Nut$
and Bolt$
Church
Finance and Stewardship
Mark
12:41-44
11/11/12
I love
the image of this story. The part that I
was impressed with this time was the very first verse, “Jesus sat across from
the collection box for the temple treasury and observed how the crowd gave
their money.” What I liked about that is
that Jesus sat down and watched people worship.
It is a nice reminder that the Holy Spirit is here, in our worship
today, right now, watching us worship. I
say this not to impose guilt. I am not
using this like we do with our children telling them that “Jesus is always
watching.” I find comfort in knowing God
is here in this place. I find support
knowing that the Holy Spirit is here in our midst. I find grace knowing that our poor attempts to
do praise God will actually be turned into something to honor him. God is here, smiling as he watches his
children offer worship up to him.
Today
we offer up our worship in the form of our Estimate of Giving cards. At the end of my sermon today I will ask the
ushers to pass these cards out and I would like you to fill them out and then
bring them forward and lay them on the prayer rail. I hope you took time this week to pray about the
question I have been asking the last two weeks, “What percentage of my income
is God calling me to give in 2013.”
Today as we lay those answers down on the prayer rail I hope you will
time to kneel and offer your gifts up to him today as well.
This
has been a rough sermon series for me because it is a tough topic but also we
are in tough times. But it is in these
tough times that we as a church need to stand up for what is right and be the
Church for the people of God. Just
because money is tight doesn’t mean God’s love is any different. Just because we have to refigure how we live
doesn’t wash away the gift God gave on the cross. Just because our nation is in still divided and
facing a fiscal cliff soon doesn’t mean God’s peace is any less affective. We stand here today, to proclaim what we do
every week, that our God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the end, the Almighty and the Everlasting. We proclaim that in our worship today and in
the gifts we bring.
The
important part to know about this piece of scripture today is the perspective
of Jesus. Jesus is watching the giving
but his eyes are not drawn to the amount of zeros in the checks but the manner
in which the gift is given. Jesus, the
ultimate sacrifice, is looking for the one who is sacrificing the most. All the other rich people in the temple were
placing huge amounts of money in the offering but Jesus’ attention was drawn to
a widow.
Now a
widow in that time and place was looked down upon because she did not have a
husband anymore. Widows were people that
Jesus was calling others to take care of because their provider was gone. This sounds very sexist for us now but it is
the truth for that time. With their
husbands gone the widow was left to live off the care of others which means she
didn’t have much. Yet, this poor widow
comes to the temple to give thanks and praise her God. She brings two copper coins, not even worth a
penny and places it in the offering.
Jesus sees her gift and tells us that is who we should be like.
There
is a story about Peter Marshall who was the chaplain for the US Senate. Yes, the Senate actually does have a
chaplain. One day a senator came up to
him and said that he needed some counsel.
They went off to a quiet place to talk and the senator started to
confess his problem. He said he was
having problems tithing. He said he had
no problem tithing when he was making $20,000 but now that he is making
$500,000, the $50,000 he is supposed to give just seems too much. Rev. Marshall consoled the Senator and said,
“Yes you are right, this is a problem.”
Do mind if we pray about it. The
senator agreed and there in the hallows of Washington, Rev. Marshall put his
arm around the senator and they prayed.
He prayed, “Lord, we understand this man is going through a rough time
and is struggling. We pray that you
might bring his salary down to a place where is comfortable tithing again.”
Now
Jesus is not telling us that we should all be poor. The story of the Widow’s Mite is not a call
to poverty but it is a call to extravagant generosity. Extravagant generosity is when one realizes
that what you earn belongs to God, what you spend belongs to God, what you save
belongs to God, and what you give belongs to God. It all belongs to God. The widow that day was walking into worship
to give thanks for all she had. She gave
her fraction of a penny because everything she had was from God and she knew
that. She is a model of extravagant
generosity.
Today,
as we profess our commitment to God, this is not a financial issue, today is a
spiritual issue. What you are willing to
give away is one way God knows your commitment to him. The fact is our willingness to be extravagant
givers correlates to our relationship with the one who gives it to us. History has had a lot of extravagant givers
and some of them have passed down their wisdom to us. Mother Theresa gave her life to the poor and
sick. She spent her days with Calcutta
ministering to the people no one wanted to deal with she said this about
giving, “If you give what you do not need, it isn’t giving” It is giving God that chewed up brown apple
core, if you remember from last week. C.S.
Lewis who captivated our imaginations through his Chronicles of Narnia and feeds our souls through his other books
like Mere Christianity and Surprised by Joy, said this, “I do not
believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give
more than we can spare.”
