The Funniest Pledge Sermon Ever Rev. Arthur G. Severance, Interim Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton, California April 15, 2012 There s a story about Mark Twain attending a church service where a missionary appealed for funds to evangelize the heathen in a foreign land. After 10 minutes of description about their unhappy plight, I wanted to give $50, Twain wrote. The preacher kept on another 15 minutes and that gave me time to realize that $50 was an extravagance, so I cut it in half. At the end of another 10 minutes, I had reduced it to $5.00. When at the end of an hour of speaking the plates were finally passed, I was so annoyed that I reached in and helped myself to a quarter. Perhaps you understand why I decided to use humor for the pledge sermon, and I'll try to keep it under an hour! The common title for the pledge sermon is The Sermon on the Amount, and after many years in ministry, I know how important they are to the life of the congregation, yet people often seem to stay home on those Sundays! One minister pastor had a creative idea. His church was instituting a unified budget. One budget would replace several smaller budgets. It took him a long time to determine the best way to present this. Finally he told the congregation that the new unified budget was their effort to put all their begs into one ask it. I quote from Unitarian Universalist minister, Chris Raible, in his book of parodies, Hymns for the Cerebration of Strife, a play on the old hymnal s title, Hymns for the Celebration of Life: # 172 Life of Ages, Richly Poured 1. O for pledges richly paid, Capital unspent and free, Flowing in from profits made And from generosity. 2. Ever learn the chosen few, When elected to the Board, That the things we want to do Cost more than we can afford.
3. Concentrating hard to find Ways for budgets to be slashed, So expenses are confined To the limits of our cash. 4. O what wonders there could be If we could forget the price, If all people were as free With their funds as their advice. Or opinions. But you who come here this morning, those of you who gather Sunday after Sunday, those of us who have taken up the responsibility of church leadership, all help to make this place holy. Many of you give blood, sweat, tears, and money to make sure this fellowship, not only survives, but thrives! On any given Sunday morning we gather, there may be as many reasons as people, but the reason that you come together in a church to make up a beloved community is because we need to. A need that is deep in our souls and psyches to connect with more than just ourselves, to give and receive love, validation, and to find meaning when everything may seem meaningless. Maybe we come out of great joy to share that as well. Maybe we ve just discovered this church when we were searching for something that was spiritual but not religious, or more accurately, traditional, and didn t know that there was a church like this, that preaches love over doctrine, caring over creedalism. Maybe we have a new bundle of joy and want to have a child dedication, or maybe we have attended a memorial service where we celebrated the life of our loved one and helped us through the time of grief. Maybe we need an hour of the week where we can come and rest, where we can worship with words that make sense and may comfort or inspire us, where we can listen to the music of the spheres and be transported out of our all too busy and demanding week. Maybe this is the only place where we can come together and laugh or cry, but always feel safe, feel that we are among friends here, that we rediscover what religion might mean to us, what living generously might do for our souls and/or our psyches. Maybe you've been coming here so long, you think you've heard every possible variant of a pledge sermon and are looking forward to one that's a little different, one that makes you laugh! I've been preaching pledge sermons for almost 25 years, but I still find them important, because I want to give people the opportunity to feel good about
themselves and their church, and studies show that pledging generously will do that. How good would you like to feel? When a very rich and wicked old miser was dying, he was so worried that his family asked the pastor to come and comfort him. I wouldn t mind dying so much, the old man said, if I could take my money with me and keep it safe. Don t worry about that, the preacher came back. It would all be burned up anyway. In fact, I have always given the congregation a money back guarantee of getting in to heaven if only you give enough to the church, and friends, in over 20 years, I have never had any one ask for their money back! Oh, a few live ones have, but that doesn't count. And yes, for those people who say Unitarian Universalists aren't as a generous because they don't fear hell, one year I even threatened the congregation with Hell! The title was There'll be Hell to Pay. In a lighthearted way I was trying to say that religious meaning gathered here in a loving community is the opposite of hell, but that it would be hellish if this community did not exist because no one would pay their dues! In other words we would be in hell if we aren't generous enough to support this church. Since I believe that we create our, own heaven and hell, I can guarantee that our generosity of spirit, that our love and service to others will make our world a heaven! Not perfect or without pain, but love will make it all worthwhile. Remember that while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. It reminds me of the story about an old miser who wanted to prove you can take your money with you. Calling together three friends he said, Here s an envelope with ten thousand dollars in it for each one of you. When I am buried I want you to throw your envelope in the grave with me just before they cover me with dirt. At the funeral each threw his envelope in the grave. But on the way back their consciences made them confess. Said the first, I needed some money, so I kept out one thousand dollars, and threw in only nine thousand. I kept half the envelope, said the second. I threw in only five thousand dollars.
