Download The Rev. Martin Elfert, rector of Grace Memorial, Portland
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
The blogger and comedian Gaby Dunn decided to engage in a do-it-yourself social experiment. Dunn’s experiment involved going up to strangers in coffee shops and other public contexts and saying:
Can I ask you two questions?
Most folks said “yes,” and so Dunn began. Her first question (and forgive me in advance if this is a little raunchy for church – you can plug your ears if you want, or you can plug your neighbour’s ears) was:
What is your favourite sexual position?
What Dunn discovered is that, by and large, folks responded to that question with enthusiasm, not only giving her an answer but volunteering a reason for their answer. The strangers would say to Dunn, O, my favourite position is this – and here’s why…
The first question completed – and sometimes it took a while for folks to tell Dunn everything that they wanted to share, they liked this question a lot– the strangers energetically asked Dunn:
What’s the second question?
And so Dunn asked them:
How much money is in your bank account?
This is the point at which folks became shocked and appalled. They couldn’t believe that Dunn would have the rashness, the uncouthness, the rudeness to ask such a personal question. This was the moment, if we lived in another era, in which the strangers would have slapped Dunn with a glove and said:
How dare you, Madam! I challenge you to a duel.
How fascinating.
We talk sometimes about how nothing is taboo anymore, about how we can now say or print anything, about how we can show anything on TV. But that’s not actually true. There are taboos today that did not exist a generation or two ago: the 1950’s, or instance, smoking was a marker of sophistication. Today it is a marker of poor judgment. That’s mostly an okay thing. And then there are other taboos – like the taboo around talking about money – that persist and remain powerful.
I’m not convinced that the taboo against talking about money is so healthy.
Here in the church we more or less mirror the culture around us when it comes to not talking about money. Talking about money is something we’d just rather not do. Like a lot of taboos, the emotion that we feel around this taboo is simultaneously vague and powerful. We will say, often with a bunch of intensity but usually without a whole lot explanation, I just feel like money is private. I remember a number of years ago at the Cathedral in Vancouver when a fellow parishioner, in a state of anger and annoyance and agitation said to me:
The church should not talk about money.
Ever.
I suspect that this taboo – inarticulate and powerful as it is – is the reason that so many Episcopalians kind of dread the fall financial stewardship campaign in their parishes. These campaigns are either boring because the leaders choose to honour the taboo and never end up talking about anything real. Or they feel kind of dangerous because the leaders choose not to honour the taboo, and we’re not sure what to do with that.
In case it’s not obvious, my reflections this morning will be in the dangerous category.
However. In keeping with a financial stewardship campaign that, as a community, you have chosen to understand as a spiritual practice, I hope that our conversation this morning will be spiritually rewarding and maybe even fun.
Here’s my question. Why do we in church participate in this taboo? We are disciples of Jesus, we are followers of Jesus. And Jesus, our teacher and model? Well, he doesn’t participate in this taboo at all. Jesus talks about money early and often and openly.
In Matthew 5:42, Jesus says when people want to borrow money, you should go ahead and lend it to them. Later on in the same book, Jesus says we ought not to store up riches on earth, but to store up riches in heaven. In Luke, in the story that we call the Good Samaritan, Jesus’ definition of a neighbour is the one who generously makes their resources – including their financial resources – available to someone in need. Elsewhere in Luke, Jesus says that you and I cannot serve both God and money.
And then there are the run of readings that we have been encountering over the last number of weeks in the Gospel of Mark, all of which are about Christian stewardship. Remember, we define stewardship as what we do with all of the gifts that God has given us, with our time, talent, and treasure.
Two weeks ago, we listened as Jesus told the wealthy guy to sell all of his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. If we take this passage seriously, if we allow that it might apply to us (and a number of our fellow Christians have worked pretty hard to not take it seriously, to make it not apply to them – the same folks who will tell you that 1 Timothy’s prohibition on women teaching or holding authority over a man is eternal and universal will tell you that Jesus’ instruction to the rich man is only about that rich guy, not about you or me; and even those of us who don’t make that argument are likely to rationalise that we aren’t really rich because there are other people who have more stuff than us) then what does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
Last week, we heard the Zebedee boys ask Jesus if he would give them anything that they wanted. And what they wanted, it turns out, is worldly status and power, to sit at his right hand and his left in Jesus’ glory. And Jesus says: You don’t know what you are asking for. Following me, being my disciples, means drinking from the cup that I drink from, it means being baptised with the water I am baptised with. It means taking up your cross. What does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
And this week, Jesus encounters a blind man, a man who is begging for Jesus’ mercy and healing. And Jesus, as the cheeky bumper sticker has it, gives him free health care. What does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
Now, maybe I’ve just answered my own question of a few minutes ago. Maybe I have actually just explained why most American Christians, mirroring the rest of our culture, don’t like talking, why we don’t like stewardship campaigns. Because the way that Jesus talks across the Gospels, the way that he is acting in this run of readings from Mark? This is kind of squirm-inducing stuff.
