The Dishonest Steward - 10/13/19

Jer. 8:18-9:1

Luke 16:1-13

Does anyone find this passage in Luke confusing?  What happens here?  We’ve got a manager or steward whom others are saying has been squandering the master’s property.  The master, in anger, says he’s going to fire the guy.  So, the steward deals with the fear of losing his job by practicing dishonesty.  He robs the master to gain favor with those who owe the master money by cutting the debt of those who owe the master.  Then in a strange turn of events, the master praises his steward for cheating him!

 This is followed by the words, “the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”  Aren’t we supposed to follow and emulate the children of light?  And then THIS is followed by Jesus seeming to encourage us to be dishonest.  He says, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” Um…

But then this is followed by the words, “whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.  If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?  And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?”  And then he goes on to say that we can’t serve both God and money.  So what do you think?  Was he being sarcastic when he said earlier that we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth?

In researching this parable and different interpretations and understandings, I’ve found that most commentators are also simply confused by it.  Some say Luke just pretty randomly put together Jesus’ sayings about wealth and so his summary words just happen to fall together with this parable making any who try to put them together meaningfully just confused.  But I tend to think Luke is a little more discerning than that.  This story isn’t found in any other gospel, for whatever reason.  But Luke’s placement of it and the placement of the comments Jesus makes which follow it seem important to me.  They do go together and it is our job to try to understand how.

Other commentators say that yes, Jesus was being sarcastic by saying we should make friends by means of dishonest wealth.  Some commentators say the steward was not really

cheating the master, but was just cancelling his own commission in order to lower the debtors’ debt.  But most commentators discount that based on the fact that the steward’s commission was probably not contained in the debt amount anyway, but was a separate fee.

In the end, I don’t think this story can be understood without some history and cultural explanation attached to it.  If you are interested in reading more about this on your own, I highly recommend Herzog as a good source for understanding this parable.  As he explains it:

First, the steward here probably is not being dishonest.  Instead, because he is in a position where he must collect money for the master, and take money from those in debt to the master, he is therefore mistrusted and feared by everyone.  Those in debt have little power or recourse in the face of unfair contracts and monetary practices written by the steward for the master except to use verbal attack.  So, these debtors start an anonymous rumor, not that the steward is dishonest, but that he is wasting the master’s money. The master is not actually concerned here about dishonesty but about the steward mis-using his resources.  At any rate, the steward becomes concerned about losing his job and realizes that for him, this is a death sentence.  He cannot do hard labor or beg for any length of time and survive it.  So, he thinks up a different plan.  He goes out and erases some of the debt of the master’s tenants.  This, in contrast to earlier behavior, may have been considered dishonest.  The amount by which he cuts the debt is important because it tells us what exactly the steward is cutting or disposing of. 

By Jewish law, as recorded in the Old Testament, the charging of interest, any interest, on a debt is illegal, ungodly, and wrong.  The masters knew this.  They would not therefore, because of the importance of the Jewish law at that time, be put in the position of appearing to charge interest on the land and money they lent.  But their stewards or managers were in a position to write contracts in such a way that this interest, 20-50% of the original debt, was written into lease agreements in unclear, hidden, covert ways.  This 20-50% is exactly the amount of money which the steward in today’s story cuts from the debtors’ debts.  If this hidden interest had been discovered, the steward who wrote the contracts, not the master who gained the interest, would take the blame for it.  In this story the steward has basically erased the illegal interest from the contracts of those who owe his master money.  In doing so, he has lowered a hard debt on those who owe the master.  He also credited the master for this reduction of debt and in so doing has gained praise for the master from those in debt to him. Finally, he has also reminded the master who it is who brings him the extra “interest” money, for without the steward the master cannot do so well financially.  While the master is out money because of what the steward has done here, the steward has gained for the master praise from his debtors, and an unspoken, inexplicit debt for “the master’s” generosity from his debtors.  While the master might have been angry at the loss of this interest, in this story, he appears instead to appreciate what has been gained by his steward’s actions: the praise, the implied debt of gratitude from his debtors, the reminder of all the steward has previously done to raise the riches of the master.  In all these ways, the steward has broken down a system of mistrust and even hatred for a while.  Those in debt are now feeling better about the master (whom they believe lowered the debt).  The master is feeling better about the steward for winning him some praise and favor, and reminding him that the steward has brought in extra money for the master in the past.  The debtors of the master are not as oppressed by the large debt the interest previously forced onto them.  In the short run, by this action, the steward has done an amazing thing.  He has broken down the walls and rules which usually structure their world.  For a moment, the reign of God is glimpsed, a reign of trust, honesty, reconciliation, forgiveness, and caring.

