I was not planning to blog today as I have to prepare a meeting with the Thursday Cell Group to explain why I do not agree with fundraising to buy things for the Church. However in preparation I felt God reminding me of the best sermon I ever heard about money - just a few weeks after coming to St.Mark's. It was on Luke 16 which is a bizarre story of a dishonest steward who was commended by his master for being shrewd. In verse 3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg." So he gave to his master's debtors by settling their accounts at a discount and made friends for himself. The main points that I remember are:
We can beg
This embraces the poverty mentality of many churches. We are the charity. We are poor. We have no resources. Please help us. We will even be happy with your shabby second hand carpet because it has fewer holes in it than our even shabbier carpet. On a personal level we can't give any more to the church because we don't really have enough for ourselves.
We can Dig
Many church members are diggers. We work hard to earn every penny we can. We work all hours. Some even have to work on Sundays because God din't really know what life was like for the people of Bredbury when he told us that six days is enough time to do everything that we have to do.
In the Church context many like to give a bit of time to earn money for the church by selling things, holding coffee mornings or second hand goods sales, having raffles and sponsored walks. It is hard not to get sucked into these things if you want to feel that you belong to the community.
You can Give
The Christian way is to be a giver. Giving releases us from bondage to Mammon (Luke 16:13). Giving moves us into the Kingdom of God. Giving blesses other people and fulfils the Abramic promise "through your descendants all nations on earth will be blessed". Giving makes us dependent on our heavenly Father who can only provide for us properly when we stop digging and begging. We have to learn to trust him instead of ourselves.
I find it sad that so many people at St.Mark's still do not get this. They are in danger of being left behind by those who are pressing on into the goodness of the Kingdom of God.
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1 comment:
Good post. No question about it, the Scripture teaches we are to give with a cheerful heart. My problem is how to give without it ending up hurting someone? Money is always a touchy subject. If you give to one person, the others begin to grumble that they deserved it more, why didn't I give to them or to their project? More and more I find it necessary to give as Jesus said, without the right hand knowing what the left is doing.
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