I am surprised and shocked at what you did, gentlemen, commented the third, a Unitarian Universalist, How could you hold out like that? I threw in my personal check for the full amount. Living generously is being successful. We can't take it with us, but we can leave it where it will do the most good! Our denomination is unusual because we celebrate religious diversity among us. As the old Universalist Hosea Ballou used to say: If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. May love call us to generous living and giving; may we give, not until it hurts, but until it feels good. There are two good reasons to give generously to your congregation: 1. If you are satisfied about how things are going, if you love what this beloved community is doing, you know a generous giving might help make things better! 2. If you are dissatisfied with how things are going, a generous giving might help make things better! Studies show that people give out of gratitude to the church and its sense of mission. We call our churches Free Churches because we are free from restricting doctrines and are free to go on our own liberal religious searches and in good company, I might add. As my colleague, Terry Sweetser puts it in Free for What? : The word freedom comes from an ancient Norse root verb that means to become loving. Freedom is not properly a state of being then, but more accurately a choice for becoming... But some people think that that means you get in for free, or that you get a free religious ride. I think it comes back to that old adage, you get what you pay for. How much religion do you want, and be grateful that you don t have to pay ministers by the pound! How good to you want to feel? How much church do you want? How much do you need, not just today, but tomorrow and the day after? Churches are good for what someone as called, hatching, matching, and, yes, dispatching - baby dedications, weddings, and yes, memorial services, and of course much in between. Are you going
to need our Children s Religious Education program? Do you belong to any of our many church groups? Have you ever needed to talk to the minister; have you ever been comforted by the minister, member care, or any of your friends here at First Church? How would you feel if this church wasn t here? We welcomed new members into our midst this morning, and I hope that seeing them you were touched by the same feeling that you might have had when you joined, because I remember that wonderful feeling of discovering UUism, of joining a congregation that transformed my life, brought a sense of religion back to my life that had been missing, a spirituality of belonging and connection that I felt made my life better and encouraged me to work for the transformation of the world to a better place for me having lived in it. Like the song, Amazing Grace, I was lost, and when I joined a UU congregation, I felt as though I had finally been found! And, of course, that was just the beginning. I ve just returned from a three day minister s retreat with more than 50 other UU ministers and seminary students; it recharged my soul partly because I was ministered to for a change; I was able to hear inspiring worship without having to be responsible for it. I went to church, if you will, and my spirit was fed, so that I could come back and share worship with you. Worshipping and talking with these people who had responded to the call of some kind of holy spirit, force, or tradition, from students not yet finished their seminary work to experienced ministers with 30 or more years experience, come together so we could all be recharged, inspired, reminded of that sense of the holy, the sacred dimension that is called by many names, but is such a crucial part of our lives as ministers, serving in churches, hospitals, prisons, community organizing and district and national administration. I met folks who told me that they have preached here and how much they had enjoyed this congregation, and of course, I heard about the conflict this congregation and the district has experienced as well. As you get ready to call another minister, to start a new chapter in your history, you have an opportunity to be the co-creators of your future, not just the passive bystanders. This year s church budget will determine your future, so how much of a future do you want? How will you co-create that future? As your potential next minister reads your church record, your past history, your past ministers, everything is examined, trying to determine what kind of congregation this has been, is now, and has the potential to be. Think about your part in all this, the part you play by your financial giving, your participation in worship, activities, social justice, leadership, religious education, spiritual development, and all the other parts which make up church life.
As we get ready to celebrate a century of being a church, we are challenged to think about the next 100 years, especially the next ten, even the next five, the next three, even next year. Last year the average pledge was around $1700.00, or about $142.00 a month. We know that every one has different circumstances and that this is not a country club, but we also know that to be the kind of church we want, that we need, costs money, and everyone can do a part. When people pledge nothing, often because of some dissatisfaction with the church or the minister, the beloved community becomes conflicted, divided, people leave, the church suffers, and the spirit suffers. The church must find a way to constructively deal with dissatisfaction, to covenant together how we will behave toward one another. Our denomination is unusual because we celebrate religious diversity among us. As the old Universalist Hosea Ballou used to say: If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. May the Spirit of life call us, insure us to generous living and giving; may we give, not until it hurts, but until it feels wonderful. May we be inspired to cocreate a great future and a growing, vibrant, welcoming beloved community. May we be transformed. Amen, Peace, Shalom, (Peace in Hebrew), Assalaamu Alaikum(may Peace be upon you in Arabic), Abrazos a todos (Hugs all around) Namaste, (A Hindu greeting the divinity within you) Blessed Be, and let me add one more blessing that I adapted from the Spanish long before I went in to ministry. Vaya con Dios is Spanish for Goodbye, but literally is Go with God, SO I adapted it to say Vaya Con Su Dios. Go with your idea or interpretation of God. Amen, Peace, Love, Shalom, Assalaamu Alaikum, Blessed Be, Namaste, Abrazo a Todos, Vaya con su Dios.