The Greatest
A Stewardship Sermon
By
Griff Martin
On Mark 12:28-34 and Ruth 1:1-18
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a
baptist community of faith
On November 4, 2018
I have to confess stewardship season is not
my favorite church season, I am more of an Advent guy (hope in the dark). In
stewardship season, I have to talk to you about how you spend money and time,
which means that I have to sit and do a lot of work looking at how I spend my
money and time because I truly believe I can’t ask you to do something that I
myself don’t do.
And because stewardship preaching here at
First Austin has never proved to be a good season for me personally. Last year
I started working on stewardship season and the next day Abby’s car broke down,
the dishwasher died and Jude flushed an action figure down the pipes which
meant a plumber. I thought surely this year would be better but last weekend
when I started thinking about stewardship, I woke up to a kitchen full of water
from what I assumed was a fridge that had gone out overnight, although grace of
grace it was miraculously fixed when I taught my children that before bed one
must close the freezer door.
So stewardship makes me a bit
anxious.
And uncomfortable.
Because I do stop and look at how I am
doing myself. What have I spent money on in the past year that could have been
better not spent, but gifted? How did I do on my pledge from last year, was I
faithful to what I promised God and this community? Did I promise enough or did
I hold back? Have I been generous enough with my time? Have I invested enough
of my calendar time to missions? Have I been generous? Have I given all I could
give?
Those are not easy questions.
Those are questions that really report
back to me way more than just stewardship, those are questions of character and
Christian living, those are kingdom questions. If there is a test to get in the
pearly gates, it’s probably questions like those.
The Gospel this year has not been a text
but a mandate, the water boil, what a perfect illustration and metaphor. I was
shocked last week by the reaction to to the water boil mandate, I went to the
HEB that afternoon to get a flu shot and before I even got in the store I heard
announcement being made about the store being out of water and I saw signs
everyone stating the store was out of water and other signs limiting how much
water you could buy. Even more amazing there was a line of people who was
waiting for water to arrive in 4 hours.
And all we had to do was boil water.
But that is what happens to a people when
they think something is scarce. We act out of scarcity. We hoard. We worry. We
grab all that we can. We store away. We get selfish. We tend to see all
resources as limited.
It’s Anne Lamott who helps us understand
this with this image: “I’ve had many years of recovery and therapy, years
filled with intimate and devoted friendships, yet I still struggle. I know that
when someone gets a big slice of pie, it doesn’t mean there’s less for me. In fact,
I know that there isn’t even a pie, that there’s plenty to go around, enough
food and love and air. But I don’t believe it for a second. I secretly believe
there’s a pie. I will go to my grave holding my fork.”
And the world is so big… and yet we tend
to think in terms of scarcity.
As a people I think our world is doing a
lot of scarcity thinking these days. Which makes sense because our world feels
scary right now… lots of worry and fear and change and things do seem scarce
and we are doing some scarcity thinking and living. We are hoarding and hiding
and preparing for the worst of times.
And we have to be honest, it’s affecting
how we do church.
There are enough of us here that we should
not have a problem finding the bodies to do a second Mobile Loaves and Fishes
food run after church on Sundays and yet Jill Robinson practically had to beg.
We have enough of us that hosting a carnival at Oak Springs, our elementary
partner school, should not have been a problem but Dorothy did have to beg. We
should have a list of folks who are willing once a month to do a Saturday
morning home build for Community First and yet we often only have 2 or 3 of us
there.
And financially we should not debate if we
are going to be able to add a missions program this year or how much we can get
by on for Vacation Bible School or if we really need to support the Baptist
Women in Ministry or if we can find a way to cut some of our staff hours or if
we need to charge more for youth camp this year.
All of that is the result of scarcity
thinking.
And that is the exact opposite of all that
we are called to do and be and give.
The two Scripture texts today are two of
my favorites.
Jesus being questioned on what is the
greatest truth of all life (and an aside that I think is always worth pointing
out about this text, this is the only thing Jesus calls great. We call the
commission the great commission, he does not. But Jesus does call this truth
the greatest). The greatest is this: love God with everything you have and love
others with everything you have and love yourself with everything you have.
Which is about as opposite of scarcity as
one can get.
And then this story of Ruth where faithful
living is giving your all to another. Those beautiful lines- I actually used
them yesterday in Kristin and Caitlyn’s beautiful wedding ceremony- Where you
go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people,
and your God my God. Where you die, I will die.” Again this is about as
opposite scarcity as you can get. I actually think this story might be the
exact story Jesus learned the Greatest from, from his great-great-great-great
grandmother.
You see you teach abundance by living
abundantly.
You become abundant by living abundantly.
You choose to see the world through other
eyes beside scarcity.
And when you do this you start giving
abundantly because there is so much more to give than you ever though
possible.
It’s the very lesson we learn in
communion: give it all away and you find even more to give, you find yourself
through giving.
Our world seems scarce right now and it’s
easy to retreat back into our corners and go into scarcity thinking, hoarding,
protecting, guarding, storing up… you know the drill.
But the church has always been it’s best
when we have been counter-cultural. Which means that we need to be building
houses at Community First, we need to be teaching our kids to be more like
Christ at VBS, we need to be working in our local elementary schools, we need
to be handing out sandwiches at MLF, we need to be helping our youth understand
the Gospel call in our world today, we need to giving the basic necessities of
life to the women moving out of the battered women’s shelter and into their
first apartment, we need to be clothing and feeding those experiencing
homelessness, we need to be offering shelter, we need to be offering worship
services that restore our souls, we need to provide community meals here where
we can sit around the table, we need to come here and hear the Gospel…
And all that takes our money and our time.
This stewardship season I want you to
reflect on what we are building and becoming here, because you have a very real
role in that…. Will you give out of scarcity or abundance? Because they are
quite different.
On one we might get buy, on the other we
might actually change the world.
And Christianity is about abundance
because in the resurrection there is no scarcity. Let’s live that starting now.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: The Wind, Digital Painting by Rhads, deviantart.com/rhads
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