Stewardship Corner

The greatest surprise about Easter is not that Jesus is alive, risen from the dead, out of the grave, that He conquered death and hell, and comes to meet you as He promised.  The greatest surprise  is that He did all that and is not angry.  There is no fear for us in His return because He is not angry. He bears no grudge. He seeks no vengeance.  He comes to give peace, with mercy and forgiveness and salvation.

Jesus lives and is not angry.  Imagine that.  He is not angry.  He doesn’t blame those who killed Him.  He doesn’t blame you.  For no one takes His life from Him.  He lays it down of His own accord.  He gives Himself into death to win us back from sin, death, and hell.  He does it willingly without coercion.  He does it sacrificially, Him for us. He gave what was His to give. Thus His petition to the Father from the cross, “Forgive them” is granted to you in His resurrection.  He comes alive out of death to forgive and to give His life to you.

There is nothing to be afraid of because Jesus is raised from the dead and is not angry.  Thus we are free—free from worrying about how to make it up to Him, and free to give as He has given to us.  He gave Himself as a gift,  His life in exchange for our death, willingly and sacrificially. And so it is that we are now free to give in like manner: willingly, sacrificially, with what we have been given.

We give to the church because it is in the church where our eyes have seen and our ears have heard that Jesus lives and is not angry.  It is here where we learn of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Christ.  It is here where we continually receive that message of life, where He visits us to give peace, with mercy and forgiveness and salvation.

So do not be afraid.  Jesus lives, and He is not angry.  The sacrifice has been made.  The debt is canceled and forgotten.  Righteousness is declared.  Jesus lives.  He lives, and He is not angry. You are restored.  You are reconciled to the Father in the Son.  Your future is assured: Jesus lives.  It is not just death and Hell, the devil and his demons, that are undone.  Your sins, your fear are undone.  They are gone, forgotten, destroyed.  Jesus lives.  Hallelujah!  Jesus lives.  And because He lives, you are just.  You are right with God, pleasing and delightful to Him. You are forgiven, clean, pure, holy, and filled with His good works and with His Name.  He is not angry.  He is glad to have you.  He wants you.  He loves you.  He gave everything that is His to and for you, willingly and sacrificially. In faith and trust in Him, let us do likewise.

Lent is a season of repentance.  Repentance is turning away from sin, while we turn toward God for the forgiveness of sins.  During Lent, we hear the Word of God and consider our lives in light of it.  We confess our failures, and receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, and then commit ourselves to do better.

What does God say about giving to the Church?  The Bible tells us: Our giving should be first fruits giving (Genesis 4:4; Proverbs 3:9).  Our giving should be regular, on the first day of week, which has the Divine Service in mind (1 Corinthians 6:1–2).  Our giving should be proportional: according to our income (1 Corinthians 16:1–2), according to what we have been given (2 Corinthians 8:12; Luke 12:48), our giving should be given with a spirit of eagerness and enthusiasm (2 Corinthians 9:2), generosity and liberality (2 Corinthians 8:20), cheerfully without compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7).  Our giving should be directed to those who teach us (Galatians 6:6–7) because a laborer is worthy of his hire, and we all know the going rate of such laborers in our communities (Luke 10:7; 1 Timothy 5:18).

Now consider your own giving in light of the Bible’s teaching.  Are you giving of your first fruits, taking it out of your paycheck first, or does God get what’s left over?  Are you giving voluntarily and cheerfully?  Are you giving proportionally and generously?  Are you giving with eagerness and enthusiasm?  Are you giving to your local congregation, sharing all good things with the one who teaches you?  If your answer to any of these is “No,” then repent.  Turn away from your sin and toward God for forgiveness.  Confess your failure.  Receive absolution. And commit to do better.  We know that the Spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. We believe, and we pray that God, through Word and Sacrament, would help our unbelief, our lack of trust in His ability to provide.

And this is precisely what God promises.  This is what St. Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth: ““The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may about in every good work.  As it is written, ‘He has distributed freely, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.’  He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be enriched in every way for all your generosity, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor. 9:6–15).

