Tag: stewardship

AUTUMN GRACE & GRATITUDE

As I write this October newsletter article, it’s the first day of Fall (September 22nd) and it’s three days before the beginning of the Hebrew festival of Sukkot. In our American life, Autumn is marked by harvest festivals, Halloween celebrations, and the initial rumblings of plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And for the Church of Jesus Christ, Autumn is a season that the Holy Bible itself associates with themes of stewardship, harvest, gratitude, and the giving of thanks.

Ancient Israel knew this well. After the grain had been threshed and the grapes pressed, God commanded a joyful Fall festival called Sukkot — the Feast of Tabernacles. Families left their solid houses and lived for a week in temporary tented shelters called booths (or tabernacles). They remembered that God did not abandon them after they had fled Egypt, but he dwelled with them by tabernacling (or tenting) with them in the desert wilderness. They also brought the fruit of the land and appeared before the Lord at the place he chose. Deuteronomy is very clear about the grateful intent of this…

“They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed; all shall give as they are able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.” – (Deuteronomy 16:16b–17)

Notice that the giving of offerings comes in response to God’s blessing. Consequently, stewardship is not a tax levied on us by a distant God; rather, it’s the grateful response of a people who have already received God’s good gifts. In other words, the harvest is the Lord’s before it’s ours. We can only give back to God what he has first given to us. Therefore, we do not appear before the Lord empty-handed because he has not first appeared before us empty-handed.

Yet Sukkot was never only about the crop harvest. The temporary booths were a symbolic confession of faith. That is, we are merely pilgrims in this life. Our best houses are ultimately temporary. Our strongest barns will one day stand empty and derelict. Furthermore, this biblical feast did not only look backward to the desert wilderness. It also looked forward to a day when God would not merely visit his people for a time but permanently dwell with them forever.

While most Christians do not observe the festival of Sukkot, the foreshadowing and prefiguring of Sukkot have met their fulfilment ultimately in Christ. By God’s grace, the meaning of this Fall festival is completely fulfilled both already and not yet in Jesus Christ. Already the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Already the crucified and risen Lord is present through his Word and Sacraments, gathering a harvest of souls from every nation. And yet the Church and all creation await the return of Christ. Then and only then, at his great Second Advent to come, the booths of this age will be dismantled and the New Jerusalem will descend from on high, and the voice from the heavenly throne will be heard in full…

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with mankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” – (Revelation 21:3)

The biblical Greek word translated “dwelling place” in Revelation 21:3 is the word for tabernacle. So, Sukkot’s eternal meaning is completed in Yeshua (Jesus) the Divine Messiah. Here in Revelation 21, the temporal world gives way to the eternal world, and the impermanent realm gives way to the unshakable City of God. The temporary pilgrims become the everlasting household of God. God himself will tabernacle with a redeemed humanity forever — not for seven days as is symbolically observed during Sukkot, but without end in a world where death, mourning, crying and pain have passed away.

This is the free gift (by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit) that we have received from the One Lord and Savior who first pitched his tent in our human flesh 2000+ years ago, who bore our sins on a cross, and has risen to make us his own. Christian faith and life flow from here! Moreover, Christian stewardship and gratitude do not flow from a fearfulness that we haven’t given enough but from the confidence and blessed assurance that Christ our Savior is entirely enough (infinitely more than enough!), and he has gone to prepare a feast for us that has no expiration date.

So, this October, as the leaves change and the Sunday morning offering plate is passed, our congregation will continue doing two things at once: [1] We will give thanks for the earthly harvest we can see, and [2] We will look to the heavenly harvest we cannot yet see — the day when all believers shall not stand before the Lord empty-handed, because Christ himself will have filled every hand by his infinite atonement and unlimited grace freely received through faith.

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

STEWARDSHIP & THE MIRACLE MAKER

In chapter 12 of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus addressed the subject of temple offerings. The following is from Mark 12:41-43…

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.”

Of course, Jesus is not saying that we should give to the work of God’s Kingdom to the point of financial hardship. Rather, he is saying that those who give out of their abundant wealth are not giving as much as those with far less wealth who give a lesser amount. In other words, Jesus is simply praising the generous spirit of the poor widow over and against the less generous spirit of the rich elite of Jerusalem.

While Jesus is not advocating for our impoverishment in Mark 12, he is certainly advocating for us to be as generous as possible (without material injury to ourselves) for the work of the ministry of God’s Kingdom for all people. Because of God’s unlimited grace for us in Christ Jesus our Lord, we are free to joyfully and cheerfully give whatever it is that we have pledged to the mission and ministry of our “temple” congregation, Mt. Olive Lutheran Church. For that’s what it says in Second Corinthians 9:7, where it says, “Each of you must give as you have made up your own mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

ALL that we have and ALL that we are (absolutely everything) comes from God and belongs to God. From the Christian perspective, we are not owners but only stewards of all that the Creator gives to us — our lives, families, possessions, labor, income and talents. Therefore, everything that we have and everything that we are is to serve the glory of God for the sake of the world.

