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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From October 21, 2007
The Small Sacrifice
Mark 12: 38-44
In the small city of Bountiful, Utah, where
I lived and pastored for four-plus years, the term "upward
mobility" was more than a phrase. You could see it whenever
you stepped outside.
With the Great Salt Lake on one side and the Wasatch
Mountains on the other, there was only one direction for the
city to grow as it prospered--up the mountainside. Because
of this, elevation was as fair an indicator of wealth as a
pay stub or bank account. The higher up on the slope a
person lived, the higher his or her net worth.
Which made for an interesting dynamic around town. Except
for those who lived at the tippy-top of the mountain, people
tended to think of themselves as not all that well off. Why?
Because every time someone went out to the mailbox or drove
home from the grocery store, there stood the mountainside,
dotted with homes whose higher elevation typically meant
higher price tags and higher per capita incomes.
But that was only half of it. Also there on the
mountainside, perched high, higher, almost highest, was
another reminder of success. To serve the needs of the
religious majority in our growing county, the Latter Day
Saints built a gleaming white temple visible (day or night)
from as far as 25 miles away.
Perhaps this is why we UCCers thought of ourselves as a
small congregation. And why our financial resources seemed
puny. Every trip to or from the church reminded us of what
we didn't have.
Perhaps this also explains why Albert said what he said and
did what he did. Albert (not his real name) was active in
the church. In fact, Albert was active in ways others
weren't and for this reason he qualified as the church
mascot, if churches are allowed to have mascots. His obvious
delight in serving God was also our delight.
So here's what I could never quite figure out. As generous
with himself as he was, when our season of stewardship
rolled around, Albert rejected the idea of filling out an
estimate of giving, a pledge card. When our stewardship
chair discreetly inquired about his, Albert simply said, "I
dont make enough." Enough to matter, I think is what Albert
meant.
I find myself wondering if Albert might have thought
differently had we had been living in flat-as-a-pancake
Kansas. If Albert hadn't had the impressive hillside looking
down on him every day, if he hadn't had the monolith of the
Mormon church and its members' commitment to
10% tithes towering over him, perhaps Albert would have
trusted the smallness of his financial
gift. Maybe then he would have seen it as significant, every
bit as powerful as the many other gifts he so freely and
joyfully gave.
Is stewardship just a decision about the size of the gift?
Or is it more?
One of the challenges of the 21st century church is to see
stewardship rightly. Because our culture is so highly
secularized (even though it is what I call "Jesus
flavored"), we tend to think about stewardship much in the
same way we do the fundraising efforts for organizations
like the Paducah Symphony or local NPR station. It's
philanthropy; it's good we decide to do with our disposable
income.
Additionally, because Americans value both industry and
individualism, we carry these ideas into church. We hold an
often unacknowledged but worldly belief that what we have
belongs to us, that it is the result of our hard work and
wise investments. We come to church thinking that what we
are being asked to share is ours--time, treasure, or talent.
Stewardship is, perhaps, the church's final frontier. The
area of faith we've explored the least. We understand
worship, prayer, and service. But stewardship? Not so much.
Unlike the clearly spiritual activities of worship, prayer,
and service, you and I and those in churches like ours, we
to regard stewardship rather pragmatically. It's how we pay
the bills, mostly. It's how we support Paducah Cooperative
Ministry. It's how we can afford to share our building in so
many marvelous ways.
Church-goers in mainline churches tend to view stewardship
as a means to an end, as a one way street--from our
checkbooks into God's coffers. That's why we laugh when we
hear the old joke about the preacher whose stewardship
sermon begins: "Friends, I've got good news and I've got bad
news. The good news is that we've got all the money we need
for the coming year. The bad news is that it's still in your
pockets."
But stewardship isn't a one-way street. Truth be told,
stewardship isn't our gift to God and God's church. Just
like worship, prayer, and service, stewardship is really
God's gift to us. It is one more way God blesses us.
But do we realize that?
Writing in the September/October 2007 issue of Upper Room,
Maureen Pratt tells of being asked to collect the offering
one Sunday. As she passed the basket from one row to the
next, she noticed a trend: adults dropped their money into
the plate almost mechanically, while the children were eager
to give. In fact, one little boy nearly fell over trying to
get his crumpled bill in the plate as it quickly passed by.
This sight gave Maureen cause to reflect on her attitude
toward giving and spawned a series of self-reflective
questions. She asked herself: Am I so stretched financially
that the joy
of making my contribution, however small, is nonexistent? Do
I leap at the chance to put my offering in the basket or do
I drop it in mechanically? Is my giving a joyful sacrifice
or a scheduled chore? Do I equate giving with praising God?
Maureen's questions are worth mulling over. What lies at the
heart of our stewardship?
In an unforgettable stewardship sermon, my mentor told of a
woman just beginning her ministerial career who was serving
as an associate pastor in a multi-staff congregation. On
Consecration Sunday, that day when giving for the coming
year was to be blessed, the senior minister stood on the
chancel steps and invited worshippers to come forward with
their faith promises. But first the pastoral staff was to
come forward with theirs.
Proudly clutching her pledge, the new pastor stepped toward
the chancel, but before she could drop her estimate of
giving in the basket, the senior pastor snatched it away,
studied it closely, and then handed it back. "It's too
small," he said. "Too small to make a difference."
I remember being horrified by this story. What nerve! Who
did this guy think he was--God?
Ten years later, the story still affects me but differently.
And it's all because of the widow at the Temple. And Jesus'
response to her.
A few short days before he gave his life, Jesus sat outside
the Women's Court observing the parade of Passover givers
placing their Temple offerings in the special receptacles
set aside for this holy purpose. As he watched, surely Jesus
did the math. That stream of gold and silver coins being
deposited by the rich, these were the contributions that
sustained Judaism because they were what sustained the
Temple.
Without this giving, there would be no Temple, no altars, no
way for believers to fulfill their religious obligations, no
way to renew their ritual purity. The Temple depended on the
rich and their obedience to the scriptural practice of
giving first fruits, 10% tithes.
After noting the faithfulness of the wealthy, Jesus watched
as a widow came forward with her Temple offering. She was
poor as poor could be, hanging on for dear life to the
bottom rung of society's ladder. The widow dropped
everything she had into the treasury: two tiny copper coins
that added up to just a little more than nothing.
Which made it, to Jesus' way of perceiving anyway, no small
gift, no ordinary sacrifice but one that was enormously,
stupendously significant. Of all the sums given that day,
many of them huge, it was this one--the miniscule one--that
for Jesus really made any difference at all.
All these years later, I am beginning to understand that
senior pastor and what came across as his cruel,
inappropriate judgment. He wasn't interested in the amount
of money his newly-ordained colleague intended to give. He
wasn't concerned in the least with the difference this would
make for the church. What interested him was what interested
Jesus that day at the Temple: the difference our giving
makes to us.
You see, when the heart is in it, no gift is too small for
God. When the heart is in it, our giving blesses us, gifts
us. With what? Joy and gladness--the kind children know and
show when the offering plate comes around. Our giving gifts
us, as it did the widow, with a sense of having fully
praised and honored God.
One of the big secrets of giving is this: God is not
interested in the sum. God is interested in the humthe hum
of our hearts. Hearts so full of gratitude that even 100%
seems a small sacrifice when set against the mountainous,
priceless gift of God's loving presence in our lives. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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