Stewardship Corner

The reason we come to Church on Sunday morning, as opposed to Sunday afternoon or Monday evening, is because it is the first day of the week.  The first thing you do this week, before you do anything else, is come to Church.  You begin your week with the Word of God, Prayer, and the Holy Communion.  You give the first seventh, off the top, of your time to the Lord.  He blesses that time.  In that time, He forgives your sins, cleanses, and purifies you.  He then sends you out into the world, into the week, as His in all your days and hours and life.

This is also the reason we pray before we eat.  We want to establish that food is a gift from God and that He provides for us through it.  Before we eat, we pray. This also blesses the food and makes it holy food because you are holy people.

Nonetheless, we have a tendency to compartmentalize our lives, to separate the spiritual and the secular, to put on different masks at work, with our friends, or at home.  This is a fantasy.  We are who we are wherever we are.  We are the baptized and we never go anywhere alone. Everything we do is spiritual — including our use of time and food and money.

Now, you have a Christian duty to support the Church, to give of your time, money, and abilities so that the Ministry would be conducted among us and that the Gospel would be preached beyond us.  How much you are to give is not dictated in the New Testament, unless it is everything.  But how you are to give is clear.  It is sacrificial, generous, first fruits, and proportional.  You are to give a percentage offering—not an amount, but a percentage.

In the Old Testament ten percent was the norm.  It’s hard to imagine that St. Paul was thinking that “being generous” would be anything less than this.  But whatever it is, the point is to set your offerings in comparison to your total income. That is what makes it a sacrifice, a spiritual gift.  How much of what the Lord provides do you return?

Next, it is to be first-fruits giving. It comes off the top.  You write the check, or pay your offering, before you pay any of your bills.  It is your first obligation and sets your priorities.  You don’t pay your other bills and then give the leftovers to the Church.  You make your offering first, in accordance with whatever promised percentage you made.  This is not only first fruits, it is also sacrificial.

And you can always give more.  Start with your commitment, with your percentage-based, first-fruits weekly offering, then as you have leftovers, give them out as it pleases you.  But start with the Biblical model or percentage, first fruits.

That is how money is to be used and given by Christians.  It is to be pressed into the service of the Gospel.  It is not actually that hard.  Start where you are and work toward greater faithfulness.  Start now.  Just take what you give now and figure out the percentage of your income and commit to keep that pledge for the year.  Over time you can increase that commitment, that percentage.  As your income fluctuates, going up or down, so will your offering amount.  Set the percentage, then take that out of your check first each week.  Make it a priority.  It is the most important thing you do with your money. It is a spiritual exercise.

It will feel a little scary at first.  Just do it.  Take the risk.  Set the money aside for the Lord and trust that He will provide.  And over time you will find that you really can give more than 1% or even 10%, and even do so without regret.  This kind of Biblical, disciplined, first fruit giving takes the unease out of it.  It creates cheerful givers because when they drop the offering in the plate, they are already committed.  They decided beforehand what to give.  They don’t think about it. They are glad to fulfill their promise and to be in God’s house where He receives them according to grace.

What is most striking about the rich man and Lazarus is not their differences but their similarities (Luke 16:19–31). Both men die because both men are sinners, and the wages of sin is death. Both men are beggars, for all men are beggars. But, here is where the most striking difference between them takes shape. Lazarus knows it and lives it. The rich man, however, does not.

Lazarus was a beggar in thought, word, and deed. But, he was God’s beggar. He relied upon God for all that he had and all that he was. He looked to God for all things, in good times and in bad. He went to God in all trouble, sought Him for all help, and trusted in His Word and promises to provide for all that he needed for this life and the next. This is, after all, what his name means: God is my help.

The rich man, too, was a beggar. But he didn’t realize it. His status, his wealth, his clothing and his food all came from God’s gracious hand. But the rich man didn’t recognize it. He thought he had earned it, and that he deserved it. And thus, his trust is not in God, who by His Word and promise gives it, but rather in himself, in what he has done, and in what he has.