So, it’s not that we give a certain percentage to the work of God, and the rest is ours. No, it’s that 100% belongs to God, and we are to be good stewards of his 100%, including our offerings to our congregation. It is all from God anyway, and so it’s all in service of God’s Kingdom here in our earthly lives as a sweet foretaste of our heavenly lives to come. In other words, stewardship is everything we do after we say we believe. And stewardship is also the first things that we do. It’s the first fruits of our lives; the first fruits of everything.

“First fruits” means that we dedicate a certain amount of our time, talents and income to the work of God first thing — right off the top. For example, our Sunday worship service is the first fruits of our time each week, which is the morning of the very first day of the week. For another example, the Lord’s Prayer prayed each morning as we’re still sitting on the side of our bed (first thing) is a powerful first fruits practice. And of course, cheerfully giving a pledged amount of our income every pay period (first thing, right off the top) is a fundamental first fruits spiritual discipline.

Giving a set pledged amount to the work of God within our community of faith first thing off the top — rather than the last thing from the bottom dregs — is an act of worship that is multiplied by the offerings of others. As our Lord Jesus miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes, we need to remember that it’s not for us to perform the miracle but it’s only for us to offer the five loaves and two fish. From everlasting to everlasting, the Lord God Almighty is the Miracle Maker and the Source of all that is, both seen and unseen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, eternal world without end! Amen!

Together in Christ, Pastor Tim

LAVISHLY MANAGING GOD’S RICHES OF GRACE

In my sermon on Sunday, September 22nd, I discussed The Parable of the Dishonest Manager from Jesus’ discourse in chapter 16 of the Gospel of Luke. In this sermon, I stated that this is arguably Jesus’ most provocative parable, ranking right up there with The Parable of the Day Laborers.

In his shockingly backwards Parable of the Dishonest Manager, Jesus tells a story about a man who scams his employer and is then commended for it by that same employer. In this parable, we hear about a dishonest financial manager who knew that he was going to be dismissed by his employer, so he began to slash the debts of his employer’s debtors in order to make some friends for himself and secure his future. If it had not been bad enough that the manager had cheated his rich employer for some period of time, the manager then proceeded to cheat him even more by destroying the old bills and writing ones for lesser amounts for the employer’s debtors. The manager reasoned that, when he left the rich employer’s service, he just might secure a position in one or more of the households whose bills he had altered. Then to conclude this parable, Jesus completely throws us a curveball with the most bizarre twist. Very strangely, the manager in this parable is lauded and commended by his employer for being so shrewd and resourceful.

On a fundamental level, this seemingly crazy Parable of the Dishonest Manager simply does not make sense to us at all. It seems to go in stark contradiction to our basic sense of what’s right and just and true. Of course, it really is upside down, unrighteous and unjust if we literally apply this parable to our financial matters and business practices. However, if we understand this parable in a strictly spiritual sense, then it makes abundant sense.

Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the perfect and ultimate offering for our sins, in order to redeem us and restore us to full fellowship with God. Through his perfect compassionate life and his ultimate sacrificial love, our debt to God is completely canceled! PAID IN FULL. No cosmic bills hanging over our heads. No spiritual shut-off notices to worry about.

So the great question is the following: What can we give back to The One who loves us and forgives all our sins, who continually gives new life in Christ, who imbues inner peace and joy, and who grants eternal hope?

On the one hand, we cannot give anything — for anything we could give is as nothing compared to so much infinite divine grace. But on the other hand, we give absolutely everything. In response to the complete self-giving of God to us through Christ our Savior, God wants our whole being (heart and soul) in return.

Very truly, our beloved Lord desires our whole being in return for the infinite-all that he gives to us. And according to his Parable of the Dishonest Manager, God wants us to be as shrewd, clever, resourceful and urgent in spiritual matters as are secular people in financial matters. This is what Jesus means when he says in Luke 16: “For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes” (verses 8-9). In other words, Jesus stresses the urgency to be shrewd and resourceful in our management of the spiritual riches of God’s grace, and to do this by lavishly disseminating and extravagantly disbursing the great riches of his grace.

Almighty God passionately desires us to shrewdly, resourcefully and urgently share the riches of his grace and truth with everyone everywhere! And God promises that we will be commended for it and welcomed into our eternal home through this very same grace and truth that we’ve so lavishly shared with others.

Together in Christ’s Mission! Pastor Tim