We might ask, “has the steward changed an oppressive system?”  No, of course not.  Has the steward really won for himself a place in people’s homes so that if he still is fired, he will have places to go?  Very unlikely.  Those owing the master money would not have the resources or interest in taking care of this steward once he is let go.  Is it really good to make friends through dishonesty?  Well, the rest of the passage for today is pretty clear that you can’t serve both God and money and that dishonesty at any one level in your life can only lead to more dishonesty at other levels.  In other words, no.  The point the parable is making is that God’s presence slips through the systems of oppression now and then and that we should do all we can to encourage, honor, create those glimpses of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and love, even through creative and unexpected ways.

Rosa Parks, by her simple refusal to give up her seat on a bus, because she believed that equality for all was worth taking a personal stand at great risk, was the catalyst that sparked the civil rights movement.  Her action was illegal at the time, yes, but also the means for God’s dominion to peek through.  Many years after the incident on the bus, the Ku Klux Klan approached the town council in a community in Alabama, volunteering to keep a certain stretch of highway clean.  The town council was in a sticky situation.  If they said no to the offer, it might make them look bad.  If they said yes, it might make them look like they agreed with racism.  So they made a clever decision.  They said yes to the Ku Klux Klan.  Then they renamed that particular stretch of road The Rosa Parks Highway.  A shrewd action and for a moment, they ushered in a glimpse of God’s realm which can forgive and extend love to even the worst of us, but also fights constantly for justice and peace.

Henry Ford, the inventor of the automobile, once visited his family’s ancestral village in Ireland.  Two trustees of the local hospital found out he was there and managed to get in to see him.  They talked Ford into giving the hospital $5000 (which in the 1930's was a great deal of money).  The next morning at breakfast, he opened his daily newspaper to read the headline: “American Millionaire Gives $50,000 to Local Hospital.”  Ford wasted no time summoning the two hospital trustees who were very apologetic.  “Terrible mistake” they said, and they promised to get the editor to print a retraction the very next day declaring that the great Henry Ford had not given $50,000, but only $5000.  Hearing this, Ford offered them another $45,000, under one condition: that the trustees would erect a marble arch at the new hospital entrance and place on it a plaque that read, “I walked among you and you took me in.”  Another little glimpse of God’s presence (and humor!) that breaks through, sometimes through shrewd ways, but always breaks through.

The passage in Jeremiah for today shows a God who is grieving for God’s people.  God seems in this passage almost trapped by their dreadful situation.  God is sorrowful at their pain, angered by their stubbornness, perhaps wanting to simply walk away.  But God stays.  God stays so that the people might still catch a glimpse of God in their lives.  Where have glimpses of God’s love, God’s reign, broken through into your life?  Where have you helped that reign poke through in unexpected ways?God’s love is amazing.  And God does always make appearances, often when we least expect it.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Stewardship Once Again

                                        Mark 12:38-44

Timmy didn’t want to put his money in the offering plate Sunday morning, so his mother decided to use some hurried creative reasoning with him.

“You don’t want that money, honey,” she whispered in his ear. “Quick! Drop it in the plate. It’s tainted!”

Horrified, the little boy obeyed.

After a few seconds he whispered, “But, mommy, why was the money tainted? Was it dirty?

“Oh, no dear,” she replied. “It’s not really dirty. It just ‘taint yours, and it ‘taint mine,” she replied. “It’s God’s.”

               Today is Stewardship Sunday, probably everyone’s least favorite Sunday of the year.  And I want to let you in on a secret: it’s most pastors’ least favorite Sunday of the year too.  Stewardship tends to  be the one Sunday of the year when we talk about money.  We are uneasy talking about money, it feels like a taboo subject in many ways and each year we have to have this uncomfortable conversation.  But, as Rev. Michael Piazza points out, stewardship really should be a year round conversation.  As he puts it,  “(The real issues is)…how we change the culture. Because the church has talked about money only when we wanted some, we have abandoned our greater responsibility to shape the value system of a culture in which people are systematically and relentlessly metamorphosized from Human Ones into consummate consumers.”

 He continues, “We pious types can rant and rave about greed, and pollution, and poverty, and income inequality, and all the other evils that arise from "the love of money," but what we really need to do is repent. The church has treated money the same way we, for decades, have treated sex. We never talked about (it) unless we were ranting against it is some form, and we never talk about money unless we want some of it. In both these areas, the church has utterly failed to inspire transforming values.  …money… (is a) powerful gift.. from God, and the church should have taught us how to be better stewards of (that gift). … people come wanting to know how to raise more money. Frankly, fundraising is easy compared to teaching society how to be better stewards of all the gifts that come from God.   

“Another reason for our impotency around this issue is the third topic the church avoids: death. Oh, we talk plenty about resurrection, but we seldom have the courage to remind us that we all are going to die. If we lack a powerful sense of our own mortality, we can pretend that we earned what we have and that it is ours to keep. It isn't. You ARE going to die and leave it all behind. That is why it is called ‘stewardship.’”

               His points are really good ones: the money that we have been entrusted with is exactly that: money that we have been entrusted with.  We haven’t earned it.  I want to say that again: we haven’t earned it.  We may have worked for it, but we know that the amounts people are paid have very little to do with how hard they work.  For example, some of the hardest workers in our culture are wait staff.  They are also some of the least paid.  In contrast, most of our wealthiest people have inherited at least a good portion of their wealth, and we know they play much harder than they work.  We have different amounts of wealth, not because some are better people and certainly not because God loves those folk more or cares for them more.  But we all have at our disposal some resources, and no matter how we’ve come by them, they aren’t ours.  They are Gods, and we’ve been entrusted with our wealth to use for the work of God and God’s people in this world. 

So, with that information, what are we really called to do with our resources?  Well, as I’ve said before and will no doubt say again, the way we spend our time, money and talents is a clear indication of what we value.   So I invite you to think for a minute about what you value, truly and deeply.  If it is God, then the question remains, what is the best use of your resources?  What is the best way to serve God with those resources?  I realize that there are many areas that each of us care about.  Housing, the hungry, immigrants, children, refugees, racism, LGBTQ+ rights, the environment… there are many, many ways that we help God’s creation and that we serve God.  Church is only one of those and I recognize that.  While we do a great deal of mission through this church and in this church, sharing your resources here is only one way in which we act as stewards of God’s church.

At the same time, to be real and honest about what that means in this place: our budget this last year was about $285,000. With that money we provide worship, education, care for one another, counseling for some, and give a great deal to mission both through our time, talents and our money.  We have about 100 members.  What that works out to is about $2850 per member per year.  Or, $240 per month per person, not per family.  Not everyone can pay that, so that means some are paying significantly more.  Our Old Testament encourages giving (to all the causes you give to) by a tithe of 10% of your income: that’s gross, not net, by the way.  The New Testament goes further, and suggests that if we are giving out of our abundance rather than to the point at which we feel it, we are missing the point of giving.  But I give you these numbers in the hope that it helps us all to be realistic about what it costs to keep our programs and our church community the way it has been.  I also give you these numbers because I think it is easy sometimes to not realize the cost of what we do in this place. 

All that being said, my intention this morning and every Stewardship Sunday is not to guilt trip folk into giving more. 

As Michael Piazza said, giving, stewardship, should be a way of life.  It is not about just paying those who deserve to be paid, or paying your dues, or about being giving people.  It isn’t about trying to assuage guilt, or it shouldn’t be.  It is about remembering, at all times and in all things that all we have is not “ours” at all.  And that out of gratitude for what we have been entrusted with, we are called to use those resources for the good of God and God’s people.  But that is a pretty foreign mindset in this culture.  When I read financial pages, they all encourage saving: but saving for what?  They encourage saving for our future, for retirement, for our children’s education.  They encourage delaying gratification of “now” in exchange for gratification later.  Never have I read a financial site that encourages generosity of giving, that acknowledges that with privilege comes responsibility, and that with resources comes the gift of being able to contribute to the world in a real and meaningful way.

Changing our mindset, converting our thinking from “this is mine and if I give any of it away it is because I am being generous” into “this is God’s and I’ve been entrusted to use this money, this talent, and this gift for the highest good for all people,” is not an easy thing to do in a culture that says otherwise.  I sometimes wonder, actually, if so many of our problems as a society don’t stem from this basic confusion over what is really ours.  What is yours and really yours is only that which you take with you when you die.  And that does not include any of the resources of this world at all.  So what do we want to leave behind?  Do we want to die known as successful by cultural standards, having raised the bar of what it meant to be wealthy, that we collected so much of the world’s resources to ourselves?  Or do we want to leave behind a legacy of caring for others, making the world better, contributing what we have for the good of the world?   How would we want our loved ones to describe us after we have passed on?  Who do you want to be in the world?

But perhaps even more, a deeper question to ask ourselves, who do we want God to see us as?  I’ve asked you at times to think of what gifts God has given you: what are your talents, what are the things God has blessed you with that God gave you to use for the good of God’s people and God’s creation?  But now I’m asking you, if God were to write a sentence describing who you are, what would you want that sentence to be?  What would you want God to say about how you have been and who you are in the world?  Do those desires match your actions?  Do they match how you walk and how you act and how you move on this planet?  What could you do to be more the person God calls you to be?  What could you do to be more the person you want God to see you being?  What is the best way for you to serve God in this world?

When 9/11 happened, money came pouring in to the Red Cross in order to help.  Apparently, they received a total of about $547 Million in response.  But at first, Red Cross put all the money into their general fund and weren’t going to designate that money for the purpose of helping the 9/11 survivors.  The public outrage at this decision, however, forced the Red Cross to change its mind and they decided that every penny given towards that cause would go towards that cause.

In the same way, perhaps, God calls us to use the money, talents, time and resources with which we have been entrusted to serve and help God’s creation.  Not easy, and God doesn’t take away in the same way that those who donated to the Red Cross could take back their resources.  But God is putting a sacred trust in us and calling us to live that out.

As I wrote this sermon I found myself thinking about J.K. Rowling, a woman who was hugely successful not only because she wrote wonderful books but because she intentionally gave up being a billionaire by giving so much of her wealth to charity especially to the Multiple Sclerosis society and to a group called “Volant” that supports women, children and young people at risk in Scotland.  She has chosen to use her resources in service to other people.  That is a legacy worth leaving behind.

None of this is just about money.  Caryl Aukerman and her husband felt called to work with the very poor in Albania.  They took with them into Albania their three young children, who were sad because in living in such poverty, they found they could not continue to do the things that they loved the most: art, music, and dance, especially.  They felt cheated and the Aukerman’s began to be concerned that they were depriving their children of the opportunity to live into and use the talents that God had given them.  As they found ways to help their children still use those talents, they discovered that the neighboring kids also yearned for these kinds of experiences.  So they began classes out of their homes: they found a way to not only teach their own kids, to allow their own kids to live into their gifts, but to share those gifts with other children as they taught art, music and dance at home.  The children they served were still poor, and their work was still focused mostly on creating ways for these families to have enough.  But they also brought the arts alive into this community and enriched the neighborhood children far beyond the meeting of basic needs.  There are things all of us can do with the gifts God has given us.  It may take time to figure out how to use those gifts, but they are there to be shared, they are entrusted to you to be used for the good of all.

Studies show that most people feel they would be fine if they only had twice what they currently have.  It doesn’t actually matter how much a person has: even billionaires feel that they would be fine if they only had twice what they have now.  Humans “needs” seem to expand with what we have.  At the same time, those studies also show that having more does not equal being happier.  We think we will feel more content, more at peace, more okay when we have more.  But the reality is something else.  What DOES increase happiness is helping other people, and feeling gratitude.  These can make a huge difference in how we feel in the world.  So I wonder if, instead of feeling poor and focusing on getting more for ourselves, we focus on the gratitude of what we have and explore how we can give more to those around us.  Again, I’m not just thinking monetarily.  I’m also thinking in terms of our time, our talents, and our other our resources.

