Matthew 6:19-21
“Living Out Generosity: Gifts”
Preached Sunday, September 24, 2023
Today is our final Sunday in our sermon series, “Living Out Generosity.” We have been talking about our membership vows we make as United Methodists, to faithfully and generously serve God with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.
Generally, stewardship campaigns at churches focus majorly on the financial, and we will focus on that today, AND, I have chosen to focus on all of our vows for this series because I truly believe that generosity begets generosity. And when we are generous in one area of our lives, it spills over to our others.
So throughout this I have tried to simplify how we think about these things and what it means to live them out. Let’s do a re-cap:
To be generous with our prayers is to draw near to God.
To be generous with our presence is to show up.
To be generous with our service and witness is to see Jesus, be Jesus, and share Jesus.
And that brings us to being generous with our gifts. And while sometimes we talk about being generous with gifts as being generous with our talents, our spiritual gifts, which God has gifted all of us with and that is a part of a generous Christian life - today I want to talk specifically about financial gifts. For I feel, of all the things we talk about: prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness - this is the one that makes us most uncomfortable. It’s the hardest one to talk about. And even, hear me say this, great harm has been done by those who talk about it flippantly or without sensitivity. While I summed up the other vows in short phrases that push us to not just be but do - draw near, show up, see, be, share - I cannot yet do that today when I talk about giving generously with our gifts. What I can do is encourage each of us to get a little uncomfortable. To talk about our understanding of money and finances, to make a plan that ensures our basic needs are met, and that takes into account love of God and love of neighbor.
So why is talking about money such an uncomfortable thing for us? Something that makes us shift in the pews or a topic that is considered one of the impolite things to talk about: sex, money, and politics are the three things that can make the conversation at a family dinner go awry - even though as a church we are, in many ways, called to talk about these things - that is, the Gospel doesn’t exclude any areas of our lives.
In order to figure out why talking about money makes us uncomfortable - we have to have uncomfortable conversations. Conversations with ourselves and with God - and conversations between spouses and even parents and children. We need explicit conversations about how we approach money and giving and we need to pass these conversations on to our children as well.
We need to start with looking within ourselves and identifying our narratives we’ve been telling ourselves about money. This includes how we grew up, if we wanted or had enough, if we were formed with narratives of abundance or narratives of scarcity. If we saw giving as something that was done because people were shamed into it, or because people cheerfully planned to give, or if we ourselves were the recipient of generous giving. If we get anxious or scared when we talk about money. If having money or not having money affects our self-worth, our self-image, how we view ourselves. We bring all of this to the table, to the forefront of our minds, when we start to talk about money and giving. We need to understand where we’ve been to understand where we are. This is not easy work and it is work our larger culture, by and large, tells us not to do - doesn’t want us to do. If we don’t talk about money, money is more likely to have power over us. To shame us, to control us, to get us to buy certain products or act in certain ways that selfishly benefit others, to continue the never-ending rat race of always wanting and working for more.
Instead, I believe when we do our own inner work, and understand our own money stories, our own reactions, we can then begin to have agency in how we use this resource to the glory of God and aid of others.
Henri Nouwen in his book “The Spirituality of Fundraising” says, “The reason for the taboo [around money] is that money has something to do with the intimate place in our heart where we need security, and we do not want to reveal our need or give away our security to someone who, maybe only accidentally, might betray us.”
Basically, I am not saying that we are bad people for having a complicated, uncomfortable, relationship with money and I do not want to make you feel guilty for it this morning - what I am saying is, our relationship with money is based on our very human need for security, to feel safe. When we realize that this is the place where this comes from, I feel like it erases some of the stigma around money. At the end of the day, our concerns about money come from that place in our heart that is concerned about our safety and security and the safety and security of those we love.
Our culture tells us that the answer to our questions about security comes in the accumulation of wealth and material goods - but the Bible has a very different answer.
