“What Do We Give?”

                                                               November 15, 2009

Isaiah 1:11-19

Psalm 50

I Peter 4:8-11

I still remember the autumn morning, decades ago, when I went as a visitor to a church, sat down, opened my bulletin, and with great disappointment realized it was Stewardship Sunday. If you are a visitor—or even a member—and find yourself in that situation this today, I feel your pain. I apologize; but I also recognize—as you probably do as well—that while the doors aren’t locked, it would really look shabby for you to get up and leave right now.

This morning I do want to talk about stewardship—the faithful use of our resources. While much of what I say addresses this particular congregation, my hope and prayer is that some of it will speak to those who aren’t members as well. And to make it interesting for members and visitors alike, I'll probably say something that will upset each person here at some point. So get out a pencil and paper, keep alert, and let me know what that is for you.

I have a colleague in another state. The church that he serves is large. His congregation is well off. Over the years they’ve completed several million-dollar building projects.

And yet, my friend told me, like many well-off and not-so-well-off congregations in many denominations, his church has stewardship problems.

Oh, from time to time they have money problems, too. But those are easily solved. “There are plenty of people around who are willing to write the big check for pressing needs,” my friend told me. Then he added, “But that's not stewardship. That's fundraising.

“And I can do fundraising,” he added. “But that’s not stewardship.”

He makes a good point. There’s a difference between stewardship and fundraising.

Fundraising involves pulling together the cash needed to run an organization.

Schools are interested in fund raising. That's why the students come to your door selling all manner of goods. Service clubs are interested in fund raising. Recently we heard how the University Hospital was really interested in fundraising—they had an overzealous plan to solicit every patient who came through their doors. That didn’t go over very well.

Churches, too, are interested in fundraising—pulling together the cash that they need. Rightly so, I should add—because, as one person put it, “Fund raising is asking for money, but it is not really a financial function. It is an invitation to the whole congregation to join in its vision.”[1] When we raise money here, we as a congregation are saying to each person, “Are you with us? Do you see what we’re seeing? Do you want to go where we’re going?”

This is a difficult time for people who want to raise funds. The stock market is up—and while many find that a reason to give thanks, as of yet, not as many find it a reason to give money. Our nation’s economy—and the world’s economy—are still shaky. A year ago people worried about what might happen. Now we worry about what has happened.

As I talk with people who work for the University, or people who work someplace else or own a business around town, or people who are retired, I keep hearing the same thing. It’s not good.

What’s your gut tell you to do? Pull back. Hold on. Wait.

And that’s affected our financial picture as a congregation.

Last January we approved a budget that was greater than the pledges that we had received. That was nothing new. We’ve done that in previous years and, because the economy was good, the extra money that was needed was given over the course of the year.

In some ways it was always like a UI football game around here—as the end approached, we wondered, “Will we make it?” Some years it was a real nail-biter as the Trustees announced they were out there ready to “receive.” And like the Hawkeyes, the congregation would come through, we’d make a financial touchdown and everyone would cheer.

This year, of course, it’s different. We currently expect a shortfall of $20,000. Oh, the bills are being paid, the staff is being paid. And some of our local mission work is being supported. But the amount we wanted to send to Our Church’s Wider Mission—to support the Iowa UCC Conference and the work of the national denomination, and UCC efforts around the globe—well, we’re short that $20,000.

My inner fundraiser sees that as a challenge that I know we can meet. Even in this difficult time, if those who are able can give as they want to, we can overcome that deficit and give as we want to. That’s fundraising. And I, too, can do fundraising, and do it with joy, and do it with zeal.

I want each of you to commit to this congregation and to what we are doing here in this place, and across Iowa City, and around the world. We commit in all kinds of ways—with our time, with our thinking and imagination, with our skills. And we do commit with our money.

Certainly there are all sorts of good reasons for financial giving.

Giving is a sign of health. I’ve told you before that Karl Menninger said that "Money giving is a good criterion of a person's mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill."

And the late John Templeton, the financial advisor and zillionaire, said that in all his years of working with people he never encountered anyone who was generous in their giving who didn't grow in both wealth and happiness.

If only out of concern for your health and fiscal well being, then, I encourage you to be generous givers.

But there's a difference between stewardship and fundraising.

Fundraising asks: “How much can you give?” And that’s a good question.

Stewardship asks: “How do you faithfully manage and use all that God has given you? And that’s an even better question.

If this is generally a poor time for fundraising, I have to recognize that the worst time of the year to talk about stewardship is in the fall. Because in the fall this congregation—like most—starts thinking about budgets, about needs, and about giving. Those are all important, they are all a part of running a religious organization. But they don't necessarily have much to do with stewardship.

Let's start with a confession.

