Transcript
Let us pray. Let the good news come now, our Father, not only in word but in power, in the Holy Spirit and with full assurance, through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. Hear now the Word of God as it is read from the letter to the Romans, the fifteenth chapter beginning at the seventeenth verse. In Christ Jesus then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything
except what Christ has worked through me to win obedience from the Gentiles by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far round as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ, thus making it my ambition to preach the gospel not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another's foundation, but as it is written, they shall see who
have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him. This is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you, but now since I no longer have any room for work in these regions and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain and to be sped on my journey there by you once
I have enjoyed your company for a little. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem with aid for the saints, for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they are in debt to them, for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore
I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been raised, I shall go on by way of you to Spain, and I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. This is the word of the Lord. At a baptismal service in the kingdom of God, a candidate stepped into the water to receive the sacrament. As he stood knee deep in the river,
he hesitated, reached into his hip pocket, took out his billfold and offered it to a deacon who was standing on the bank. Please hold this for me, he said. Put it back in your pocket, the story, though apocryphal, makes a theological point. Our baptism by one spirit into one body includes the whole person. As William Hiram folks put it in the final stanza of his well-known hymn, take thou ourselves, O Lord, mine heart and will,
through our surrendered souls thy plan fulfill. We yield ourselves to thee, time, talents, all. We hear, and henceforth heed thy sovereign call. Those of you who dare venture forth from this seminary upon graduation into pastoral ministry will soon learn a painful lesson if you have not learned it already, and the lesson is that it is no small task to convince the faithful that their billfolds and their purses were baptized when they were. Believers, by and large,
see no necessary connection between their faith and their finances, between their discipleship and their stewardship, between their spirituality and their liberality. A basic part of the problem is that most church members make better Greeks than they do Hebrews. They easily draw a sharp distinction between matters that are spiritual and matters that are material, which of course includes money matters. They fail to make the connection between the things which belong to God and the things which belong
to Caesar. They simply do not understand that the things which belong to Caesar belong also to God and to God first. And your pastoral and your educational task, should you choose to undertake it, will be to enable people to make that connection. It will be to provide your congregation with a biblically informed theology of Christian stewardship, and you will do it annually. Every fall you will be required to organize and conduct a stewardship campaign. You will
not do it alone, to be sure, but you will be the quarterback of the sermon or perhaps two on the theme of Christian stewardship that will motivate the congregation to give willingly and generously without needlessly offending them. It is neither a light task nor a task to be taken lightly, because the mission and ministry of the church you serve will be either enhanced or impaired by the results of that stewardship drive, and you as pastor will
be compelled to live with and within those results year by year by year by year. Now I am well aware that the concept of stewardship is far broader and deeper than the issue of how much people give to the work of the church. Yes, it includes our stewardship of the earth, of natural resources, of the world's ecology. Yes, it includes our lifestyle, our responsibility to distinguish on a continuing basis between our needs and our wants. Yes,
it includes our stewardship of the gospel, our duty to share it and to demonstrate it. Yes, it includes our concern for the poor and our commitment to economic justice, but the gateway into those dimensions of stewardship is our willingness to give generously, even sacrificially, to the church in order that it may fulfill its God-given mission. That may not be the bottom line, but my friends it is the starting line of Christian stewardship. In my 29
years of pastoral ministry, I have known too many people who talked a great game of ecology and economic justice and simplicity of lifestyle, but who never once put their money where their mouth was when it came to the church of Jesus Christ. Conversely, I have known many others who have made the connection between their faith and their finances and who out of that commitment develop genuine concerns for the other dimensions of Christian stewardship. Stewardship time in
the church is a time of joy, it's a time of pain for the pastor. Your pastoral heart will be encouraged by those who have little and give much. It will also be encouraged by those who have much and give much, but your heart will also be broken by those who have much and give little and by those who have little and give nothing. But your task is not to condemn that attitude, it is to transform it.
Are you ready to do it? Are you prepared for the task? Quite frankly, few seminarians are. I'll never forget the telephone call that came one day some years ago now while we were still serving the church in Burlingame. It was from one of our candidates for the ministry who had recently graduated from seminary and was in the process of taking a postgraduate internship. He had been on the field less than three months when the senior pastor
of the church resigned to accept another call, leaving him, the intern, with all the major pastoral responsibilities including the annual stewardship drive. And his first words over the phone were memorable. Help! I have to preach a stewardship sermon this Sunday and I need help. Well, what he needed was more than an outline and a few snappy illustrations. What he needed was a theological understanding of Christian stewardship in the life of the church. And more than that,
he needed a deep personal commitment to his understanding of stewardship in the life of the church. For if a pastor is to be the spiritual leader of a congregation, he or she must lead in this matter of giving. You simply cannot, you must not ask others to do what you yourself are unwilling to do. And in order to do that authentically, you yourself must make the connection between spirituality and stewardship. The apostle Paul understood that connection
very well. When he wrote to the Romans about his apostolic ministry, he declared, I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me to win obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And it is not accidental that in the very next breath he goes on to speak of his travel plans, plans that will, he hopes, eventually lead
him to Rome, plans that first, however, to visit Jerusalem with aid for the saints. This contribution for the poor among the saints of Jerusalem had been raised from the Gentile churches of Paul's mission. And Paul even speaks of this gift from the Gentile Christians to the Jewish Christians as a debt. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they also ought to be of service to them in their material blessings. Notice the
presence in that statement of a distinction between spiritual blessings and material blessings. But notice also the absence of any separation between the two. Paul saw the connection and enabled his churches to see it too. But this aspect of his ministry, this fundraising, if you will, this first century stewardship campaign falls within the description of his ministry. It was one of the signs and wonders which attested the power of the Holy Spirit at work in his ministry.
For it is the Spirit of God who grants us understanding into stewardship and, more importantly, motivates us in our Christian spirituality. Our stewardship of whatever resources are at our disposal is a sure and a certain sign that the Holy Spirit has touched our hearts with the love of God, a love that is for us but not for us alone, a love that seeks to touch the lives of all people through the faithfulness of the Church to
its ministry and its mission. And as in the Church, so also in the seminary, it is stewardship time once again. The stewardship committee this year has prepared a holistic program that affords each one of us with an opportunity to give expression to our faith in Jesus Christ in a great variety of ways. But I want to say again that the way into that program is still through our giving of a portion of our financial resources, limited
though they may be, for the sake of others. In our family, we have practiced, since the day we were married, tithing. We practice tithing not because the law and the prophets require it, but because in our Christian conscience we cannot do less than the law and the prophets require. Have you ever noticed that whenever Jesus dealt with law, he never evaluated it downward but always upward? And we practice it even today. I urge you to consider
doing the same, especially those of you who plan to be pastors and educators in the life of the Church. Now is the time to make the connection in your own understanding between spirituality and stewardship. Now is the time. And now is the time to begin expressing that connection in a tangible and thus in a very spiritual way. Let us pray. Teach us, O Lord, that we can never out-give you. You are the giver of every
good and perfect gift. You are the giver of love, love incarnate in your Son Jesus, love experienced in the human heart by the presence and power of your Holy Spirit. You are the giver of meaning to our lives and purpose to our vocations. You are the giver of the earth and all that sustains human life. You are the giver of friendship, the giver of wisdom and knowledge, the giver of joy and peace. We thank you for
your many gifts. And we ask that you will indeed motivate us in our hearts to respond by becoming ever more faithful givers of that which you have entrusted to us in your providence. Teach us that now is the time to begin to practice those disciplines which will undergird our ministries over a lifetime. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen.