EVERY CONTRIBUTION COUNTS! Luke 21:1-4 Disciples are building the Kingdom of God. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves First United Methodist Church Fort Smith, Arkansas November 13, 2016
Dr. Craig Barnes is the president of Princeton Theological Seminary. When he was pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C., he conducted the funeral for a man who had helped develop the 747 aircraft for Boeing Corporation. After the service, Craig was visiting with the widow, and he remarked how interesting it was that her husband had helped build the 747. She said, The truth is, he worked on one little switchbox smaller than a loaf of bread. That s all he worked on for 15 years. But when that 747 took off for the first time, it was the happiest day of his life. 1 The 747 never could have lifted off the ground without the switchbox that one man designed. Every contribution counts. That s the big idea I want you to internalize today. If you re a disciple of Jesus Christ, you have a contribution to make. It may be small; it may be large; it doesn t matter. It counts. Today our hero of faith is a widow who occupied about 30 seconds in the ministry of Jesus, yet her story has been told for 20 centuries as an example of faith. We don t even know her name. She is an unlikely hero at best, but she is a powerful witness to us today. Widows in Biblical times were not covered by Social Security or the life insurance of their husbands. They could not have a meaningful career. Unless they had children to support them or could get remarried, they were the poorest of the poor, destitute, depending on the charity of others. One day near the end of his life, Jesus was teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem, and he saw a widow walking up to the collection receptacles in the courtyard of the Temple. Scholars tell us that these bins were trumpet-shaped and metal, so they could really make a clatter when a rich person dumped in a bunch of coins. 2 The wealthy had been dumping their coins in the whole time Jesus had been teaching, but he looked up just in time to see this elderly widow toss in two tiny coins, worth less than a penny. Then without fanfare at all, she walked away from the offering trumpet. Jesus stopped in mid-teaching and said to those who were gathered around him, The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest
offering today. All these others made offerings that they ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn t afford she gave her all! 3 And that was it. Jesus went back to dealing with questions from the crowd. But this brief incident, simple as it was, communicates some great truths about stewardship and discipleship. First, it s not the amount that counts. What matters is the proportion of your wealth that you give. Some people could have filled the trumpets with money, and it would not have been significant or faithful, because they were giving out of their abundance. A thousand bucks is a huge amount for some people, but for others it is a drop in the bucket. The size of a gift doesn t matter to God. He doesn t need the money, anyway. What counts with God is the relative proportion of the gift and the sacrifice it takes to make it. As a guide, Scripture gives us a minimum proportion of faithfulness. It is called the tithe. It amounts to 10% of your income. If we tithe, it is a source of blessing. If we don t, we are using what doesn t belong to us. 90% belongs to us; 10% belongs to God. The Lord spoke this truth clearly through the prophet Malachi: Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, How do we rob you? In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse the whole nation of you because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 4 Some folks think, Sure, I d love to tithe. But I can t afford it. If I were rich, then I d tithe. The truth is, poor folks generally do better than rich folks when it comes to proportional giving. Researchers have found that people with an income of less than $50,000 give an average of 4% of their income. That percentage declines as income rises until the income hits between $200K and $250K, at which point the average percentage given is only 2.4%. 5 That s kind of surprising, isn t it?
Like the widow in the Temple, sometimes it s the people with the least to give that are the most faithful. David Severe is a friend of mine, a United Methodist pastor in Oklahoma, and he wrote about an incident which happened in his first church after seminary. He became aware that an elderly widow in his congregation was one of the top givers in the church. He knew she didn t have a nice house or dress very well or drive a fancy car. So he went over to her house to let her know that she didn t have to give up her living to support the church. She welcomed him in and made him a cup of tea. Everything in her house was ancient, but it all looked spotlessly clean and wellkept. So Pastor David proceeded with his mission. In what he thought was an act of compassion, he told the woman that he appreciated what she was doing, but it would be OK if she needed to cut back on her giving to take care of her own needs. He didn t want her to overextend herself. As the pastor spoke, the widow lowered her head and began to cry. At first, David thought she was grateful that he was giving her permission to relieve her burden. When he stopped talking she spoke: Preacher, there is not much I can do for my church any more. I used to be strong enough to do many things. Please don't take away the one thing I can still do. Then David Severe wrote these words: Now it was my turn to drop my head. Suddenly I was made aware that I stood upon sacred ground. I apologized for my unthinking statement, and did what any sane person in the presence of a saint would do. I asked her to forgive me and pray for me. I learned a great lesson about giving that day. It was that there is no such thing as a small gift or a large gift. There is only the difference between grateful hearts and small ones. I don t believe God ever looks at what we give only at how much of us our gift represents. 6 How much of you does your giving represent? What God notices is not the amount, but the proportion.
