You may know that my father was a lawyer by trade. And as a lawyer, my dad would

Transcription

1 Keeping Stewardship Simple A Sermon by Rich Holmes on Psalm 24:1-2 and Luke 12: Delivered on November 4, 2018 at Northminster Presbyterian Church You may know that my father was a lawyer by trade. And as a lawyer, my dad would occasionally tell me stories about lawyers in their courtrooms. Well, he told me a story one time about a rather skilled lawyer we ll call Frank who was representing a man who was charged with murder. The defendant sat in the courtroom and the prosecuting attorney presented a really strong case. There were eyewitnesses who came forward and said they saw the defendant going into the victim s home and leaving the victim s home at the time of the murder. The judge asked the lawyer Frank if he had any questions for the witnesses. No, he didn t. The prosecutor then introduced an expert witness who said there were fingerprints found in the home that matched the defendant s fingerprints. Frank, do you have any questions for this witness? No, I don t. Finally, the prosecutor introduced a detective who said that a firearm that belonged to the defendant was also found in the home. Once again, Frank, do you have any questions for this witness? No I don t. The prosecutor then rested his case and everyone was sure that Frank must have had a whole long list of defense witnesses to rebut the prosecution s case, after all he didn t ask the prosecution witnesses any questions to cast doubt on anything they said. He didn t cross examine them, to put it in legal terms. But Frank didn t even present one witness, and everyone thought to themselves, What in the world is this guy going to do? Well, finally, it came time 1

2 for the lawyers to give their closing arguments, and the prosecutor got up and he went over the eyewitnesses and the fingerprints and the murder weapon, he talked about motive and the lack of an alibi and all that stuff, and he went on for two hours, and finally Frank got up and said that his client did not kill the victim because right now, the real killer is going to walk right through the courtroom doors, and everyone in the jury turned to look at the doors. Nobody came through. But Frank said, Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, all of you are here today because you have taken an oath to uphold the law, and if you have a reasonable doubt that my client is guilty, then the law says you have to set him free. And then he added, If you did not have a reasonable doubt about my client s guilt, then why did all of you just look at that door? Pretty clever, right? Except the trick didn t work. The trick didn t work because the jury got to talking and they realized that when all of them turned to look at the door the defendant wasn t looking at the door. So even if they had a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, the defendant knew who committed the crime. Well, I begin with this story today because here at Northminster, when the leaves begin to change and float down from the trees, when the air begins to turn colder, when the days get shorter and the nights get longer, it comes time for us to talk about stewardship and for me to preach about stewardship, but when it comes time for me to stand up behind this pulpit and talk about stewardship, I sort of feel like that lawyer Frank, because I don t really have a whole lot to say. And I don t have a lot to say this morning because stewardship to me is rather simple. For stewardship in my judgment is not about how much money we need at Northminster to keep the lights on and to keep the roof from leaking, although I agree that that is quite important. It is not about how much we need to spread the gospel both in word and in 2

3 deed, although, yes, that is important, too. And if a bolt of lightning doesn t strike me down for saying this, I ll tell you a little secret, it is not even about tithing, even though tithing is important. Yes, the bible talks about giving ten percent of what you have to the Lord and some people want to know well is that gross or is that net, but that to me is a silly debate, and it has always been silly, because to me even tithing is not even what stewardship is about. What then, is stewardship about? It is about whether you believe that what you have belongs to you, or whether you believe it belongs to God. And I am convinced that if you believe that what you have belongs to God, and if you believe that not just in your head but way down in your heart, way down where your true self resides, then we won t need to worry about whether we have enough money for anything here at Northminster. I am fascinated by a little something called virtue ethics. Virtue Ethics, in fact, was what I wrote about in my dissertation as I was getting my doctorate in Philosophy. And the reason I like virtue ethics, is because of this. When you are studying ethics, you see, every now and then you come across these ethical puzzles. Ethicists love puzzles such as what would you do if you know, two people were drowning and you had only one life preserver, and one of the people drowning is your mother and the other person is a scientist whose about to discover the cure for cancer, what do you do? Well, you see, every other ethical theory out there says here are the rules you have to follow if you want to do the right thing. Here are the rules, do this, don t do that. But virtue ethics says Forget about the rules. If you want to know what the right thing to do is, do what a virtuous person would do. Do what a compassionate person, a generous person, an honest person, a faithful person, a person of integrity, whatever they would do, do that, and if you don t know what such a virtuous person would do, ask one. It is another way 3

4 of saying instead of focusing on what rules to follow to be a good person, focus instead on being a good person and then you will know what rules to follow. Then, you will know what to do. Well, in a similar way, I want to tell you that instead of preaching a sermon about how much you should be giving what I believe is that if you truly believe deep within your soul that what you have belongs to God and not to you, I don t have to tell you what to do. You will know. Because when something belongs to us, our attitude tends to be that I can do whatever I want with it. Since I own my car free and clear I can take care of it and drive it slowly around every turn and change the oil every three thousand miles, or I can trash it and abuse it and neglect it. I can do whatever I want with it, it s mine. But if one day I suddenly found out that the car belonged to you, what would I do? Well, I would be as careful as I possible could with it, wouldn t I? If I was driving your car and you heard me pull out of the church parking lot with the tires squealing in a cloud of smoke you would think I didn t care about your property because I didn t care very much about you, wouldn t you? When someone takes something of ours and they don t treat it well, it s hurtful to us, it s one of the most hurtful things you can do to someone, and why is that? Because you immediately know if someone doesn t care about something that belongs to you, then they don t really care about you. And isn t it the same with God? In our Old Testament lesson for today the Psalmist declares that the earth and everything within it belongs to God. The earth is the Lord s and the fullness thereof, the world and those that dwell therein, as it says in the King James Version of the Bible. I have no doubt that all of us here love God, even though none of us, including me, love God as much as we should, or as deeply as we should, but we wouldn t be here if we didn t love God at 4

5 least to some extent. And so I am convinced that if you really believe that everything we have belongs to God, you will give what you ought to give, and not only will you give what you ought to give, I am even convinced that you will give in joy. And whether or not you give in joy is just as important as the amount that you give. You know, when I was much younger and I would preach sermons, I think I must have thought that my words were magic. I thought that if I preached a sermon, just by saying a few words it could instantly change the congregation I was preaching to, and in fact, change the world. Well, I no longer believe in magic words. I don t believe that going out into the world and convincing people with my words that what they have belongs to God and not to them will suddenly make the world into good stewards of this creation. Most people, I am sure could care less if this world belongs to God. But we are different. Even in the midst of all our sin and all our imperfections, we are here because we love God, and so knowing who it all belongs to does make a difference for us. Today, at Northminster, we celebrate All Saints Day. Now, All Saints Day was actually on Thursday, the first of November, the day after Halloween. As you may know Halloween actually comes from the phrase All Hallows Eve, because All Saint s Day was once called All Hallows Day, and October 31 st is the eve of All Hallows Day. Now, here at Northminster, as we celebrate All Saints day, we honor not only those who are the living saints among us, but all of those who have gone before us and whom God has now called home. And what we are going to do to mark the occasion of All Saints Day in a few minutes is have a necrology where we read the names of all those who have passed from this life in the past year and if you have a loved one in mind who did not pass away this year, but whom you still want to honor, you are invited to 5

6 come forward and place a bell on the cross. Now, you may think the occasion of All Saint s Day is not the time to talk about stewardship and giving money to the church. I am not against stewardship sermons you may tell me, but surely there is a more appropriate time to preach one. But I disagree. Everything we have and everything we are in this church is because of those who have gone before us. Our entire existence as a church is because of those who have gone before us, those who have given of their time, their talent, and their resources. Our entire existence in this church is because of those who have gone before us who gave in joy because they knew that all they had belonged to God. Who does it belong to? As you fill out your pledge card this week, that is all you need to ask yourself, and if you can answer that question correctly, and answer it correctly not just up here in your head but down here in your heart, then everything else will fall into place. Remember that this week. 6