Kings 17:8-16
Mark 12:38-44

Based on the sermon given by The Rev. Karl Travis at the April 22, 2006 meeting of the Presbytery of Northern Kansas

Two men were shipwrecked on an island. One started screaming and yelling, “we’re going to die! We’re going to die! There’s no food, no water! We’re going to die!”
The second man was propped up against a palm tree, so calm it drove the first man crazy.
“Don’t you understand? We’re going to die!”
The second man replied, “You don’t understand. I make $100,000 a week.”
The first man gave him this incredulous look. “What difference could that possibly make? We’re on an island with no food and no water. We’re going to DIE!!!”
The second answered, “You just don’t get it. I make $100,000 a week and I tithe. My pastor will find me!”

We all get that joke. We get the joke because the joke is on us. It reveals a truth about stewardship, and the church, and the way we have done both for a very long time.
Stewardship is that awkward subject, the subject we generally approach annually, in which we turn the pastor into God’s Public Relations director. The pastor pitches the church’s program, throws in a joke or two, tries generally to avoid the touchiest subjects which are, of course, how much the pastor gives, and whether the pastor knows how much everyone else gives.
Many of us pastors, truth be told, would rather have bamboo chutes shoved beneath our fingernails than stand and deliver a sermon about the importance of financial giving.
But take to the pulpit we must, because money – its accumulation, its management, and the things it buys (or won’t buy) – money is the chief spiritual dilemma of our age.

I don’t have to illustrate the extent of our consumerism, the danger implicit in our materialism, the spiritual temptation which comes with the acquisitiveness of our time and culture. I am certain that you notice, and I am willing to bet even that you agree. Our materialism is a primary spiritual challenge. It is no different than it has ever been, of course, only now the danger is more obvious.
Jesus speaks of money and wealth more than any other subject. Sit down and read the gospels in an afternoon and you will be struck by how frequently, and passionately, Jesus addresses the topic. What is more, Jesus does not address the budget priorities of the temple. He does not speak to or about institutional religion’s use of money.

Jesus speaks to individuals. Whether he praises the widow for giving her mite or he advises privacy when giving alms, whether he notes the Samaritan’s gift of health care after departing
from the man found beaten and robbed, or addressing the rich young man, Jesus addresses the topic of
money individually. Personally. Directly. There is no sidestep.
We are probably familiar with the story of the rich young man who asks Jesus what he must do to have eternal life. Jesus tells him that if he wishes to have treasure in heaven he must sell his possessions and give the money to the poor.
I cannot speak for you, but I have always dodged this text about the rich young man with the rationalization that it is about, and for, rich people. And I am not rich. My father was a school teacher, my mother a secretary. My family did not take expensive vacations. I was fortunate I never needed braces, because I don't know how my parents would have paid for those in
During the heat of the summer I would ask my mother why we couldn't join the country club so I could swim every day in their pool like some of my friends, and she'd point me to the hose in the backyard.
I went to an Ivy League school, but only because I went to a state college within the university, and even then still needed scholarships, loans and a job in the cafeteria to pay my way.
But I grew up in a family where we had everything we needed, and more, mind you. I had a fabulous, stable, and nurturing childhood. So when I look at my family of origin, at how nicely things have turned out, I am proud.
Sinfully proud.
And I don't remember my family or any of our friends needing football
camp to start on the varsity football team, or band camp to be first chair, or summer academies to have top grades. I spent my childhood proving to myself and others that advantages of privilege are not necessary to
excel. So look at my family, I have thought.

And in my more petty moments I sneer internally and I mutter, “We didn’t need money! Look what we have done without it!”
Thus with my subtle middle class chip atop the shoulder, when I have even bothered to put myself in this passage, I always stand next to Jesus. We stay close, as brother and sister, simpatico.
There we are together mourning as the rich young man wanders away, “crestfallen” as Eugene Peterson translates it. I can see him now, with Bill Gates’ horn rim glasses, perhaps Donald Trump’s comb over, maybe with Martha Stewart’s smirk. Poor guy. Glad I’m not like him.
Except I am. Maybe you are, too. I suspect that there is a bit of the rich young man in each of us. That is most obviously true because by any historic or international measure we are each of us rich.
I know, I know, there are people with more wealth. But there are many, many more with less wealth.

And Jesus has this uncomfortable habit not of comparing upwards, but of contrasting downwards. More to the point is the reality that, just as he always does here in story of the rich young man, Jesus is addressing the issue of money. He is addressing it personally, directly.
And he is observing that for many people, the comforts and securities of our possessions can get between us and God. If that’s the case, he says, and if we want to know God, something has to go. Something has to give. We have to give.
Did you catch that? We have to give.
So here’s the challenge, I suspect, with the way we run our stewardship efforts, at least some of us, at least some of the time. We have made stewardship a subject about the church, about meeting the church’s budget, about funding the church’s mission.