The widow in the Temple gave even a larger proportion of her income; Jesus said it was all she had to live on. I don t know how he knew that, but I m not going to doubt him. The widow s sacrifice was an example of faithfulness. She wasn t giving out of compulsion or fear. Those two little coins were an expression of her faith in God. That s how giving should be. Whatever it takes, we want to be faithful. I read a true story from a church in Binford, North Dakota, about an elderly lady who fainted during the sermon. She was sitting beside her daughter, and she just fell over and hit her head on the pew and knocked herself out. The preacher stopped his sermon, an EMT in the congregation called an ambulance, and worship was pretty much over for that day. But as they strapped the lady to a stretcher, she woke up just enough to motion her daughter to come near. Everyone thought she was going to say her final words. But when the daughter leaned over the stretcher, her mother whispered, My offering is in my purse. 7 One of the most faithful giving Christians I have ever known was my friend Zelia Thames. She was widowed twice, but she kept up her tithe to the very end of her life in 1999. She understood that it was part of her walk with Christ, and we would talk about it, especially after she became ill near the end of her life. One of her husbands had worked for the Post Office: she taught piano lessons and played the organ at the church. Her income was between $10,000 and $12,000 a year, and every month she wrote a check to the church for $100. Once, when the church was in a building program, she sold a piece of family land down in Mississippi for $30,000. Then she made out a check for $3,000 and brought it to the church. Zelia could have used every penny of that $30,000. But she wanted to do her part, and God got 10% of whatever she received. She was faithful. The widow in the Temple teaches us proportionality, faithfulness, and finally, trust. If Jesus was right and I m betting he was the widow had just given her life savings. She was broke. She had no
reserves to fall back on. She was totally trusting God for her future. She must have believed that God was going to take care of her. I m not suggesting that we liquidate all our assets. But I am saying that we do not need to fear that our giving to God is going to limit our future or prevent our success. In fact, God is going to bless those who act faithfully toward him. No matter how hard we try, we can t outgive God! Stephen Covey, in his landmark book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, distinguishes between the scarcity mentality and the abundance mentality. 8 A scarcity mentality doubts whether there is enough to go around, enough resources to be successful. The pie is small, and life becomes a competition to make sure I get my piece of the pie, even if others don t get theirs. Have you known people like that? Have you been people like that? I have. The abundance mentality, on the other hand, trusts that there is plenty to go around. The pie is big; God is good; and God will bless us when we put our faith in him. I have heard it many times from people who have decided to tithe (as recently as two weeks ago), that the decision to tithe was not based on economics or accounting. You never ask, Do we have enough to do this? Tithing is a decision of faith. It s when you refuse to be fearful, and you put your trust in God. We can trust our future to God without reservation. As the Lord said to Jeremiah, "For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 9 When we give of ourselves, in whatever way money, time, energy, talent when we fully trust in Him, God is faithful. He will lead us, guide us, and protect us. We will find success, because we will understand what true success is. A few years ago, Michael Elliot wrote a book called The Society of Salty Saints. It is full of stories out of the ministry of an inner-city church in Louisville, Kentucky. The church had about twenty or thirty active members, but sometimes only a few showed up for worship, especially on Sunday night. During one of these Sunday night
services, they were having prayer requests, and there were the usual sicknesses and griefs. Then a young man spoke up. He was a new seminary student, and he had come to the church to play the guitar for their worship services. He shared that he and his wife had just found out they were going to have a baby. They already had a toddler. Everyone was excited at first, until he explained that he had not been able to find a job since he came to school, and they had run out of the money they had saved. It had just been a hard week, and he asked that the few salty souls there would keep his family in their prayers. The next Sunday morning, the young seminary student and his family were walking into the church, and he was stopped by Buena and three or four of her friends. Buena was a fixture at the church. She weighed about 250 pounds and was completely bald, so usually she wore either a wig or a bandanna. She chewed tobacco all the time even in church and always had a Maxwell House coffee can with her. She came from the hills of Kentucky and had a rough exterior, but a heart as big as the mountains. She stopped the student in the hallway of the church and said, Here, we be got somethin for ya. She thrust an envelope in his hands, and he looked down to see it was stuffed with money. Buena said, We just want ya ta know that we love ya and like the way ya play that guitar. The student began to protest. He knew how poor these old ladies were. He had never been poor, and his middle-class pride rebelled at the thought of accepting this gift. But Buena looked at him with 250 pounds of intensity and said, Lookee hare. We be knowin what it s like ta be without. This is far ya. So the young man put the envelope in his pocket, and he hugged each one of the ladies. His wife cried, and his toddler watched the whole thing with respectful awe. Then together they went into the sanctuary and worshipped. 10 What the widow in the Temple and the widow in Oklahoma and Zelia Thames and Buena are all trying to teach us today is simply this: Every contribution counts. Whenever you give to God time,
money, energy, talent it is significant at whatever level you do it. If it is proportional and faithful and given in trust to God, it is a great contribution. We are disciples, and our actions are Kingdom actions, because we are all about building the Kingdom of God. We are in a partnership with Christ to bring His Kingdom teaching to bear right here and right now. We may feel like the guy helping build the 747. Maybe our piece is not a big piece, but it s my piece! When our ministry takes off, our hearts can be filled with a sense of pride and joy and accomplishment, because we have a part to play in it. Every contribution counts. So just start where you are today. (There s no other place you can start.) And take a step forward in faith. That s why we gave you the little step chart last week. It s not about putting your last penny in the plate, but it is about taking a step forward, a step up, until you reach God s goal for your giving. In a few moments, you will have the opportunity, in a time of prayer and worship, to take a step forward and make your commitment to make a contribution to the Kingdom right here. In doing so, you will bless God, and God will bless you. Amen! 1 M. Craig Barnes, from a sermon preached Sept. 19, 2000. PreachingToday.com. 2 William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 254. 3 Luke 21:3-4, The Message. 4 Malachi 3:8-10. 5 Giving USA 2015, http://nccs.urban.org/nccs/statistics/charitable-giving-in-americasome-facts-and-figures.cfm 6 From a sermon by Dr. Norman Neaves. 7 Eric Hulstrad, in Fresh Illustrations for Teaching and Preaching. 8 Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 219f. 9 Jeremiah 29:11. 10 Michael Elliot, The Society of Salty Saints (Oak Park, IL: Meyer-Stone Books, 1987), pp. 18f.