And the eleventh commandment is...

Frank W. Wood

Elder, Christ Presbyterian Church

Malachi 3: 6-10

II Corinthians 8:1-7

Good Morning, and I bring a joyful greeting from your brothers and sisters at Christ Church here in Tallahassee. It is also my honor to serve on the Presbytery Stewardship Committee, so on behalf of all our churches in northwest Florida I bring their love and blessings to historic First Church.

As Presbyterians, we need to take a few moments and pat ourselves on the back for what we have accomplished over the past fifty years. I know that is a hard thing to do because it is simply not our nature to be boastful. The truth is we have filled an incredible leadership role in this country on many fronts, all of which are deeply rooted in our reformed faith. Our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, and members of this congregation were willing to discuss just about anything, including civil rights, the Vietnam War, legal justice, affirmative action, women’s rights, and everything in between. We should all be proud of the leadership role we fulfilled, because it took a great deal of courage to tackle these issues. Especially when we often found ourselves in the minority opinion, or at least initially... First Church has a great history right here in Tallahassee, and just this past week your pastor was willing to share his faith perspective in the political arena relative to Amendment #2.

The expression, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way," is a little over simplistic at times, but the truth is that Presbyterians have been more than willing to take important leadership roles on several fronts, and that is something we can all be proud of. Our expression of Christianity is about being "connected." While each church operates autonomously and establishes their own mission objectives and general course of ministry, we are bonded together in our common faith thru this Presbytery, our Synod and the General Assembly. This relationship is one of our great strengths. Diverse opinions, conditions, and circumstance all come together in the name of Jesus Christ.

There is one issue we have been reluctant to talk about or tackle with gusto and that is financial stewardship. When it comes to money, we typically "zip the lip." Like some of you, I am a cradle Presbyterian. I was baptized, raised, and confirmed at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I have incredibly fond memories from my youth, but interestingly I have few memories about meaningful experiences with stewardship. Some of us were raised with stewardship as a guiding principle, so giving freely and abundantly is natural for you. My Mother was the spiritual leader of the family, and we faithfully attended worship and fully participated in the life of the church. Even my Mother though, while she faithfully pledged, never discussed stewardship with me. I suspect that many of you might have had similar experiences as I did. Generally speaking, we have looked to the clergy to lead us through stewardship campaigns which they have often done faithfully, yet reluctantly. Elders and Deacons - this is an area that we really need to grow in. We ask too much of our clergy and this is an area that needs our leadership.

The truth is, financial stewardship simply hasn’t been our strong suit - we chose to focus on other priorities. But there is good news! We can change that, and it really isn’t that difficult to accomplish. If we can tackle many of the pressing worldly issues from a spiritual perspective, then we can change our approach about financial stewardship as well.

Now, we all know there is no such thing as the eleventh commandment - at least not in Scripture! If you ask a Mother what the eleventh commandment is, she’ll probably say "clean your room," while Dad might say, "turn the lights off!" A teacher would have another answer as would the grandparents. But the notion of the eleventh commandment is interesting isn’t? What would God have chosen? Hold that thought please....

Our scripture lessons from Malachi and II Corinthians are two of the foundational passages about stewardship in my opinion. In Malachi we hear about the test of tithing, and in Corinthians we learn about excelling in the grace of giving. I have read the passage from Malachi at least one hundred times over the years and my understanding and appreciation for the depth of what is said there has really grown. Early in my adult faith journey my observations were rather shallow such as, "Well I’ll just never have that degree of blessings I suppose," all the way to rationalizing that tithing is "relative" in the 21st century. We have so many more obligations and responsibilities, that quite simply you can’t do it unless you are extremely wealthy or you have achieved all of your personal goals. Besides, if it was that important - God would have made it a commandment!

As I review Malachi now, my perspective is so different. What I hear, is a loving parent addressing their child just as we have done with our own kids or a teacher does with their students. My wife Liz and I are blessed to have our six year old granddaughter live with us, and she is afraid to go downstairs in the dark by herself at night. And just this week, I couldn’t figure out what the delay was about brushing her teeth until she told me her toothbrush was downstairs, and she was scared to go and get it. So we talked about it. I promised her that she would be safe, and there was nothing to fear. "Trust me Victoria... I’ll be right here if you need me." So down she went, with a little anxiety, and back she came... I waited at the top of the stairs, with my arms open and saw that smiling face running and I said "now wasn’t that easy?" That is precisely the exchange that I think God is having with Malachi, a loving parent providing guidance and courage, and that message should resonate with us as an incredible challenge because it is really filled with grace. However, if we haven’t been exposed to tithing, I’ll be the first one to admit it’s a hard principle to accept. Trust me, I know first hand...

My parents passed away much too early in my life, but as a young adult I was blessed to have a wonderful mentor enter my life who really became a surrogate father to me. His name was Tom Kinnebrew, and I suspect that some of you might remember him. What a wonderful man! One Sunday at Covenant Church, Tom stood and gave the finest homespun testimonial I ever heard, and it went like this, "Folks - I’ve been to a number of funerals in my life, but I’ve yet to see a hearse with a U-Haul behind it. You can’t take it with you when you go, so don’t be afraid to give some now!"

After I just about fell out of the pew in laughter, Tom went on to share with us how he and his wife Mary were transformed when the made a decision to take financial stewardship seriously, and particularly when they made the decision to begin tithing. Tom’s message struck a chord with me, and my eyes were opened about financial stewardship. I’ll remember that "sermon" the rest of my life, and I hope you will too!