Stewardship is about all of these things.  But the bottom line is that stewardship is actually about your well-being, your wholeness.  We are happier, we are more whole, we are more connected to God when we can remember that we are stewards of what we have and that we are called to use God’s resources to help those around us who have little, who have less, who are in need.  We will feel more content and more full when we are generous with what is not even ours to begin with.  Stewardship is an invitation to remember that all we have and are come from God, are God’s and will return to God in the end.  Thanks be to God. 

--

The church council met to discuss the pastor’s compensation package for the coming year. After the meeting the chair of council told the pastor: “We are very sorry, Pastor, but we decided that we cannot give you a raise next year.”

“But you must give me a raise,” said the pastor. “I am but a poor preacher!”

“l know,” the council chair said. “We hear you every Sunday.”

Sunday's Sermon - Stewardship

Isaiah 65:17-25

               Luke 21:5-19

               The pastor was preoccupied with thoughts of how she was going to, after worship, ask the congregation to come up with the money they needed to repair the church roof.  He was annoyed therefore to remember that the church was not using a substitute organist who wouldn’t know what to play after this announcement.  “Here’s a copy of the service,” she said impatiently.  “But you’ll have to think of something to play after I make the announcement about the finances.”  That point in the service came and the minister paused before saying, “Brothers and Sisters, we are in great difficulty.  The roof repairs are going to cost twice as much as we had expected and we need $20,000 more to meet the new budget.  Any of you who can therefore pledge at least a $1000 a month to the church, please stand up.”  At that point the substitute organist played, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”  And that is how the substitute became the regular organist!

               Today is Stewardship Sunday, the favorite day of both pastors and parishioners when we are supposed to be guilting our parishioners into a strong sense of obligation to give more than they currently are, to give until they feel it.  It would probably be more effective perhaps than other things I could say, to try to guilt you into giving more.  I could remind you that we are supposed to tithe, according to scripture, and that tithing means giving 10 percent of all the money we bring in BEFORE taxes.  I could remind you that we are doing wonderful things at church but that these things all require money.  I could restate what I told you last year about the fact that study after study show that people are NOT in fact happier who have more and that everyone feels they don’t have enough, regardless of how much they actually bring in.  I could remind you that studies show that in fact the people who have less do give a greater percentage of their incomes than those who have more.  But I don’t want to do any of that.  Because I believe very strongly that we should be giving not out of guilt, but out of gratitude.  Because God isn’t good to us because of what we do for the church.  God loves us first, and therefore we are called to do what we do for the church as well as for others out of gratitude to God for all that blesses our lives.  We show our faith by being grateful, and we tell people who we are and what we believe by how we behave. You show what matters to you by what you do with your time, your energy, your money, your talents, and your gifts.  All people do.  You want to know what really matters to people, look at where their money goes.  You want to know who people really are, look at where and how they spend their time.  Actually, this congregation is amazing in that almost everyone in here is involved in some way beyond Sunday morning.  And that says a lot about where you are, who you are, what your priorities are.  Stewardship then is following through on that as well…giving back to God and God’s people through our actions, our talents, our time, and yes, our resources. 

That doesn’t mean that giving is easy for any of us.  What we perceive to be our needs grows to fit our incomes or often to even exceed them.  We can see it happening in our lives and in the lives of those around us, but it is hard to stop it.  As a result as I said before, the most generous people are usually the poorest, those least able to share are often those with the most money.  I shared this with you before, but a person I know whom I call “Sally” has an income that exceeds mine by over five times.  Sally spends a great deal of time and energy worrying about her money, and is right now in a place where she absolutely finds it impossible to be generous with time, talents or money.  She is often found lamenting on how trapped she feels, how tight things are financially, and saying that she doesn’t know how the bills will be paid next month.  And the truth is that she isn’t making this up.  She really does struggle to keep up her expected standard of living.  Her investment properties, her motorbikes, the time she spends with friends of like economic status at vacation spots, expensive restaurants, her home remodel – all of these things do take every bit of the income that she brings in as well as every extra minute of her time.  Of course, for those of us who don’t live like that, it is easy to see the other side.  How much of that is necessary spending?  How much is luxury?  And how much good could actually be done with that money if she were to spend it on caring for others?  But this is what Sally is used to, what she knows, what she believes is necessary.  She has forgotten the bigger picture…the picture that says that none of her resources are actually her own.  They are all God’s and therefore should be used for the good of all rather than the good of just Sally.  She has lost touch with the fact that one of the meals she eats out in a month could feed a family overseas for six months and that this is a better use for God’s resources.  Sally has become owned by her possessions and lost in her material wealth.  And she is poorer because of it.

