Deut. 8:10-18, Ephesians 4:17-28 "Something to Share" Scott Hoezee

So much has changed in the last two weeks, hasn't it? It's fair to say that most of us feel rather different this morning than we did two weeks ago when we began a sermon series on stewardship. Because I was supposed to be at a conference in Chicago last weekend (which, like everything else, was canceled) I began work on this sermon already on September 10 and so was writing it on also that fateful Tuesday morning when my wife called to see if I had the TV on. By the time I returned to this message, I wondered if it was possible to proceed. The day after the terrorist attacks the editorial page of the New York Times claimed it was already clear that this was one of those historical "before and after" events. September 11, 2001, would become a reference point as we would forever after make comparisons between how life used to be before the twin towers fell as opposed to life after those thousands of people winked out of existence before our collective eyes.

It already seems that may be true. Indeed, originally this sermon was going to begin with a rather wry summary of the witty yet incisive book Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks. In that book, which I've mentioned before, Brooks sketches a profile of the very way of life that angers terrorists. The word "bobos" in the book's title is Brooks' shorthand for the new elite in contemporary society--a group of people in their 30s and 40s whom Brooks calls "bourgeois bohemians," or "bobos." It is the culture of "summa cum latte" and of lavish spending. Bobos are bourgeois in the sense of being aggressive entrepreneurs with a lot of money (or "discretionary income," as they prefer to call it). But they are also bohemian in the sense that they don't really want to be seen as fitting in with the establishment, retaining a 1960s-like desire to be different and maybe a little rebellious.

They are the "resumé gods" who peg their identity to the credentials of their education and career path. Bobos are connoisseurs of everything: food, drink, clothing, appliances. Bobos never merely order a cup of coffee but instead ask for "a vente almond Frappucino made from the Angolan blend of beans with raw cane sugar and just a hint of freshly ground cinnamon." They don't swill just any old beer but choose thoughtfully from 16,000 microbrews ranging from Belgian lager to a blended-wheat winter ale of such high alcohol content it is served not in a mug but a brandy snifter to get the full effect.

But for Bobos this consumption is always disguised as self-improvement. So they buy a $65,000 Range Rover SUV but claim they need it so as to get away from it all on the weekend when they practice their rock climbing and so enhance their environmental awareness. They spend thousands on trips to Nepal, but not just because they like to travel but for spiritual betterment. They earn $180,000 a year as vice-president of a company but dress down in the "business casual" mode, joining the likes of Bill Gates who strolls into executive board meetings in slightly wrinkled chinos and a plaid shirt. They spend $100,000 on a new "mega-kitchen," replete with nickel-plated ranges with a 20,000 Btu burner that can boil water for your kid's mac-n-cheese in ten seconds and an 8 cubic foot oven to show they are the kind of people who could roast a bison if necessary. But none of this is to be showy but rather stands as a demonstration that Bobos do their own chores like cooking and so share the gritty reality of everyday life just as someone like Gandhi would want you to do.

But maybe all of that was "then," before September 11. Life doesn't feel so carefree anymore. We've quite literally taken a hit at the nerve center of American capitalism and at the locus of our fondest fiscal hopes. Life feels different. As a newspaper columnist put it, before we witnessed those scenes of ash-covered people wandering the streets of lower Manhattan in utter bewilderment, our country had the luxury of watching TV shows with titles like Lost and Survivor. But now the idea of survival and notions of being lost mean something far more profound. Things have changed and, at this point anyway, the Bobo boom days of the 90s with its dot.com empires, burgeoning coffee houses, and cheap air travel seem to have gone aglimmering. If anything, a sermon intended to urge that we all give more away out of the abundance of our riches, seems perhaps to be itself a throwback to what was, not a reflection of what is.

Yet I will be bold enough to wonder out loud with you if that is so. Because it seems to me that we still possess massive blessings, and that stewardship of those resources is still something we need to think about. Despite the utterly unspeakable acts of spineless treachery perpetrated against this nation twelve days ago, we still have had the luxury to ponder the economics of it all, to have long discussions about the stock market, and to hear financial analysts say that despite the initial and predictable drop, we may still be poised for a good economic recovery in 2002. Indeed, as resumed work on this sermon this past Monday morning, all anyone could talk about for a few hours was the stock market as Wall Street prepared to re-open.

