[Propertalk] Fw: A stewardship sermon (off lectionary) - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Here’s a Stewardship sermon, as ifyou are in search of one(!), from one of the nominees for Bishop of the Dioceseof New York:
Andy’s illustrations for the book byJerry Keucher, Remember the Future: Finiancial Leadership and Asset Management,2006, Church Publishing Company, are here:
 
http://www.episcopalmarlboro.org/Uploads/Remember%20the%20Future.pdf
 
 
 
 
http://www.episcopalmarlboro.org/Uploads/Stewardship.pdf
 

Peace and blessings,
Joe
 
THE REVEREND CANON ANDREW MLDIETSCHE
STEWARDSHIPSERMONAT CHRISTCHURCH, POUGHKEEPSIE
SUNDAY, OCTOBER31,2010
Therewas a reason why people didn’t like Zacchaeus. Israelites who collected Rome’s taxes werenot
onlyreviled as collaborators, but also because the way they earned their dailybread was by extorting a
surpluson top of the tax, and being permitted by Rometo keep whatever extra they forced people to pay.
Theywere Arm Twisters. Thumb Benders. Knee Cappers. Thugs. And Zacchaeus lived in Jericho,
whichwas a wealthy trading town, and by putting the squeeze on the people there forno doubt some
yearshe had become rich on stolen money.
Buthe was also interested in this Jesus of Nazareth, who was coming into town andwalking down
themain street. Great crowds of people came out to see Jesus, and they completelyblocked Zacchaeus’
wayup to the curb, and he was short and couldn’t see, and no one wanted tostand by him or let him
throughbecause they hated him.
Sohe climbed the tree to see over the crowds, and Jesus saw him, called to him,and went with him
tostay at his house. As always, Jesus chose the sinner. The deservedly reviled.And Zacchaeus was so
overcomeby that grace that he impulsively gave half his wealth away. And when I readthat story this
yearI thought, “well, there must be something in the water.” Becausethis time around Zacchaeus seems
tomirror something we are seeing ourselves, which is Bill Gates and WarrenBuffett talking some of their
billionairefriends into pledging to give half their money away to charity. It seems athough some of these
veryrich people are now, as Zacchaeus did back then, wanting to make some amends,and figure out a
newway of living with money that isn’t so emotionally and spirituallyexhausting.
Andforty or more of them have taken the pledge. A great deal of money will beavailable to help
peoplein all kinds of ways. And for many of them, generosity is nothing new. Bill andMelinda Gates,
forexample, have spent a fortune combating crippling disease on the Africancontinent.
Sogiven the admirable level of that generosity, no doubt I could be accused ofcynicism for the
questionsthat I want to ask about all this, but I think there are some things here thatcould use a little
“unpacking.”And I hope that my questions will also make a few interesting points aboutstewardship.
ButI want us to remember that large sums of money are always blinding. They makeit hard to see
anythingelse. We can’t tear our eyes away. So that when a man who has, say, fourbillion dollars gives
twobillion away, that two billion will command our full attention. So let’stry to keep our eyes on the
wholepicture.
Sohere is my first question for these billionaire fifty-percenters: What are theygetting for their
money?
Rightaway I will say that these are obviously generous people -- they have proved italready -- so
onething they are getting for their money is the satisfaction of making a realdifference in the world.
ButI can’t help wondering if they are also buying the peace of mind they canget in no other way to
stillbe fabulously rich, but without the guilt that comes with all that wealth. Andthe jealousy, and the
demandsand expectations, and sometimes the scorn of others. Can it be that they arepaying to trade
admirationfor envy, and the right to use all the rest of their money as they please andwithout all that
judgment?
That’swhere you can accuse me of cynicism. But before you do, let me tell you that Iknow of a
manwho loves the standard of the tithe. The standard of ten percent. He loves itbecause after he pays
thatten it is no one’s business what he does with the other ninety. And noone, not even the church, can
makea claim on it. So it could be that one thing they are buying is unquestionedownership over the
portionthey retain.
Nowthat’s cynical. But before you judge that man or even any of thesebillionaires, let us stop to
admitthat most of us are pretty much in the same spiritual boat as that happytither. When we think of
stewardshipgiving as our obligation, our responsibility, which is how we do talk about itmost of the
time,our question is going to be what do we owe. Which isto say, how to solve the puzzle of “the right
amount.”
Butall of this presupposes that there is a portion of our wealth which properlybelongs to God, and
thereis a portion which belongs to us. Yet everything teaches us that God makes aclaim on our whole
lives,and what we mean by stewardship is really about how we live into that. It isabout how we
participatewith God in the needs of the larger world (and church) even as we are good andfaithful
managersof the smaller realm over which we have been given charge -- our homes, ourfamilies, and the
peoplewho depend on us. And the first understanding of Christian stewardship is thateverything is
God’s.The first fifty percent and the other fifty percent. The ten percent and theninety.
Sogiven that, my second question is: How did they decide on fifty percent as theright standard for
giving?And a corollary to that is this: How did the church decide on ten percent?
AndI believe that the answer is that both standards are arbitrary. There is abiblical precedent for
tenpercent, but it’s not as clear cut as we sometimes imply. And if thelesson of the happy tither and the
billionairesis that for some people ten or fifty percent is far too low a standard, then itis also true that for
agreat lot of others, ten percent is way too high. When I was a parish priest Ihad some very poor people
inmy care, and I’d have been ashamed to tell them they needed to give tenpercent to the church. We
neededto be giving money to them. And today a guy who has been out of work for thepast year, with
threekids to clothe and feed and a mortgage he can’t pay should probably notbe giving ten percent of his
unemploymentcheck to the church. Give something, of course, but not be enslaved to anarbitrary
expectation.So my second stewardship point is that legalistic formulas can be usefulstrategies for
giving,but life, and therefore honest stewardship, is more complicated than that.
Whichleads to my third question: How do these billionaires plan to spend the halfthey are not
givingaway? Because when a four-billionaire gives half away, he simply turns into atwo-billionaire.
Andit cannot be that a man with two billion dollars has less responsibility to usethat money wisely and
forthe common good than a man with four billion dollars. And if thetwo-billionaire has such
responsibilities,how about the one-billionaire, or the 500 millionaire, and if you keep halvingthis fortune
overand over eventually you will be asking what responsibilities the person with athousand dollars has
withwhat he has left after he gives five hundred away. And that might seem like anabsurdity, and if it is,
thenmaybe this is about the place where we get to the nuts and bolts of Christianstewardship. And it
doesnot make the conversation about giving much easier, but it might make ourtheology of stewardship
abit clearer.
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