Investing Wisely

Investing Wisely

A Sermon on Matthew 25:14-30

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

For Stewardship Season (November 5, 2017)

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

In a recent business journal article a list was provided of taboo subjects you should never talk about at work with co-workers. This included: your politics and who you voted for in the last election, your religious view and your view of other religions, your negative feelings about co-workers and bosses, the size of your pay check, your recreational drug and drinking habits, your sex life, how badly you want the corner office and salary, your previous or current medical condition, or your personal drama with your partner, spouse, children, family of friends.

Which left me wondering: well what are you supposed to talk about then? And when did we decide that these things were off limits… and why?

Some of it has to go back to everyone’s favorite cotillion sweetheart, the one and only Emily Post who had a lot to say about what we could and could not say. And let me just warn you she would have hated today’s sermon, as would the article of the business journal list of taboo subjects, because we are going to talk about the size of your paycheck.

Now Emily Post says this is really crass, in her words: “Only a vulgerian talks ceaselessly about how much this or that costs, a very well bred man intensely dislikes the mention of money and never speaks of it outside of business hours if he can avoid it.”

Which means that Emily Post would have a lot to teach Jesus, who loved to talk about money. Of the 38 parables in the Gospels, 16 of them are about money and possessions. In the Gospels 1 out of every 10 verses deals with money and possessions for a total of 288 verses. Scripture itself talks about money more than almost anything else: think about this Scripture has 500 verses on prayer, a little less than 500 verses about faith, and over 2,000 verses on money and possession.

Our Jesus was quite the vulgerian if we follow Emily Post… in fact there is probably something beautiful to an entire hermeneutic based on the Jesus that offends Emily Post. And the question we should probably ask is who do we follow, Jesus or the version of Jesus Emily Post would prefer?

Because if we are honest we seem to prefer Emily Post’s Jesus or at least our conversations lean that way. According to a study by Wells Fargo, the most difficult conversations any of us have involve money, 44% of us- nearly half of us- don’t know how to have conversations about money.

We grew up not talking about it. We did not know our parent’s salary. We never knew how much our family had in the bank or savings. This was not something we talked about at the dinner table.

And yet another study shows that ¾ of Americans, 75% of us, are regularly stressed about money. Which means that it is something we are often thinking about, something that regularly causes us worry and shame and anxiety and yet we don’t talk about it.

And one of the greatest life lessons is that talking about the things we think we should not talk about, being honest about the things that cause us shame and anxiety, that is the only way to deal with them. And this is very much the case for our money problems. Because our addiction to money is a very real problem in our world.

And because we can’t release our angels until we name our demons.

Katherine Vohns has been studying money and people for decades now. She is known for a series of nine studies about money and people that I find fascinating:

In one study a research assistant entered the room before the study began and told people they had been using quarters for another study and as a thank you wanted to give these participants a roll of quarters to thank them for participating. They then took the word scramble (but half took a word scramble where all the phrases were financially related- a high paying salary/ high income/ etc and the other took a word scramble with non financial phrases- it is cold outside), once finished the assistant came back in to thank them for participation and said as you leave please know we have set up a jar outside collecting money for the University Student Fund and explained a bit about it.  Those who were given the scramble with financial words gave considerably less than the others.

Another study in which individuals were brought in and played 10 minutes of monopoly, when the timer went off the game was cleared except for the monopoly cash. At this point half in the study were left with a considerably large amount of monopoly cash in front of them- $4,000 in monopoly money- and the other were left with just $200 in monopoly money. They were left alone in the room for a few minutes with the monopoly cash. Some time later a research assistant walked in and had a staged accident where he dropped a handful of pencils, 27 to be exact. It was discovered that those who had a large sum of monopoly money in front of them were way less helpful than those with the smaller amount.

And finally another group of participants were brought in to take a 7 minute computer test, a fill in the blank of some sort. After the test was complete there were two screensavers that came on the computer, one screensaver showed currency- bills and coins- being dropped and floating underwater, the other showed fish swimming in the ocean. After observing the screensavers participants were asked to come help set up a room next door for the follow up small group interview, those who had seen the currency screensavers set the chairs considerably further apart from one another than those who had seen fish.

Now since Katherine Vohns began this research it has become quite the topic to research, how does money influence us and there have now been countless other studies done, and the result is simply this as written in a recent scientific journal (The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology): money turns people into “antisocial, unethical pragmatist who are unwilling to help a stranger.”

Which may be exactly why Jesus spent so much time teaching and preaching about money, because he knew what money could do to us. So surely as followers of Christ we are doing so much better today, right?

Well according to Pass the Plate, a large study on church giving we are not doing much better at all. This study found among other things that more than ¼ of American Protestants gave no money to their church. Among Evangelicals who tend to be the most generous (it seems mainline and progressive churches may be liberal with their politics but not with their wallets), but among those who give best only 27% of them tithed. The study found that among those who say that their faith is very important and attend church at least twice a month in America earn about 2.5 trillion dollars a year, which would mean that if they all tithed 10% after taxes, that is $46 billion a year to ministry, but we are not there. In face the average church goer who says their faith is important and attends church twice a month tends to give just $200 a year, which is less than one-half of once percent of their post tax income.