So this morning it is still right, proper, and wholly legitimate to spend a few minutes pondering the stewardship of treasures. Of course, doing so is in some ways the last taboo. Most of us would feel much more comfortable discussing politics, work, spirituality, or even sex than delving into the bottom lines of one another's annual income. Elders have perennially blanched when it is suggested that a discussion of financial giving to the church be included on Family Visits. Elders sometimes ask if they can take a deacon along for that, but then it simply becomes the deacons' turn to go a little green around the gills! Most of us say flat out that they don't want to know who gives what to the church. That kind of information is too sensitive. Maybe it really is the case that my or your finances are simply nobody else's business.

But good stewardship does not require that you publish a financial report for the rest of us to read. There is a private dimension to this, and so far as it goes, that's fine. What is not true, however, is that the private nature of so-called "personal finances" extends so far as to prevent it from being a legitimate spiritual concern. We need to talk openly here in public about what we do financially in private because this matter of generous giving to God's kingdom truly is of great importance in the Bible.

In both the Old and New Testaments there is a clear assumption that most people will have at least some possessions and/or money. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, there would be no sense of talking about stewardship to impoverished people in that they would have nothing to be good stewards of! People who are starving don't need to read diet books, folks who live in villages without electricity have no need to bone up on how to run a computer, and those with no treasures don't need to ponder fiscal stewardship. It is precisely because we do have so many God-given gifts that stewardship fits people like us.

Most of us are blessed to have money and possessions. God is not aiming to deprive us of such things but God is interested in helping us to possess the right way. We recognize that there is a right way and a wrong way to acquire things. Stealing, cheating on your taxes, using insider information on the stock market, blackmail, and fraud all count as wrong ways to acquire money or things. There is a right way and a wrong way to get stuff, but sometimes we forget that there is similarly a right way and a wrong way to own even that which you acquire in completely legitimate ways. If you never give anything away, never share with those who have less but instead use what you have only for your own pleasure, then this may well be an improper way of possessing what is legitimately yours.

Again, this may well be making us a bit uncomfortable but a little discomfiture is to be expected when looking at passages like Ephesians 4 and Deuteronomy 8. The key line from Ephesians 4 is clearly verse 28, which the NIV translates into a participle with a hint of past-tense in it: "He who has been stealing must steal no more." But a straightforward translation would be, "He who is stealing must stop." In other words, Paul is addressing these words to those in the Ephesian congregation who were actively stealing somehow! There are no hints as to the specifics of this, but you rather suspect that it was likely not the case that the Ephesian church was home to an active bank robber.

So perhaps the persons Paul had in mind were guilty of more subtle forms of theft like laziness, through which they leeched off the community without ever giving back. Maybe it was selfishness, through which those who did have money to share failed to do so. Whatever the specific situation, however, the shocking fact of the matter is that Paul asserts that there were active thieves in the Ephesian congregation.

The solution was faithful work through which to earn something to share with those in need. The antidote to a thieving spirit is a generous spirit. Again, this need not be interpreted to mean we become generous to the point of ruining ourselves financially. But it does mean that all of us are challenged to assess our attitudes and practices. What is the larger pattern of our lives? Is it more about earnings than giving away, more about keeping an eye on the Nasdaq than on the poor?

That larger pattern is key to consider, which brings us to Deuteronomy 8. This sermon by Moses counts as one of the crown jewels of the Old Testament. It is a poignant message delivered at a key juncture in Israelite history. The people are on the Plains of Moab, which was the lip of the Promised Land. After forty years of wandering around in desert sands, they would soon be blessed with a land in which each person would receive property as well as all manner of resources and treasures. Moses seizes the moment to remind the people of how they were to think and act once they settled in to a new homeland.

What it all came down to for Israel was something very basic: all that they would soon possess belonged to God first and foremost. They were not to assume the arrogant posture of folks who fancied themselves as "self-made individuals." No, God's prior claim on all they would soon possess had to set the tone. It was God's stuff first of all. So they had to give back to God as a reminder of their complete dependency on God, as a sign that they were grateful to God for his gifts, and as a way to help care for the larger community.