St. Paul tells us that the Lord of all will both supply and increase what you need to give to the church for its work in and for the world.  He tells us that this work that God is doing in us will enrich and bless us in every way and through this it will produce thanksgiving to God.  Everyone benefits.  We will be blessed in our giving, and it will produce thanksgiving to God in those who receive it.

Giving to the church is not a burden, just like all of God’s teaching (1 John 5:2–4).  They are not a burden because of He who gives it: the God who loves us and gave His only Son to die so that we may live.  He loved us in that He sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption as sons. . . . So we are no longer slaves, but sons, and if a son, then an heir through God (Galatians 4:4–5, 7).  We are heirs.  We receive the full rights of sons, a status that Christ our Lord achieved for us by His death, resurrection, and ascension.

So we strive to do what He asks because we are His children.  And when we don’t, we repent.  We confess our sins.  We receive absolution.  We desire to do better, praying that God would work in us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves us is never alone.  That is because faith is a living, busy, and active thing.  It inhales all of God’s riches in Christ and exhales this in love and service to the neighbor.

But who is my neighbor?  God in His mercy has placed us into three distinct communities: society, family, and the church.  That means we have a duty to those around us in each of these communities.  We pray for the people in these three communities daily.  We rejoice with them in times of joy and suffer with them in times of sadness.  And we give to them from the income that God provides as we are able and as they have need.

So we pay taxes to our governments so that they may do the work that is needed for our neighbors in society.  We give to our families so that they have food and clothing, house and home, even educations.  And we give to our church—our local congregations—so that the gospel may be preached and the sacraments administered for us and others.

The beauty of this is that God smiles upon all that giving.  When you pay your taxes, God is pleased that you have served your neighbor who needs what the government provides.  When you provide for your family, God is pleased.  That you have helped your neighbor with the necessities of life by sharing with them what He has given to you, God is pleased.  And when you give to your local congregation to support the ongoing preaching of the gospel, God is pleased.  To all this giving, He says to you, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Looking at giving in this light makes it a joy to give.  The joy is multiplied.  There is joy in you because you have served your neighbor in his need.  There is joy in your neighbor for God has answered their prayers through you.  And God rejoices and is pleased with it all.  It might just make the humdrum of grocery shopping and mortgage payments a bit more joyous.  It might even make April 15 tolerable (St. Paul had to have this pep talk with the Romans, also, “This is why you pay taxes….” Romans 13:6). And it surely will make the envelope placed into the offering plate a joyful thing.

Indeed God is pleased with you.  You are saved by faith alone because of Jesus Christ. And that saving faith is never alone.  It is busy and active.  It serves the neighbor in society, family, and church with free and cheerful giving.

“In all things I have shown you that . . . we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:35).  And indeed it is.  Does this not strike a chord that resonates in us all?  Which of us can’t recall the look of surprise and thanks for the Christmas gifts that we labored to give to those whom we love?  And the joy written on their face when that gift is received with thanksgiving means more than all the gifts we have received.  It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Our Lord knew this because He practiced it.  He gave of Himself, sparing not even His life in death, in order to give us back to our Father in heaven.  He knew that in giving, you get more because in giving joy is multiplied: the one who receives and the one who gives both rejoice in what is given and received.  What is more the one who receives is thankful and only wants to give back to the one who gave so generously.

So also with our tithes and offerings in church.  We want to give because we have received from God all that we are and all that we have.  Our giving does not originate in what we must do to earn God’s favor.  We have God’s favor because of the gift of His Son which we receive through Word and Sacrament.  Thus, we are made free from the compulsion of giving.  Now our tithes and offering are freely given in thanksgiving for what God has so generously given to us.

Why then does the church struggle to make budgets?  Why does the church always seem stretched so thin?  After all the Church is the place where God not only gives to us once, but continually again and again.  And what gifts He gives!  He gives us the forgiveness of sins, generously pouring out His grace and mercy because He loves us. So why does the church struggle?