And so it is that when death comes to Lazarus and the rich man—as it does for all of us because we have all sinned, and death is no respecter of persons—Lazarus is carried by the holy angels to Abraham’s side; while the rich man is in torment in hell. The rich man forgot God. He despised being a beggar, and thus, despised Lazarus. He despised God and His Word, and refused to have mercy on those whom God placed at his doorstep.

Now, the tables were turned. What the rich man didn’t realize or recognize on earth, he now lived out in torment in hell. He knew what it was to beg. But he still didn’t see himself as a beggar of God. He still didn’t look to His Father in heaven for all good and help in every time of need. He instead appealed to His status as a descendant of Abraham, calling out Father Abraham and not “Abba, Father” (Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15).

We are all beggars. We brought nothing into this world and we will take nothing out of it (1 Tim 6:7). Everything we have and everything we are comes from God’s fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us, for He gives everything to us by grace. Thus, we are to love one another and be generous to one another in thought, word, and deed. For you cannot love God and hate your brother. And hating your brother means not to forgive as you’ve been forgiven, to give as you’ve been given to, to love as you’ve been loved.

 We are all beggars. This is true. But we, like Lazarus, are God’s beggars. He not only gives us what we need for this body and life—food and clothes, house and home, husband, wife, and children—but He also blesses us with His Word and Spirit, so that we will enter into paradise in the life to come. He claims us as His own by water and the Word in Holy Baptism. In this washing, rich in grace, He gives to us what His Son, Jesus Christ, won for us on His cross: forgiveness of sins. And where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. He puts His own name on us, thereby giving to us the right of children, the right to call Him Father and the right to His inheritance as His beloved sons. He gives us a seat at His table, in His house, in His kingdom, which has no end.

Yes, indeed, we are beggars. This is true. But we are beggars of the God who loves us, the God who created us from His love, the God who redeemed us by His love in the sending of His Son to die so that we would live and have life to the full. This is His promise. It’s what Moses and the prophets longed to see and of what they spoke. They see it now, not in a mirror dimly, but face to face, just as you shall on the last day.

And as God’s beggars, we have mercy on those who would be beggars of us, who rely upon our giving, even as we rely upon the gracious giving of God. We give to our family, our society, our church. He gives; we receive. Thanks be to God. We give; they receive. Thanks be to God. We count it all a joy to give as He has given to us.

Busyness is the new black. It’s stylish. We spend an inordinate amount of time comparing how busy we are with everyone else. We compare our schedules, our kid’s schedules, how productive we are and how much we have because of it to everyone around us. And if we don’t do or have what the next guy does or has, we just get busier and produce more so that we can.

This consumes our conversations and thoughts. And this should give us pause: Who is consuming whom, here? Are we the consumer or are we those consumed? It’s no accident that our adversary the devil is described as a lion prowling around seeking to devour us, to consume us. He gives us the liturgy of this world, the liturgy of productivity and consumption. For if he can keep us busy in “muchness” and “manyness,” he can be satisfied.

And this is why the Lord, after finishing all His work of creation, rested on the seventh day. This is why He established the Sabbath day—to give His people rest from all their work. As they rested, He continued to work for them, to satisfy them, to fill them with His gifts—food from heaven by His Word and Promise.

That day came when from our Lord’s cross and in His death, He proclaimed, “It is finished” (John 19:30). And so His work of redemption was complete. And so His body rested in the tomb, the belly of the earth. Though He is the Lord God who always works, yet as the Lord rested on the original Sabbath, now Jesus kept the Sabbath by resting in the tomb and rising from the dead to live forever. For this is why He came. This is why He became man: to draw all to Himself so that He could give rest and refreshment to the weary and the heavy laden.

The Sabbath is a gift, not a burden. It is a gift of time free from the liturgy of this world, the liturgy of productivity and consumption. Sabbath is time for rest and refreshment, a time free from anxiety to enjoy the gifts God gives, all of them—His Word, His Promises, His Sacraments, His creation, everything. It is a foretaste of the rest we shall enjoy in heaven.

