St. Paul’s United Church
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Doing Good and Doing Well – Rev. David Mundy
1 Timothy 6:6-19 Luke
16:19-31
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Most faith communities try to figure out how they can get some attention
beyond their own doors, but there are publicity stunts which can end up being
more than anyone bargains for. At the beginning of September a Jewish
congregation in Florida decided to put two seats in their synagogue up for auction
on Ebay, the internet sales site. They
are very nice padded seats – none of this wooden pew stuff – situated in the
front row, close to the rabbi. September is a month with several significant
Jewish holidays and the feeling was that this would be a good time of the year
to sell off the seats. I suppose it’s a little like paying a premium for
Stanley Cup tickets, only the forces of good are up against the forces of evil
– the ultimate play-off. Opening bid on two front row seats?
1.8 million dollars!
I happened to see the rabbi interviewed on television and he was totally
unapologetic for this rather startling sale. He said that buying these seats
would be a tremendous gift to the congregation and to the children and
grandchildren of the purchasers.
It’s almost certain that most of you find this distasteful – the nerve
of this rabbi. Don’t you wonder if other clergy watched in admiration saying,
the nerve of this rabbi! This certainly defines chutzpah. I wonder if I
can find his email address?
There are obviously major differences between Judaism and Christianity
that we weren’t aware of before. To begin with, in a Christian church we
wouldn’t be able to auction off two seats at the front because no one wants to
sit there anyway! They would have to be in the back third of the sanctuary to
even get a nibble.
Even the most aggressive congregation would be reluctant to auction off
a place to sit for worship. And even in those churches –usually conservative in
theology – which ask their members to contribute the biblical tithe of 10
percent there is no enforced requirement to do so. It is, for the most part, a
matter of faith.
Other denominations such as ours don’t set any percentage for giving.
Often we aren’t even helpful in suggesting general levels of contribution. We
just count on the generosity of those who identify with the community of faith.
This story from Florida reminds us that even synagogues, and mosques,
and churches need to work out their salvation when it comes to money. After all,
money makes the world go ‘round! Wait a minute . . . that’s not right. God
makes the world go ‘round. But we still need cold, hard cash to pay the bills.
We all do, and sorting out the balance between what we keep and what we share
is one of the big challenges of the spiritual life.
This morning we heard a couple of scripture passages that are about
wealth and what it does to our spirits. Just so you are aware, these readings
were not of my choosing. Because we follow a three-year schedule of biblical readings,
the tougher ones such as these leap out from time to time.
In Luke Jesus tells one of the most unsettling parables you will find in
the gospels about a rich guy and a poor guy who die and end up in the
netherworld, hades – hell. It doesn’t look good for the rich guy. All during
his lifetime he “lives large” and ignores the plight of the poor. The rich man
has opened up a gap of self-interest that is so great it will never be
closed. There is no “have a nice day” in
this at all, other than the call for all of us to get it right while we can.
We also heard from First Timothy, a portion of the letter which is about
the Godly and disciplined life. Timothy is exhorted to “teach and urge” a
number of things including generosity. We don’t often think about giving as a
spiritual discipline along the lines of prayer and praise, but it is in the
bible.
The writer of the letter begins by saying that none of us can take our
wealth with us when we die.
Someone has observed that when you see a hearse heading for the cemetery
you never see a U-Haul attached to the back. This reading contains the words
which are very well known:
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil,
and in their eagerness to be rich
some have wandered away from the faith
and pierced themselves with many pains.
We heard from the gospel according to Luke today but in the Gospel
according to Pink Floyd and the song Money this verse is mentioned:
Money, it’s a crime.Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.Money, so they sayIs the root of all evil today.But if you ask for a raise its no surprise that they’regiving none away.
Can’t
you hear the great bass line and the “ching” of the cash register which is used
for percussion in the song! Lots to think about here. We don’t want to meander away from
the faith in search of filthy lucre and we are challenged to remember that it
is God who makes the world go “round, not money.