If you remember who you are and whose you are, Moses said, you will be fine. But the day you forget your place in the divine economy, the day you cut God out of your finances, will be a day of great trouble. So remember, Moses said, you belong to God, the earth belongs to God, the riches of the earth belong to God, and the portion of those earthly riches which you end up possessing belong to God. Any questions?

Of course, we are not the ancient Israelites. Much has changed in history since the sermon in Deuteronomy 8 was first delivered. But as Christians the one thing that has not changed is God's prior claim on all his gifts to us. God keeps giving, we keep receiving. That's the rhythm of the gospel and of our lives, which should be gospel-shaped. We walk under the sign of the cross, which reminds us that sacrifice and gracious generosity are how we became Christians in the first place. The cross also reminds us that this same sense of graciousness and generosity plots the course for the road ahead, too.

But we forget. Or at least statistically speaking a great many Christians seem to forget. Few people have studied this more than Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow, but what he has found over the last 20 years has not been encouraging. Wuthnow has discovered that having Christian faith does not necessarily make people more generous--in fact, although people in Christian churches tend to give more money away each year than do non-Christians, the difference is not huge nor are the percentages very happy: whereas non-churchgoers may give away 2% or less of their annual income to charity, churchgoers on average give 3% or maybe 4%.

But maybe talk of a Princeton sociologist and larger giving patterns of American Christians all seems "out there" and far removed from Calvin Church. So let's bring this sermon in for a landing by looking at ourselves. We've said for years here that we believe in the biblical concept of tithing, which refers to giving 10% of our income away to support God's kingdom. As a congregation, every year we vote unanimously to devote 6% of income to the general Ministry Fund of Calvin Church. The math on this is very simple, and to make it even more simple a guideline chart can be found on the reverse side of our new estimate-of-giving cards. You know what your households brings in each year, so you can rather easily locate the ballpark range of weekly and annual giving amounts.

Now before I go any further, let me acknowledge that there are a welter of cross-currents. Some of us don't earn all that much and what we do earn is, in some instances, being devoured by the soaring costs of Christian education and health care. Arriving at that 6% figure may be easy enough, but perhaps the reality of your life lets you know almost immediately that extenuating circumstances make that 6% figure impossible for you. These factors need to be taken into account. Furthermore, money is not the only way by which we give back to God and contribute to God's kingdom, which is why we also need to remember the stewardship of time and talents. Some of you can't give much money, but the love you show in working in this church is more valuable than a thick wad of cash.

We should also recall that as it is, in many ways Calvin Church is already a generous congregation, for which we should humbly praise God. So much meaningful ministry is accomplished here and around the world through our sharing of not just money but also time and talent. But that should not prevent us from taking careful stock of the pattern of our lives. Because the unhappy fact of the matter is that based on last year, if most of us are giving 6% of income to the Ministry Fund of this church, then it would appear that the average income for Calvin Church households is around $22,000 per year. But since most of us are not living near the federally determined poverty line, you can see why this matter of stewardship is worth our time this morning. Many of us can do better.

Much has changed these past two weeks. But two things have not been altered: first, we are still very blessed people; but second, as the crippled skyline of New York City and as the dented outline of the Pentagon reveal, ours is still very much a world that needs the hope of the gospel and so the ministry of Christ's Church. The slogan of our stewardship committee is "Extraordinary Ministry in Ordinary Time." Suddenly, however, the time in which we live feels itself to be rather extraordinary. But that is all the more reason why we must dedicate ourselves anew to the mission of Christ's Church.

We've heard much talk in recent days about what a great country this is and what a privilege it is to live here. Indeed, in this land we are surrounded by God's blessings. It may not be a land flowing with milk and honey, but it is awash in latte and sushi, computers and beautiful homes. It is a gift to be here. As we pledge ourselves once more to the ministry and outreach of a renewed Calvin Christian Reformed Church, we do so with a sense of humble gratitude and with a keen awareness that all that we have is from our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. It is finally his work that we do. Let us, then, press on. Amen.