Sadly for many of us rest has become work. It’s become drudgery. We long for it but we aren’t able to do it because there’s so much to be done and so little time to do it.  But really what’s the rush? Why are we so hurried and harried? Have we forgotten that Jesus is raised from the dead and lives forever?

Sabbath is God’s gift of time free from all of the anxiety and hurry of this world so that we can rest, be refreshed by the gifts God gives. Society won’t do it for us. They are addicted to the liturgy of productivity and consumption. Though we are in the world, we are not of it. We are the people of God, His own children by water and Word, joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus lives. And so shall we. So rest in the promise of our Savior that sin, death, and time have not hold on you because Jesus is raised from the dead. Jesus lives. And so shall we, forever.

We pray in the Lord’s Prayer for daily bread. The Small Catechism teaches that “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.” This is a pretty comprehensive list of what God provides for our daily bread. But all of this, eventually, and finally, will be taken away from us—not because God is punishing us, but because this is not the goal of life. There is more to life than these things. In fact, we will truly live when all these things are taken away, and we no longer need to pray for daily bread.

For God our Father in heaven is calling us home to Himself. We are just sojourners here. We are on a journey in the wilderness of this world toward our true home, the land of promise, in heaven. Everything that we have in this world and this life will be left behind.

But as much as we long for heaven, as much as we eagerly await that time when our Lord will take us from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven, we still struggle with letting go of what we have in this world. We still suffer the temptation to hold on to this life and this world and the things of this life and this world. But this is not our true home. And as good as this life is, and it is often by God’s grace very good, the life to come in His kingdom far exceeds it.

And giving, stewardship, is a practice that teaches us to look to, long for, and trust in the eternal realities rather than the earthly. It teaches us to loosen our hold and let go of those things that keep us earthly minded, so that we may look what our Father in heaven has in store for us for all eternity. It teaches us to concentrate on what God has done, is doing, and will do for us instead of the constant work-a-day world and noise that we have here. It teaches us to long for that better country, the heavenly one. For God is not ashamed to be called our God. And He has prepared for us a city, His city, not made with hands.

Thus we give generously to the church, to our family, to those in society. We release our grasp on what would keep our focus on the here and now, so that we would be free to receive and rejoice in what our future shall be in heaven. We invest where moth and rust will not destroy. We put our treasures so that our hearts will follow them (Matt 6:21; Luke 12:34). For we are only of any earthly good, when we are truly heavenly minded. Make this your practice for your own good eternally and your neighbors’ good temporally.

“And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? . . . I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you? Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matthew 20:11–15).

Entry into the Kingdom of heaven is by grace not by works. And this is the point of the parable. Those hired first received the same wage as those hired last. Those hired first, even though they bore the heat of the day, received the same wage as those hired last. Entry into the kingdom comes by grace, by the gracious call and invitation of the owner of the vineyard.

And we chafe against this. We, like those hired first, object to the master’s decision. We begrudge him because of his generosity. We think that those who labored longer should receive a greater wage. And we protest that it’s not fair. But that is precisely the point. It’s not fair. It’s by grace. It’s given from God’s undeserved love and kindness, not by merit. So we should rejoice. For to ask for fairness, to ask to be treated by what we deserve and have earned, is simply to ask for hell.

For God owes us nothing. For by grace you are saved, by his underserved love and mercy. And even though it was undeserved, that doesn’t mean it was cheap. It wasn’t cheap, but costly. It cost God the Father His own Son. It cost the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, His very life. God’s grace is costly grace. It costs us nothing but the cost for God was great. For it was achieved by the shedding of the holy and precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of Jesus. And it is by that shed blood that God by grace calls us to be His own. It is by that death that God by grace gives us entrance into His kingdom.