It is because sin still clings to us.  Our fallen nature makes us selfish and miserly.  It leads us to believe that we can have our cake and eat it too.  Because of sin we want to receive, but not give. We want God’s blessings, but we don’t want to share them with those around us.  We want to remain comfortable in our own self-contained, neat, and tidy lives, without the headaches of loving those around us by helping them in their time of need.

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”  Remember that God has placed you in a church, not only to receive His grace and mercy, but also to use you to bless others.  Your tithes and offerings ensure that those around you have a pastor to preach the life-saving and life-giving Word of God.  They ensure that the lights and heat and air-conditioning are working.  They ensure there is water for Holy Baptism and bread and wine for the Holy Communion.  Everything the Church does, she is able to do by and through the generosity of the members of the Church.  So remember the words of the Lord Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.  And remember the joy that attended the gifts you gave at Christmas.  This same joy attends your gifts to the church.

Our Lord Jesus Christ healed the man with dropsy by His Word on the Sabbath (Luke 14:1–6).  He is the great Physician of both body and soul.  The paradoxical symptom of dropsy was an unquenchable craving for drink even though the body was over inflated with fluid, a craving that when indulged served not to ease but to feed the disease.  And so if a man drinks a great deal, but is never filled, he sees a doctor to inquire about what ails him, what is wrong with his body and how to remedy it. For that is not thirst but a disease (Seneca, Consolation to His Mother Helvia, 11.3).

But if the owner of five couches goes looking for ten, or the owner of ten tables buys up as many again, and even though he has plenty of land and money, he remains unsatisfied and desires yet more, losing sleep and always in discontent, does he not also require a physician to diagnose the cause of this distress?  For this is not want or lack, but a disease (Aristippus, quoted in Plutarch, Love of Wealth, 524b).  As St. Augustine of Hippo wrote, “we may rightly compare the dropsical man to a covetous rich man: For the more the one is swollen with excess of water, the more he thirsts; so also the other: The more he abounds in riches . . . the more eagerly he desires them” (The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, Vol. 4, 135).  Both require physicians.  Both require diagnosis and medicine applied from the outside to the inward being.  For these are not desires to be fulfilled but diseases to be cured.

This is why our Lord instructs us on taking care not to be overmuch consumed by money.  “No one can serve two masters . . . . You cannot serve God and money” (Matt 6:24; Luke 16:13).  The point is that our desire for money, like the disease dropsy, is never satisfied.  We always desire more.  We always think, if I just had this much then I would be happy.  But even when that much comes, which God gladly gives, that happiness evades us.  For the desire for more of these things is never satisfied. It demands our constant energy–either in procuring more or protecting what we already have.  When this happens, God, in His mercy, shows us that the money that He has given is no longer serving us, but we it. We have another master.

To overcome this, we need a physician’s diagnosis and a physician’s remedy.  And our Lord, Jesus Christ, our great physician of both body and soul, like the man healed of dropsy, applies His Word to us.  He shows us how we have put our fear, our love, and our trust in our money and not feared, loved, and trusted in Him above all things.  In essence, He says, “Stop it!  Stop chasing after these fleeting things.  They are vanity.  They are the things that moth and rust destroy.  For you cannot have two masters.  Repent!”  And in seeing our great error, we are sorry that we have not fully feared, loved, and trusted in God above all things.  And, in the mercy and grace, that He earned for us on the cross, He takes away this sin, restores us to health, and bids us live.

But then what?  What do we do with this healing balm and care that our great Physician has done? Do we simply go back to our old ways?  “By no means!” St. Paul says (Rom 3:31; 6:2).  We do not just go back to the old ways.  That way is dead to us and leads us to death.  No, we live a new life, a life filled with the grace, mercy, and love of God toward us.  And God’s great mercy, grace, and love toward is so abundant that it overflows and pours out onto those around us.  So we no longer hoard money and possessions.  We no longer scrape and crawl our way to amass more.  We give to those around us, as God in Christ has given to us.  We press our money and possessions into service for those who need it: our family, our society, and our Church.  For money is God’s gift to us to serve us and others.  Not the other way round.  It serves us because it is a gift from our Father in heaven.