Too often, in our search for a few bucks, church leaders—laity and clergy—do a disservice to the members of this congregation. We confuse stewardship with fundraising. We’ve said, “It doesn’t matter what you do with your money as long as you send a little our way so that we can pay salaries and keep up the property and maybe in turn send some to Africa and Asia or to disaster victims to make us feel good.”

We’ve said it doesn’t matter, but what you do with your money actually does matter. Our faith tells us it matters for two reasons:

            The source of all that we have is God, who created us and gave us life. For a limited number of years, we have the responsibility for various gifts—our time, our financial resources, our abilities.

            We are called as Christians to make wise use of all that we have.

Stewardship is not just a matter of how much we’re giving to the church each week. It’s about how we are living each day. It’s a matter of learning to do good and seeking justice, as God calls us to do through the prophet Isaiah.

But in most of our request for funds, in most of my stewardship sermons, you haven't been told that, have you?

We say with pride of our congregation: “When people see a need, we respond.” I've heard people from other churches say the same thing about their congregation.

Here’s the problem: stewardship is not about needs. It is a joyful response to the God who gives generously and who has no needs. The Psalmist gives these words to God:

            Every beast of the forest is mine,

            the cattle on a thousand hills.

            I know the birds of the air,

            and all that moves in the field is mine.

            If I were hungry, I would not tell you;

            for the world and all that is in it is mine.

If everyone here were a good steward, I suspect we would have no needs—for God has certainly provided the members of this congregation with abundant resources of time and ability and money. We discover this every time we ask for something like money or volunteers. If everyone were a good steward, we would have the money and people to support our programs and staff, to support the mission of the church, and to keep our property in shape so that this place of worship and learning and service will continues to attract people.

By focusing on needs we turn the people of God into a community of beggars, we make the mission of Christ out to be a panhandling activity, and we distort the generous God into a greedy idol, eager to take away what we have.

Instead of our needs, the scriptures often turn our attention toward what we have and how we use it. That is to say, they focus on stewardship.

Listen again to those words from First Peter: "As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace; whoever speaks, as one who utters oracles of God; whoever renders service as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies. . ."

What strikes me as most interesting in this passage is that there is no sense of poverty or deprivation here, even though the people addressed were most likely resident aliens and household slaves.

Each person has received a gift, the author suggests.

And so, too, have each of us. Many gifts, really.

The question is, are you going to make use of that gift, freely, or are you going to hang on to it until somebody comes along and says they need it more than you do?

I want to encourage you to become more than generous givers. I want to encourage you to be, in the words of First Peter, "good stewards"—men and women who know and make use of all the gifts that you have been given by God.

Maybe—maybe—this is why we don’t have a stewardship committee here. After all, stewardship is not done by a committee. Stewardship is practiced by individuals. Each of us makes stewardship decisions in the choices we make each day, in the ways that we respond to the love of God, the generosity of God in our lives.

No one wants to beg. You don’t need to be begged to give in the fall if you are open to God’s good gifts in all the seasons of the year.

Each of us has received a gift. The stewardship question is: How are you going to use what you have been given?

If this is a difficult time for fundraising, it is a most important time for us to think about stewardship. Wise stewardship lets us make the best use of what we have, whatever that is.

So certainly, be a steward of your finances.

Make sharing a top priority—not something you do with what is left over. As one person put it: “Giving should make some difference in how we as religious people experience life from day to day. If giving to your congregation is similar to writing a check at the end of the month to pay the phone or electric bill, and then forgetting about it until the end of the next month, you are not giving enough. Similarly, if you take spare change or a dollar or two from your pocket or purse for the weekly collection and never notice the difference, your giving has too little meaning either for you or your church.[2] Give honestly, give generously, give regularly.

Be a steward of your finances.

Be a steward of your time.

Examine how you use your time. This resource is the great equalizer. We all receive the same amount. We can kill it, waste it, or use it. Check your calendar—what does it say about what you think is important? Where do your values challenge you to change your calendar?

Be a steward of your time.

Be a steward of your health.

God has given us minds to be used to their fullest capacity and bodies in which to accomplish God’s work. Mind and body are our most unique gifts. No two are alike. What you are never has been before and never will be again. What a gift and what a responsibility!

Be a steward of your health.

Be a steward of relationships.

Our relationships with others are also gifts. Stewardship at home means living and growing together as a family. Stewardship at work involves us in showing coworkers an example of Christian behavior.

Be a steward of relationships.

Be a steward of life, of the environment, of your talent.

Being a steward leads us to generous giving as an expression of God’s love for us and our love for God.

Just like larger churches, Congregational UCC has had a stewardship problem. But the great thing is, we've also got the stewardship solution—it’s found in each one of us as we respond with joy to the generosity of God.

What do we give the One who has everything?

What do we give the One who gives us all good gifts?

All that we have and all that we are.