can process great amounts of information and spiritual gifts to serve on another with. But He has also made something very clear: your money, your time, your bodies, your minds, your gifts and your lives are not your own. You are the stewards of these gifts. God gives you all these things to use, but He is their rightful owner.

And He has some directions for you. You’ve heard some of these directions before I hope. Honor your Father and Mother. You shall not kill. Love your neighbor as yourself. Glorify God in your body. Another commandment that was given to the Israelites, referred to by Jesus and carried on by many Christians today is called tithing: giving ten percent of your income to your local church to support its ministries. Out of every ten dollars you earn, one dollar is to be put in the offering plate. We are called to do these things God has directions for us on how to use the gifts he has given.

Tonight, through the prophet Malachi, God calls us all to make an accounting of how much we have stolen from God. And to stop stealing from Him. Have you given money to the church as you have been directed? Have you given your time and talents? Have you been glorifying God in your body? So many of us argue that we just can’t do these things! We don’t have enough time to think let alone serve at the soup kitchen. We’ve got too many things to do on Sunday mornings that church just gets in the way. How can we give ten percent of our income when we don’t have enough as there is! God says this: “Put me to the test.”

“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.” Try me! God says. Stop stealing my money, my time my gifts that I have given you and see if you will really become destitute and overworked as you imagine. “Just try me and prove me wrong!” God promises that when you follow his directions for His gifts, you will find that there is always more than enough left over for you. In fact, Jesus maintains that the better you follow God’s directions on how to use his gifts, the more He will trust you with greater gifts. These gifts are not yours! They are God’s. You are only the stewards. “Return to me and I will return to you," the Lord says, "and see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing .” Amen.