Jesus sure appears to be saying that being rich isn’t very good for you. Jesus sure appears to be saying that we don’t own anything, that our money, our stuff, our very bodies – well, these are gifts that God has allowed us to borrow for a while. And for the fleeting time that we have these gifts, our calling is to give a good part of those gifts away, to use them to build up the Kingdom.
What do we do with a message like that in America, where being rich is everything, where being a winner while other people lose is everything?
Here are a couple of possibilities. First (and maybe this is obvious, but I think it bears saying out loud), the example of Jesus is that money is something that disciples talk about directly and honestly and in an unvarnished way. Maybe – and let’s try this idea on – one of the things that Jesus wants us to know if that money is too unimportantto be a secret. There is a reason that, in the Harry Potter books, Harry and Dumbledore refuse to participate in the habit of leaving Voldemort’s name unsaid. We give something big power in our lives when we refuse to discuss it. Let’s not, Jesus says, give money that kind of power.
Second, Jesus’ teaching, his example, is that how we spend our money is a spiritual exercise that shapes our capacity to participate fully in the Kingdom of God.
Who is the saint who says Christ now has no hands, no feet on earth but yours?That’s Teresa of Avila. When we clutch on to material possessions and money, when we store up treasures on earth rather than in heaven, our hands become too full and too clenched to be Jesus’ hands in this world, to participate in building the Kingdom of God.
So.
There is a thread. A thread that goes back into the past, way back to Jesus, way back to the beginning of time, when God created and said:
It is good. It is good. It is good.
For most of us, for all of us, the thread passes into the clouds and out of sight long, long before its beginning. Maybe as far back as we can see is 100 years or so.
It is 1906, and some folks at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church had a holy vision – a vision for a chapel across town. And so some folks made a gift. Through that gift, they were for a while the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day. In 1923, as the Great Fire raged in the East Bay, the people of All Souls opened their doors to those seeking shelter from disaster and looking for their loved ones. For a while, those folks were the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day. In 1968, the Reverend Brad Brown, Rector of this Parish, travelled to Selma to march with Dr. King. For a while, those who marched were the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day.
More recently, here is the ministry of Christopher Putnam, here is the ministry of Fred Lothrop, here is the ministry of Ann Jordan and her financial gift that allowed this place to take some holy risks.
None of these people – let’s be clear about this – bought God’s love through their gifts. God loved them unreservedly no matter what. Rather, through their gifts, they participated in God’s love, they responded to God’s love.
And then we come to here. This amazing moment that we call now. This is the moment when, if you and I want, we can be Christ’s hands and feet in this world for a while. If we want, we can, with God’s help, shape what happens further down the thread. Perhaps one day – 10 years from now, 100 years from now, further down the thread – someone will say your name and say thank you.
Today, you are invited to make a pledge to All Souls. On your pledge card, there is a check box on the card that says: This is a proportional gift. That statement is deliberately ambiguous. For me, when I check that box at my home parish, at Grace Memorial in Portland, it will mean that our family has made a tithe to the church. I have a gross salary of approximately $80,000 a year, and so our family’s pledge will be $8,000. My wife, Phoebe, has income and we tithe that as well to God’s work outside of our parish.
I am aware that the subject of tithing leaves some Episcopalians grinding their teeth. I am aware of that because you have told me. But I would be remiss not to talk about tithing. Friends, that’s because the tithe has become one of the most rewarding parts of our family’s spiritual practice. It is a way of making sure that our first fruits go to God, it is a way, as Caroline McCall puts it, to stop haggling with God about how much God’s church is worth to us. Should I give what I gave last year? Should I give three times what I give to me alma mater? That’s not discernment: that’s just math.
I encourage you to find your way to a place where you can check that box, where your gift is proportionate to your income, to your spending, to your wealth, or to something else.
If your experience is anything like mine, a proportional gift will change your relationship with God. It will help this parish, yes. Imagine what All Souls could do if everyone who loved this place became proportional giver, let alone if everyone became tithers! You could dream big. This parish would be unstoppable. But more importantly, a proportional gift will open your hands. It will transform you and set you free.
Jesus is a lot like Gaby Dunn. He will talk to you directly about money. He will ask you how much money is in your bank account. He will ask you how much you pledge. Today, may you and I discern a pledge that, when Jesus’ question comes, will allow us to answer him with confidence and with joy, that will deepen the ways that we are Christ’s hands and feet and voice in a hurting world.
