| Stewardship in God’s Radical Economy–Part 2 |
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| Written by Skip Jackson | |
| Sunday, 22 October 2006 | |
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A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson – October 22, 2006
Texts: Deuteronomy 14:22-29; Deuteronomy 10:12-22; Romans 12:9-13 Set apart a tithe (10%) of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from your field. In the presence of the Lord your God… you shall eat… you and your household rejoicing together… Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe… and store [so] the Levites because they have no allotment [of land]… as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns may come and eat their fill so the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake. – Deuteronomy 14:22-23, 26, 28-29 You shall love the stranger [i.e., foreigner], for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, – Deuteronomy 10:19 Contribute to the needs of [God’s people]; extend hospitality to strangers. – Romans 12:13 This is the second of three sermons on "Stewardship in God’s Radical Economy." Hence it’s a bit awkward because it begins midstream and then leaves us hanging at the end. (Think The Empire Strikes Back… except without Darth Vader’s shocking announcement, "Luke, I am your father.") I say God’s radical economy because we’re looking at the root of how God wants us to live together. Also, I’m basing my sermons on six rules from the Hebrew Torah that are so radical, so different from our usual and customary ideas, they seem revolutionary. You won’t find very many people wanting to post these "commandments" in schools or courthouses. That’s because they’re economic rules, and (well, you know…) "the church shouldn’t talk about money." But I remind you of two things. First, the Bible offers more verses about economic matters than about any other area of human life, including sex. Second, our English word "economy" comes straight from the New Testament Greek word we translate as "stewardship," oikonomia, which combines two Greek words, oikos (household) and nomos (rules). Stewardship is about how we make use of what we have. So it’s no wonder that the household rules for God’s world involve us directly in economics. Two weeks ago I explored two household rules. The first forbids charging interest on loans. This rule arose out of the Hebrew people’s experience of slavery in Egypt, and it’s about freedom. In the ancient world, debt slavery was common, and interest often made it impossible to work off one’s debts and regain freedom. We don’t have debt slavery, but just how free are we, living as we do a debt-ridden economy so dependent on shop-till-you-drop spending and easy credit? The second household rule is a harvest rule about leaving behind gleanings for the poor. This rule is rooted in the divine concern that the real needs of all people be met. It counters our human urge to strive for every last cent we can earn regardless of the cost to others. It asks us to set aside some of what we may feel entitled to so that all who live in God’s household can have access to adequate food, shelter and health care. And beyond concern about the basic needs of the poor, this rule helps us to consider the hard question of when is enough enough in our own lives. In summary, the first two steps of stewardship in God’s radical economy ask us to make economic decisions so as to promote (1) freedom for all people (including ourselves) and (2) meeting the real needs of all people. I’ve selected certain Old Testament rules that illustrate these steps. But I realize that I need to say something about the problem of rules. That problem is (capital-G) Guilt. When it comes to rules and laws, Old Man Guilt just hangs over us. When I’m out driving on I-71 and see a cop car, I lift my foot off the gas pedal even before I look at the speedometer. Feeling guilty is like a built-in reflex. Preachers say "should," and people feel guilty. So I tend to avoid preaching about law and focus instead on grace. We all know what it’s like to be manipulated by guilt. I hate it; we all hate it. And it’s not what church or worship is for. Perhaps the best way to understand the Bible’s rules is to see them as coming after grace. First come the gifts–creation, life, freedom, redemption, salvation–and then and only then the divine law, coming in answer to the question: How can we live in gratitude now that we know freedom in the love and grace of God? In the Heidelberg Catechism from 1563 (part of our Presbyterian Book of Confessions) the entire section on God’s Law is labeled "Thankfulness." Rules and laws are not the point of life, just as they are not the point of any game. Rather they provide the structure and framework for glorifying and enjoying God. Guilt can serve as a wake-up call to change and to choose more harmonious and joyful ways of living. But to torture ourselves or anyone else with guilt is like letting the alarm clock just keep ringing. Why not turn it off and either wake up or roll over and go back to sleep? But if you want to live fully and be part of what’s happening in God’s household you might want to wake up and get out of bed. Still, the third of God’s household rules seems to give rise to no end of guilt. Rule 3: practice tithing. Give back for God’s use ten percent of what you make. Nearly every time this biblical rule comes up in the church, all the symptoms of guilt manifest themselves–excuses ("I can’t do that because…"), comparison ("Nobody else tithes."), denial ("The New Testament does away with such rigid rules."), rationalization ("No one can afford 10%."), quibbling ("Is that before or after taxes?"), and shifting blame ("The church just wants our money."). But guilt is not the point. The point has to do with some of those deeper questions posed to us by all the various rules for living joyfully as stewards in God’s radical economy. Deuteronomy 14 speaks of setting aside ten percent for a communal celebration "in the presence of the Lord your God"–that is, in the worshipping community–to enable the people to give public praise with the entire "household rejoicing together." Even those who lack any income are included–the Levite priests whose work is to offer such praise and the poor–the orphans, widows, and foreigners who are left out of the normal