               In contrast, Rebecca makes half of what I make.  Yet she bakes cookies for her co-workers and friends on a regular basis, she invites people into her tiny home, not worrying about whether it is big enough or pretty enough or prestigious enough, she feeds them, invite them to stay.  She always has little gifts for the children she knows and gives back to the community in a myriad of ways, teaching music lessons, cooking for church potlucks, being around and available and generous with her smiles, her materials, her talents and her gifts.  Rebecca is far wealthier than Sally.  And yet Rebecca makes so much less.

               We see this.  We know that wealth is not just a matter of possessions, but of living in our faith, living secure in God rather than our things.  But it is still hard to live in our faith, to exercise our gratitude, to remember that we are stewards of the resources God has given us, not owners of it.

               I have a family member who was a psychology professor.  Every semester he used to do an experiment with his psychology class.  He would tell the class that everyone would have a choice about how many points they would get for attending class that day.  They could choose to get 5 points or 25 points.  However, if more than 15% of the class were to ask for 25 points, everyone in the class would get zero.  What do you think the results were?  Always the class got no points.  Every single time it was almost exactly 70% of the people in the class who would ask for the 25 points for themselves.  Even when they knew the results of other classes in which Gene had offered the test, the percentage was the same.  There was, however, one thing that could change that percentage.  If he told the class that those students who asked for the 25 points for themselves would have their names read aloud, the effect went away.  The fear of loss of social status was the only thing he found that was greater than the fear of not getting ahead in points.  Because of this knowledge, more and more churches are starting to publish what people give for the congregation.  We are not going to do that here.  But it does make one think… 

               One of my house-mates from college lives as a Catholic worker volunteer.  This means that she lives in a community of other volunteers who open their house to the poor in their community.  They feed them, house them, living in community together.  She is married with children and still lives in this community.  While I struggle to find the money to send my children to lessons so that they might have a full education, her children have the fullest education possible, living with and serving God’s people in community.  She has found God’s wealth to be far greater than that of material wealth and security.   She lives in God’s kingdom and she does it every day.

               Stewardship, choosing to give of our resources and to give with generosity, is a statement of trust in God, a statement that we know that our real wealth comes from our connections with God and God’s people rather than from money or resources.

A little girl stood near a small church from which she had been turned away because it was, supposedly, 'too crowded.' 'I can't go to Sunday School,' she sobbed to the pastor as he walked by. Seeing her shabby, unkempt appearance, the pastor guessed the reason and, taking her by the hand, took her inside and found a place for her in the Sunday school class. The child was so happy that they found room for her, and she went to bed that night thinking of the children who have no place to worship.  Some two years later, this child died in one of the poor tenement buildings. Her parents called for the kindhearted pastor who had befriended their daughter to handle the final arrangements. As her poor little body was being moved, a worn and crumpled red purse was found which seemed to have been rummaged from some trash dump. Inside was found 57 cents and a note, scribbled in childish handwriting, which read: 'This is to help build the little church bigger so more children can go to Sunday School.' For two years she had saved for this offering of love. When the pastor tearfully read that note, he knew instantly what he would do. Carrying this note and the cracked, red pocketbook to the pulpit, he told the story of her unselfish love and devotion. He challenged his church officers to get busy and raise enough money for the larger building. A newspaper learned of the story and published it. It was read by a wealthy realtor who offered them a parcel of land worth many thousands. When told that the church could not pay so much, he offered to sell it to the little church for 57 cents.  Church members made large donations. Checks came from far and wide.. Within five years the little girl's gift had increased to $250,000.00--a huge sum for that time (near the turn of the century). Her unselfish love had paid large dividends. Supposedly, this is the true story of Temple Baptist Church in Philadelphia, with a seating capacity of 3,300 and along with it, Temple University.