Martin Elfert
October 14, 2018
Pentecost 23
Financial Stewardship Sunday at All Souls, Berkeley, CA
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Psalm 34:1-8, (19-22)
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52
*
The blogger and comedian Gaby Dunn decided to engage in a do-it-yourself social experiment. Dunn’s experiment involved going up to strangers in coffee shops and other public contexts and saying:
Can I ask you two questions?
Most folks said “yes,” and so Dunn began. Her first question (and forgive me in advance if this is a little raunchy for church – you can plug your ears if you want, or you can plug your neighbour’s ears) was:
What is your favourite sexual position?
What Dunn discovered is that, by and large, folks responded to that question with enthusiasm, not only giving her an answer but volunteering a reason for their answer. The strangers would say to Dunn, O, my favourite position is this – and here’s why…
The first question completed – and sometimes it took a while for folks to tell Dunn everything that they wanted to share, they liked this question a lot– the strangers energetically asked Dunn:
What’s the second question?
And so Dunn asked them:
How much money is in your bank account?
This is the point at which folks became shocked and appalled. They couldn’t believe that Dunn would have the rashness, the uncouthness, the rudeness to ask such a personal question. This was the moment, if we lived in another era, in which the strangers would have slapped Dunn with a glove and said:
How dare you, Madam! I challenge you to a duel.
How fascinating.
We talk sometimes about how nothing is taboo anymore, about how we can now say or print anything, about how we can show anything on TV. But that’s not actually true. There are taboos today that did not exist a generation or two ago: the 1950’s, or instance, smoking was a marker of sophistication. Today it is a marker of poor judgment. That’s mostly an okay thing. And then there are other taboos – like the taboo around talking about money – that persist and remain powerful.
I’m not convinced that the taboo against talking about money is so healthy.
Here in the church we more or less mirror the culture around us when it comes to not talking about money. Talking about money is something we’d just rather not do. Like a lot of taboos, the emotion that we feel around this taboo is simultaneously vague and powerful. We will say, often with a bunch of intensity but usually without a whole lot explanation, I just feel like money is private. I remember a number of years ago at the Cathedral in Vancouver when a fellow parishioner, in a state of anger and annoyance and agitation said to me:
The church should not talk about money.
Ever.
I suspect that this taboo – inarticulate and powerful as it is – is the reason that so many Episcopalians kind of dread the fall financial stewardship campaign in their parishes. These campaigns are either boring because the leaders choose to honour the taboo and never end up talking about anything real. Or they feel kind of dangerous because the leaders choose not to honour the taboo, and we’re not sure what to do with that.
In case it’s not obvious, my reflections this morning will be in the dangerous category.
However. In keeping with a financial stewardship campaign that, as a community, you have chosen to understand as a spiritual practice, I hope that our conversation this morning will be spiritually rewarding and maybe even fun.
Here’s my question. Why do we in church participate in this taboo? We are disciples of Jesus, we are followers of Jesus. And Jesus, our teacher and model? Well, he doesn’t participate in this taboo at all. Jesus talks about money early and often and openly.
In Matthew 5:42, Jesus says when people want to borrow money, you should go ahead and lend it to them. Later on in the same book, Jesus says we ought not to store up riches on earth, but to store up riches in heaven. In Luke, in the story that we call the Good Samaritan, Jesus’ definition of a neighbour is the one who generously makes their resources – including their financial resources – available to someone in need. Elsewhere in Luke, Jesus says that you and I cannot serve both God and money.
And then there are the run of readings that we have been encountering over the last number of weeks in the Gospel of Mark, all of which are about Christian stewardship. Remember, we define stewardship as what we do with all of the gifts that God has given us, with our time, talent, and treasure.
Two weeks ago, we listened as Jesus told the wealthy guy to sell all of his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. If we take this passage seriously, if we allow that it might apply to us (and a number of our fellow Christians have worked pretty hard to not take it seriously, to make it not apply to them – the same folks who will tell you that 1 Timothy’s prohibition on women teaching or holding authority over a man is eternal and universal will tell you that Jesus’ instruction to the rich man is only about that rich guy, not about you or me; and even those of us who don’t make that argument are likely to rationalise that we aren’t really rich because there are other people who have more stuff than us) then what does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
Last week, we heard the Zebedee boys ask Jesus if he would give them anything that they wanted. And what they wanted, it turns out, is worldly status and power, to sit at his right hand and his left in Jesus’ glory. And Jesus says: You don’t know what you are asking for. Following me, being my disciples, means drinking from the cup that I drink from, it means being baptised with the water I am baptised with. It means taking up your cross. What does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
And this week, Jesus encounters a blind man, a man who is begging for Jesus’ mercy and healing. And Jesus, as the cheeky bumper sticker has it, gives him free health care. What does that mean as we think about Christian stewardship?