And not only is this theologically backwards, theologically unjustified; as time goes on, it leads us further from the path to Jesus.
It is little wonder that we fret about the church’s budget, too. Just think about what so many of our congregation’s face.
There are many congregation’s like ours that are shrinking. At least they are smaller than they were in yesteryear.
Add to this the reality that younger people are not giving as much as their parents and grandparents did at the same age.
And oh, those church buildings. They are more expensive than ever.
Let us not forget, also, the rising health care and retirement expenses. They’ve just kept up with industry, of course, but now over 30% of a congregation’s expense to have a pastor go to health and retirement. As a percentage of our church budgets, staff costs have edged out local program and mission expenditures.

And I'm embarrassed to tell you this; it makes me feel uneasy. I don't know whether or not you can imagine feeling called by God to serve the church, giving your all to serve a local parish, and watching with dis-ease as your salary draws ever larger percentages of the church’s budget. And all of this even as actual salaries for pastors have fallen in comparison with other middle class professions.
There is also the fear that if we pastor’s preach about the joy of financial giving, people will suspect us of self-interest. All of these tensions – and others! – mean that we begin to think of stewardship as an institutional task, as the effort to fund the church’s mission, as the annual attempt at coming together and pooling our resources so as to make a bigger dent in God’s world.

And stewardship is about these things, all of these things, and with no apologies. The church is the body of Christ in the world, and funding its ministries is the stuff of faith.
But stewardship is not FIRST about the church. It is first about the individual. It is first about our sense of trust in and love for God. It is about grace received and grace embraced and finally it is about how we use our wealth to say thank you to God.
Our stewardship efforts can be about the holistic, year round, passionate efforts to encourage and uphold one another as we serve God with our material blessings. Christian stewardship is an invitation to embrace a vision – foreshadowed by the choice faced by the rich young man – of how we serve God first.
Our stewardship can be a tool of liberation from a cultural heresy about who we are and why we matter. We are none of us valuable because of what we own, what we crave, what we produce or what we consume.

We are valuable because we breathe, because God's breath, God's Spirit, has lifted our flesh to life. That is our only credential of worth, and finally it is all we need.
Learning to trust God and to share generously from God’s gifts to us is fundamental, the foundation, for mature Christian discipleship. And it is subversive. Counter cultural. Sacrificial sharing is God’s antidote to self-indulgence in this consumerist culture.
So the rich young man, who has kept his religious nose clean, must make a choice. If he is to continue growing in faith, he must give. If he does not, his spirit will be stunted. Giving, it turns out, can be both the final obstacle to a fullness of faith, or the first step.
When it is the first step, setting aside our idolatrous dependencies and clinging first to our God can lead us to greater faith,
truer discipleship, holier religion.

I don't know if you have heard of Kent Haruf’s novel, Plainsong. Maggie is a waitress in the local diner. She drives out of Holt, Colorado, the several miles to the McPheron farmhouse. Harold and Raymond McPheron are brothers – aging fast, confirmed and crotchety bachelors. They have lived together – and alone – for decades, together with their chickens and cattle and the old, run down family home place.
Maggie Jones unbuttoned her coat and sat down. I came out here to ask you a favor, she said to them.
That so? Harold said. Well, you can always ask anyhow.
What is it? Raymond said.
There is a girl I know who needs some help, Maggie said. She’s a good girl but she’s gotten into trouble. I think you might be able to help her. …
What’s wrong with her? Harold said. She need a donation of money?
No. She needs a lot more than that.

What sort of trouble is she in? Raymond said.
She’s seventeen, Maggie Jones said. She’s four months pregnant and she doesn’t have a husband. …
[Harold] brought a jar of milk from the refrigerator and set it on the table and sat down again.
She took the lid off and poured a little into the coffee in her cup.
All right then, Harold said. You got our attention. You say you don’t want money. What do you want?
She sipped from her coffee and tasted it and looked into the cup again and set it back on the table. She looked at the two old brothers. They were waiting, sitting forward at the table across from her. I want something improbable, she said. That’s what I want. I want you to think about taking this girl in. Of letting her live with you.
They stared at her. You’re fooling, Harold said.
No, Maggie said. I am not fooling.
They were dumbfounded. They looked at her, regarding her as if she might be dangerous.
Then they peered into the palms of their thick callused hands spread out before them on the kitchen table and lastly they looked out the windows toward the leafless and stunted elm trees.
Oh, I know it sounds crazy, she said. I suppose it is crazy. I don’t know. I don’t even care. But that girl needs somebody and I’m ready to take desperate measures. She needs a home for these months.
And you – she smiled at them – you solitary old coots need somebody too. Somebody or something besides an old red cow to care about and worry over. It’s too lonesome out here. Well, look at you. You’re going to die some day without ever having had enough trouble in your life. Not of the right kind anyway. This is your chance.
The McPheron brothers shifted in their chairs. They watched her suspiciously. Well? she said. What do you think?
[Oh] Maggie, Harold said at last. Let’s go back to the money part. Money’d be a lot easier.
Yes, she said. It would. But not nearly as much fun.

Learning to give, first, leads us to grow closer to Christ.
And what follows, well, is a whole lot more fun.