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.  Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water!  She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it so slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?"  “You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.." He said ... "Then I thank you from my heart." As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and humanity was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit. Many years later that same woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.  Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once.  He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case. After a long struggle, the battle was won.  Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge, and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words ...

"Paid in full with one glass of milk."

(Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly.

               The words of the hymn we will be singing later, “we give thee but thine own” is one of the truest statements of our faith.  The money, the talents, the gifts and resources we have are not ours.  They are on loan to us from God…but as scripture tells us, “from those who have much, much will be expected.”  So let us return to God out of our gratitude, knowing everything we give can be used for good. 

More on the disturbing nature of miracles.

     Despite the title I have given to this blog post, I want to talk about finances for a minute.  I realize we don't usually share in public anything about finances, especially personal finances, but I'm going to break that rule for this blog because I think it is often the things we most avoid discussing that are really the most important things to discuss.
      So let me start by saying that I am very fiscally conservative in my personal life.  I don't "do" debt.  I pay off my credit cards each month, I'm big on saving, I don't buy a new car until I can pay for the whole thing up front (hence still having our 2001 Toyota), and frankly, I'm uncomfortable even carrying a mortgage on a house, let alone doing the "shared equity" thing that I am currently doing with my church in order to afford to live here in the Bay Area.  I've also had financial help from my parents, on more than one occasion: something I'm not proud of, and something I've worked hard to pay back as quickly as possible.  Still, I am so deeply aware that the reason I am able to "not do debt" is because I come from a place of extreme privilege.  I have parents who have been able to help me financially, and not in small ways.  I'm part of a congregation that had the resources to be able to join me in a "shared equity" agreement on my house.  These are gifts that are in no way small.  And I therefore understand that other people who do go into debt are usually doing so from a place of less privilege.  I have no judgment on that situation, therefore.  It truly is because of the advantaged situation into which I have been born (not through any actions or choices of my own) that I can claim the healthy financial situation in which I have lived through my life.  There have been huge financial demands that have arisen at various times.  The fact that I was able to get through those times - through savings, through equity built up on our house, through the help of family... again, I do not at all take for granted that that came from extreme privilege.
     But what I want to focus on in this blog has more to do with times when we came close to having serious financial crisis.  I mentioned in the sermon I posted yesterday that there was a time when I had a half time, presbytery-minimum salary position, we had just moved into a three bed-room house from a two, and at the last minute the people who had been buying our old house pulled out leaving us with two mortgages, the shower pan in the bathroom cracked, damaging the floor and walls as well as making the bathroom completely unusable and it was Christmas: a  Christmas with three kids who would not receive presents from their parents that year.  I didn't tell the end of that story which was that just as we came to the month when all of our savings would have been used up, the old house did sell, fulltime better paying work did come along, enough that we were able to have the bathroom fixed without a problem, and my kids were blessed with so much at Christmas from those around us that they did not feel deprived despite my not having the finances, personally, to buy them gifts.  We were cared for.  We were okay.  That has happened other times as well (needing to pay legal fees of close to $100K for example), where I have come close to needing to go into debt or needing to borrow from family or needing financial help but because of savings or other privileged situations, the money has always appeared, has always been there. When disaster happened in our family, I was able to take on full time work immediately and our finances were never in danger.  At all of these times I have recognized our financial well being for the miracles they have been. And this month it happened again.  I had personally payed for the building supplies for our church work day (part of my contribution to the church for something I felt very strongly about).  But then the car broke down, my mortgage company failed to pay the insurance company out of my impound account and my insurance was about to be cancelled so I had to pay it directly out of my account, and a large medical bill for one of my kids came due.  All of it happened at the same time.  And when the bills came, I wasn't sure how I was going to pay them.  But then today I received two large checks in the mail: one from my insurance company back in Ohio that needed to pay back an overpayment (and a LARGE overpayment) on the house I used to have there, and one for work I had not thought I would be paid for.  Neither were expected and the timing of both was, in fact, a miracle.  They came exactly in the right amount and exactly at the right time.  I felt the hand of God in the timing.  I felt truly "taken care of" by the Divine when I was starting to panic and feel financially fragile.