He doesn’t owe us. We’re not entitled to anything from God. He is not indebted to us. We are indebted to Him. For we have not lived as He mattered most. We have not loved Him with our whole heart, body, mind, and soul, with all that we are and all that we have. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve his temporal and eternal punishments. But unlike us, He doesn’t hold this debt over our heads. He has instead place our debt upon the head of His Son, and His Son has taken it willingly so that we would be forgiven and free.

For reasons all His own God has determined to love us. He has taken the punishment we deserve upon himself. He has given gifts to those whom He knows would take it for granted. This is grace. He is kind, forgiving, steadfast. He is slow to anger and abounding in love. For the kingdom of heaven is entered by grace, by His giving not our earning.

He is allowed to do what He chooses with what belongs to Him. But it doesn’t work the same way with us. For what belongs to us? Nothing. We belong to Him, by water and His Name. He purchased and won us from sin, death, and the devil by His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, so that we would be His own special possession. Thus, we have nothing of our own, it all belongs to Him. We are stewards of what He has given to us. And so we give of ourselves, all that we are and all that we have, to those whom God has placed us to care for in our vocations of members of a family, society, and the church.

And if He has done all this for us, how can we not do with everything that He gave us likewise?

Stewardship Corner

Why does giving seem so difficult? In reality, it isn’t. But we make it difficult. We make it difficult because we’re afraid. We’re afraid that it isn’t worth the investment. We’re afraid that what we give to the church might be wasted, or that we could use it for something better, something more enjoyable, something more real, more tangible, more immediate, even more important, something more important than God and His gifts.

The point is this: We struggle with giving because we don’t believe as we should. We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. And so we fail to give because we don’t love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. We fail to give because we don’t fear Him more than we fear other things. We fail to give because we don’t trust Him more than we trust the things we can more immediately see, taste, and touch. We don’t trust that He will give us everything (EVERYTHING!) we need to support this body and life. For if we did fear, love, and trust in God above all things, we would see and know that all the other things that vie for our time, our talents, and our treasures pale in comparison to the joy of the real, tangible, immediate love God has showered upon us in the proclamation of the forgiveness of sins on account of His Son’s death, resurrection, and ascension.

The only proper response to this is repentance: to confess our sin, our stinginess, our lack of fear, love, and faith in God’s promises, and to trust in Him to help us bring our desire to do better to fruition. For God is not holding out on us. He never has. He never will. For if He has given you His only Son, how will He not also give you all things? He will. It is His promise. And these promises are sure and certain.

The reality is that God doesn’t need our giving. He doesn’t need our time, our talents, our treasures. He is God. We are not. He can do all things without our help. And even what we do give, even the good and righteous things we do accomplish, these are but filthy rags, as the prophet Isaiah tells us (Isaiah 64:6). Our gifts to God and to the Church are like a child’s gift of dandelions to his mother. They are weeds, which most of us spend an entire summer trying to rid our yards of them. And yet despite the fact that they are weeds, mothers always receive them with a smile and with joy. They will even put them in vases and display them on tables and countertops. They will recount to friends and other family members how their child gave them “flowers,” just to say I love you and I’m thankful for all you do.

Our Lord, too, receives with joy and a smile the gifts we give in thanksgiving and praise of what He has done. Even though these gifts are but weeds, filthy rags, and despite the fact that He doesn’t need them to accomplish what He wills, He receives them and puts it to use for our and our neighbors good. That is the real joy of giving. He doesn’t need us. Yet He makes use of us, He employs us in His service despite it. He makes all that we do—our giving, our work, our service to our family and friends and neighbors—holy. And He blesses it for their and our good and to the glory of His name.

So is giving so hard? Nah, it’s like giving dandelions to our mothers. And when dinner is ready, when the food is on the table, she’ll gladly have a vase full of them right in the middle. The Lord has prepared a table for you. Dinner is ready. The table is set. His Body and Blood is given to strengthen and nourish you. And right there, where Christ is with us, are the dandelions we gave. He has put them to use for our good, for our forgiveness, for our life in Him.