I
cannot stand up here and tell you what you should give. What you and your family write on these cards
today is between you and God. None of us
know what that number means to the percentage of your income, that is between
you and God. Whether it is something
leftover or a widow’s offering only God knows.
The amount does not matter to God, it is the motivation.
Here is
what I can tell you though. I can tell
you that your money will be put to good use.
Every dollar you give to Indian Trail will be used in some way to do
God’s will in this world. When we
publish the 2013 budget you will see that the majority of it goes to
maintenance and administration. But in
those items is ministry. Yes we have to
pay our utilities but without them we could not have a kitchen. In our kitchen meals are offered not only to
us but to the seniors in this community.
Without our kitchen there are many elderly who may go hungry each day. This kitchen also feeds us during Meet and
Greet, special meals, Homecomings, Thanksgiving celebrations, Fall Festivals,
Vacation Bible School, and many more.
The Kitchen is also a gathering place where fellowship happens every
week after worship. God smiles when he
thinks about his children gathering around a pot of cooking food sharing their
lives with one another, sharing their joys, their worries, their hopes. This is all because we pay our utilities and
they enable us to offer ministry, fellowship, outreach and share God’s love
with others.
Yes, we
have to pay for our heat and air conditioning but without it we could not sit
and concentrate on what we learn in Sunday School or Bible Study groups. You want to know what it would be like to not
have heat, go to my office. We have been
without heat all week, it is FREEZING!
Our HVAC allows us to meet in comfort in our educational spaces to learn
and focus our lives on God. There have
been hundreds of children, and almost three generations nurtured in the rooms
just down the hall way here. It is in
those rooms that they learned about Jonah and the big fish, Noah and his Ark,
Moses and the Red Sea, the baby in the manger, the cross, and the empty
tomb. It is in those heated and cooled
rooms that children and adults are deepening their faith and learning to love
the God who loves them.
Another
big chunk of our budget is our Conference Askings. These are broken up into three sections;
Pension, Healthcare, and Apportionments.
Let’s start off with Pension and Healthcare because they are really tied
together. The United Methodist
Denomination is a connectional system.
What this means is that we are joined together as a denomination. There are other denominations out there, like
Baptists, where each church is autonomous.
First Baptist Church has their rules, regulations, theological stances
which could be completely different than the Hartis Grove Baptist Church. In the United Methodist Denomination we all
have the same basic structure and core theology. We are governed by the Book of Discipline
which only the General Conference is allowed to change. We are connected through our core structure
and theology but we also share each other’s burdens and carry each other
through the Conference Askings. We are
linked together in this connectional system through our pastors, districts,
conferences, jurisdictions, missions, UMW, UMM, UMYF, about everything you can
think of. The reason that 100% of all
your donation to UMCOR will go to help with Recovery from Super Storm Sandy is
because all over our denomination we hold one Sunday a year to take a special
offering to cover our overhead expenses with UMCOR. We are connected and are able to do some
wonderful good in horrible.
I say this
all about being connectional because one way this is lived out is through the
appointment process of clergy. As an
ordained elder my membership is held at the Conference level. This is done so I can float to whatever
church I am appointed to by the Bishop, which is called the itinerant
system. Other denominations like
Baptists and Presbyterians are on a called system which means they interview
and higher their own clergy. When we
ministers agree to the itinerate system we do so with some understanding and
there is some understanding by the local church to what type of clergy you will
receive. Here are some of the promises
we make to one another in this system.
If the Conference sends you an ordained elder that means that person has
received a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s of Divinity degree. He or she will have gone through the
Conference Committee on Ordained Ministry twice, once as a Probationer or
Commissioned member and once to receive his or her ordination. They will have their callings verified,
ethics and psychological health checked.
They will be interviewed and prayed over. They will verify that this
person has the gifts and graces for ministry.
We clergy promise to go where we are sent and serve faithful in the
congregations we are appointed to.
The
local church also makes some promises.
You all promise to receive who the Cabinet sends, and provide adequate
housing whether through a parsonage or housing allowance, pay healthcare and
put into the minister’s pension plan.
You do this to provide to help the pastor that is sent to you and all of
us in the conference. *Warning I am
about to step up on my soapbox* The reason the healthcare costs are so high in
our conference is because we pay for what we receive. Every year the insurance company tells us how
much it will be to insure all the clergy in our conference and that is what we
have to pay. We have seen in increase in
our healthcare almost 10% a year. It was
actually only an 8% increase this year. I
now pay a small fraction of my own healthcare and my family can choose to be on
the conference plan or on their own.