          But my next feeling was one of being very disturbed by the miracles, by the timing, by the gifts, by the reality that I have always been so well cared for financially.  Why is it that I have been taken care of, again and again in these concrete ways, when there are people starving to death in the world?  When there are so many people who cannot meet their bills this month or any month?  People truly in desperate need of food, shelter, medicines, who simply don't have them?  Does God not care about them equally well?  The God I believe in does. I know people who believe that we are taken care of when we help ourselves.  But I've known too many less privileged people, seen how hard they work and how desperate they are at times to get their basic needs met, to have any illusions that somehow these financial gifts are due to something I have done or am.  Some would claim it's because I have faith. Again, not accurate. Many of the poorest folk I know are people of very deep faith. And I know God loves all people just as much, regardless of what they believe. No, I have been lucky beyond my due; and others have suffered far beyond theirs.  So, while I never want to be ungrateful for the well-being and gifts that have come my way, I remain disturbed by the question of why some people receive the miracles they need at a particular point in time while others don't.
         To expand this beyond finances, I have read recently about a family whose daughter miraculously survived and overcame a dreadful precondition that should have killed her instantly. She says she was blessed by a miracle from God. People in my congregations have shared miracle stories of children surviving terrible accidents or diseases as well.  But I also know wonderful, incredible people who have lost children to death of one kind or another, people of deep faith and love.  And the randomness of who is saved and who is lost eludes me. I wonder, for the families who have lost their children, if it is not beyond painful to hear others whose children were saved talking about the miracle of that child's survival.  I wonder if they do not scream at God, "If you could save, Jane, why didn't you save Ramon?"  And my fear is that we end up blaming the victims way too often.  "Maybe their faith wasn't strong enough". Or we come up with other justifications. "Maybe God needed that child in heaven".  "Maybe it is the sins of the father being visited down upon the child". NO.  None of these reasons work for me.  Not one.  It still remains the case that miracles happen all the time.  But some people still experience in this life much more than they can handle.  And they lose children.  Or they struggle with unimagined financial stress.  Or they literally starve or dehydrate to death.  Some suffer torture.  Some die in wars.  Some die of abuse. Some are killed for no reason whatsoever because of where they live, or their skin color, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It isn't okay.  And the randomness of who survives, who receives miracles and who doesn't continues to escape me.
        I find myself grateful that I am aware that I don't deserve the gifts that come my way and can choose to be humbled and extremely thankful for them.  But I still struggle with the bigger questions. Why some and not others?  
       I've posted this before, but this is what Frederick Buechner says: “God is all-powerful.  God is all-good.  Terrible things happen.  You can reconcile any two of these propositions with each other, but you can’t reconcile all three.  The problem of evil is perhaps the greatest single problem for religious faith.  There have been numerous theological and philosophical attempts to solve it, but when it comes down to the reality of evil itself they are none of them worth much.  When a child is raped and murdered, the parents are not apt to take much comfort from the explanation (better than most) that since God wants people to love God, people must be free to love or not to love and thus free to rape and murder a child if he takes a notion to.  Christian science solves the problem of evil by saying that it does not exist except as an illusion of mortal mind.  Buddhism solves it in terms of reincarnation and an inexorable law of cause and effect whereby the raped child is merely reaping the consequences of evil deeds it committed in another life.  Christianity, on the other hand, ultimately offers no theoretical solution at all.  It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene – not even this – but that God can turn it to good.”
       I see that.  I preach that.  But because there really aren't answers, I still struggle with it. While I do see many of the miracles that happen all around every single day, it still hurts to see so many people struggle so much.  But when the question of evil arises, it is one of those times when we are called to live into the question. I also hear in the question a call.. where we see need, we are called to be the miracle for those around us. Remembering how we have been blessed and graced, we are called to bring blessings and grace to those for whom the miracles are not as obvious or so forthcoming.  So for today,  I will take the gifts and the miracles that I am given and do my best to pass them forward.