And just to point out a rabbit worth chasing: tithe itself is an interesting thing… it’s the only place where we tend to prefer the Old Testament over Jesus. We often ask where that 10% notion comes from, and it’s in the Old Testament right along with the other laws we have ceased to follow. Because nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say anything about 10%, Jesus says all. Bring everything, give everything, offer everything… sell all you have… which means that if you gave 10% last year, give 11% or 12% this year and each year give 1 or 2% more…. Money might be the only subject where we prefer to follow Old Testament and not Gospel.

Now I know what you are thinking, Griff maybe Americans are not good at this and maybe church goers in America are not good at this, but we are First Baptist Church of Austin… we have to be better at this, right?

So I went to ask our spiritual guru in the office Marshall about this. We talked about what was tithing and we agreed to think of it as a regular pattern of giving over several years- it did not have to be weekly or monthly, it could be every year at the end of the year. Agreeing on that definition Marshall says than at First Austin less than 20% tithe. Followed up by this: “you would be shocked by how small of a percentage of folks here truly give and you would be shocked by how large a percentage gives so very little.”

So we decided to make this a bit more scientific. According to the city of Austin in 2016 the median household income for a family of 4 in the Austin to Round Rock neighborhoods is $77,800 and the median household income for 2 is $62,250. So we dropped those a bit and went with the Old Testament 10% tithe and looked to see how many of our households here gave$5,000 a year. Of our giving units which is about 370, in 2016 21% gave over $5,000. It is hard to estimate where we are this year because many do give a one time tithe at the end of the year, we will probably hit the same. So averaging this out over the last few years about 20% of us tithe at least $5,000 a year, which is about $400 a month.

And that results in a financial meeting like I had last Sunday where we are going through the budget trying to find places to cut money and we are having conversations about high school mission trips and how much money do we want to invest in our students having experiences like that or how many Mobile Loaves and Fishes runs do we want to do this year and how much do we want to give towards feeding the hungry. And there is no reason in a church like ours for that conversation to be held.

So maybe it’s time to follow Jesus more than Emily Post and maybe it’s time we honestly sit and evaluate how we are doing with money? Because as a church I think we can do a lot better. You see there are some myths we need to confront.

First is a new myth… we have the parking garage so we are set. This is a dangerous myth, yes the parking garage brings in revenue for us and it’s not a small number but the purpose of that money is for largely for upkeep and maintenance and overhead (which are very important items). The garage revenue is not ministry money and never should be, it should be used to keep the building up to date and for renovations and for equipment, it should not fund our ministry and mission budget, our ministry and mission budget needs to be based on what the active congregation gives that year simply because if we believe in it we will fund it.

And second is the myth of give for survival… this church responds well to a financial crisis. If I sent out a letter saying we are behind and we need to catch up, I have no doubt we would do so because that is what we have done in our recent history. When things look bad, we write a letter and we give and get ourselves out of the hole only to find the next one. And we are not going to do that for a few reasons: 1) The finance committee and staff does not want to be under this stress and 2) We can do better than that… when we operate like that our ministry can not be innovative, our staff rely on scarcity and not abundance, our programs are run on a what do we need to get by mentality. And we can do better than that.

I have studied finances enough at First Austin and giving trends to be able to say with certainty: we do not have a money management problem we have a giving problem. And that giving problem is a spiritual discipline problem because Jesus did not say if you want to, if you can, when you are able…. Giving is not optional in the Christian life.

We give because that is the call of faith, to keep our hands open and to give….

We give to save ourselves from the sin of materialism and greed that is killing our world.

We give to teach our children that money is not the end all.

We give to remind ourselves that money is not what it’s about.

We give to support this church.

And when we truly start giving there are so many wonderful things that can happen.

I asked our staff what they would do if they had a little bit of extra income this year… and they talked about what it would be like to have a Homeless choir here, a choir that met once a week to eat and to sing and then from time to time led us in worship, we talked about more Mobile Loaves and Fishes runs and building community around feeding folks, we talked about creating more art spaces in the church- galleries and work spaces for artist to come and call us forth, we talked about getting our building ready to shelter folks in cold weather. There are things we are being called to do.

I want to see that happen, that is the beautiful city this church was called to be. And that happens because you all are going to go home and sit with your pledge card and you are going to truly discern what it is you are called to give to First Austin. And I am asking you to commit to the spiritual discipline of tithe, to pledge that for 2018 this is the amount I am going to give back and to sit and see if you have given what you are called to give this year.

When Saint Francis had the vision to rebuild the church it was brick by brick, stone by stone. He did not go ask a mason to provide all the stones, he called forth folks to bring their stones and the church was built. That is our calling today.

It’s the bricks you bring that help us to build that vision. You pledge your bricks.

To think through this parable…. About the workers who invested and the workers who saved and who was rewarded and who was thrown out.

And to realize the truth is the greatest risk is to play it safe, to say at the end of the year I will give what I can, or to low ball your tithe, to not put your money into that for which you deeply care, to not risk. According to this parable the great risk is to play it safe.

To respond to divine generosity with scarcity and fear and control….. instead of with open hands.

So may we finally surrender and may we be givers because that is the call.

And we can create a beautiful city for this beautiful city.

Amen and Amen.

*artwork: Eucharist, by Mary McInnis, mjcinnisart.com