Homily – 10/29/17
Last week’s gospel was an interesting one and it brought up a number of good questions. Many of you had good points in Father Nicholas’s interactive sermon. The best reaction to the gospel, in my opinion, was this one. “Jesus told them that money was a human creation and not God’s, so money remains in the human realm and I don’t need to give any to the church.” I don’t think this is what the vestry wants to hear.
Many of you come from different faith traditions and may not understand how the Episcopal church is funded. I thought this would be a good opportunity to clear up a few myths that people have about money and the church.
Myth #1 – our parish does not need money from us since funding comes to us from the diocese or the national church. This is false. In fact, it is actually the other way around. A percentage of what we give here at Epiphany goes to fund the operation and ministries of the diocese. In turn, a percentage of the diocesan funding goes to the national church to support its’ ministries. So rather than have our funding come down from the top, it actually is built up from the bottom.
Myth #2 – church should be free. Well, that one is partly true. Church IS free. We don’t charge admission. We don’t take tickets at the door. Unlike the casinos on the strip, we don’t even charge for parking. But operating our church does cost money. And while the church is free to all, it is only free because some of us believe so strongly in the mission and our call to spread the gospel, that we pledge financial support to fund the church. It is this pledging that covers the expenses of the church and ensures that it is free to all.
Myth #3 – I don’t need to pledge; I put some money in the plate when I am here and that is good enough. That one is also false. While the church is not a business, it does need to operate like one in some ways. We need to develop a budget that will support our expenses and to do that we need to have an idea of what funding we can expect. That is what makes pledging so important to the church; it allows us to build a realistic plan to fund our operation.
Now, if you are like me, you are probably a bit uncomfortable right about now. I always used to get uncomfortable when our priest would talk about money. Money is a funny subject as people take it enormously seriously and are often quite private about the concept. Others of you may be sitting there wondering to yourselves if this sermon is not just a bit self-serving on my part as I am actually paid by the church. On that part you are correct, so let me address that. For the first time in my life I now earn my living as a priest and I am the first full time employee Epiphany has ever had. Through your pledging I am paid a salary of $80,000, which to some of you may seem like a lot and to others may seem like a little. Our household budget is not unlike yours I imagine. Being a priest does not exempt me from having bills to pay. The largest expense in our home is the mortgage, which is probably true of many of you as well. The second largest is our pledge to the church.
You see we sat through many sermons like this one, and when the part about tithing came around I started to roll my eyes. 10% of my income to the church? Impossible! We have bills and expenses that they didn’t have back in Jesus’ time. Jesus didn’t have a cable bill or a cell phone plan. But as time went on, Jen and I talked more about our giving and embarked on a plan to give proportionally and keep increasing until we achieved the goal. When I took this job, we agreed that this was the time to make the leap and give the full 10%. Now I am not telling you this because we want any praise, but rather to share with you something important. It wasn’t until our giving became sacrificial that it really became important to us.
Sacrificial giving means that you need to sacrifice in other areas of your life in order to give. I am not talking about skipping the occasional Starbucks, but a real change in lifestyle. Tithing for us has brought about such a lifestyle change. Gone are fancy dinners on the strip. They have been replaced by more simple things. Did you know for instance that Ikea has a really good cafeteria and two people can eat there for about $17?
We didn’t do it for this purpose, but we have found that living into the tithe has brought us to a new appreciation of giving back to God. For what we have does not come from us, but from God. And only by giving something back, by sacrificing for God, do we have an understanding of how important that relationship is.
Which brings me to myth #4. Stewardship is about the church’s need to receive. This is also false. Yes, your money is needed to fund the mission, but stewardship is not about the needs of the church. It is really about our need to give. Let me say that again. Stewardship is not about the church’s need to receive; it is about our need to give. Think of it this way. When are you happier, when you get a gift or when you give one? Have you had that Christmas morning experience of waiting for a loved one to open that “perfect” gift you got them? As Christians we are about giving not receiving. Stewardship then is a way for us to recognize the gifts that God has given us in life; our skills, our experiences, the opportunities to create the life we have.
Now there is always one lectionary fanatic in the congregation who measures the value of the sermon by how it relates to the lessons of the day. That person (and you know who you are), is probably saying to them self, “he is talking about last week’s gospel but hasn’t mentioned this week’s yet.” But fear not, for this week’s gospel too is relevant to a conversation on stewardship. When asked by the Pharisees about the greatest commandment, Jesus replies; “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Through stewardship we show our love for God and for our neighbor in the mission and the ministry of the church. Remember the words of St Teresa of Avilla who said, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.”