Until three years ago, I had seen a pretty consistent approach with stewardship campaigns. The finance committee would present a draft budget to the congregation, we’d have testimonials about how wisely the money had been used in years past and what we wanted to accomplish in the year to come. The finance committee was attempting to "sell" the congregation as to why they should support the budget. Then we’d have a dedication Sunday, and hopefully a month later all the pledges would be in. The finance committee would submit a revised budget to the Session which was in turn presented to the congregation. We’ve all done it, and amazingly it has worked. After all, that is exactly what we do in the work place, at home, and in government, and since we’ve been appropriately conditioned by these practices - we use them in the church. But, there is one interesting problem... Nowhere in the Bible will we find any suggestion that we give to support the budget. It simply can’t be found.

At Christ church, we realized that we had fallen into a trap, and the majority of us were simply giving to support a budget rather than consciously giving to the glory of God. What were we going to do? "We have ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY!!!" It took us awhile to get our arms around the solution, but with a great deal of prayer we enthusiastically embraced a whole new approach towards financial stewardship.

In our new testament passage from II Corinthians we find a compelling story of how the people responded to Paul’s request for support of those that were suffering in Jerusalem. The Macedonian churches responded with great generosity, even though they were suffering themselves. They gave what they could and then some, and Paul concludes with those inspiring words "see also that you excel in this grace of giving."

The answer for Christ Church was a major paradigm shift. We decided to transition to a spiritually based approach towards stewardship with absolutely no regards for a budget at all. During stewardship season, the word budget is never used. Our emphasis is that we give in response to God’s incredible grace, and quite simply to satisfy the need we have to give to the Glory of God. We have a Consecration Sunday, where we present our offerings by intent. Once these commitments are received THEN and only then do we begin to prepare the budget. There is no home visitation plan, no phone calls, no extensive letter writing, or pleading for people to turn in a pledge. And it works wonderfully!!!

As we examine Paul’s comments it is very important for us to note that Tithing IS NEVER mentioned at all. It is abundantly clear to me that Paul wasn’t concerned about percentages. Whether it was 1% or 25%, it made no difference to Paul, because he knew of their difficult circumstances. What he was pleased about was that they had given freely and joyfully... The grace of giving is what this community would be remembered by.

What our Session came to realize was that several things were true about Stewardship. But fundamentally - giving - first needs to come from the heart as an acknowledgment of God’s overflowing grace. By placing a primary emphasis on responding to God’s grace thru stewardship rather than a legal approach or budget approach, we felt this would yield long term fruitful results for our members, and for Christ church as a whole.

In the time of the early prophets of the Old Testament, the practice of tithing was primarily about "the law." What we learn from Paul is the emphasis is now on grace. I am so incredibly thankful for these two powerful passages, because now I feel like that we have some standards that we can use to reflect on as we contemplate our responsibility with pledges.

Where you find yourself in this continuum doesn’t matter to the finance committee, the Session, your Pastor, or myself. What matters is that you find yourself asking, "What is God calling ME to do with stewardship?" It’s a question that should weigh on our hearts. Important decisions should be more than a knee jerk reaction. Some of you have likely practiced tithing for many years, and you know first hand what a joy it is. Some of you are capable of tithing right now, but you’ve never been asked to consider it, so you haven’t done it. Some of you simply can’t do it or aren’t yet ready too for an assortment of reasons and that is PERFECTLY fine, because a dollar given with joy is far more valuable to God than the thousand that might be given boastfully or begrudgingly.

These two incredible passages give us a pair of "spiritual bookends," and within this library is the truth about stewardship for all of us. The one book that I hope is soon to be removed though, is the one called "Church Budget." As practical and valuable as budgets are, they have absolutely nothing to do with our response to God’s incredible gift of grace. While this country certainly needs a financial correction and a return to sound financial principles, as Presbyterians we too need a type of spiritual correction about stewardship. What’s the old saying, "Sometimes you need to take a step back, before you can take two forward." I think that applies here.

So what would the eleventh commandment be if there was one? Stewardship would certainly be right up there, but I am thankful that it’s not a commandment. I just love the opportunity to wrestle with Stewardship so that we can grow with giving as we become filled with grace. When we do this, our response to God comes naturally, with no pressure at all. "Test me in the says the Lord, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for it."

Next Sunday you will dedicate your pledges, and I have some suggestions for you to consider over the next few days. First, take some time today and gather with your family and/or friends and one of you needs to have a pen and paper and serve as the scribe. Make a list of how you and all of your family have been blessed by God’s grace. Keep writing until the tears flow, and don’t fear that either because they are just tears of joy! Second, make a decision that the first check you write each week is to First Presbyterian Church and thereby to the Glory of God. We give our first fruits, our best to God! Third, search your heart and make sure your offering is given freely and with absolute joy. Fourth, don’t be concerned about the budget! Make the transition to spiritual based giving, it will make a world of difference for you. Fifth, determine where you are with your current pledge on a percentage basis of your income and make a decision to grow at least one percent this coming year. Lastly, read Malachi silently and reflectively. Consider the test of tithing. Read it regularly too. Don’t fear it, be renewed with the assurance that whoever God calls - God will equip....

First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, Florida, God is calling. Calling you to continue your Ministry in this community in the name of Jesus Christ for your legacy is yet to be written. Open you hearts, hear the call, and you will be equipped with the grace and power to sustain you all the days of your life.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

 

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