Now, maybe I’ve just answered my own question of a few minutes ago. Maybe I have actually just explained why most American Christians, mirroring the rest of our culture, don’t like talking, why we don’t like stewardship campaigns. Because the way that Jesus talks across the Gospels, the way that he is acting in this run of readings from Mark? This is kind of squirm-inducing stuff.
Jesus sure appears to be saying that being rich isn’t very good for you. Jesus sure appears to be saying that we don’t own anything, that our money, our stuff, our very bodies – well, these are gifts that God has allowed us to borrow for a while. And for the fleeting time that we have these gifts, our calling is to give a good part of those gifts away, to use them to build up the Kingdom.
What do we do with a message like that in America, where being rich is everything, where being a winner while other people lose is everything?
Here are a couple of possibilities. First (and maybe this is obvious, but I think it bears saying out loud), the example of Jesus is that money is something that disciples talk about directly and honestly and in an unvarnished way. Maybe – and let’s try this idea on – one of the things that Jesus wants us to know if that money is too unimportantto be a secret. There is a reason that, in the Harry Potter books, Harry and Dumbledore refuse to participate in the habit of leaving Voldemort’s name unsaid. We give something big power in our lives when we refuse to discuss it. Let’s not, Jesus says, give money that kind of power.
Second, Jesus’ teaching, his example, is that how we spend our money is a spiritual exercise that shapes our capacity to participate fully in the Kingdom of God.
Who is the saint who says Christ now has no hands, no feet on earth but yours?That’s Teresa of Avila. When we clutch on to material possessions and money, when we store up treasures on earth rather than in heaven, our hands become too full and too clenched to be Jesus’ hands in this world, to participate in building the Kingdom of God.
So.
There is a thread. A thread that goes back into the past, way back to Jesus, way back to the beginning of time, when God created and said:
It is good. It is good. It is good.
For most of us, for all of us, the thread passes into the clouds and out of sight long, long before its beginning. Maybe as far back as we can see is 100 years or so.
It is 1906, and some folks at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church had a holy vision – a vision for a chapel across town. And so some folks made a gift. Through that gift, they were for a while the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day. In 1923, as the Great Fire raged in the East Bay, the people of All Souls opened their doors to those seeking shelter from disaster and looking for their loved ones. For a while, those folks were the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day. In 1968, the Reverend Brad Brown, Rector of this Parish, travelled to Selma to march with Dr. King. For a while, those who marched were the hands and feet of Christ in this world. So many people have benefited from their ministry, we are the beneficiaries of their ministry to this day.
More recently, here is the ministry of Christopher Putnam, here is the ministry of Fred Lothrop, here is the ministry of Ann Jordan and her financial gift that allowed this place to take some holy risks.
None of these people – let’s be clear about this – bought God’s love through their gifts. God loved them unreservedly no matter what. Rather, through their gifts, they participated in God’s love, they responded to God’s love.
And then we come to here. This amazing moment that we call now. This is the moment when, if you and I want, we can be Christ’s hands and feet in this world for a while. If we want, we can, with God’s help, shape what happens further down the thread. Perhaps one day – 10 years from now, 100 years from now, further down the thread – someone will say your name and say thank you.
Today, you are invited to make a pledge to All Souls. On your pledge card, there is a check box on the card that says: This is a proportional gift. That statement is deliberately ambiguous. For me, when I check that box at my home parish, at Grace Memorial in Portland, it will mean that our family has made a tithe to the church. I have a gross salary of approximately $80,000 a year, and so our family’s pledge will be $8,000. My wife, Phoebe, has income and we tithe that as well to God’s work outside of our parish.
I am aware that the subject of tithing leaves some Episcopalians grinding their teeth. I am aware of that because you have told me. But I would be remiss not to talk about tithing. Friends, that’s because the tithe has become one of the most rewarding parts of our family’s spiritual practice. It is a way of making sure that our first fruits go to God, it is a way, as Caroline McCall puts it, to stop haggling with God about how much God’s church is worth to us. Should I give what I gave last year? Should I give three times what I give to me alma mater? That’s not discernment: that’s just math.
I encourage you to find your way to a place where you can check that box, where your gift is proportionate to your income, to your spending, to your wealth, or to something else.
If your experience is anything like mine, a proportional gift will change your relationship with God. It will help this parish, yes. Imagine what All Souls could do if everyone who loved this place became proportional giver, let alone if everyone became tithers! You could dream big. This parish would be unstoppable. But more importantly, a proportional gift will open your hands. It will transform you and set you free.
Jesus is a lot like Gaby Dunn. He will talk to you directly about money. He will ask you how much money is in your bank account. He will ask you how much you pledge. Today, may you and I discern a pledge that, when Jesus’ question comes, will allow us to answer him with confidence and with joy, that will deepen the ways that we are Christ’s hands and feet and voice in a hurting world.