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11 November 2007 When I was at Memorial Church at Stanford, one of the hardest issues I struggled with personally was the legacy of Jane Stanford. Memorial Church was the crown jewel in the heart of the campus. It is located at the end of the main entrance, which itself is lined with stately king palms. Mem Chu, as it is known on campus, is one of those architectural statements that clearly places the church at the center of academic life. But….as central as the church is geographically, worshipers will search in vain to find any suggestion of an offering in Sunday worship. Is it because Jane Stanford thought an offering to be theologically suspect? Or perhaps irrelevant? Not even close. Her motives actually were quite altruistic. Jane Stanford didn’t want anyone to be embarrassed by the size of their offering compared to that of their neighbors, so she endowed the church most generously, and mandated that offerings were not to be received. As a personal aside, my finances have been all over the map in the course of my lifetime, and until I served on Mem Chu’s staff, it never occurred to me that my offering might be competitive with my neighbor’s. At any rate, in her efforts not to belittle or embarrass, Mrs. Stanford denied worshipers one of the most important expressions of faith we have open to us: the practice of giving. I seriously wonder whether she ever read the story of the widow’s mite, where the widow, with her few coins, is blessed because she gives all that she has. Of course, even by biblical standards, God doesn’t expect or require a 100% return on God’s investment. By biblical standards, God is perfectly satisfied with a tithe, with 10%. Or as one biblically-schooled Episcopalian puts it, “everything belongs to God. Isn’t it amazing that [God wants us] to keep as much as 90% of all we have?”[1,20] In good 21st century theology, we’ve modernized 10% to “proportional” giving, but the idea is still there: the idea that recognizing God’s hand in our lives, recognizing God’s presence, God’s contributions, if you will, is as fundamental to how we live as recognizing the bank’s contributions to a roof over our heads, or Visa’s contributions to our groceries or Starbucks or vacations. This is no incidental item. We carefully budget payments for housing, how much we need for our children’s education—or for our own, the cost of staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And all the while, God’s blessings pour over us and sustain us. Does the God who plants visions of justice, the God who teaches us the life-giving paths of repentance and forgiveness and compassion, the God who gifts us with sunlight and moonglow deserve less consideration than the bank that carries our mortgage, or the credit union that holds title on our car? See the difference? Stewardship of our financial resources is the practice of intentionally setting aside a specific proportion of our income to be returned to God’s service. It’s the counterpoint to another practice: paying the mortgage, buying groceries, going out for dinner, adding a movie, and then giving a few dollars from what’s left over. God isn’t interested in leftovers. To make this point, one pastor stood in the pulpit, and without a word, began munching away on an apple. The folks in the pews giggled politely for the first minute or two. But the pastor continued to eat the apple. The nervous giggles turned to silence. Members raised their eyebrows to their neighbors. By this time, the pastor had eaten everything but the core. With that, he took up the offering plate, dropped in the core, and sat down…and nearly lost his job. Leftovers may be better than nothing, but God doesn’t give us the just the apple core; God doesn’t leave us with just the small change of compassion and justice. God’s compassion for us is boundless, consistent, everlasting. That’s the psalmist’s point: God’s generosity and God’s gifts to us are as on-going and as dependable as night and day. In response, we are called to be stewards, taking care of God’s creation, God’s gifts. Ever wonder about the term ‘steward’? I always assumed it was associated with wine—as in a wine steward. But Columnist James Farrell tells us that stewards originally were keepers of pigs.[3,35] In time, their responsibilities grew and evolved, and a steward was defined as the keeper of the hall. Now we understand a steward to be a person who takes care of something belonging to someone else. That’s really what it means in one of our very first stories in scripture, in Genesis 2.15, where human beings are given the responsibility of tilling and keeping the earth. Another way of saying it is that we are given the responsibility of serving and preserving the earth.[3] And since we gather as a faith community, proclaiming that the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is within it, a religious understanding of stewardship begins with a lesson that is very biblical, but very difficult for us to take in: we don’t really own anything. Those caught up in the sadistic manipulations of the credit industry to keep consumers in increasing debt would be the first to agree. But it’s true. Everything, everything belongs to God. And when we try to use the gifts we have received for purposes that are not in keeping with God’s purposes, we cease to be stewards, but are thieves instead.[3] My friends, stewardship is the very first responsibility given to adam, even before naming the birds and animals. So stewardship is more than just saying thank you for God’s generosity; stewardship is even more taking care of our environment—although that’s a fundamental and urgent calling. Stewardship is more than keeping the church’s lights on or paying the staff. But there is a relationship. All churches began with a vision. This church is here because some of you, more than twenty years ago, had a vision, a dream that there would be a United Church of Christ in this part of Montgomery County. After meeting in a home, then meeting in a school, together you were able to build this building. Together you were able to call your first pastor; together you were able to serve this community at the Lord’s Table and what became Community Based Shelters and in the creation of our own Emergency Assistance program, together we grew and were able to support Habitat for Humanity in Mon County, together we were able to support missions in South Africa and Guatemala. God has put it in our hearts to provide a welcoming spiritual home for those seeking God’s presence, preparing us to serve others in Jesus’ name. We are living into that mission by being very clear that this welcome includes all people, including those of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered communities. And in our partnership with God and one another, we continue to create a space in which we are able to worship and serve God in new ways. That fundamental partnership, that motivating vision reverberates in the first-class postage stamped letter Kasey told us about last week—the letter that asks each of us to prayerfully consider increasing our pledge by 10%. The letter brims with a vision that is biblically grounded and institutionally healthy, because it recognizes the imperative to serve, the counter-intuitive reality that, as the song says about love—it’s something when you give it away you end up having more. I’m hoping that every one of you brought your green pledge form. Bill says you can give it to him here, or mail it, and that’s fine. But I’d like to suggest that you put it in the offering plate within the context of worship, as an expression and symbol of your stewardship. And in our offertory prayer, we will dedicate our present and future offerings to God’s service. Because for all of Jane Stanford’s good intentions, our call to stewardship is as fundamental to our practice of faith as worship itself. And like worship, it is something we do together. What better way to live into our theme: “Together We Will….” *** [1] “The Care and Feeding of Faithful Stewards,” Dan R. Dick, The Clergy Journal, September 2007, Volume LXXXIII, Number 9, pages 6-8. |