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Rev. Bill Pederson
Biblical Text: I Timothy 6:17-19; Matthew 6:19-21, 24-33.
Someone said to me a few weeks back that given the state of the economy today, they’d bet this was the biggest challenge I had ever faced for a stewardship campaign. I said yes, it likely is, and it kind of reminds me of a story Billy Graham loved to tell about a strong man who used to travel with a circus and in each town the strong man would take an orange and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze it until there was absolutely no juice left in orange. Then the strong man would challenge a few folks in the audience to come forward and if they could squeeze at least one drop of juice from the orange, the strong man would give them a thousand dollars.
For years running, no one was ever able to claim the $1000 prize. Then one day the circus came to a small town and the strong man performed his orange squeezing trick and proceeded to invite a few folks forward for the $1000 challenge. A diminutive, slight little man came forward, took the orange from the strong man, and proceeded to squeeze six more drops of juice from the orange. The strong man could hardly believe his eyes and he asked the little man how he was able to squeeze six drops of juice out of the pulverized orange. The little man shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, I’m the treasurer down at the Presbyterian Church and we do this all the time.”
It is a challenge trying to squeeze a few drops of juice out of an increasingly drier and drier source. Over the past three Sundays we have looked at stewardship themes in the both the Old and New Testaments. We have done so against a backdrop of one of the steepest declines ever in domestic and foreign stock markets, while over those same weeks in our community we have witnessed the unimaginable forced sale of Wachovia Bank. Recession looms. Consumer confidence is down, WAY down. The once high flying American economy is grinding to a halt. Money is tight all over.
So what has been the biblical message over these past several weeks of stewardship themes against this unprecedented and dark economic background? Three weeks ago, through his letter to Christians in Philippi, the Apostle Paul challenged us to get our minds in the right place; take account of what really matters in this life – meaning Jesus Christ, and community and fellowship in Christ; practice what is excellent and praiseworthy in Christ and Christ will lead us to a peace in God that surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:1-9)
Two weeks ago we found Jesus in a political and religious trap set for him by the Pharisees when they asked Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Jesus asked for a Roman coin and asked whose head was on the coin and whose inscription. The Pharisees answered, “The emperor’s.” To which Jesus responded with his infamous phrase, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
What did Jesus mean by this statement? SOME things belong to the Caesars of this world, BUT all things belong to God. Christians have to live with the tension and seek faithfulness with our money within these tensions. At the very least Jesus meant that Christians cannot reasonably avoid paying taxes to a just and reasonable state. But Christians dare not avoid the ultimate reality – that everything we have, including the money at our disposal, is to be used to bring glory to God.
Last week we looked at a letter of the prophet Jeremiah to the people of God in exile in Babylon – interestingly enough, the ancient city of Babylon would be in modern day Iraq and for all practical purposes is the city of Baghdad. We talked about exile last week. How devastating a displacement exile was for the people of God. Gone was the familiar, gone was the customary, gone was the dependable life the exiles once knew in and around Jerusalem. We made the connection that we are in some sense in exile ourselves today with the unprecedented economic downturn our nation and the world now faces. The exile is not geographic exile by any means, but it trades in the same emotions as Jeremiah’s exiles faced– an exile of uncertainty and displacement from a life we once took for granted and never thought could change so drastically.
The prophet Jeremiah has something to say to a people of God who find themselves in the turmoil and upheaval of exile, a time when things seem constricted and tight and we want to pull in and pull back. Jeremiah says to a people of God in exile: Build; Plant; Multiply in exile, do not decrease; pray for the welfare of the political state; don’t be deceived by false prophets among you offering quick and easy answers out of exile; God is in the midst of exile with you – search and seek and you will find God.
These are the biblical and theological themes we have covered these past several weeks as all around us the economic news is devastating. The message to a people of God in the midst of economic exile is not to panic; get your minds in the right place; practice what is excellent and praiseworthy in Christ; carefully discern the things of God that are of ultimate value to you and honor that ultimate value with what you have and who you are; don’t diminish out of fear or uncertainty, but as a people of God continue to build and plant and multiply to the glory of God who is in your midst offering a future of hope.
The writer of I Timothy definitely understood this and warns us today not to set our hopes on the uncertainty of riches, “but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” Here is the over-riding biblical concept of God—God richly provides! The words supply and multiply and increase and abundance appear all over the New Testament as acclamation to God’s providing. Thus the writer of 1Timothy can boldly state that a people of God are free from the cares of this world and free to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, and ready to share because God provides everything for our enjoyment.
So sure is Jesus Christ of this richly providing God that Jesus can boldly say to his followers don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear. God knows you need these things. So, seek God first, and “all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)
Again, Jesus himself confronts us with the image of this generous, abundant, supplying God in whom there is plenty, enough, even increase. And yet, we must ponder today against an uncertain economic backdrop, do we fully trust this providing God of plenty and future, and does such trust make its way into our everyday financial decisions and the decisions we make about giving the money at our disposal to God’s work in the world?
We are called to this table. To see a God of abundance who has richly and lavishly provided for us in Jesus Christ. We are called to this table of abundance and plenty where we are told that we will never hunger, never thirst, and never be cast out. We are called to this table of abundance to receive Jesus Christ who gave generously and fully all that he had to God for our sakes, even his life.
We are called to this table of abundance in the midst of the scarcity that surrounds us today, for it is here that we learn of the future God provides. It is here we learn to do good because Jesus has done good to us; to be rich in good works because Jesus has been rich to us; to be generous because Jesus has been generous to us; to be ready to share because Jesus has already shared abundantly with us. We are called to this table of abundance, because there is no other place we can come to in this world today and take hold of the life that really is life – Jesus Christ.
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