*off soapbox* The local church also allows to pay for clergy pensions
which is formulated on time served within the conference. We do this once again because we are a
connectional system, we are taking care of our pastors all over the
conference. You payments not only go to
me but help Mark Mashburn who stayed in ICU for six months before he passed
away. You help Keith Auman who almost
died a couple times after a massive blood infection recover. We are linked together as the Body of Christ
but also as the members of the cross and flame.
It is
in this obligation though that we are behind.
As of March of 2011, Indian Trail UMC hasn’t paid towards the pension
and healthcare costs of their pastor. We
were just under $18,000 behind at the end of 2011. In 2012 we hadn’t paid anything when I
arrived. These last two months though we
have been able to pay $2,000 towards our Pension and Healthcare costs which has
stopped the bleeding. But we owe that
every month and our current debt to the conference is around $34,000. This is something we will HAVE to pay back
but the good news it is interest free at the moment.
The
other part of Conference Askings is wehre we find a good church of missions and
ministry. This is called our
Apportionments. Through a long drawn out
formula the conference takes a three year average of our spending and plugs that
in to get what we owe for Apportionments.
This money goes all around the world and helps people in our district,
in our state, in our country and almost every continent. Our apportionments help fund the only
Seminary in Africa, on the WHOLE CONTINENT.
It also helps people through UMCOR and Volunteer in Mission teams. It helps people go through college and
seminary and helps provide a salary to clergy where churches cannot afford
it. When we pay we are also doing global
missions. We are helping provide for the
Mission Response Center of our conference in Mooresville, NC. There flood buckets are collected and sent to
areas in need. Food is packaged and sent
to Eastern Europe to help with ministries like Project AGAPE. It also helps with the United Methodist
Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, which is as we speak in Texas and New Orleans
cleaning up after hurricanes. They are
also in the country of Georgia helping with that crisis. They are in Liberia, Haiti, Myanmar, and many
other countries. Through the World
Service Fund we give food and water to those who don’t have it all over the
world. We help give medical care to
those in need and bed nets for families to sleep under so that they can simply
live.
I am
telling you all this today because none of this is possible without you. Think how amazing it is to be a part of something
so much bigger than ourselves. The
dollar you put in the offering plate makes all that possible and more. There is no place in the world that offers so
much for so little. The Red Cross, the
United Way, the YMCA and all of those other very worth wild agencies and
organizations do great work in this world but I wanted to remind you of what
God is doing through the United Methodist Church, your Church. Through the connectionalism of the United
Methodist Church we reach the entire world and we celebrate the ministry and
missions that happens in our congregation and all over because of what we are
able to give to God.
Martin
Luther said, “I have tried to keep things in my hands and lost them all, but
what I have given into God’s hands I still possess.” Jesus is asking us today to place all we have
into his hands. He is asking us to step
out in faith and give up control in our lives in order to live out the mission
he is calling us to do. When the widow
walked up and placed her two copper coins in the treasury, God used that moment
to teach all of us something. When you
write down your Estimate of Giving for 2013, I hope are praying that God will
use your offering to transform lives as well.
If we do it with right motivations, with right attitudes and with
gracious hearts, the world will be transformed through the one who is
transforming us.
I ask
the ushers to get ready to pass out these cards. When you receive your card, don’t write
anything down for a minute. Take a
moment and pray, hold the hand of your spouse or other family members and pray
that God directs you in a way that can change the world. After your prayer, fill out your card, and
when you are done walk up here and place it in the offering plate that will be
up here. Then take time if you want to
pray once again at the prayer rail. Take
your time, be in prayer, and know God loves you.
And all
God’s people said…Amen.
1 comment:
Hi,
I'm a clergy spouse and I've been concerned about the WNCC's clergy health insurance cost for years. Why would our conference have costs that are overwhelmingly higher than most other self-funded insurance plans?
Large employers choose self-funded plans to save money. The total cost of health insurance for a clergy person and his or her family for 2013 will be $28000, which is 175% of the cost of average family health insurance plans in 2011, according to a report by Kaiser Family Foundation: http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/2011/8225.pdf .
KFF reports that 80% of the plans cost 120% or less than the average family plan (about $15,500). So I would guess the cost of our plan would be close to the top 1% of all available insurance plans.
Why? Is anyone asking this question? I'd love to see an analysis of our costs and how they compare to others, like the North Carolina Conference.
Thanks!
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