Doing Giving Together

Haggai 2:1-9

In the second year of King Darius, 1in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2”Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, 5according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.”

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

II Corinthians 9:6-15

6The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything you may share abundantly in every good work. 9As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.”

1He 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. 11You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; 12for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 13Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obediences to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, 14while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

I’m grateful to report, after last week’s fever-fueled worship, it was low grade, that I’m feeling much better. However, between then and now, I descended into a miserable pile of overheated sinus infection. Turns out, when you start feeling poorly on a Friday, you can’t just will yourself to wellness by Sunday. So after driving to Atlanta for a much-looked-forward to bout of continuing education, I willed my way through day one of the workshops aided by a conspicuous amount of extra-strength tylenol. I then succumbed to my 100.9 degree fever and spent the next day and a half in bed. The fever topped out Tuesday morning at 101.1, at which point I checked to see what local doctors my insurance would cover.

I am feeling much better, but not because of my ability to “Mind-over-matter” my way through an illness, but through the miraculous power of antibiotics and bedrest. My strength is mostly back, my endurance...will return in time.

The upshot for y’all is that you won’t have a contagious pastor shaking everybody’s hands at the end of worship.

The point is this: no amount of willpower on my part is going to affect how we are stewards of what God has given us, any more than I was able to hold germs at bay. Unless of course I dosed everyone with benadryll until you fell asleep, then the Stewardship Committee could run through your pockets for loose change... 

Stewardship is not a matter of convincing, it is a matter of conviction.

Stewardship is an act of faith. Whatever we do with the gifts God has given us says something to the world, and to ourselves, about what we think about God. That’s why Paul tells the ancient church in Corinth, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

At this point I’d like to point out that the New Revised Standard Version from which we are reading was not translated by Southerners. Every time this passage says “you,” go ahead in your mind and substitute “y’all.” Paul is writing to the whole community. “Each of [y’all] must give as [y’all] have made up [y’all’s] mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide [y’all] with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, [y’all] may share abundantly in every good work.”

For three weeks, we’ve worked our way through stewardship season. When I talk with people about what they’re grateful for about our congregation, the refrain I hear over and over again is how this is a place where people connect with one another. We do faith together. We do worship together. We do discipleship together. We do giving together. All of those activities are things the church does, but the Presbyterian Church of Lowell is more than a calendar of events. We are a family of faith where people grow closer to one another and to God.

All those things we do, the ways we do faith together, do worship together, do discipleship, and do giving together, those are the way we share abundantly in every good work. They are the harvest of the gifts of God, sown by generations of Christians. They came from generous and faithful hearts that reach back millennia, and we have inherited the fruits of all the saints who have gone before us, all beginning with Christ who gave himself for the whole world. Stewardship is about reminding ourselves to be grateful with every aspect of our lives, and a pledge card orients us towards giving and gratitude just as scripture orients us towards God.

Scripture shows us the necessity of giving, not just because there are those who have need, but because we who are created in the image of God, have a need to be generous. It’s not a matter of money, God created everything that exists, turning a profit is not as important as calling us to be prophetic. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.” Doing faith doesn’t end with a check, but it can begin there.

We are created in the image of a generous God. Doing giving together doesn’t just equip the church for ministry, “for the renderings of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.” Doing giving together shapes our hearts towards gratitude for what God has given us, it trains our hearts and our might to follow after what sustains our soul. Even if we had a large enough endowment to live indefinitely off the interest, as some of our neighboring congregations do, we would still do giving together. “Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obediences to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others.” We do giving together because gratitude and generosity are essential ways of doing our faith together. The riches of the world already belong to God, as Haggai points out. Doing giving together shows the ways that we are grateful to God “because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribably gift!”

So why pledge to the church? Why not just give to other non-profits, or to the poor directly? If Stewardship is about responding to God’s gift, why should I fill out a pledge card? After all, about 60% of the church’s budget goes to personnel, and and a big chunk of what’s left goes to the upkeep of the property. That doesn’t sound like the most efficient use of my charitable dollars…

Because God doesn’t require efficiency. As we have walked through the ways we do faith together, do worship together, do discipleship together, these weeks, not once has scripture pointed towards efficiency, it always points to God.

The church is a means, not an end. We do not give to the church because it’s an institution that needs to be propped up by human hands forever. Over the last two millennia, the church has changed forms many times. Haggai writes, “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? Yet now take courage...” We give to the church because we have seen throughout history that the church is the means by which we answer God’s call to “work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promises that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.”

The church is a peculiar blend of group and institution. We are both an organism and an organization. This congregation has its own personality, and for all its imperfection, it’s a personality that I love. We are not just a social club, and we are not just a non-profit charity. We’re a family of faith, and doing faith together to know Christ better is our family business. 

Your pledge card helps us to plan for the future. The “us” here is not just the Session or the Stewardship committee. Turning in a pledge card helps this entire family of faith to plan for the future, because it teaches us to watch for God. Your pledge card is not a legally binding contract, it’s a promise that we are doing giving together. A pledge card orders your finances around faith that the LORD is with us as we do faith together.

Our congregation has got so much potential to do faith together. Like every congregation on the planet, we’ve got some things which are inhibiting our growth. Those, however, don’t have to stop us from doing faith together to know Christ better. We have so many resources to harness as we do meaningful ministry in our community. The city of Lowell is at its highest population ever, and Gaston county is growing as the economic influence of Charlotte expands in every direction. We have strong, faithful leadership on the Session and on the staff. We have a beautiful facility that we use for worship, discipleship, and for community outreach. The narrative budget we mailed out this week detailed how those gifts get used to further the ministry God is doing through us.

As always, though, it’s not the resources that make the difference. It’s not even the way we control the things which inhibit us that makes the difference. No amount of willpower on behalf of the leadership will affect how we do the work of faith together. The only resources that matter are God’s active presence in this family of faith, and our faithfulness in responding to what God is doing through us. Haggai writes, “Work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.” Paul responds, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for foo will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” We’re doing faith together because God is with us. We’re doing worship together because God is with us. We’re doing discipleship together because God is with us. We’re doing giving together because God is with us. God has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and is still with us today. Now, let us all thank our God with our hearts, with our hands, and with our voices, doing faith together to know Christ better. Amen.