What is the antidote to
“moneyitis?”Someone has suggested that the aim of every Christian should be
“doing good” rather than “doing well.” We have all
heard the observation “he has done well for himself or herself.” The
intimation here is that prospering materially is a bad thing. Actually that is
not a biblical principle. What both Jesus and the writers of the New Testament
letters tell us that it is not a sin to prosper, but if it leads to an
unwillingness and arrogance about sharing and a
preoccupation with acquiring more it will be.
What is clear is that being rich can blur our vision and even blind us
to the importance of generosity. Oh good, we say. I’m not rich. When we think
of wealth it is the elite group of “richy rich’s” who are on the Forbes 400
list which lists the wealthiest people in the United States. Only a few years
ago it was announced that for the first time everyone on the Forbes list was a
billionaire. No mere millionaires in this crowd. Now the benchmark is 1.3
billion dollars – U.S. or Canadian, take your pick. These are rich people, as
are the others 600 or so billionaires around the planet.
I am trying to work with a different personal definition of wealth that
doesn’t allow me off the hook so easily. I got up this morning and turned on a
light switch and flushed a toilet and then ate a decent breakfast before coming
to worship. That moves me into a wealthy group in a comparative sense.
Electricity and running water and adequate food are simply not available for
hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of the people of the world. I may not be
among the elite rich, but I am far from poor and every day I have the luxury of
choosing how I will spend some of my money. I can’t give a billion dollars to
start a foundation but I can give the cost of a daily cup of coffee to respond
to the needs of others.
In both passages today we are invited to live generously and with
gratitude rather than with a miserly heart. The discipline of generosity
includes developing a mind-set of abundance rather than scarcity. If we live in
the world of imagined scarcity, we will never have enough, no matter what. We
probably know folk who “talk poor” when we know full well that they are not.
There is no sense of satisfaction or appreciation from day to day and a spirit
of gratitude goes missing.
Churches can be like this as well. I have told people here at St. Paul’s
that my last congregation in downtown Halifax was quite well-to-do,
and it was evident when newcomers walked through the door on Sunday. After our
first worship service there, my wife Ruth wondered whether she could fit in
because of the “dress code.” Because it was established and affluent, there
were endowments to the tune of 1.7 million dollars.
The trustees who looked after this money considered themselves more
along the lines of guardians, in the way Rottweiler dogs might be considered
guardians. Whenever the board came close to the money, you could hear that
chilling, throaty growl. One year we were running a seventy-five
thousand-dollar deficit by midyear and everyone was getting a trifle nervous.
Someone came to me and asked earnestly if the congregation was going to have to
declare bankruptcy. I assured them that we were okay for a while and later I
actually did the math. If we ended up with a year-end deficit of $75,000, each year it would take
roughly thirty years to become insolvent. As it turned out, the congregation
came through and we didn’t have that whopping shortfall.
While St. Paul’s doesn’t have the luxury of millions of dollars stuck in
a sock somewhere, we can choose to live the way of abundance and generosity.
The good news is that your church is never going to auction off a pew to raise
funds. Bye the way, the synagogue didn’t get a single bid on the seats. Surprise, surprise.
As I have already said, we won’t insist that you give a percentage of
your income, although it might be a worthwhile exercise to figure out how much
of your household income you give away. We will ask you to give from your heart
and soul, because that is the way of Christian discipleship.
Every time I speak on generosity I am aware that some of us are in more
difficult circumstances than others. Even if you don’t have much money, there
is some part of you which can be shared with others to express the gospel.
Every one of us can say, I am blessed and grateful so
I will . . . and then figure out how to fill in the blank.
I will finish up today with the thoughts of Kennon Callahan, a
consultant on Christian generosity who offers that there are four important
statements we need to make and implement:
_I will grow the gift of Life,
which God has given me.
_I will develop the gift of Generosity
with those around me.
_I will advance the gift of Mission
with my life and my congregation.
_ will build
the gift of Hope in my life and in the lives of those I seek to serve.
I will, I will, I will, I will! Life, generosity,
mission, hope. These are all forward-looking, faith-filled words which
every one of us can take to heart. We can learn them and live them. God does
make the world go ‘round. And we can “do good” and “do
well” as the followers of Christ.