The Gospel from this morning says to not put our trust in earthly things: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I want to highlight that last line, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Now, we usually think that where our heart is, our treasure will follow. Right? Like, we give and invest and spend money on the things that are important to us. Jesus actually says that it is the opposite. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. This is not just a change in semantics. Jesus knows that the place where we spend our money will become our treasure, whether we want it to or not. Let me repeat that ‘cause I think it’s important: Jesus knows that the place where we spend our money will become our treasure, whether we want it to or not. Financial commitments require time and energy. They can pull our heart in a direction that perhaps neither we nor God ever intended. If you buy a house that requires a large percentage of your income, you have no choice but to spend time and energy and money in paying for it. For my generation, it is student loan debt. I have many friends who have become consumed and overwhelmed with the burden of finding a job that pays enough that they can make even the smallest dent on their loans - not to mention one that offers health care! Our ability to pay back these large, all-consuming debts becomes a marker of our worth and our ability to even survive. When you put your treasure into anything, your heart will follow. And some of it, we can’t help. Some of it is the way our system is set up with systems of generational poverty, student loan debt, medical debt, the rising cost of living, and so much more. And that’s not cause for shame. It’s an unfair and injustice reality that breaks God’s heart.
And, when the church offers an opportunity to give, for those who are consciously able to, it’s a chance, an opportunity, not just to support the life, work, and ministry of the church but to invest your treasure in a place where your heart will follow - a place that, every day, works to be more like the Kingdom of God.
I am not embarrassed or ashamed to stand before you today and say that we as a church need your financial gifts to accomplish our goals and to live out the calling that God is placing on our church - to fully discern and live out where God is calling us and who God is calling us to be as a community of love and as a church. I am not embarrassed and I do not approach this ask with trepidation because it is a spiritual act. Nouwen says, “As a form of ministry, fundraising is as spiritual as giving a sermon, entering a time of prayer, visiting the sick, or feeding the hungry.” Just as preaching, leading you in prayer, and offering pastoral care are spiritual acts that I am called to do as your pastor, so too am I called to invite you into generous living and giving generously in all areas of your life, including your finances. All of these things invite you into deepening your spiritual life and living more closely into the life God calls us to as followers of Jesus. And so, I want to talk about money as joyously as we sing our favorite hymns - the reason I decided to do a hymn sing the Sunday we talk about generosity through our finances.
So yes, as a church and as your pastor, we are going to ask you for money. Once again this year, we will be sending out pledge cards and asking you to fill them out. The ask, however, does not come from a place of insecurity for our security is found in God. The ask comes from a place of seeing where, together, our generosity can build a community of love, where we can come together with generosity in all areas of our lives, to create a community of love here at Boardman United Methodist Church, to create the Kingdom of God, here in our midst.
My prayer is that it is not just for the money or gifts that is the outcome of generosity with our finances, not just an increased budget or being able to meet all our commitments and goals - although that is certainly a wanted outcome, too. My hope and prayer is that through the spiritually transformative act of giving, we ourselves would deepen our own faith and relationships with each other and strengthen our ties to God and to this community.
I believe as a church community, we have some of the most important things that the world needs: belonging, friendship, prayer, peace, love, service to others, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we have the ability to invest in the local church, we are saying: these things matter to me and I know they matter to others. I can invest in something I believe in, hoping to share it with others.
And so let’s go back to where we talked about simplifying our membership vows.
To be generous with our prayers is to draw near to God.
To be generous with our presence is to show up.
To be generous with our service and witness is to see Jesus, be Jesus, and share Jesus.
And now, maybe I would say, to be generous with our gifts, is to take stock of our hearts…and our treasure. And see if they are aligned or if they are at odds. To see if our treasure is pulling us in a direction we want our hearts to go in.
And so my closing challenge to you is this:
Ask yourself the hard questions. Have these conversations about your money and your faith with yourself, with God, with your family. And, if and as you are able, make a plan to cheerfully and generously invest both your treasure and your heart here - in a church community that is working to build the Kingdom of God, in a church that has so much to offer the world.
I do want to thank you for going on this generous journey with me. For taking up my challenges. For seriously examining what it means to live a generous Christian life. Thank you for all the ways you already do and all the ways we are all growing together.
Amen.
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