workings of the economy. Without the gifts from those with income, there can be no communal celebration. The tithe is about being an active part of a faith community as well as supporting the poor. Note that the ten percent comes from what is harvested–over and above the gleanings left behind in the field to provide for the basic needs of the poor. No one gets out of tithing by saying, "I already gave at the office." Behind tithing lies the idea that being part of a community involves giving of oneself to that community. Those in real need are supported and fully included, to be sure. But those who are blessed with enough to live on (and often more than enough)–are asked to give in proportion to what they themselves have received. Why in proportion? Because it’s a fair and true response for the blessings we receive. Proportional giving is fair in two ways. For one, everyone can be included. The worshipping community could support itself by equal contributions from each member–sort of like dues. The programs of this congregation would require annual "dues" payments of roughly $1250 from each and every member–men women, and children. Obviously not everyone could afford membership on this basis. On the other hand, proportional giving gets us over the psychological barrier of large numbers. Let me give an extreme example. Some years ago Bill Gates pledged a billion dollars for minority scholarships, 50 million dollars a year for 20 years. That’s way beyond what any of us can do, but… Set Bill Gates’ net worth alongside the average for everyone in this room, and his 50 million dollars translates into maybe $100 or 200. Proportionally, many here can give as much as, or even more than, Bill Gates. So why ten percent? The simple answer is: it’s enough for us to notice. Most of you probably get those sales fliers from Kohl’s or Macy’s. Would you be all that excited by a 2%-off sale? Or 5% off? It takes at least 10% off to get your attention. Frequently sales are 20%- or 30%-off. The biblical 10% is seen as an appropriate expression of gratitude (and generally more affordable than the taxes paid in that day). Elsewhere in scripture it’s called the "thank offering"–so that the community’s celebration and thanksgiving might truly reflect all the individual blessings. Beyond numbers, the rule about tithing asks each of us a deeper question: to whom does our money belong? Not just the ten percent, but the other ninety percent as well. This question lies at the heart of earlier questions: what are our true needs? how much is enough? It goes on to ask: how do our spending choices reflect our relationship with God and each other? To whom does my money belong? To God, of course. So what do my checkbook and credit card bills say about my faith, my commitments, my gratitude? Do gratitude and giving show up in your financial statements? Could an accountant tell that you are a follower of Jesus? We are called to be stewards in God’s radical economy, household managers of what belongs to God. So do our spending patterns reflect this? The fourth household rule for God’s economy is to practice hospitality. Welcome not just those we know, our friends and people who look and act like us, but strangers and foreigners as well. Our word "alien" comes from the Latin word alius, which means the "other." Like the first rule about interest on loans, this rule reflects the people’s history of being rejected and oppressed as aliens in Egypt. And like the second rule, it reflects God’s concern for those who live on the margins of our human economy. Both are there in Deuteronomy 10–"The Lord… executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and… loves the [aliens], providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the [alien], for you were [aliens] in the land of Egypt." As Paul summarizes in Romans 12:3–"Contribute to the needs of [God’s people]; extend hospitality to strangers." This takes tithing’s question–"to whom does our money belong?"–far deeper. The hospitality rule asks us, "To whom does everything belong?" "Everything belongs to the Lord," says Deuteronomy 10:14, "heaven and the heaven of heavens [whatever that is] and the earth with all that is in it." And when we know ourselves to be welcomed in the totality of God’s creation, should we not extend such open hospitality to all others? This kind of hospitality is not easy. For true hospitality means providing a place where strangers are truly welcome; where they are accepted as they are, not required to act and talk like us; and where we both give to them and open ourselves to receive gifts from them. Part of the problem in offering hospitality is that we are learning more to seek refuge from a cold, cruel world. We have become isolated in our homes, in our churches, in our neighborhoods. We even name one type of dwelling apart-ments. So we find it hard to welcome real strangers. They threaten the comfort of our refuges. An even bigger problem may be that many of us may never have fully experienced for ourselves an accepting and non-judgmental hospitality. We learn early on to know our place in life, so we expect others to know their place as well. "Those are just not our kind of people," we say, even as some other group says the very same thing about us. And we learn to see rules in terms of social norms and propriety–as demands for us to conform and thereby earn acceptance and love rather than as suitable ways to respond to acceptance and love. The household rules for stewardship in God’s radical economy are not just about the well-being of the poor, the powerless, and the stranger in our midst. They are also about our own well-being. Freedom from slavery, meeting human needs, being full participants in communities of joy and thanksgiving–these are God’s will for all people, each and every one of us included. Welcoming the stranger and the alien among us can help us to know that we ourselves are fully welcomed–even those strange and alien parts we find unacceptable within ourselves. In hospitality, the space we make for others to be who they are is also the space we need for ourselves to fully be who we are–beloved children of God. So far we’ve looked at four rules for being stewards in God’s radical economy. We have two rules to go. Come two weeks from now and find out what they are. |
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